Guild Wars 2

I’m not even sure the guy we saw was actually Balthazar
After all, at least in French, he spouts nonsense about his fading light, his loss of honor…
Is it really Balthazar? Or some other guy, who look (supposedly) just like him, and is almost as warmongering as he is?
If i remember well, Balthazar is supposed to be at war with his evil-brother Menzies, who uses more mesmers than his brother…

Anyway, with the 2 sub-boss Temar and Tegon, I’m afraid i won’t like the direction of this story… please, bring an epic plot twist, i don’t want The GW series ending like this

I’m really disappointed in this living story release.
It started good, with Aurene stuff, foreshadowing her role in the near future (aka, breed your own elder dragon, in case you need an ally who doesn’t want to eradicate all living beings…)
Then the stuff with the Kodans was really interesting, a bit of lore about their culture, their beliefs, etc…
even the Grawls, with Chokocooka! (French name)…i really liked the chieftain’s part when he tried to explain that Jora was…Whoaaa! (definitely worshipable!!)
But then, the stuff with the elixir, and the Braham drama ruined it all.

In the end, it feels like a sub-par episode, and the only point is:
We’ll fight Primordus and Jormag next…possibly at the same time, if asuran plans fail…

and BTW, if Anet wanted us to despise Moron-Braham, then Good Job! Let him fight Jormag, i’ll be happy to kill him as an icebrood.
I felt bad when we killed zombified allies, even Trahearne, but that moron…i’d kill him 10 times…with each of my characters…

As many people said, there are a lot of discrepancies in those tablets…
Yet, it is not utter thrash or complete lies…
Before leaving, who could doubt the Mursaat?
And now, at least, we got a reaason for why they slipped in their “strange” dimension…they felt betrayed (by Dwarves, Jotuns and Seers), and utterly defeated (as mentioned, they did assault Arah once…or whatever it was before the human gods came).

So they left, and returned centuries later…

World has changed, it was now a world devoid (or almost devoid) of Magic, where former evolved societies felt (Jotun example).
Dwarves remain hidden, Jotun are lost, Forgotten absent (they seem to have taken their Glint Ritual during the Mursaat disappearance), and those Seers were about to release Magic in these conditions…
And our Mursaats were probably feeling resentment towards them, and i can imagine easily why some of them wanted to retain control of all magic, and strive to CONQUER the world…bad people exist, don’t they?

In essence, what we see as lore-errors coulb be explained by the Mursaats disappearance.
They did flee, but the world still continued to change/live, and they weren’t quite pleased with it when they returned.

Oh, and by the way, i’m 120% sure that Lazarus lies to our PC.
Enacting his revenge and protecting Tyria from Primordus and Co are his 2 goals, and they don’t seem to be incompatble to me…
He probably wants to use Aurene for himself, and is playing a charade with every sides…

Yet, as an optimistic guy (who am i gonna fool?^^), maybe being the last Mursaat alive, in a world where 2 Dragons have been defeated already, did change his point of view…
I mean, he is no longer fighting for Mursaat supremacy (he’s alone now), give no s*** about human politics and Kryta, and , if that come to pass, may find reliable allies like our PC, unlike in the past…
So why not?

It’s cool to see that the forgotten called themselves servants of 6, yet that particular scroll from season 2 is called “Scroll of the five true Gods”…

So, would that mean Abaddon and Co. didn’t have any knowledge about Elder Dragons?
I find it very hard to believe…

I’m still not sold on Embrace the Darkness…
Even if torment were to be buffed beyond common sense, Mallyx rev would still be without an elite skill which looks “elite”.

Come on, the way it sounds, EtD seems like a mobile torment-field and…that’s all.
War/Berserkers got a skill like that on their torches(applying burning), what’s feeling “elite” in that?
Keep the condi-spreading, or do something that scales which the amount of conditions applied on the revenant…
And sorry, but all that enegy degen just to apply, what? 8 stacks of torment, even 10?And only that?
Remember, all professions have a way to remove (even sub-par) at least one condition. What’s good in applying 25 stacks of torment in 25 sec, only to see them disappear when random Elem randomly switch to water attunement?^^

Mallyx isn’t only a +10% freak, it have to be related in a way to condition manipulation (drawing or applying). Just let the copy ability on the elite skill, it should be enough.

