Guild Wars 2

Aden Yeshua.2148:

Agreed, but I believe the statement was what race would make the better warriors. Not who has the better strategy, and tactics. The lack of a centralized government ironically makes the Norn arguably the weakest in this regard.

If the Charr or Norn were to make a direct assault on the Pale Tree that would raise and answer a ton of questions. Would the Sylvari feel “compelled” to come home? Would the Nightmare Court help defend? Would the Tree in a desperate attempt to defend itself release all Sylvari still in the dream? Would the Sylvari turn from their average nature of explorers, and curious adventures, to more of a militaristic one? Would each altercation with the Charr be more pronounced in the Dream?

It is my belief that the Norn would not survive or do anything of note to the Pale Tree. The Charr on the other hand, well that depends. I believe (despite many on here) that the connection is just for that purpose. That if the Pale Tree were in true physical danger from the Charr that all Sylvari would feel “compelled” to defend. Some will resist, but I suspect the more danger the stronger the drive to return home.

Defensively with a few questions answered, I believe the Sylvari would come out on top over any race. They are fighting in a forest, with many natural camouflage enemies, with a leader that has a few centuries of knowledge. Not to mention the forest itself would be a massive home field advantage. -IF- the altercation were to last awhile, the Sylvari in general I believe would come out.

However, lol

The Charr have proven very resourceful, more than any other race. If they could strike the tree quickly and decisively they could easily win. If The Sylvari has three massive weaknesses. Their strength has a bunch of questions that need to be answered, their Home Base is easily seen and cannot change location, and offensively it would heavily depend on a prolonged altercation. – Something I believe the Sylvari cannot simply do at this time.

Surprisingly the Asura falls somewhere in there as well. With every Asura comes a power armor, or at least the ability to summon one, this puts even elderly, the young, and even the untrained on par with a battle hardened warrior. With golems then can survive altercations with no casualties, and like the Sylvari it only is a matter of time before they invented something that would change the course of the battle.

But just like the Sylvari it would require time, time that the Charr would not be able to afford them. If the Charr were to strike decisively at wherever and however they were building these power suits and golems the Asura would be reduced to nothing.

Humans are being pushed back and defeated already, they would not survive any altercation aside from a few Norn tribe strikes and even then…

The only weakness of the Charr would be if they conquered the tree to claim it for their own, or the Sylvari with their constant manipulation of the forest and Nature held the Charr back. They could easily cut off unit resupplies, heck even units themselves. Massive home field advantage, these two races would be the only one that I think would give them a run for thier money.

I feel like you’re not giving the non-Krytan humans a fair shake, I don’t know about you but I would not dismiss the humans of Ebonhawke. They held out against the Charr for generations through martial skill alone and I would personally not kitten with them . Queen Jennah’s people of Divinity’s Reach might be a bit of a pushover but Ebonhawke is a militarily raised society and most Charr commanders even Iron Legion themselves deem Ebonhawke and it’s Fallen Angels a formidable force.

I just find the Spirit’s of the Wild more interesting then the human gods as we get so little lore bits in regards to the Norn. And would find it a different experience to come face to face with one as perhaps all they are is large collections of magic, that are revered as gods? But, we know these spirits are capable of at least holding off an Elder Dragon as Ox, Wolverine, Owl and supposedly Eagle were able to give the Norn time to escape the dragon.

So, in Hoelbrak at the Lost Spirits Hollow, we get some really depressing and ominous dialogue from the shrines to the ‘lost spirits’ there. The spirits in question are Owl, who we know has a decrepit shrine in the Shiverpeak mountains and still retains a shaman and some followers.

The lesser two Spirits of the Wild, are even less known and any attempt to research them bears little fruit, from the wiki to the forums. This thread is mainly about what the dialogue implies, when attempting to “pay respects” to the spirits, as the Spirits of the Wild are less known then the human gods, obviously. But are the only things relevant to being a norn, despite what Samuel Cuttler the human NPC trying to convert norn to follow the human gods in Hoelbrak.

