Guild Wars 2

Two words: Dhuum or Forgotten.

Balthazar be praised! Other people that hate the Lord and Savior Balthazar being portrayed in such a poor light. Balthazar may not be perfect, he may be some what of a jerk— but to say that the Destroyer of Worlds would actually destroy a world? Nay I say! Balthazar is and will always be an Antihero. He is the God of War. All hail Balthazar! -listens to Brotherhood of Man-

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Aidal.4901:

There was very weak specific build up, Balthazar is the god of war and fire. On his reveal as Lazzydazzy he purged everyone specifically with fire, helped defend Aurene with fire, fire, fire fire!

’cept the real Lazerus the dire was a necromancer that also used lightning/air

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lazarus_the_Dire

So if we see a Air Elementalist Necromancer Mursaat then we’ll know we got the real Lazarus(who doesn’t need all of the Artifacts to resurrect).

Considering travelers in the Maguuma Jungle sense something Unseen I would assume players will eventually be hearing of dead rising and people getting electrocuted by mysterious Lightning out of nowhere during Living Story season 4 or 5. Most likely Lazarus will surface in Tangle Root(which hasn’t appeared yet in GW2).

Yeah sure that’ll work.

What if that is really Menzies trying to make humans loose faith in Balthazar, in order to take his god of war mantle?

If I remember correctly Menzies is Balthazar’s half-brother, so it is not impossible that they might look a bit alike.

Montu.5139:

What if that is really Menzies trying to make humans loose faith in Balthazar, in order to take his god of war mantle?

If I remember correctly Menzies is Balthazar’s half-brother, so it is not impossible that they might look a bit alike.

While I think that Menzies is indeed involved in this whole ordeal somehow, I doubt he would disguise himself as Balthazar who disguises himself as Lazarus. Anet’s storywriting is generally pretty straightforward with not too much detail.

Ashantara.8731:

And even those who aren’t have become quite immature in their actions; see Braham, who is behaving more like a 12-year old rather than a young man of, let’s say, 20 years of age.

How about we say 16 years of age, the actual age of the character?

Late For Tea.1846:

Montu.5139:

What if that is really Menzies trying to make humans loose faith in Balthazar, in order to take his god of war mantle?

If I remember correctly Menzies is Balthazar’s half-brother, so it is not impossible that they might look a bit alike.

While I think that Menzies is indeed involved in this whole ordeal somehow, I doubt he would disguise himself as Balthazar who disguises himself as Lazarus. Anet’s storywriting is generally pretty straightforward with not too much detail.

That is not what I meant

What I meant was that is actually Menzies, but Kazmeer confused him with Balthazar. No one knows what they look like after all.

Montu.5139:

That is not what I meant

What I meant was that is actually Menzies, but Kazmeer confused him with Balthazar. No one knows what they look like after all.

Ah, my bad, sorry. I don’t think it actually is Menzies, because at the end we fight the two hounds of Balthazar. I doubt Menzies would have access to the actual hounds, or them being an illusion. That would overcomplicate things.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

How about we say 16 years of age, the actual age of the character?

He’s 21, according to the wiki. Born in 1309AE and the current year is 1330AE on the Timeline page. But according to that, the events of HoT happened 2 years ago in game, so take that with a pinch of salt lol.

I actually like the speculation this one has created. Its not always a matter of how much sense it makes at first but how much sense it makes after we are explained the full story.

The plot twist was more that we’re not going to kill all the elder dragons than that it was that Lazarus is Balthazar.

Whether it’s magic being number 1 or number 2 doesn’t seem at all relevant at this point.

FrizzFreston.5290:

The plot twist was more that we’re not going to kill all the elder dragons than that it was that Lazarus is Balthazar.

Whether it’s magic being number 1 or number 2 doesn’t seem at all relevant at this point.

I think the biggest bomb dropped, and quite a good one, was the fact that Balthazar right now isn’t a god anymore and that he lost his divinity some time ago.

The first twist, Lazarus = Balthazar, was quite poor due to the fact that there weren’t any hints towards Balthazar.
But the last one is quite good, there were quite a few hints that Balthazar wasn’t that powerful anymore. Him draining the Bloodstone Magic was one ( well after the reveal it becomes a hint. ) Also his failure of killing Marjory is a big one. He used his power with the intend to kill and she… survived. Granted she isn’t the average Joe who would drop dead by just sneezing but a quite powerful Necromancer who can survive quite the punishment.
This reveal also opens up the possibility of more, and good, story points. Also we get to speculate more which is always fun

Wait, there was a story? I must have blinked and missed it.