Please, revert Mallyx elite skill to the former iteration, revenants should have skills in relation to the legends they are channeling right?
Don’t start pretending Mallyx was only good at being a beast stat-wise and applied (a meager 1 stack) torment on players…

The whole thing about him was you were supposed to avoid using hexes or conditions against him, unless you wanted him to be über-strong.

If you’re worried about the “copy to foes” ability of this elite, at least, make something about making this skill being stronger the more conditions are applied to the revenant.

Something like
- major bonus to stats for each condition OR
- Copy all condi to foes on hit (better than being copy on a zone) OR
- auto-converts condi to boons during duration

That skill should still be elite-feeling, not some stupidly skill that feels like a trait or something…

Don’t be too quick on conclusions^^
Only things we know are the events from GW1

And the rest is extrapolation without any evidence.
Now, if certain people chose Evon at that time, we might had some clues about why Abaddon was exiled, why his distribution of magic wasn’t on term with the other 5 views, why Abaddon and his followers were systematically exiled in the Realm of Torment, etc…

I still have that whole “choose your fractal” event through my throat…

Granted the wiki could not exactly be the best source of information sometimes^^

Then again, don’t be too quick to dismiss some interpretations, because as i said, we’re trying to guess, we are not in the head of creative teams of GW lore^^

About comparing Zhaitan to Mordremoth, at first glance, nothing relates plants to death, mind to shadow…
But think about it:
Plants are the epitome of the notion of life, because they don’t need sustenance except minerals, light and water. (Bacterias apart, the first sign of life we look for is vegetation isn’t it?)
Death implies decay, as we’ve seen with Zhaitan’s reanimation, which almost instantly rise dead people in a state of advanced decay, there is no “fresh” risen ever showed or mentionned.
I mean, even a guy killed 10 min ago would become a Risen with grey skin, as if he were dead for a decade^^

In that sense, it’s not Plant vs Death, but something more akin to Birth Vs Decay.

The same happens when we look at the Mind Vs Shadow, albeit even more strange and unintuitive.
The Risen are all “For Zhaitan”, “Zhaitan will have your soul”, “Zhaitan FTW” etc…
And the whole point of Scarlet’s FB was to show us that she was persuaded to be the one in command, doing what she wanted for herself, etc…

It intrigues me, because it looks like Zhaitan was imposing his will to his minions, by force, contrary to Mordremoth, who seems to use more subtle ways, like instilling doubts, showing traumatic images, etc…but never encourages his minions to shout :“Mordremoth Rulz”…at least not straight from the beginning of the corruption process (the only speaking minions of Mordremoth we encoutered are until now Scarlet, Aerin, and the mordrem guards from the beta, and these look like they’ve been under Mordy for a longer time)

So in the end, that Shadow vs Mind looks awfully like a Dominance vs Persuasion thing.
Zhaitan is all “look who is in command here!”—>big shadow over you
Mordremoth is more “you should do this, you know i’m right”—>try to convince you
In the end, they both corrupt willpower, but not in the same way.

According to the wiki, and specifically the page “elder dragons”, we can see some kind of pattern:
First Primordus, then Jormag,then Zhaitan.
Look carefully at the map of All, there is no line between those 3.
Same thing happen when we’re talking about Bubbles, Modremoth and Kralkatorrik.

But each dragon still has one and only one string that connects it to another dragon.
It might not be rivalry, or antagonism, but there is certainly a reason for that particular link.

And about dragons fighting each other…although proof in-game is still needed, the wiki clearly states that each of the Elder Dragons have their own unique motivation and ways to act, ranging from what they and their minions do to how they corrupt their surroundings and those who seek their power. Similarly, Elder Dragons appear to be hostile to each other, as their minions will fight another dragon’s minions just as they would fight any living creature.

So, i’m not sure if Dragons are really keen on taking out one of their rival in particular, or anyone for that matter.

At that moment, I think that in order to keep that specific order the Apostate talked about , Some Dragons awaken when one is becoming predominent, and in the end, a stalemate is established, with no Dragon claiming a higher position than the others.

It would mean that although the awakening of a dragon is still a disaster, the All still manages to keep Order by making other awakenings, leading to strife (like previous awakenings and wars with elder races), then periods of hibernation (like pre-GW1 Primordus awakening), then the cycle repeats itself.