Do we assume that the dialogue at the shrine in question, means Jormag completely devoured Wolverine and Ox? Consuming their magic, as maybe that’s all they are? Or is there something more here?

http://imgur.com/a/87jnp

Uhh..what? Sylvari belong to the dragon, I’m not sure they’re great at anything anymore besides being the ultra traitors and the near-destruction of the Pact. And if you really want to get head-cannon-y, Norn are the greatest warriors because they are huge and turn into animal people which probably snap Sylvari In half. Needless, to say Charr and humans are probably more adept at warfare itself then most races for having embraced each other as enemies for the longest time.

How much later?

Thank you Konig for your useful insights, seeing as there clearly isn’t a direct answer here. Past someone coming out from the A-net Story team and answering it for us. But for the most part a major factor in this thread so far has been headcanon and assumptions. Thanks for sticking with what -WE- know for sure, going by official Guild Wars lore, Konig.

Walhalla.5473:

Uhhm Balthazar even said himself ( last instance of Flashpoint ) that he isn’t a god anymore. He got cast down, replaced by a new God of War, his divinity taken away ( with this also the blinding aspect ) and now he is looking to gobble up enough magic to be something like a God again.

He never said he “wasn’t” a god. He said his “light was dimmed.” Whatever, the hell we can assume that means. Which the choice-spectrum is pretty wide. We also don’t know that he was replaced either. He said, “There is no honor in war, but if you crave the glory of the fray, you shall have it.” Which means his distinction changed from his own perspective, not that he isn’t still considered the God of War.

But nice attempt at headcanon.

Samuel Cuttler the human NPC that spreads words of the gods to the norn in Hoelbrak as well, should have some dialogue to suggest that Balthazar is an awakened force in the world once more, as well. No?

We’ve looked at the face of a human god, and haven’t gone blind as the Commander. Isn’t that flying in the face of everything that the divine stands for? Especially, assuming that whatever Rytlock saw in the mists likely blinded him. And we have past evidence of sights of the gods have caused blindness. So it begs the question, why hasn’t the Commander gone blind? or Taimi, Kasmeer, Marjory for that matter? I suppose having a blind Commander doesn’t serve the story as adventuring would be limited, but perhaps a new form of sight, past mortal vision?

I don’t know, I feel like nothing changed for Necro, then again – i’m Condi as i’ve always been, even when it wasn’t viable. They didn’t nerf us, which I was pretty shocked as I expected to lose or at least get a reduced bitter chill? They didn’t buff us they just kind of…evened things out a bit more? Experimented a better word? They changed some Lich form stuff which was seriously outdated and made signets slightly better? Either way, if you were playing power before this patch, should still be able to.

It absolutely is important now, in fact it might be more important then it’s ever been. You know it’s a serious problem when the high-population servers are having issues in a dying gamemode. It was important 2+ years ago as well, but SoS and FA should have never been matched with TC to begin with. In it’s prime TC was a veritable force now it’s a shell of it’s former glory.

It’s beyond a drag, it’s not just killing guilds at this point. It’s killing the overall spirit of the server, as TC I never minded being the underdog, granted that the underdog stands a legitimate chance. Back in the earlier years, when [Hel] and [CERN] would roam together, it was fun getting into the server teamspeak and listening to Disco and Greenarrow discuss tactics and outsmart BG, back when they were top dog. Hell, wiping Black Gate when we know we’re outmanned and outgunned is a kitten good feeling, but those feelings come less and less now and we just get bottom-line trampled. WvW is straight up dying on Tarnished Coast.

This needs to stop, we’re not even same level of playing field that we once were, before we had like 5+ guilds server hop. It’s effectively killing what is left of the WvW community on Tarnished Coast for most players because they know that they are just going to enter the largest bottom-reaming experience imaginable. We have gone at least 10+ hours without a single commander to even be mentioned. On off-peak hours, whereas Black Gate and Maguuma are all in. It’s really pitiful at this point and this matchup needs to be split. To even think we are on the same tier as Maguuma and Black Gate at this point is absurd.