Darcwolf.6817:

Wait, there was a story? I must have blinked and missed it.

yes, between the fifth explosion and the 26th flame on the right was a bit of story

An old theory I have had is the reason the gods left Arah is because their magic was being siphoned by the dragons as they neared awakening. Dragons are like ley energy batteries, they absorb the overflow of magic and when it reaches its peak, they awaken and rise up. When their magic is drained, they go dormant (see Primordous and Jormag). The gods came from another world and the magic of Tyria made them stronger. By draining the power of Primordous, Balthazar was able to regain the magic that was siphoned from him.

The Mists and Tyria are not independent of each other, rather they require each other in order to exist. Destroy one, destroy both…drain magic from one (Tyria) and you drain the magic of the other (The Mists). This means, when Mordremoth died, the power of Nature and Mind returned to Melandru and Lyssa. Zaithan’s death restored power to Grenth and possibly even to Dhuum, which could lead us back into the Underworld in the near future.

Balthazar showed in the past he was willing to do anything to maintain his power. The question now, what are Dwayna and Kormir doing?

Looking back at the whole story we can see that Caudecus was up to no good from day one. Having this bloodstone business to introduce the White Mantles and the ’’ressurection’’ of Lazarus was a pretty good plot.

Like the OP said, we were not given any bread crumbs to follow as to what Balthy was up to and to a regular Joe who logged on casually, this looks more like Anet threw some names in a hat and Balthy came out.

I know this is gonna go somewhere interesting eventually and some good story telling can come out of this if and only if Anet stops giving us some poorly written daytime soap opera drama.

The average Joe needs to be able to understand the lore behind all this, and i dont think that lesbian gay love affairs, nor screwed up old man with mirrors above their bed brings any understanding of the story.

Please Anet, cut the bull-crap and give us a GOOD story.

Edit: What’s up with The dumb dude in the well, Blaine ?

I liked this season, don’t see any real problem with it, the game surprised me heavily with the revelation this last chapter which I really liked, felt like the gw universe is big instead of the “always the same heroes and same villains” type of game, few games archieve that. And of course, i won’t be telling anet which way THEIR story should go, i’m not a master at writing plots and i’m pretty sure the ppl here aren’t either.

I think it’s totally not necessary to give breadcrumbs to hint ahead as to what is happening too much. Unless you spend loads of time checking out what or who could happen next.

In the end it gave some people the right idea about who would Lazarus be, and considering that you may or may not have found out before hand is totally unimportant to the plot. A story is not there to handhold you through it, and reassure you that it will tell you whenever some major reveal is going on. You experience it through your character. If it’s a surprise it’s a surprise. If it makes you feel annoyed with character x that is exactly how it is supposed to be. It doesn’t make it a bad story, it just may be something you don’t like in a story.

It is called Guild Wars 2 after all, picking gw2 up as a standalone and expecting to know every story twist and turn being handheld out to you is ridiculous. It’s like calling the second book crap because you failed to read the first one. Not that that was at all necessary for this reveal in any way.

Zaklex.6308:

Two words: Dhuum or Forgotten.

That’s three words…

Vesuvius.9874:

Zaklex.6308:

Two words: Dhuum or Forgotten.

That’s three words…

…and isn’t the two word variant, “Forgotten Dhuum”, much more compelling as an idea?

I just played through it the first time, and I didn’t even raise my eyebrows. It just… didn’t make sense. After we found out that Lazarus wasn’t Lazarus, I thought it would be a dragon minion aiming to become the next Elder Dragon (either one of Zhaitan’s or Mordremoth’s). So when Lazarus was covered in flames and the illusion burned away… it made no sense for it to be Balthazar.

1) Lazarus using fire to kill the White Mantle loyal to Caudecus means nothing. Fire is such a common element and magic that saying this was a “tip” is asinine.
2) “All the deceptions, the lies…” Call him a great many things, but Balthazar was never one for disguises and subterfuge. I also wonder how Kasmeer’s magic can break an illusion supposedly cast by a divine artifact (assuming it is divine and not just Kasmeer seeing gods in everything).
3) Summoning Tegan and Temar also means very little: All Humans can summon Tegan and Temar, or rather, we can summon impersinations of them (I assume). Balthazar summoning them is hardly that special – and we only have his word that they are indeed, Tegan and Temar.
4) And we only have Kasmeer’s proclamation that is is Balthazar. As someone mentioned, it could be Menzies or… I don’t know, E.

moonstarmac.4603:

An old theory I have had is the reason the gods left Arah is because their magic was being siphoned by the dragons as they neared awakening. Dragons are like ley energy batteries, they absorb the overflow of magic and when it reaches its peak, they awaken and rise up. When their magic is drained, they go dormant (see Primordous and Jormag). The gods came from another world and the magic of Tyria made them stronger. By draining the power of Primordous, Balthazar was able to regain the magic that was siphoned from him.

