Guild Wars 2

The current state of elder dragon.

Zaithan: deceased
Mordremoth: deceased
Jormag: put on sleep
Primordus: put on sleep
Kralkatorrik: Maybe Aurene will take his place.
Steve: Missing in action
Largos seems to be forgotten, so he’s free to corrupt the sea.

So are we near the end of dragon arc?
I think we need a good villain and explore other continent so if they are ending (or pu on hiatus) the dragon arc isn’t a bad thing.

Anyway I definitly hope the villais aren’t the six gods for lore lol.

If the Six are villains I hope we have allies among them. Namely Kormir and Grenth. Those two have enough ties to Tyria to want to save it. Their place amongst the villains could be taken by Dhuum(located in the Underworld) and Menzies(who’s staging area is in the Realm of Torment).

I’m personally hoping Rytlock is Kormir’s representative and Mr. E is Grenth himself allying with us. I also hope Grenth and Jurah the Master of Whispers are one and the same too.

I personally don’t think taimis plan worked, it was too easy…not even talking story instance-wise, just story-wise it was too easy…and kinda anti-climactic. I assume there will be some kinda twist.

i don’t think so i bet kralkatorrik does something in the next episode that causes us to go after him or steve finally shows up from the ocean and attacks some place in tyria out of nowhere

I feel sad, i wanted to see the whole body of Primordius (And Jormag)

Primordus and Jormag can easily come back within the lifespan of GW2. They’ve just been put on the bus so ArenaNet can focus on other things. I’d expect that expansion 2 will do the same for Kralkatorrik and the DSD will be left alone because he’s not influencing Tyria.

The reason Primordus and Jormag can come back is because while they’re asleep, they wake up when there’s a lot of ambient magic and… there’s a kitten ton of ambient magic. They’ve been drained of magic thanks to Balthazar, but they still have dragon champions out there who can gather magic for them (just as The Great Destroyer and Drakkar did) and wake them up. It’s only a matter of time.

Previously, it took the “heralds” of the Elder Dragons a few decades to gather enough magic to wake them, but with more magic out in the world that could easily be shorter.

So we’re likely done with those two until ArenaNet decides it’s time to go back to dragons.

Expansion 2 will definitely have some Kralkatorrik influence, if the leaked images from this morning are anything to go by (images of the maps show lots of purple corruption, but not as heavily as the Dragonbrand curiously).

As for the Six Gods becoming the next set of villains, I don’t think so. Firstly, Balthazar had always a temperment issue, even in GW1, and he definitely talks about a group of others he sees as his enemies. There’s two strong candidates for who this “they” are that he mentions – one being Dhuum and Menzies, the other being the remaining Six Gods. This would either make Balthazar an ally in the future, against the remainder of the “evil trinity” of GW1, or makes him an enemy of both ourselves and the Five Gods.

This depends on whether Menzies pulled a Grenth on Balthazar (usurping a god without killing him, as Grenth usurped Dhuum), or whether Balthazar pulled an Abaddon (small disagreement with the other gods leading to bigger disagreements leading to all out war).

This whole episode, while forcefully making us enemies with Balthazar, also presented Balthazar as simply apathetic to us. He doesn’t see us as enemies, just as an annoyance trying to stop him. Initially we’re trying to stop him because we don’t trust a mursaat, then there’s no reason why we’re fighting him still except to get back the machine (not really a reason), but once Taimi runs her simulation and confirmed something long hinted at since Season 2, our reason to stop Balthazar was to save the world.

Balthazar, in the end, isn’t a villain. He’s just apathetic, and that apathy risks our very lives. We fight against him not in a showdown of good versus evil (for once in this game), but in a plight for survival.

So I don’t think Balthazar will remain an enemy – and even if he does, I don’t think the remaining Six Gods will be our enemies.

But all the same, I see this not so much as “ending the GW2 dragon arc” but rather “pausing the GW2 dragon arc to restore the GW1 fallen god arc” – it just had a very, very shoddy start.

If anything unleashes a lot of magic, the two dragons can awaken once more very quickly. I would say it’s on pause, so we can fight something other than a dragon for once, but it will return.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Balthazar, in the end, isn’t a villain. He’s just apathetic, and that apathy risks our very lives. We fight against him not in a showdown of good versus evil (for once in this game), but in a plight for survival.