2016, do it. Engineer is god awful at everything but, PvP and who honestly cares about that YYeeeeaaaaahhhhh!

EVON GNASHBLADE – GONNA BUILD A WALL, KEEP ALL THE OTHER PROFESSIONS OUT, MAKE A-NET pay for it! UHHH…

It’s gonna be gr8, They’re stealing our jawbs…

Evon Gnashblade 2016.

You can follow me on the Twitter @RealEvonGnashblade

Together, we’re gonna make Engineer great again!

We’ll start with the rifle and work our way down, just like Crooked Ellen Kiel’s campaign, AHEHEHEHE.

No it didn’t, honestly i’d say it made it way better but opinion is opinion.

The Whisper’s Keep Outside the raid instance who tells you that the Pact Squad leader was taken inside, shouldn’t his dialogue change after or if you’ve actually defeated Matthias and liberated him? Shouldn’t he like acknowledge that fact? Just thought it might add some flavor.

Sort of like how the Captain’s Council still acknowledges you if you defeated Scarlet during the Assault on Lion’s Arch.

See? I don’t find Scarlet that scary at all, I saw her as generic and her plans was MUAHAHAHA villain, I get that she organized a major terrorist strike against Lions Arch, but even then she was just a crazy snowflake while Sabetha was a REGULAR human being who learned how to mix flamethrower powder and use it to devastating effect, she straight up tries to torch you the entire time, while that horrifying soundtrack plays in the background – like, she gives zero kittens about burning you alive.

As for Bria I just find her to be super Edgy in the way that a Linkin’ Park song is.

I think if there is an award that goes to the horrible people of Guild Wars history it’s gotta go to Sabetha the Saboteur, everything about her encounter to the music down to the individual herself is absolutely horrifying, this crazy woman shook me more then all the other encounters as she is PURElY in on the White Mantle conspiracy stuff purely for the money, and she wields her flamethrower to like realistic levels of terrifying. Matthias is just a zombie-man and Xena is just a crazy cultist you’d expect them to be awful people but Sabetha? Truly shows you how depraved a human can be. It’s just a shame there isn’t more to her story for her and Narella truly stood out to me more so then any other antagonist.

Then why is every group convinced that they don’t? Because they’d rather just tote a bajillion Tempests around?

I mean, are condi-reaper’s getting punished for doing what we do on the Keep Construct fight? Maybe, extend the burn phase so conditions can actually matter or is this an unintended consequence of Anet being Anet?

Randulf.7614:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4fjrxt/we_are_the_gw2_dev_team_here_to_chat_with_you/

Place to ask why

I asked why, just 1000 times why.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

If you’ll remember, wellomancer used to be a popular and powerful build.

Sadly, yes – but Chill damage from deathly swarm + deathly chill was the most fun i’d had with my necromancer in years and once again Anet really drops the ball.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

At least wells got a bump?

Not sure whether to laugh or cry at that fact. A buff to our most useless proponent.

It literally makes no sense and it hurts the fluid flow of how the build was played in the first place, it’s like taking an Arms warriors rend away in World of Warcraft, and I can’t even tell you how terribly that went over until they brought it back.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t why people are so offended by this change. The damage from Chill was NOT that good to begin with. That’s not to say what they changed it to was better though …

The whole rotation feels so less natural now, unless you main Necromancer you would not understand this in a PvE setting. Deathly Chill was nice because you could swing it with Dagger 4 swarm for a beautiful combo and get some damage out of doing so. Now? it’s like you apply a blind and a short duration of chill only to lose time you could have been damaging, it’s like when Blizzard removed Rend from warriors in World of Warcraft – it breaks the flow.

It’s not worth it – in short. Pick up Dhuumfire.