The Mists and Tyria are not independent of each other, rather they require each other in order to exist. Destroy one, destroy both…drain magic from one (Tyria) and you drain the magic of the other (The Mists). This means, when Mordremoth died, the power of Nature and Mind returned to Melandru and Lyssa. Zaithan’s death restored power to Grenth and possibly even to Dhuum, which could lead us back into the Underworld in the near future.

Balthazar showed in the past he was willing to do anything to maintain his power. The question now, what are Dwayna and Kormir doing?

You’re assuming there’s a connection between dragons and human gods, which may be, because of the magic aspects you’re mentioning. Dwayna would be connected to Steve, accordingly with the water element, and Kormir with Kralkatorrik… Well, because it’s the last one. And their name begins with a K.

Anyway, even if it’s not clear in my mind, there also are other magic batteries : bloodstones. As they were supposed to retain some magic from the dragons, they may also have drained the human gods from their magic, hence causing the Exodus, in an attempt to get away from the bloodstone’s effect. Or, in some way, part of the gods were sealed in the bloodstones, and Balthazar’s stone is the one that exploded, releasing him alongside a fair amount of magic.

Yet, it still leaves an issue with Kormir : as she got her powers from Abbadon, she’s not supposed to be tied to a bloodstone. So I’m not really sure why she’s still away.

Seeing as the Seers created the bloodstones and the ‘Human Gods’ seemed to have no issue taking said bloodstones from the Seers and using them for their own means… I would say that the bloodstones themselves were a form of magic/technology that was beneath the gods or so rudimentary in the concept that they could do whatever they wished.

The general concept accepted for years was that the Gods simply left Tyria after Abbadon and his followers literally wanted to Terraform the entire planet of Tyria into this Tentacle Laden hell like planet. If you followed GW1 at all, you would see the ‘Six’ originally used the Jotun & Norn and later Humanity for their colonization/civilizing of Tyria. Humanity turned out to be a more than sufficient tool for this purpose and expanded into the frontiers. They built roads, cities and introduced a modicum of true civilization down the throats of the Native Barbarians. Abbadon didn’t like the governed laws based on the limitation of magic and so set forth on his own path to overthrow the works of the other Five Gods and reshape Tyria in his own image. Throughout GW1, you see how powerful even a sliver of Abbadon was and how easy it would have been for him to succeed at Terraforming the planet to his own image.

Now Balthazar himself has been fighting Menzies (his half brother). Balthazar in all intents and purposes has always been on the edge of a generic Demonic God & his brother Menzies acts like a full-fledged Demonic God. The difference between the two would be sanity and who holds the ‘Divine Magic’ in their vessel/body. Dhuum was effectively shaking his bonds in GW1 and readying himself for another awakening. The Pantheon in GW1 has weakened already, so it would have only taken Dhuum’s power rising to increase the aid to Menzies against Balthazar. Balthazar could have lost this war since he wasn’t doing too hot in it, to begin with. Menzies, therefore, took the Divine Magic from Balthazar and cast him out of his own Realms. This could also lead to Dhuum and Menzies forces assaulting the Underworld (Realm of Grenth) to fully release Dhuum and overthrow/kill Grenth.

My heart hopes that instead of continuing this nonsense with Balthazar as upcoming Villian, that the story truly places him in a position of an Antihero. The Batman of Tyria per say. The Races of Tyria have been screwing around with powers that they barely understand for years now, and every success results in the following disaster. Without the guidance of the gods, Tyria is absolute chaos.

Fear not the flames of our devotion; Fear the results of our failure. In the fires of Balthazar were the chains of Abbadon forged. Through his guidance, civilization was brought to Tyria. The infrastructure for your current defiance against the Elder Dragons was of his design. Here is a god that does not require you to bow and scrap to show your devotion, but to simply fight for survival to show your worthiness. If you are devoted to your struggle, Balthazar will be there to reward your sacrafice.

I agree, OP. This is a bad plot twist. The Lazarus plot was killed in its tracks to haphazardly debut the God of War. Balthazar’s character took a hit, imo. Subterfuge? Theft of technology? Not very honorable of the God of War. Even if he was weakened over time….come on man! Make it believable! Plus, he had to deal with Taimi’s shenanigans. Her little plan backfired and Balthazar basically cleaned up her mess. Taimi’s character is getting to ridiculous mary sue levels. She has way too much influence in the story.

Still, what’s done is done. The story will now shift towards the human gods and that is a good thing.

