Guild Wars 2

So…

I feel like we’ve lost our way, in a manner of speaking. I deeply enjoyed killing Mordremoth and Zhaitan, the former more than the latter, because there were vast improvements from the dev team for it. It was more personal.

I’ve come back after a long hiatus to find that one of the Human Gods is back, Balthazar. I don’t know him and won’t pretend to understand his motivations, but as I see the end, I’ve been lead to believe that we just dealt with Primordus and Jormag— two of the most interesting Elder Dragons— without killing them.

That means there isn’t an emotionally charged, pitched battle filled with innovative, new zones and cool bosses to fight in, with a finale against the Elder Dragons themselves played in a way that uniquely suits their environment and the story.

The fight with Mordremoth, as a Sylvari, was amazing. But now we’re at the point where, due to some Asuran techno-babble, we’re just not going to fight and kill the Elder Dragons?

Why not? Don’t give me the story reasoning. I heard that already, I just mean, from a thematic standpoint, isn’t slaying Elder Dragons, mountain-sized(or in Mordremoth’s case, region-sized) enemies by working together part of what makes Guild Wars 2 Guild Wars 2? Facing impossible enemies and defeating them was part of the charm of the game. Cornering these forces of nature in their own, hideously corrupted biomes and ending them was what I’ve always looked forward to. That feeling of beating Mordremoth just by the skin of your teeth was awesome.

Is this really the direction the story is going? I have to say, I was really looking forward to confronting Jormag in particular, but now he’s out of the picture.

All we can hope is they are out of the picture…“for now”. Neither are destroyed, they are just drained of enough magic to put them down for a bit.

I think there is a certain wisdom in having the Dragons as background “Forces of Nature”, rather than large, destructive, but killable foes. Whilst I love a good epic Dragon battle as much as the next Conan-wannabe, they lose their mystique if they become killable and I think that happened with Zhaitan and Mordremoth. Plus the more you hype them up as a threat, the more anticlimatic the defeat can often be as living up to it can be very difficult.

However, most of what you say about losing our wayI supportt. Even those of us who have been with GW1 are a bit bewildered by Balths return and his motivations.

And the biggest sin of all, goes back to Ep3 where we threw away the breaking of Jormag’s tooth with a rushed cutscene. There was a decent story arc we could have explored round that piece of lore alone.

You may find this thread of interest: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-did-ArenaNet-abandon-Elder-Dragon-bosses

Good luck.

I mean the name itself points to the wars of guilds. So really, we shouldn’t even be fighting dragons, but other guilds.

Technically we’re not sure they’re asleep. Primordus is weakened to the same level of strength he had while asleep, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is asleep. And we’re not even sure how much Jormag has been weakened, we only have Taimi’s speculation that he’s asleep “too”.

I do think that putting two of the three more interesting dragons on the proverbial bus would be a bad move, especially without exploring them more. Zhaitan and Mordremoth should have been the ones fought indirectly – who needs more plants and zombies anyways.

zomgbuffalo.5276:

I mean the name itself points to the wars of guilds. So really, we shouldn’t even be fighting dragons, but other guilds.

The first game had warring guilds, technically.

Dragon Age isn’t really about fighting dragons, ironically it’s about warring factions (kind of makes it feel like the two series had reversed names).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Technically we’re not sure they’re asleep. Primordus is weakened to the same level of strength he had while asleep, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is asleep. And we’re not even sure how much Jormag has been weakened, we only have Taimi’s speculation that he’s asleep “too”.

I do think that putting two of the three more interesting dragons on the proverbial bus would be a bad move, especially without exploring them more. Zhaitan and Mordremoth should have been the ones fought indirectly – who needs more plants and zombies anyways.

zomgbuffalo.5276:

I mean the name itself points to the wars of guilds. So really, we shouldn’t even be fighting dragons, but other guilds.

The first game had warring guilds, technically.

Dragon Age isn’t really about fighting dragons, ironically it’s about warring factions (kind of makes it feel like the two series had reversed names).

What I find interesting is that dragons usually go to sleep when their belly is full of magic. Does that mean Primordus and Jormag actually consumed the magic? Wiki points out, that dragons wake up when they are weak, when the magic is out of their system.

Dragons are overdone in fantasy to the point of nausea. Before this game I played Rift, Dragon Age, Skyrim, honestly if I never faced another dragon, I’d be happy.

We went through all of Guild Wars 1 without a dragon ever being the big baddie (though arguably dragon minions were in Eye of the North). Nothing is less interesting to me than a dragon.

Vayne.8563:

Dragons are overdone in fantasy to the point of nausea. Before this game I played Rift, Dragon Age, Skyrim, honestly if I never faced another dragon, I’d be happy.

We went through all of Guild Wars 1 without a dragon ever being the big baddie (though arguably dragon minions were in Eye of the North). Nothing is less interesting to me than a dragon.

In guild wars dragons seem more like entities than real physical flying things. They have minions that do the job for them. I wonder why couldn’t the dragon just do it all by itself?

For example, why couldn’t Zhaitan just fly over Claw Island himself and devoured us all when we were weak? Or when we killed his generals? Seems like he just can’t leave his domain where he reigns. Maybe the further away it gets from it’s awakening place the weaker it gets?

zomgbuffalo.5276:

What I find interesting is that dragons usually go to sleep when their belly is full of magic. Does that mean Primordus and Jormag actually consumed the magic? Wiki points out, that dragons wake up when they are weak, when the magic is out of their system.

That’s a common misconception, actually.

They go to sleep when there is no more magic to eat. It’s the lack of food that causes their slumber normally, not their bellies being full. Similar to a bear going into hibernation for a winter.

Furthermore, when Elder Dragons wake, they must first consume nearby magic or have a champion feed them magic so that they have the strength to fully rise. This is why Jormag needed Drakkar, or Primordus needing the Great Destroyer. Without their champion, it takes an extra 50 years roughly to rise (hence Primordus and Kralkatorrik’s delayed awakenings).

Primordus and Jormag were both drained of their own magic, and struck with harmful magic that they presumably could not absorb – hence why Primordus’ power had subsided to pre-awakening levels.

zomgbuffalo.5276:

In guild wars dragons seem more like entities than real physical flying things. They have minions that do the job for them. I wonder why couldn’t the dragon just do it all by itself?

For example, why couldn’t Zhaitan just fly over Claw Island himself and devoured us all when we were weak? Or when we killed his generals? Seems like he just can’t leave his domain where he reigns. Maybe the further away it gets from it’s awakening place the weaker it gets?

Why do something yourself when you have thousands of minions who could do it for you?

As shown by Jormag, Primordus, and Kralkatorrik leaving one’s territory would not weaken the Elder Dragon. I think Zhaitan’s decision to remain in Orr rather than act himself deals more with its unique personality – and yes, though the Elder Dragons don’t get showcased directly often, we can still see all five known EDs having unique personalities, goals, and preference of corruption. In Zhaitan’s case, he seemed to desire an eternal kingdom to rule over, fancying himself a dragon king of sorts. And how often does a king bother to deal with the enemy peasantry themselves?

^ Makes sense. Thanks for explaining that.