Afya.5842:

Roxhemar.6039:

flow.6043:

Guys, relax.
This change really isn’t as much of a nerf as you make it out to be. In fact, if you actually put some effort into your skill rotation you will be able to surpass the damage of the old trait.
Also, nothing is easier to cleanse now. Chilled is still there, the damage part just moved to a different condition, one that is applied a lot more frequently now. So if anything, you get better coverage for your overall condition pressure.

And let’s be honest, the strongest part about chilled wasn’t the damage anyway. It’s the movement impairment and the tripled cooldowns, which still works the same.

You have ZERO idea of the scope of this change. “Put some effort into your skill rotation” What? You want me to spam 1 more and apply more bleeding? Yeah, no thanks I dropped reaper and picked up Dhuumfire already and that last part you mentioned ONLY APPLIES IN PvP – I don’t know how many people Anet thinks ACTUALLY PvP, but for me? I could give a rats kitten .

This change is DETRIMENTAL to the way Condimancer played in the raid setting – need I emphasis the raid part?

You clearly need some chill.

Why? I’m annoyed and for what was otherwise a decent patch Engineers and Necromancer’s had to suck up the sap this patch for what reasons? PvP? That’s a lame reason, a super lame reason.

And any PvE condimancer worth their salt would be mad about this change, forget mad utterally decimated.

cobracommander.5861:

I understand that in PvE you may actually end up with a decent amount of dps from the bleed stacks

Except for you don’t, it’s not worth it for a grandmaster trait AT ALL, we have so many sources of bleed in PvE that it’s utterally pointless to be a reaper if you are a condi build, as Dhuumfire is superior now.

This is just a disaster anyway you look at it, PvP really needs to get over itself and stop affecting the PvE crowd.

flow.6043:

Guys, relax.
This change really isn’t as much of a nerf as you make it out to be. In fact, if you actually put some effort into your skill rotation you will be able to surpass the damage of the old trait.
Also, nothing is easier to cleanse now. Chilled is still there, the damage part just moved to a different condition, one that is applied a lot more frequently now. So if anything, you get better coverage for your overall condition pressure.

And let’s be honest, the strongest part about chilled wasn’t the damage anyway. It’s the movement impairment and the tripled cooldowns, which still works the same.

You have ZERO idea of the scope of this change. “Put some effort into your skill rotation” What? You want me to spam 1 more and apply more bleeding? Yeah, no thanks I dropped reaper and picked up Dhuumfire already and that last part you mentioned ONLY APPLIES IN PvP – I don’t know how many people Anet thinks ACTUALLY PvP, but for me? I could give a rats kitten .

This change is DETRIMENTAL to the way Condimancer played in the raid setting – need I emphasis the raid part?

Brighteluden.2974:

Yeah, it’s pretty sad..1 stack of bleeding applied for 8 seconds after applying chill ? Yep, that’s a dead trait now.

It’s worse then a dead trait, it’s literally become the new Dhuumfire while Dhuumfire has become the new Deathly Chills like what the absolute kittenery Anet?

Radu.1693:

Now each reaper can put 30 stacks of bleed on a target instead of all just increasing chill duration.
Plus skills that remove/reduce movement impairing skills wont effect the damage aspect of the trait.

It’s not worth it, we have infinite sources of bleed already, must as well pick up Dhuumfire.

Spartacus.3192:

Steelstickfig.9146:

Reapers were in the really unfortunately state that turret engis were in way back – namely that they just rolled over the average player. In higher-end matches, namely diamond/legendary, having any more than one necro on a team was a huge liability. But, as it stood, like 90% of the playerbase saw reapers as this unstoppable death machine that was in itself the perfect team-comp.

A bit like how DH is strong in lower tiers and look what happened to them. Not effective at high tiers yet the forums are full of QQ on DH. I have to admit i was expecting a reduction in chill damage on that GM trait, i wasnt expecting it to be completely changed. (i dont play necro btw)

And honestly, that would have made WAY more sense to just nerf the damage, if they really wanted to which – honestly I’m NOT EVEN SURE WHY?! But completely removing the damage makes the actual – supposed elite specialization a piece of garbage for anyone who runs a condition build.