I came to the plot twist moment and my reaction was…. not a good one. I did not like it. At all. I’d even go so far as to say that I -loathe- this ‘twist’. Going with everything I’ve read and seen about Balthazar since GW1 there’s only thing I can call that ‘twist’ and thats character assassination. If it was Mensies(or however his name is spelled) that was doing it -then- I could at least see it since he’s the kinda filth that’d do something like this.(I could even see Kormir doing it)

Also why would Balthazar even need subterfuge to get an army? He only needs to manifest in the middle of Divinity’s Edge and he’d get countless people flocking to his banner.

OP, you’re be right if this was a mystery or the end of the story, but I don’t believe Balthazar was the big reveal and I don’t believe that we know the whole story yet. This is written more like a serial than a novel and it follows completely different rules.

In a book, with a definitive ending, sure. But that’s a book like a mystery. This was never really supposed to be a mystery. Hell we didn’t even know he was an imposter for sure until the last episode.

That’s a very short build up for what you’re talking about. And after all, this came out immediately on the heels of that. To you it’s been 2-3 months. For the characters, very little time has passed, comparatively. So yeah, it was never meant to be a plot twist, in the sense that you’re talking about.

The biggest twist is that we may not be able to kill more dragons at all, but Balthazar doesn’t care if the world is destroyed or not in his personal quest for power. If that ends up being the case, that’s going to be bad.

I’m pretty sure the dragons aren’t going to stop doing damage. I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen the last of balthazar and I’m pretty sure that whatever comes next, will be the real ending.

Writing from my phone while moving on an army truck.
Guys you all forgot that the real enemies in guild wars are the demons! Twisted creatures born from the mists! Demons that are not creatures of abbadon or dhuum or menzies but simply allies of those 3! They come from somewhere and to form an alliance they must be leaded by someone too. I bet on a war in the mists gods vs demons while next exp we will find out more about the other gods. nope if you have read what was here nope my bad :p

And the last raid has demons in it too if i’m not wrong. Never had time for them :P

Im no expert in GW history and I may be (and probably am) completely wrong. But this is how Im looking at everything thats been happening so far.
We killed Zhaitan and Mordremoth. The LW3 started with the alert of both Jormag and Primordus. People started to build up “hype” around we have to kill them both in the next expansion and the logic would be for it to continue with the upcoming expasions, we would have to kill one or two elder dragons with each new realease. I was concerned with this line of story so straightfoward cause in about 3 expansions there would be no more dragons to kill and they would have to lead everything towards a post apocalyptic scenario, after all dragons were dead and all that magic floating around Tyria.
So, instead they came up with this. The white mantle, who were lurking in the shadows, saw an opportunty to rise again with the help of bloodstones and all the magic residues from Zhaitan and Mordremoth. In the meantime, Primordus and Jormag increased their activities because they also started to absorb Zhaitan and Mordremoths magic. Ok, pause there and lets go to wherever the humans Gods are.
Apparently Balthazar was suffering from a great power loss (for whatever reason) and saw in the dragons defeats and in the attempt of the white mantle of reviving Lazarus the opportunity to gather back his strength. So what did he do? He uses a mirror made by Lyssa to disguise himself of Lazarus and fool the white mantle to get power from the bloodstones. Then he sees something even more insteresting, Aurene, Glints baby dragon, so he “joins” us to protect her and be close to her so its easier for him to get her powers/energy/magic.
While he is in this undercover mission for magic sucking, Jormag and Primordus become more active and Taimi get this machine done which is an easier way for him to get a huge amount of power in a faster way.
So, while the dragons are waking up, he steals the machine and sets off after Primordus first, but then the commander and Taimi stop him before he drains all magic from Primordus and this one returns to his deep sleep state.
So for me the big reveal and plot twist wasnt really the fact that Lazarus was Balthazar, it was the fact that the flow of the story can now be completely changed. Maybe we are not going to kill Elder Dragons with every new expansion. Maybe we are going to have to deal with some gods issues as well and it feels refreshing and even more set up than the cliche and obvious “oh, ok, we’vê killed two Elder Dragons. Now we go after the others and live forever happy”.
I mean, we still dont really know what happened for Balthazar to return, we still dont know if he is going to try to go after Jormag, we dont know almost anything at all anymore, and thats where the real plot twist lies.
Maybe people are disappointed for their theories not being confirmed because it made more sense to them in that previous storyline I mentioned at the beginning.
I always try to think of GWs story as a bunch of things happening together and affecting each other, thats the way it was supposed to be, right?

Well, hope Im not all wrong and that my thoughts make sense. We need to have a little bit of faith here, afterall GWs story is still one of the best in a MMORPG out there.

armaduras.8972:

My heart hopes that instead of continuing this nonsense with Balthazar as upcoming Villian, that the story truly places him in a position of an Antihero. The Batman of Tyria per say.