Thats semantics. With that kind of thinking elder dragons are not evil – they are just hungry and apathetic to us. Mursaat were not evil – they just wanted to survive and were apathetic to sacrificed humans. And Dhuum is not evil – he just wants his realm back and is apathetic to all mortals. And no evil really exists at all, because one’s sufferings benefit the other, who is just apathetic to them.

Ider.1276:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Balthazar, in the end, isn’t a villain. He’s just apathetic, and that apathy risks our very lives. We fight against him not in a showdown of good versus evil (for once in this game), but in a plight for survival.

Thats semantics. With that kind of thinking elder dragons are not evil – they are just hungry and apathetic to us. Mursaat were not evil – they just wanted to survive and were apathetic to sacrificed humans. And Dhuum is not evil – he just wants his realm back and is apathetic to all mortals. And no evil really exists at all, because one’s sufferings benefit the other, who is just apathetic to them.

While he is an arrogant prick (what does he think he is, a god or something?), we don’t really know enough about the situation to judge him as evil. The six gods have generally been characterized as broadly good, albeit not perfect if judged by human standards. The fact that he doesn’t feel the need to explain himself to or put up with interference from an inferior being doesn’t necessarily mean that he doesn’t have a legitimate need for power other than callous, destructive vanity. Who knows what other dangers are in the Mists, and how many worlds they threaten?

perilisk.1874:

While he is an arrogant prick (what does he think he is, a god or something?), we don’t really know enough about the situation to judge him as evil. The six gods have generally been characterized as broadly good, albeit not perfect if judged by human standards. The fact that he doesn’t feel the need to explain himself to or put up with interference from an inferior being doesn’t necessarily mean that he doesn’t have a legitimate need for power other than callous, destructive vanity. Who knows what other dangers are in the Mists, and how many worlds they threaten?

From Balthazar’s dialog it is clear that he cares only for restoring his power and taking his revenge. And that he doesn’t care of millions dying in process. That is like ideal stereotypical villan #3 (while stereotypical villan #1, you guessed it, wants to take over the world, and stereotypical villan #2 just wants to destroy all life cause he is evil).

I think the problem with the dragon arc is that it’s really hard to portray a confrontation with unfathomable forces of nature in a satisfying manner. Both the way they handled Zhaitan and the way they handled Mordremoth got a lot of flak from many players. The campaign against Zhaitan was often considered boring, impersonal and unheroic — I disagree, it worked for me, but YMMV. Mordremoth on the other hand ceased feeling like an Elder Dragon the moment 1) a bunch of yokels could zerg its physical manifestation to death like any other world boss and 2) a completely nonsensical kitten pull destroyed its mind. Both without any planning or preparation. They tried to make it a more personal and immediate confrontation but completely removed the ancient world-devouring threat factor in the process.

So now I wonder if switching away from the dragons and towards an easier-to-depict threat is them kind of throwing the towel on the issue, or if it was planned from the start.

Personally I’m kind of glad that Taimi’s plan didn’t work, because it would have made the Elder Dragons even more pitiful if TWO of them eliminated each other in a throwaway cutscene. There’s been way too much asura-ex-machina BS for my liking as it is. If I never have to heard the word “magitech” again, especially in the context of “oh yeah I have this toy that’ll fix everything because who needs planning or collectively coming up with solutions in the spirit of everyone-comes-together-to-save-our-world” I’ll be a much happier GW2 player.

The Dragon storyline honestly had its chance in HoT and failed there after Zhaitan was a really anticlimactic boss and antagonist by the end of vanillia and Mordremoth utterly failed to redeem the dragons as interesting bad guys.

So yes, honestly, this is a good way to close the plot even if its cheap, I dont like the “Reaper” effect they’re pulling on this (For anyone thats played ME) but honestly im not surprised.

I am glad at least the dragons are being benched, we need a new and more interesting villian soon to replace them.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

The Dragon storyline honestly had its chance in HoT and failed there after Zhaitan was a really anticlimactic boss and antagonist by the end of vanillia and Mordremoth utterly failed to redeem the dragons as interesting bad guys.

So yes, honestly, this is a good way to close the plot even if its cheap, I dont like the “Reaper” effect they’re pulling on this (For anyone thats played ME) but honestly im not surprised.

I am glad at least the dragons are being benched, we need a new and more interesting villian soon to replace them.

The dragons had no personality. They are interesting in concept, but they didn’t make for compelling villains at all.

Balthazar is already a more interesting villain than the dragons amd I didn’t care about the lore of the gods at all prior to this.