Guild Wars 2

Caeledh.5437:

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

Well you don’t need to finish that episode to progress further….

Oh, right. I forgot these are discrete episodes and you can switch between them. There is that at least.

Onto the next ep with that character. Or perhaps not? If there’s more content like this that would be a waste of time.

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

I only got past Adrienne because my necromancer is a minion master and I could pay her back for her minion spam with my own minion spam. That and having minions makes my necro tougher to kill so… Not as much latency plus lots of luck did the rest.

If I can ever be bothered to try it again this is probably my only option. With Adrienne’s big attack being unavoidable I need her tanked. Maybe bow ranger. Don’t know if bow’s stealth would be effective at shaking off the adds, with the companions doing so little damage, but it might.

Not much experience with rangers so I can’t say for certain. I’m not sure I want to try it out with any other class either. Might just start the episodes to unlock access to the zones and not bother with it beyond that because so far I haven’t really gotten much of a reason to bother with it.

Moonyeti.3296:

Also, the number 6 isn’t an absolute fixed number for the gods like it is with the dragons. Depending on what point in time you are referring to there were more or less that 6 gods. Abbadon’s fall left the number at 5 for awhile, Kormir replacing him brought the number back to 6. Similar things happened with Balthezar replacing his father and battling his half brother Menzies, or Grenth being a replacement god. The number of gods is fluid, whereas the dragons are fixed at 6 to maintain the balance of Tyria. There can’t be a strong relationship between the dragons and gods if the number is not fixed at a 1:1 ratio.

The number of gods was always 6. This didn’t change with Abaddons imprisonment. It was only 5 for that brief moment after Abaddons death ’til Kormir ran in and ruined an otherwise awesome moment.

The two killing one another wasn’t really the issue. It was the massive amount of magic stored up inside them being released that’d mess up the planet. If a safe way to absorb that magic was found then killing the dragons wouldn’t be a problem though.

Caeledh.5437:

I’m not wasting any more of my time on it and if that means I can’t progress any further in GW2, so be it.

Well you don’t need to finish that episode to progress further and these days you can look stuff up on youtube to know what happens later in that episode so there is that. Won’t need it to do the next expansion either so. Granted seeing it on youtube isn’t the same as doing it yourself.

I only got past Adrienne because my necromancer is a minion master and I could pay her back for her minion spam with my own minion spam. That and having minions makes my necro tougher to kill so… Not as much latency plus lots of luck did the rest.

Ashantara.8731:

Ookamikun.6472:

Funny thing, Taimi was fawning over Scarlet, and guess what Scarlet was.

Would be hilarious if Taimi is responsible for the next expac.

I hope not. I really hope the writers will tone down all the high-tech computer crap and finally return to the roots of GW.

OT:

It is also the reason why I probably won’t buy another Bioware game despite having played their games since BG1. Way too much fawning over favoured NPCs even if they want to destroy the world.

The current Bioware isn’t the team that did the BG series and other wonderful releases. Those are now working at Obsidian Entertainment, right?

No its the Black Isle folks that went to found Obsidian. Wether or not any of the old Bioware team joined Obsidian later on I don’t know though.

draxynnic.3719:

Balthazar doesn’t seem to have been a god at the time, and he was never portrayed as the most intellectual of the lot to begin with.

I suspect Abaddon would have known how to make such a machine, but he would also know the consequences. In Kormir’s case… depends on how much of Abaddon’s knowledge she’s successfully assimilated.

Knowing Kormir, she would make the machine without thinking about the consequences regardless of what she knew, act all surprised when things went KABOOM, make the PC clean up her mess and then claim all the credit for the hard work.

Dominik.5162:

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

ugrakarma.9416:

I just hope she’s not behind a Raid or Legendary.

….

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

If Out-Of-Character-Balthazar turned out to actually be Menzies who just ran with people mistaking him for Balthazar, it’d go a very long way towards redeeming the last episode. That much is certain.

Excessive plot-twist, is contraindicated and amateurish. I think there are enough stories of “this was not what it looked like, it was something else”.

Its miles better than “Balthazar is now lolevil and the next big bad and has forgotten all the stuff he was about and now acts like a backstabbing sneak instead of a god of war!”, but that is just me.