There are two problems I see with that.

First, consider the GW2-only players, who barely have a clue about Dhuum and Menzies. Dropping supervillains you never heard of isn’t particularly good writing in my book.

Second, the Batman of Tyria is obviously Lord Faren.

@hlaraujo: It was clear we’re not going to kill all the dragons. The story warned about it long ago, so this was expected.

Very poor indeed. Why is god cowardly disguised as some lower creature?! Just make no sense. Also if it turns out we killed/disabled 2 dragons with 15 min of game play… well this will be epic fail.

Feanor.2358:

armaduras.8972:

My heart hopes that instead of continuing this nonsense with Balthazar as upcoming Villian, that the story truly places him in a position of an Antihero. The Batman of Tyria per say.

There are two problems I see with that.

First, consider the GW2-only players, who barely have a clue about Dhuum and Menzies. Dropping supervillains you never heard of isn’t particularly good writing in my book.

Second, the Batman of Tyria is obviously Lord Faren.

@hlaraujo: It was clear we’re not going to kill all the dragons. The story warned about it long ago, so this was expected.

Dhuum has risen! The Fissue of Woe has fallen to Menzies and his Shadow Army. Balthazar has been cast aside and now the forces of Dhuum and Menzies are besieging the Underworld and demons are being let loose upon into Tyria. You would let the architect of the safety you bask in, the mighty Balthazar, simply be forgotten?

Mark my words, the existence of Tyria as it is today is due to the foresight of The Five, and Balthazar was the most invested in advancing Tyria forwards so its inhabitants could stand up for themselves. Any writing that differs from this is ignoring the care put into Balthazar in GW1 and the structure of the story from that point out.

His actions in the latest living story can be dismissed. Seeing as the pact commander themselves are ignorant pups. Did it appear that Balthazar was afraid of Primordus? No, he was on a mission. There is a bigger fight out there and there isn’t much the PC can do to change it. Alas, GW2 Characters are not nearly on the level of that of a GW1 character. A GW1 character’s abilities could crush entire nations in GW2. Tyria has truly fallen into chaos if these are the heroes they produce.

Fear not the flames of our devotion; Fear the outcome of our failure. Bask in the Flames of Balthazar; Bathe in the ever-presence of his glory! Never forget! Praise be to Balthazar, He That Shows Us the Final Truth.

mazut.4296:

Very poor indeed. Why is god cowardly disguised as some lower creature?! Just make no sense. Also if it turns out we killed/disabled 2 dragons with 15 min of game play… well this will be epic fail.

Cowardly or cunning? two different things.
Balthazar has clearly lost the power to tackle the problems head-on. He disguised himself as Lazarus so he could access the bloodstone. after that, he knew it was only a matter of time before the white mantle figured out he wasn’t Lazarus. The white mantle don’t much like the Six in face of the Unseen Ones.
So he took their resources and fed them to the mercs who just follow money rather than the Unseens’ wisdom.

See, it makes perfect sense, if you don’t have the power, use your brains until you have the power back.

Secondly, Primordus and Jormag are very much alive. We only know that Primordus had so much magic drained he was in a knocked-out state. Far from dead, but it’ll propably be 2 expansions later before he recovered. Taimi only speculated Jormag was in the same condition as Primordus, but I guess we’ll see next chapter. IF Jormag is in the same condition, then Braham is the biggest threat to the safety of the world since he has flaming arrows now that can kill Jormag if he knocked out.

I just came back to this game after a few months off and went through chapters 2-5 all at once, and I gotta say, I’m as baffled by the Balthazar reveal as the OP. So much about it just makes no sense at all.

But my primary complaint was actually a bit different – why was my character attacking Lazarus in the first place? I mean, the guy was nothing but helpful to us in his prior appearances. He clearly started out as enemy-of-my-enemy by starting a fight with Caudecus and peeling off a bunch of his followers, and then acted downright eager to help me with the whole defense of Aurene. And let me tell you, as a non-leet gamer, I needed the help. He even demonstrated good faith by letting one of my trusted people follow him around! And then we take the first available opportunity to ambush him, beat him up, and kill his minions just because known villain Caudecus thought he wasn’t a real Mursaat. Heck, given the bad reputation of Mursaat, not really being one should be a point in his favor.

So, you know, I can’t really blame Balthazar for turning against us. We were clearly not going to be reliable allies.

Baolun.8316:

I just came back to this game after a few months off and went through chapters 2-5 all at once, and I gotta say, I’m as baffled by the Balthazar reveal as the OP. So much about it just makes no sense at all.