And about Mordremoth, actually i’m not sure his “stirring” really began with the defeat of Zhaitan.
After all, the Caledon Wurm, Malyck, the very nature of sylvaris…it all seems to be Mordy Actions, albeit not as flashy than the Rise of Orr, etc…but these are still events that attest that Mordremoth was doing something during Zhaitan’s era. (Don’t forget the Inquest, which would need something to happen to notice the 6th elder Dragon and build a room for it in their complex)

And maybe, just maybe, did Scarlet even thought of that when she first saw that vision, and thought the awakening of Mordremoth would keep Zhaitan in check (because in most of her life time, the most menacing Dragon she knew of was Zhaitan).
I mean, her signing is really strange.
And maybe, Mordremoth corruption proved to be too much for her to handle, and she went mad.

And lastly, by saying that a stalemate could be attained, that wouldn’t mean that these dragons would be aware of it. It makes sense that each one of these phenomenon would try to overpower the others, but fortunately until now, don’t succeed.

P.S: Actually, i started this thread because i believed that if some kind of antagonist link could be made between 2 dragons, then it might be possible to determine the sphere of influence (easy one) and also the mean and philosophy behind the corruption for each dragon (that one is hard)

for example:
if Jormag is ice, rock-solid (aka strong), and corrupts by promises of power
then Bubbles would be water, liquid (aka something with no real form), and corrupts by…
It would be nice to be able to guess^^

So even if Zhaitan is the one who crashed (after all we did beat him,right?), what to think about this particular structure in which each dragon/force seems to be pit against another?

And by extension, now that Zhaitan is gone/crashed/assimilated by Tyria or whatever, clearly the balance is gone, ad Modremoth is without his antagonist.

It may explain why this Mordremoth seems so powerful compared to the other dragons, and why it manifests just after Zhaitan’s defeat, but the other dragons still do their unremarkable activities…
I mean, let’s think about it: after Zhaitan’s defeat
Tequatl changed, Sylvari changed, Mordrems appear, and the other dragon factions? Still the old same dudes^^
Ther might be something about it…

And now i think about this little phrase of Scarlet, written in one of the “precursor” of the backpiece with all those blades in it…
A phrase about doing something for Tyria, and an apology to Caithe stating that one day, she’ll understand…

Hi
Just browsed through the wiki, and i noticed a few things about the All.
There is one book, written by that Apostate, which mentions some sort of push war between those 6 forces/dragons.

Now, going to the PC vision of it.
Clearly, one orb is taking an upper-hand in this “war”, and it’s implied to be Mordremoth.
And then, going back to the map of All, i couldn’t but notice that each force/dragon seems to be opposed to another, and this stalemate should be that equilibrium which the Apostate mentioned.

If that is the case, the dualities between dragons should be apparent in their sphere of influence, or philosophy.
If indeed Mordy were antagonist to Zhaitan, then we would have an opposition between Plant life/ Control via submissive ideas Vs Death/Control via force aka reanimating

As we know already, Dragon minions are not in a team, they only serve their master and actively try to suppress the other dragons’ forces.
With that in mind, it is not farfetched to think that these antagonisms would be apparent in all the aspects of the dragons, and especially minions, ways of corruption,etc…

For example:
Primordus VS Kralkatorrik
Creative and Evolutive VS Conservative and looking for perfectionism
Think about how Destroyers are made, fight,etc…
Now compare to the Branded, they’re all images of their former selves, but remade more powerful/perfect.
Destroyers are all creations, not improvements to something already existant.

That would also be the case between Jormag and Bubbles, if the All is really a map of dragons’ interaction with each other.
Just have to figure Jormag spheres to be able to guess Bubbles own.

Voila, and sorry if some parts are not intelligible, i’m french after all^^

Another little thing:
The trait which chills when you fears someone isn’t working…which is clearly detrimental as a Reaper…i was supposed to catch them, not to lag behind them^^

Don’t fret^^
Actually, both chain events are bugged and non functional, starting from yesterday (about 1hour after beta start)

That means no wyvern, and no “whatsoever” in the ruins with Laranthir…
I don’t know if it’s planned or something, but not being able to fight at least one “boss” is …sad i’d say:/