Make the dragons unique
Yes. This needs to happen. The dragons need to feel like characters otherwise slaying one doesn’t really feel any different than killing a random Moa in Metrica Province. Also, after Scarlet (a villain that actually talks and has personality, though annoying) a shy lizard isn’t going to be that exciting.
I agree with OP the battle with Zhaitan didn’t have the epic feeling like the fights against Tequatl, the claw of Jormag or the Shatterer.
Maybe they should make the fight against the next elder dragon a world event or like in WoW a raid with 20 people who fight against the elder dragon.
I think that the idea was to make the dragons the source of the power, and then make their lieutenants and champions the brains that apply that power most of the time. That way, you can get into a conflict with one of them that feels personal, and at the end kill your opponent without removing the threat of one of the big dragons. You can also have ones like Glint, that start to think for themselves again, and become allies.
With all that said, I hope that they do make one of them smart. I hope that the attack by Destiny’s Edge weakened Kralkatorrik’s mental defenses, and Glint’s death sent her intellect into him. So now, he’s off slowly adjusting to the fact that, for the first time in his long existence, he’s actually AWAKE, and aware of his actions.
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
What is epic about an enemy that stays in one spot and pokes you with attacks every so often? None of those dragon fights were epic at all, just whack a lizard.
Ehmry Bay/Haven Community
A Commander sometimes
Kralkatorrik seems less sentient than Zhaitan was judging fromthe actions of their minions….
Jormag seems the most intelligent….. By the size of his tooth exactly how big is Jormag? Is he larger than Zhaitan(we saw how big he was: namely the size of Deathwing in the Spine of Deathwing encounter)? Is he larger than Kralkatorrik(we saw a sample of his size in Eye of the North)? We must know!
Guild Wars was never really on the lead of cool main villains that actually talked and had a personality.
We never heared the mursaat talk, not in the original Prophecies campaign. The White Mantle were tools. The titans never spoke or had any more intention than to destroy. Khilbron had a plot and a voice, but was it that awesome? Aside from the fact that he deceived the characters, not much.
Shiro Tagachi? Again, passable story, even better background, but the personality that we see and interact with? And gods that voice acting…
Abaddon? He never said a word, again, we only understand his actions through the consequences and some insightful NPC dialogues. The main thing with Abaddon was the fact that everything happening before in Prophecies and Factions was his masterplan. Plus yet another very interesting backstory about his fall from grace thats really just a retelling of Prometheus, and the design of the Realm of Torment. In the end he was just a head and 2 hands that could be tempted to dance with you. No more personality from him either.
So when we really get back to it, Guild Wars never was a series of villains with great personalities. It was always their backstory that was somewhat compelling, and the presentation.