But my primary complaint was actually a bit different – why was my character attacking Lazarus in the first place? I mean, the guy was nothing but helpful to us in his prior appearances. He clearly started out as enemy-of-my-enemy by starting a fight with Caudecus and peeling off a bunch of his followers, and then acted downright eager to help me with the whole defense of Aurene. And let me tell you, as a non-leet gamer, I needed the help. He even demonstrated good faith by letting one of my trusted people follow him around! And then we take the first available opportunity to ambush him, beat him up, and kill his minions just because known villain Caudecus thought he wasn’t a real Mursaat. Heck, given the bad reputation of Mursaat, not really being one should be a point in his favor.

So, you know, I can’t really blame Balthazar for turning against us. We were clearly not going to be reliable allies.

Did you miss the part where he said the fate of Tyria doesn’t matter? He’s lied to us, he obviously has an agenda, he’s absorbing massive amounts of power and he doesn’t care whether or not the world is destroyed.

I’d say that’s reason enough to attack him.

Vayne.8563:

Baolun.8316:

I just came back to this game after a few months off and went through chapters 2-5 all at once, and I gotta say, I’m as baffled by the Balthazar reveal as the OP. So much about it just makes no sense at all.

But my primary complaint was actually a bit different – why was my character attacking Lazarus in the first place? I mean, the guy was nothing but helpful to us in his prior appearances. He clearly started out as enemy-of-my-enemy by starting a fight with Caudecus and peeling off a bunch of his followers, and then acted downright eager to help me with the whole defense of Aurene. And let me tell you, as a non-leet gamer, I needed the help. He even demonstrated good faith by letting one of my trusted people follow him around! And then we take the first available opportunity to ambush him, beat him up, and kill his minions just because known villain Caudecus thought he wasn’t a real Mursaat. Heck, given the bad reputation of Mursaat, not really being one should be a point in his favor.

So, you know, I can’t really blame Balthazar for turning against us. We were clearly not going to be reliable allies.

Did you miss the part where he said the fate of Tyria doesn’t matter? He’s lied to us, he obviously has an agenda, he’s absorbing massive amounts of power and he doesn’t care whether or not the world is destroyed.

I’d say that’s reason enough to attack him.

He says that during the final fight: when he’s disguised as Lazarus, he doesn’t. We attacked first.

Walhalla.5473:

…But the last one is quite good, there were quite a few hints that Balthazar wasn’t that powerful anymore. Him draining the Bloodstone Magic was one ( well after the reveal it becomes a hint. ) Also his failure of killing Marjory is a big one. He used his power with the intend to kill and she… survived. …

You think someone who absorbed all the magic of a bloodstone isn’t strong enough to kill a human? Imho if he wanted to kill Marjory (or all of us in the lab) she would be dead. (Or the bloodstones don’t hold as much magic as I thought they do).

And he helped us to protect Aurene although he could have killed us and the little dragon or let the destroyer do it for him.
So I think Balthazar isn’t as “evil” as he seems at the moment.

And “Mary Sue” Taimi finally made a mistake that could have destroyed the world (or maybe not, we don’t know at the moment if killing more Dragons is a problem or not).
But Balthazar prevented Taimi from testing the machine on the field and used it to absorb enough magic from the dragons to put them to sleep again.

To the plot twist:
I really hoped that Lazarus is just Lazarus. Caudecus could have stolen the wrong artifact, Lazarus didn’t need all of them to be resurrected or maybe Lazarus was alive and already had all aspects inside of him and used bloodstone to cure him from the corruption of the damaged aspect of Justiciar Naveed.
And his (apparently) turn to the good side was in some way reasonable with the dragons awake and the greater threat.
I hope we will see the real Lazarus (and maybe other Mursaat who are still alive) sometimes in the Story. But the story to introduce them has to bee good (season 3 would have been good but was used to introduce Balthazar instead…)

That Lazarus/Balthazar only used firemagic was no hint at all. Lazarus already used air and dead magic in GW1 so that he is capable of using fire magic is no suprise.

And for what does Balthazar need mercenaries? He absorbed a lot of magic power and is able to teleport to any place he want’s. What are they doing for him???
Would’t it be a lot easier to ask the humans for help if he realy need the help of someone (like >250 years ago in the war with Menzies in the Fissure of Woe)?

Although I don’t realy like the last episode I’m very excited to see the six human goods. Hopefully Menzies and Dhuum, too. What happened to them? Is Menzies behind Balthazars fall or is there an new, even greater thread?
The Story has high potential if written well and the lore from GW1 is not damaged.
I hope humans get some additional content in the upcoming Story like Sylvari had in HoT.

And please ANET don’t release the new add-on “unfinished” like HoT where some of the planned content was cut like the story with Malyck.