Hey there, I’m Malika the Twisted a long time Necromancer and I like to think quite talented PvE condimancer and this post is to confirm the superiority of Dhuumfire.

With the miserable loss of our chill damage, Condimancers now need to refocus and for that we go back in time back to the good old Dhuumfire, I’m making this post to help those who loved their Deathly Chill dearly cope with what appears to be a nerf intended for PvPer’s, why PvE players had to swallow this pill, I’ve no idea – HOWEVER

I now run Curses (Which remains unchanged.) Soul Reaping and Blood Magic.

This means I am no longer running reaper shroud but INSTEAD the old school way of condimancing which is picking up Dhuumfire. Much like Chill previously applied damage, Dhuumfire is a DPS gain over picking the reaper Elite Specialization (So much for elite, Eh Anet? Lololololol)

However, this said Dhuumfire only applies in shroud and obviously as a Condimancer you are a ranged profession with scepter/dagger and for those few cool kids who run focus ^.-

SO because Reaper shroud is a melee oriented build, it is made obsolete, so for all you fellow Necromancer’s who worked their tails off for your ascended vipers, this one goes out to you…

Pick up Dhuumfire and save your place in your raid group.

Since we’ve already suffered a NET loss of DPS, Dhuumfire is a bandage for this god awful situation, not a complete fix but at least you won’t be completely broken. This is a trait that was forgotten by time and clearly, thankfully – forgotten by Anet.

There are so few actual damaging conditions and the new 8 sec bleed applied by deathly chill is worse then a joke, it’s quite frankly insulting.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Roxhemar.6039:

This change is just so much kitten , just like infinite amounts of kitten . Who in their right mind thought this was the ‘RIGHT’ way to balance the reaper?

You think ANET has a right mind? Please, you’re giving em too much credit.

Well, it seems Dhuumfire is superior and old school Condimancer is back, i’ve dropped out of my elite specialization for the purposes of PvE.

This change is just so much kitten , just like infinite amounts of kitten . Who in their right mind thought this was the ‘RIGHT’ way to balance the reaper?

Yeah, I wasn’t even mad about all the other nerfs, but this might have been the nail in the coffin for me with this profession, and I loved my necro to death (pun intended) RIP Condimancer that I invested endless amounts of time in to achieve full vipers.

THE STUPIDEST THING, is that I can just pick up Dhuumfire now and LITERALLY there is little difference minus the added bonuses of having chill’s uptime and skill reduction time.

Steelstickfig.9146:

Reapers were in the really unfortunately state that turret engis were in way back – namely that they just rolled over the average player. In higher-end matches, namely diamond/legendary, having any more than one necro on a team was a huge liability. But, as it stood, like 90% of the playerbase saw reapers as this unstoppable death machine that was in itself the perfect team-comp.

The nerf was inevitable, but waaaayyy too heavy-handed, imo. The worst part is not only were reapers’ offensive conditions bonked, but their only source of stability was too. And, what’s worse, reaper will still be able to destroy most players due to it maintaining its boon corruption capabilities.

But wells got their cooldown reduced slightly :^)

This isn’t even about the PvP implications, the PvE players now have to pay to swallow this bone that was what intended for PvP tryhards? That’s what make it even more god awful.

Lol, I know the first thing i’m doing is dropping reaper and picking up Dhuumfire now. Old School shroud here we come!

Why IN THE WORLD – would you remove the chill damage that was granted by the trait?! As it stands there isn’t nearly enough damaging conditions – so what now? Does this mean we have to spec out of the Elite Specialization of Reaper COMPLETELY just to pick up Dhuumfire? For old shroud condition damage through burning? Like before disco died?

I can stand a nerf, but this is completely abysmal to the way that the condimancer plays in the raid setting, chill is essential to controlling the adds during the Gorseval fight, but now you’re actually punished for taking chill traits, as it’s a Net DPS loss. Thus, who is honestly going to favor the slow control effect over the substantial loss in damage?

This is like absurdly stupid – just going to end this rant, right here.

Oh, yeah and thanks for making Deathly Chill add what? 8 seconds of a condition I ALREADY had in my kitten nal? Lulwhut, you might as well have made it add burning that way this change wouldn’t have been nearly as awful as it stands and not just a solid, middle-finger to every Condimancer worth their salt.

Wooden Potatoes put it in a way better way.

The wizard hat is the best hat ever, only it makes one horribly bald which isn’t a problem if you are an Asura…but any other profession it looks a bit funky and loses it’s flair, we’ve already been given the option to dye the Wizard hat? Any possible chance at making it so hair shows under it?

I’m not sure how many people this actually bothers, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try and get some response.

I’m also not sure how much of a process editing the model itself would be so that is is achievable for every race in the game as i’m not a game designer or art nor’ will I pretend to be.

Living World, everyone get’s to have fun with it/see it. As opposed to Legendaries which only the dedicated few will ever even finish and that is especially true for HoT legendaries.

Endless Soul.5178:

Holy kitten, this thread lol.

Right? The salt…if anything they should compensate these people by mailing every poster in this thread a vial of salt from the PvP meta.

When the female human pact commander rips Caithe a new one and even threatens her at some point, she just sounded so serious and out for blood against Mordremoth at that point. It’s really good voice acting!

The mushroom on a stick bundle you can pick up during a Tangled Depth’s Nuhoch beetle event “Nuhoch bait stick.” Should be a permanent skin, i’d like to pay for said ridiculous skin. Maybe? A sword skin? Either way, there is enough ridiculous weapon skins already, so why not Mushroom on a stick?

Is that true though? It would make more sense for her to be White Mantle, but I still feel like she was simply hired by the Mantle which is deeper in the compound itself along with whatever she describes. I just don’t see the direct link between her and the Mantle and I found her to be an interesting character, I wish we knew more.

Plus, Knuckles one of her ‘crew mates’ or rather lackeys comments on a certain disdain for his name and even offers to help us as the players before being cut off by Sabetha herself. Which suggests he doesn’t even want to be there to begin with. Most White Manyle cultists wouldn’t question what they’re doing, they’d just do it.

I finally got my first Sabetha kill today was super hectic and i’m a Guild Wars lore nerd, and I get that the forsaken thicket is somehow connected to bloodstone magic…but Sabetha has a voice acted greeting that seriously unsettled me, as if it wasn’t enough that she’s a crazy pyromaniac bandit queen lady.

“You’ve fought hard to get here! Do you even HAVE any idea what is actually IN this compound?!”

More importantly, why does she care -WHAT IS IN THAT COMPOUND-?!?!

Subtle hints of the White Mantles presence is strewn all over the place and I’ve looked at the completed texts and get an idea where it’s going but what does it all mean? For real.

I get it, Sabetha captures the Pact squad leader (Whoever he is.) For some unknown reason, the other soldiers say they were spared because of his sacrifice ect, ect. But how does Sabetha a mad-woman wielding the most crazy flamethrower ever, fit into the White Mantle? Bandit’s have rarely been associated with them…and why would mere bandit’s care about kidnapping someone instead of pillaging them? How long was Sabetha and her ‘crew’ living in that part of Maguuma? So many questions not nearly enough answers.

It’s back in the saddle – So today, I followed the guidelines that Sligh.2789 apparently uses to help him get decent Tequatl rewards and…I got gold mostly everytime and at the end I got a Angchu Ascended Weapon Chest…whether focusing on battery defense helped or not…I cannot say or prove otherwise, however for once Tequatl didn’t give me garbage.

So the real question to now be asked…

IS THERE A SECRET TEQUATL PARTICIPATION METER?