See that is the argumentation i hear all the time from people who say Balthazar’s reveal was bad.
You realize that Balthazar never was the loving Godfather of the Six, do you?
He always kinda had a heaty, unstable temper.
Something we don’t know just pushed him one step further into cruelty.
We don’t know what, might be anything at this point.
Personally i believe he lost the war to menzies, is about to lose it, or realized Menzies is just as powerful or even more so than him, which makes him take it a few steps too far.
It is far too early to call his actions Out-of-Character, because we don’t know that much about Balthazar to even make that claim.

I don’t recall claiming he was some loving godfather. He’s the god of war after all, but he’s not an Ares kind of god of war. Balthazar, going by whats stated of him in the wikis, his own zaishen, his association with honour, his association with valour and the games, is more an Athena. In ep5 he shows up and suddenly he’s gone all DC’s version of Ares of “Kitten everybody, don’t care about honour, kitten honour, don’t care about anything, I want MOAR POWAH NAO NAO NAO NAO NAO NAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”. So yeah I am calling this out of character for Balthazar. If you disagree thats fine, but its now how I see it. Nor am I interested in the five gods being villains(Kormir can go and jump into the abyss).

Especially so since ANet won’t even address the massive impact something like this would have on human society to begin with.

ugrakarma.9416:

I just hope she’s not behind a Raid or Legendary.

….

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

If Out-Of-Character-Balthazar turned out to actually be Menzies who just ran with people mistaking him for Balthazar, it’d go a very long way towards redeeming the last episode. That much is certain.

Excessive plot-twist, is contraindicated and amateurish. I think there are enough stories of “this was not what it looked like, it was something else”.

Its miles better than “Balthazar is now lolevil and the next big bad and has forgotten all the stuff he was about and now acts like a backstabbing sneak instead of a god of war!”, but that is just me.

Ayrilana.1396:

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

Ayrilana.1396:

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

Ayrilana.1396:

Just avoid the circles while going in a circle throwing the shards at him. DPS him when the shield during that phase and then repeat. Clear out all enemies.

I don’t see what a class would limit a player beyond DPS as the encounter is primarily mechanics based.

Considering the amount of effects and other things spammed at me in the tiny room I’d have to say this advice is… not helpful. Because I could barely see anything in the entire mess and for the record I finished the fight in the tiny room on my first try due to sheer dumb luck combined with the necromancer being about the only class that feels like it can survive more than one hit from anything post-LS2.

Circles can easily be seen as shown in the video below. “Barely able to see anything in the entire mess” is a bit of an exaggeration.

https://youtu.be/DW_bAuAhoaU

Here’s the wiki explaining the fight:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Confessor%27s_End

I don’t need a video to know what it looks like. I did the fight and got through it. I know what happens. It doesn’t change my experience one bit. It was a messy spam in a too tiny room that made it difficult to see anything and I was doing my best to spot the usual AoE warnings.

The video was to show that it’s easy to see what’s going on during the fight despite what was being claimed.

Which I looked at and all it did was show me again how much of a mess that fight is, but I’m not claiming to speak for others here mind. Just for myself.

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.

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.

perilisk.1874:

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

Force of nature villains are not an inherently bad idea, but the execution will make or break them much more easily than other types of villains. In the case of the dragons I’d say they were broken as they are some of the most boring pieces of lore ever introduced into the guild wars setting.

With force of nature villains, the antagonist or conflict that has narrative oomph is going to involve the people fighting against it — their conflicts or weaknesses, their triumphs, and so on. So, the real villain might be those people who threaten to get everyone else killed, whether due to panic, greed, ignorance, unwillingness to cooperate, desire to be in control, senseless desire for bureaucracy, etc.

Which is things you can have even when you have real antagonists. So a Force Of Nature villain doesn’t really bring much to the table beyond “We don’t need to write an interesting villain and can now be really lazy yay!”. Slight exaggaration on my part, but its just how I feel about such type of villains these days since I can barely think of any that was at all interesting.

If Out-Of-Character-Balthazar turned out to actually be Menzies who just ran with people mistaking him for Balthazar, it’d go a very long way towards redeeming the last episode. That much is certain.

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.

Ayrilana.1396:

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

Ayrilana.1396:

Just avoid the circles while going in a circle throwing the shards at him. DPS him when the shield during that phase and then repeat. Clear out all enemies.