Late For Tea.1846:

So with LS3.5 we finally learned who Lazarus really is. And as no one expected, it was Balthazar making an appearance out of nowhere. Now Anet might think they have outdone themselves with such a reveal, but they missed one major point when it comes to “plot twists”.
If you want to have a good plot twist in your story, you should leave crumbs beforehan, that hint to the twist, without making it obvious. After the twist the audience should be left with a feeling of “how did I not see that?”, because then they realize you basically gave away the answer before the twist even happened.
But instead Balthazar randomly appears without any hints to it in the previous chapters whatsoever. He as a villain, concealing himself as Lazarus, makes no sense at all. It feels like a cheap “shocker”.

To make it worse, he disappeared as quickly as he appeared. So if he’s really gone, that means his involvement really didn’t mean that much. As such, he wasn’t worth all the hype and build-up. Once again you have major build up to the climax of your story, but once you reach the climax you rush things incredibly. You, Anet, received this criticism before with HoT, and now you’re doing it again.

I disagree with the bolded. It’s not a necessity for a good twist.

I will not be disappointed when you will say: TLDR. It’s all about my opinion of LS5.

“And please ANET don’t release the new add-on “unfinished” like HoT where some of the planned content was cut like the story with Malyck."

They listened to the people who just didn’t wanna Sylvari storyline all the time. So we got what we wanted so bad, so don’t complain. Anyway it’s unlikely to get Sylvari storyline back.

As for Balthazar: ANet confirmed that Balthazar is not dead and he will come back. Great that they said this, because it was confusing. So perhaps in ep6 or expansion 2.

I really don’t care about the story now, God is back! That’s all what I wanted.

We saw Primordus, we saw what would happen if we would kill 2 dragons (Tyria makes boom), we saw a GOD! I don’t care why he did not appear as God instantly when he came. Perhaps he wanted be incognito like Ark from Fractals.

Perhaps he escaped and Lyssa helped him to look like a mursaat. Perhaps there was a battle between Gods and Balthazar lost. I really do not know, because Balthazar appeared, said “this tires me and the dragons call” and disappeared. And the Commy Tommy wanted to face the GOD OF WAR. WTH The worst storytelling ever.

But ok, I gave a 2nd chance- we had to chase after him and we went straight to Volcano where Primordus sleeps. And AGAIN he just turned on the machine and wanted to consume all the dragons’ magic. Yes he said that he lost his power, but why didn’t he say by who, why?… Just said: Oh your world means nothing and I just wanna to destroy everything what you built, your friendships etc. WTH

If he really wanted to destroy Tyria he already could say why. I wonder why Commy Tommy did not ask why he lost his power. And another proof that the storytelling was bad.

And then the miracle happened and Taimi saved the world. Ehh ALL HAIL TAIMI….

And Kasmeer appeared and disappeared, the worst behaviour ever.

And these dialogues like: “Oh Jory, my love, why didnt you say me about Lazarus? HICCUP, I thought we are a team. Oh and I am glad you are back.”

And only a kiss was missing. I HATE the “SWEET” dialogues between 2 lovers, who have problems and are sharing with them when everyone hears it. I HATE IT! IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM IN RELATIONSHIP YOU SHOULD GO TO ROOM AND SAY WHAT YOU WANT FACE TO FACE. WTH Anet…

And then when Kas goes away, Jory says: Oh this Kas is just annoying, I almost died because she saw a GOD, so yeah lets blame herself, because she saw someone who just injured her lover! OMG Are the CHARACTERS SO STUPID THAT THEY CANNOT SEE WHAT IS OBVIOUS?!

IQ LEVEL OF ALL THE NPC IS 0,00001, but Taimi is 0,0001, because she didn;t even consider about: what happens if dragons die…. I thought it’s obvious and suddenly she needed a simulator to see this…. Anyway she is a bit smarter than other- A BIT.

And just wanna say one more thing: Balthazar just terminated the contract between the PC and Gods. I am talking about the scene when Kormir became a God (Nightfall): http://imgur.com/a/8zvNL

“It’s your world” and Balthazar just wanted to destroy our world…

Ehh, that’s complicated.

@Arden:

If Balthazar actually behaved like Balthazar, that would have been something. But instead of a great god (one of the Six!) we got a bad joke disguised as Balthazar.

He had no class, no style, no nothing that made him be looked upon as “(gasp) The God of War!”

And then going in and fighting him, a “god”, alone!? – Oh please, c’mon. How much more ridiculous can it get?

Edit: Wait, I forgot about the whole Omadd’s Machine thing. Yes, go ahead and mix technology and religious mysticism. That’s even… funnier.

Well this is the biggest disappointment of LS3. MO said that this is an “important episode”, but yeah I see that it means revealing indentity of Lazarus, but what they did with this revealing and what happened after is just ridiculous. Why wasn’t the Commander surprised that it’s a god?? I would understand that Sylvari or Norn would not care, but I expected extra dialogue when I played this episode with Human.

Storytelling is still really bad.

Only two epic things in this episode:
1) Phlunt leads his army to save his research- that was kinda amazing.
2) And the music in final instance.

Removing one grand character of GW1 and giving another is just weird. And I hate it. Balthazar is the worst thing what happened in GW2. If a god would come back they should do this as the most epic thing ever, not giving tons of misunderstandings and just making hype to players.

Personally when MO said that this is gonna be an important episode, ANet could change the storytelling, I mean: In every single episode we saw the same structure:

one episode in instance then something goes wrong and we have 4-5 chapters in new map (it’s kinda boring) and then the final chapter gives us hype and ends with millions questions. I liked that we could speculate, but enough is enough.

3 teams are totally unnecessary if they are doing everything in the same ways.

Can you see that there are 3 teams? Can you feel differences? I can’t, everything works in the same way, that’s really disappointing.

Arden.7480:

[…]3 teams are totally unnecessary if they are doing everything in the same ways.

Can you see that there are 3 teams? Can you feel differences? I can’t, everything works in the same way, that’s really disappointing.

In defense of some of the devs, I need to point out that not everything was done the same way and that some episodes displayed a lot more talent in story-telling (plot) and quality writing (dialogue) than others.

I think the writing for Ep. 2 (humor) and 4 (characters, events) was a lot better than 1 (boring altogether), 3 (childish dialogue) and 5 (bad plot twist + awful dialogue). It differs in regard of the maps and their content however, which would require a separate rating.

We can agree that, if nothing else, consistency in not a thing this season.

Ashantara.8731:

Arden.7480:

[…]3 teams are totally unnecessary if they are doing everything in the same ways.

Can you see that there are 3 teams? Can you feel differences? I can’t, everything works in the same way, that’s really disappointing.

In defense of some of the devs, I need to point out that not everything was done the same way and that some episodes displayed a lot more talent in story-telling (plot) and quality writing (dialogue) than others.

I think the writing for Ep. 2 (humor) and 4 (characters, events) was a lot better than 1 (boring altogether), 3 (childish dialogue) and 5 (bad plot twist + awful dialogue). It differs in regard of the maps and their content however, which would require a separate rating.

We can agree that, if nothing else, consistency in not a thing this season.

Seems awful nonsensical plot twists and Braham turning into the worst kitten in the setting is the theme of this season. Never thought I’d run into a character I’d dislike more than Rytlocke.

Anyone seen the new Gem Store GS? Hint hint…

Ashantara.8731:

Anyone seen the new Gem Store GS? Hint hint…

Not gonna lie. At this point I’m hoping it was Menzies we ran into and not Balthazar. At least then his behaviour would make sense. Especially since discrediting Balthazar is in his best interest.

I am not sure. Balthazar used different sword in final instance and he sent his hounds to kill us, so I don’t think so there will be 2nd revealing. That would be stupid. Anyway I think that perhaps it’s a hint that Menzies will come back too. We’ll see.

Balthazar is Balthazar, and if Kasmeer says so, I believe her.

Arden.7480:

I am not sure. Balthazar used different sword in final instance and he sent his hounds to kill us, so I don’t think so there will be 2nd revealing. That would be stupid. Anyway I think that perhaps it’s a hint that Menzies will come back too. We’ll see.

Balthazar is Balthazar, and if Kasmeer says so, I believe her.

The hound thing is kinda funny when you remember that Balthazars blessing that lets you summon his hounds still works…. Like what lol.

Everyone is changing, for better or for worse and I think Balthazar is just another annoying NPC we will deal with after Braham.

Arden.7480:

I am not sure. Balthazar used different sword in final instance and he sent his hounds to kill us

I had the same thought, but maybe those hounds were illusions, too? After all, they were too weak to be a God’s pets.

my new theory:
Menzies is pretending to be balthazar who is pretending to be lazarus who is pretending to be a mursaat who is pretending to lead the white mantle who are pretending to be model citizens who are pretend to be at peace with the charr who are pretending not to be the flame legion who are pretending not to be dragon minions who are pretending not to be a multi-bodular elder dragon

.. whew

Ashantara.8731:

Arden.7480:

I am not sure. Balthazar used different sword in final instance and he sent his hounds to kill us

I had the same thought, but maybe those hounds were illusions, too? After all, they were too weak to be a God’s pets.

OR… we’re just that awesome