I don’t see what a class would limit a player beyond DPS as the encounter is primarily mechanics based.

Considering the amount of effects and other things spammed at me in the tiny room I’d have to say this advice is… not helpful. Because I could barely see anything in the entire mess and for the record I finished the fight in the tiny room on my first try due to sheer dumb luck combined with the necromancer being about the only class that feels like it can survive more than one hit from anything post-LS2.

Circles can easily be seen as shown in the video below. “Barely able to see anything in the entire mess” is a bit of an exaggeration.

https://youtu.be/DW_bAuAhoaU

Here’s the wiki explaining the fight:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Confessor%27s_End

I don’t need a video to know what it looks like. I did the fight and got through it. I know what happens. It doesn’t change my experience one bit. It was a messy spam in a too tiny room that made it difficult to see anything and I was doing my best to spot the usual AoE warnings.

Ayrilana.1396:

Just avoid the circles while going in a circle throwing the shards at him. DPS him when the shield during that phase and then repeat. Clear out all enemies.

I don’t see what a class would limit a player beyond DPS as the encounter is primarily mechanics based.

Considering the amount of effects and other things spammed at me in the tiny room I’d have to say this advice is… not helpful. Because I could barely see anything in the entire mess and for the record I finished the fight in the tiny room on my first try due to sheer dumb luck combined with the necromancer being about the only class that feels like it can survive more than one hit from anything post-LS2.

Force of nature villains are not an inherently bad idea, but the execution will make or break them much more easily than other types of villains. In the case of the dragons I’d say they were broken as they are some of the most boring pieces of lore ever introduced into the guild wars setting.

To put it like this: Killing and beating elder dragons do not feel like I’m doing heroic and adventurous work, it feels like I’m going around clearing weeds out of my lawn since they engage and interact with my character just about as much. Although clearing weeds out of my lawn is a tad more engaging and I at least get a physical workout out of it.

Yeah I had a similar experience with Caudecus on my necromancer. Fortunately she can take a hit or two so I managed to claw my way through it eventually, but only because she’s ok at handling something that devolved into wars of attrition.

Honestly most of the time I had no clue what was actually going on because the space was so tiny and so full of AoE, spell effects and I don’t know what else that it was impossible for me to follow anything.

Ashantara.8731:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/flashpoint-on-guild-chat-a-summary/

Poor Aaron Roxby, he looks overworked (like all the people I’ve ever seen on GW2 Guild Chat) and must be devastated over our reactions on here, which pretty much sum up to: “Sorry Aaron, but your original intentions aside, you failed in what you tried to achieve.”

So he’s the one to blame for this farce of a season?(and whichever corporate overlords thats been meddling no doubt) He certainly hasn’t done anything make me think he’s competent at his job going by what I’ve seen so far.

For the many reasons already stated, Braham went way over the line and the only way to redeem him, in my opinion, at this point would be for him to die and be forgotten forever. Quite frankly even if the bad writing hadn’t hit some personal spots, I would’ve still wished for nothing but Brahams head on a pike after that farce of an episode.

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.

Hot Boy.7138:

Melandru looks like sylvari. Any connection between her and the Pale Tree?

That picture isn’t actually Melandru. Its the dervish skill that makes the player an avatar of Melandru.

That said there’s no connection with sylvari. She’s the human nature goddess to put it roughly.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Melandru

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It’s not “highly misleading” unless you misunderstand the terms. The OP is correct that Queen Jennah is a dictator — what happens if she was assassinated during one of the many “recent” attempts and Caudecus took power?

Crinn.7864:

Caduceus staging a coup is irrelevant to defining a dictatorship. You don’t define governments by what would happen if they are overthrown.

I define governments by where the authority is. You’re defining it by how Jennah behaves. If you don’t like the idea of Minister Caudecus taking over if Jennah was gone, then consider one of her relatives taking over upon her death due to anything you like. Unless you’re saying that the people elect her replacement, in which case she wouldn’t be a monarch.

Never heard of elective monarchies? The scandinavian monarchies(though this changed during the colonial era when several monarchies transitioned into absolute ones), the Holy Roman Empire, Rome(it was one before it became a republic) and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are historical examples of elective ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy