Guild Wars 2

The tool tips are completely inadequate. There are so many questions about what traits and skill do what when merged with the pet, we can’t see half of them. I simply don’t know what half of the ranger skills or traits do because they were built around the pet. What does Empathic Bond do? Shared Anguish? Guard? It’s difficult to test anything without tool tips.

Some traits which should work with beast mode simply don’t. The BM line has a minor that reduces pet skill recharge by 20% but does nothing for beast mode skills. The same with skills.

It desperately needs a pet swap while in beast mode. Transitioning to a second pet’s beast skills feels absolutely terrible and clunky, I didn’t even bother because it took too long. More important there are so many traits which activate on pet swap that simply do nothing when merged with your pet and that actually creates situations where there is no good trait to bring on some lines (like BM GM trait where you have an axe trait, a pet swap trait and a pet taunt trait – a longbow ranger in WvW doesn’t want any of these while in beast mode and they don’t want to leave beast mode 99% of the time).

Beast abilities are way too restrictive to specific weapon types. What is a ranged power build supposed to bring? Worldly Impact is useless to me when I’m constantly at 1500 range with my longbow. I would even consider using the support skill Spiritual Reprieve except it’s locked to pets that don’t have the Ferocious buff. So when I’m in WvW with a longbow I’m simply never using my Beast skill, or only using it when I’m jumped on by a thief, which simply feels wrong. Why is there no ranged skill option for ferocious pets?

Lots of pet skills in Beast Mode from core pets don’t translate well to this new system. Most of the core pets which give the Deadly (condi) buff don’t actually inflict conditions on their Beast Mode skills. There seems to be very few pets at all which actually give you condition DPS skills and the ones that do usually only give one (Iboga is the only one that gives two that I saw). So many skills we get aren’t that interesting to use.

The Beast Mode aura cuts through the body of a charr because unlike humans (the default in this game) charr are hunched over. It’s weird using a skill like bite on a charr and instead of biting, he shoves his palm forward.

I’m concerned about Oppressive Superiority. It’s absolutely useless in 99% of PvE because everything has more health than a player. The same thing will be for Vulture Stance’s ability to give us more ways to inflict poison. I thought Soulbeast was finally going to be a DPS spec for ranger, especially when core ranger condi was nerfed in the last balance patch, but I’m very concerned after seeing the dagger in play and the PvP oriented design of traits and skills like OS and VS.

I’m beginning to agree with others that I don’t think elite specs have been very good to ranger. Druid was a healer tacked onto ranger and Soulbeast doesn’t do enough to make up for giving up a pet, nor does transitioning between pet and Beast Mode feel good if you try to make use of both. I wish they had simply worked on core ranger and strengthened that. Beastmode feels like a cool concept that falls far short of what it tries to be.

Beast skills aren’t the skills the pet gives us when they merge, they are only a single skill that the pet gives us. The game also appears to classify the F2 as a beast skill now iirc from the demo.

In the demo you couldn’t actually merge with your pet but the pet panel listed all the Soulbeast skills from each pet when selected and showed which Beast skill they gave the ranger when merged and which stat buffs they gave. I’ll use the example Irenio gave in the blog, the fern hound gives the supportive beast skill (the same Beast skill given by the Jacaranda) and gives support stats iirc. The drake hound gives the Worldly Impact Beast skill when merged and the Ferocious buff. The white moa gives the Primary Cry beast skill when merged and the Deadly buff.

Another example is the brown bear. When merged with it, you get Defy Pain as one of your skills but it is not labeled as a Beast skill. The brown bear’s beast skill when merged is Spiritual Reprieve and it gives the Supportive buff (vitality and healing).

The F1 and F2 skills when merged are not classified as Beast skills, only the F3 skill when merged or the pet’s F2 skill are Beast skills. You won’t be causing AoE blind or weakness or taunt every time you hit F1 or F2 while merged, it’s only when you use a Beast skill which is either F3 when merged or F2 on your pet.

Ranys is correct.

So I noticed that the mounts scale with the character slider and all race’s mount size is the same if they use the same height in character creation. Unfortunately this makes the smallest asura mount the same size as the smallest charr mount, and it looks completely silly having a raptor that is barely bigger than my charr running around with me on its back. It becomes even sillier being next to humans who are much smaller than my charr with much bigger mounts because of their slider.

Please adjust the base size of mounts so that they are more proportional in relation to our race’s size and not just scale them all off of what works best for humans.

How do you guys feel about the Shining Blade being a literal item?

Personally I love when magical artifacts are a part of a story (or just prophecied ones, they don’t even need to be legendary). Reading all the speculation into how certain weapons fit into different Prophecies in GoT and the myriad interpretations they have is part of why I like fantasy.

It’s for that reason I really disliked the way the Shining Blade (the sword) plot was implement, and Livia’s plot along with it. It feels like an asspull – something that came out of nowhere and was suddenly very important. I think it’s more important in this context because it’s the Shining Blade – an organisation we’re very familiar with from GW1 and all this nonsense about the oath and the magical sword etc might have context to exist (to prevent the Henge of Denravi incident from ever happening again) but it all happens off screen and out of nowhere. There’s no fun to legendary artifacts and prophecies if they are introduced and executed at the same time, it just feels unearned.

I’m led to believe it’s possible the Shining Blade itself was Bartholos’ blade, but that kind of diminishes it’s power in my eyes. Bartholos himself was added in EotN and wasn’t around during some of the most important Shining Blade moments (like the Henge) and we have no reason to believe there was anything special about his blade – he never says anything about it nor does it ever display magical properties. The organisation had it’s name long before this artifact supposedly existed and Bartholos himself actually goes on to found the Seraph, presumably taking his sword with him? Why would his weapon have any significance to the organisation, let alone magical properties?

The Shining Blade (the weapon) feels like a cheap plot device that cashes in on our nostalgia and not actual good writing which sets up and executes on a magical artifact or a prophecy. It might have been easier to pull off if we weren’t so closely linked to the Shining Blade in GW1 and didn’t know for a fact there was no significant sword at the time, but we do know that. The sword’s significance or power likely would have had to come in the last 250 years as the organisation reformed but my problem with that is any of that lore is nonexistent until the sword is supposed to play a role in the story.

When Livia says in the trailer “are you ready to fulfill a prophecy” I thought for sure it was one we had known prior or one that was going to be fulfilled in the upcoming expansion. I’m still not sure what prophecy we were supposed to fulfill in that episode (is it some Lazarus/Shining Blade thing from EotN I missed?).

Compare the lore vacuum around the Shining Blade (the weapon) to the lore surrounding Rurik/Rytlock’s sword. Sure in GW1 the sword itself is shown to have no power (but it does have some significance by being wielded by human royalty) but since then they’ve established a prophecy relating to it and they’ve linked a powerful magical event (the Foefire) to its use. This makes the sword and it’s twin items of interest in GW2. We can get excited about their potential uses in the story, we can speculate how they will be used (if ever) to cleanse the Foefire (and what that means). We can even speculate about who uses them (Jennah as a descendant from Doric? Samuelson as a closer descendant to the Ascalon royal line? Rytlock while summoning Barradin as a revenant?) and will it be used in a way that simply puts their souls at rest, scours them from existence or rallies them to fight as our allies against the dragons? Magdaer is better established in the lore, it has a prophecy related to it and thus its inclusion in the story is better earned and more satisfying for the audience.

The Shining Blade (the weapon) to me symbolises what’s wrong with how GW1 lore is being utilised in the ongoing story. It doesn’t feel earned and it doesn’t feel true to its roots.

I assume you’ve pulled these from the wiki assuming the wiki/game under the assumption it’s the last two skills and you haven’t actually checked them in game?

It’s possible the upcoming balance patch will actually change the pet skills. It makes sense to go through all the core and HoT pet skills and look at exactly what the ranger is getting when they merge, so it would have also been a good time to say “this sucks let’s make it better”.

Maybe we will see some core pet skill changes that will be different from what’s in the game currently. Core pet skills are kind of like underwater combat skills – most haven’t been touched in years so this is the perfect opportunity to do some polish on them.

Another thing to keep in mind is the pets determine both the skills and the stat buffs. It’s very likely most players will avoid some skills because they are linked to pet which give undesirable stat buffs when merged (this would likely rule out any pet that gives defensive stats when merged from being used in raids). The PvE meta will end up favoring one, maybe two families and any pets outside of those families won’t be desired even if their merged skills are awesome.

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Shiren.9532:

…

The CDI was full of people who didn’t play ranger, at least not as a main. The ranger is fundamentally a pet class and anyone who didn’t want a pet simply should have picked something else. There are certainly situations where you may not want to have a pet out (like a longbow ranger fighting a zerg) but the idea that the ranger community doesn’t want the pet is simply false – anyone who didn’t want a pet obviously wouldn’t pick the only class who’s fundamental mechanic is a pet. …

We pick a ranger because we want to role play a ranger and not a beastmaster.

That’s not what the ranger is or ever was. It was always, from the first reveal, a pet class. They’ve never wavered on the pet being the class mechanic of the ranger.

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Shiren.9532:

You might have wanted to be a lone wolf skirmisher of the wilds, but that was never the ranger. The ranger is defined at its very core by the pet.

It was the ranger in guild wars 1 and there is no other class for this type of gameplay.

The soulbeast is fundamentally a non-pet class and anyone who want a pet simply should have picked something else

I don’t know where you’re getting that from. The soulbeast clearly swaps back and forth between having the pet out and merging with it. The pet is still a vital part of the design of the soulbeast. If you choose to always merge with your pet, that appears to be an option, but it looks like that would be similar to choosing to to never leave fire attunement – there will be situations where you would be objectively inferior to someone who utilises the full tool kit and not just one part of it.

If you want to permanently give up access to all of your pet’s power and their F2 skills (which on most pets is the best skill) that’s your choice. I doubt it will be the best one.

CountzuCrytus.7256:

This is so funny, people are now complaining about possibly being petless.

If anyone remembers the ranger CDI, you should remember this elite spec since it was your (our) idea In the first place. I personally can’t wait.. also to see the new pets Elona has to offer!

The CDI was full of people who didn’t play ranger, at least not as a main. The ranger is fundamentally a pet class and anyone who didn’t want a pet simply should have picked something else. There are certainly situations where you may not want to have a pet out (like a longbow ranger fighting a zerg) but the idea that the ranger community doesn’t want the pet is simply false – anyone who didn’t want a pet obviously wouldn’t pick the only class who’s fundamental mechanic is a pet. You might have wanted to be a lone wolf skirmisher of the wilds, but that was never the ranger. The ranger is defined at its very core by the pet.

If you want to see the new pets there is another thread which lists them all (there are five). There is video footage of them all with the exception of the sand lions afaik (although it may be an ambient mob in someone’s footage).

Lazze.9870:

Druid is great. People still complaining about it can’t even be taken seriously as far as I’m concerned. It’s great at what it does.
Soulbeast got a lot of potential too.

Druid could have been thrown on any other profession and called the Astrologer and it would be pretty much the same elite spec. It could have actually been a new profession its identity is so completely detached from the ranger. That’s my problem with it. It’s fine, but it’s not a ranger nor does it build upon what the ranger is.

To me the soulbeast will live or die depending on how they handle the ranger traits and skills that buff the pet. Will rangers get 33% movement speed if they have the BM line and merge with the pet? What happens to effects like Fortifying Bond or We Heal as One? Are shouts completely useless when bonded to your pet? Does Natural Healing now heal the ranger? What does Empathic Bond? Will auto-attacking with a sword give the ranger might?

If the answer is simply all of these traits and skills stop functioning when the ranger bonds with their pet (or even some of them), that’s a massive problem (especially when many of these traits are minors and unavoidable). It’s not reasonable to tell elementalists their attunements don’t matter or their cantrips can’t be used with a new elite spec, so it’s also not reasonable to deny rangers of their pet traits and skills either.

On the other hand, if merging with the pet does give all that power to the ranger (even if it’s reduced on some level) why would rangers ever use a pet? My biggest fear with this spec, and it has been this way since the CDI, is that we keep seeing the devs move away from the pet. This is the second elite spec now which doesn’t actually improve the pet mechanic and the first to outright replace it. They keep shifting the identity rather than embracing it. It’s a huge improvement on the druid (which play fine but it’s not a ranger) but I really hope the devs aren’t giving up on the pet.

Dragon.4782:

I don’t quite see the cheetah, could you point it out for me? :p Also I am really excited for the gazelle and the others seem to be good too!

It doesn’t look like a cheetah with its icon (which is why I am unsure if it is a cheetah) but that’s what the tool tip looked like to me. It’s located right next to the sand lion in the pet menu (it’s the purplish looking thing). If you watch the mouse overs, there is a fraction of a second where she hovers over the sand lion and cheetah tool tips as she’s moving the cursor down to the iboga and jacaranda. I don’t believe she realised they were new pets. It took me about 10 minutes of trying to freeze the video on the exact moment where the tool tip was visible (Youtube wasn’t helpful even at .25 speed).

There is footage of what I think is the cheetah in the announcement post-show. A ranger player attacks the golems with one for a few brief moments while the stream was showing off the weaver skills (https://youtu.be/FOr-LO38Mts?t=1h40m11s). That link should start you off just before the pet makes an appearance. It’s possible that might be the sand lion though.

Levetty.1279:

Condi from Ranger doesn’t suffer the same problem as power attacks do of lower coefficents because of the Pet. That is why our Condi build is so much better.

So a small stat buff, the condis dagger seems to be able to stack and new pet skills should result in Condi being pretty good and making up for no pet. If power gets the same stat buff, say 150 power and 150 ferocity, then it definetly won’t make up for the lack of Pet, hopefully some of the pet merges add some pretty hard hitting power skills and maybe a power pet merge will give % increases instead.

I think it’s time they just give a raw buff to power weapons for ranger (sword at the very least). Power in general has fallen out of the meta but the strength of condi (which doesn’t suffer from the archaic scaling system of power with weapon skills) shows that a ranger with competitive DPS isn’t a problem for the meta. It also seems possible the soulbeast might actually buff the condi ranger build if the dagger skills are superior to axe and the trait line beats out the skirmishing or beast mastery ones.

Play any content with a glass power build on a ranger and compare it to a glass viper build to see how poorly balanced the state of power rangers is. I agree though, a raw stat buff from beast mode won’t change this. I’m actually concerned that because, if I understand it correctly, ranger weapon skills get less effective power from their stats compared to a class like the warrior, that throwing raw power at the ranger from absorbing a cat or a bird, it will actually be less effective than the pet itself was. I might not be understanding the state of stats and their interactions with skills, but I recall a discussion a while back saying that +1 power resulted in more damage on a warrior weapon skill than it did on a ranger one and it was theorized this was because ranger skills had lower stat scaling to account for the pet.

I’m guessing most people will combo soulbeast dagger with torch and shortbow. Off-hand dagger still won’t be a thing unless you want the evade in PvP (which you often do and there is evade synergy in at least one soulbeast skill).

I’m guessing they want to avoid giving us the F2 skill because many are very powerful and they still want us to have a reason to exit beast mode and use our pet.

It said traits may not work the same on the ranger but they can’t just outright ignore them (that would be bad design). Maybe they still work but are not as strong? The might on crit trait could be really strong (what would ranger shouts do?), but obviously things like Empathic Bond do? Will it just flat out remove the conditions from us while in beast mode?

I can’t see any way around it other than making skills and traits which give the pet something when used will now give it to the ranger instead wherever possible or whenever it makes sense.

From one of the videos it looks like pets get classified into a type. The one shown was an Iboga as a Deadly type. This type gives the ranger a buff when in beast mode (Deadly pets increase precision and condition damage).

The ranger also gains two pet skills (it doesn’t look like the F2 skills are given to the ranger but two other family skills currently controlled by pet AI) and a third skill which I think is determined by the type of pet (the Iboga and the Warthog both had the same third skill, so it’s definitely shared by pet family but a much broader grouping).

Unfortunately this likely means rangers won’t get panther stealth or smokescale invulnerability field. I’m not sure why we don’t get the F2 skills – they are easily the most useful pet skills and far more interesting to use (one of the warthog skills was maul – does damage and makes the foe bleed, big woop). It also means my charr won’t get to fly and breath fire like a wyvern.

It appears as though there is no limit to pet merges. Expect to see a lot of rangers that never use a pet anymore (this might be why we don’t get the F2 skill in beast mode- it’s a good reason to continue to swap back and forth to access the beast mode skills as well as the pet F2 skills). I’m guessing the most effective rangers will dance back and forth to make use of pet F2 skills and access the cooldowns of the pet AI skills. It will be interesting to see rangers begin to learn skills their pets currently use but we never pay attention to them because they are AI skills (wolf knockdown leap, wyvern wing knockdown, bear’s defy pain etc) but now we are going to access them directly in beast mode.

I hope the do a balance pass of core pet to make sure they have interesting uses rather than just forcing us into PoF pets because they were better designed to accommodate the new system.

imarah.7940:

The Aurora Peachy video (this one at 32:07: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqj-yOPEudA&feature=youtu.be&t=2120) shows at least 5 new pets:

- Iboga
- Jacaranda
- Rock gazelle
- Two others between the Tiger and devourer on the third row of the pet selection screen, one of them leonine (a roaring ether maybe?)

She mouses over them briefly (like a fraction of a second). The one on the right is a “Sand Lion”. Maybe similar to the wolf mount? The lore on the HoT website says the wolf mounts are gifts of the djinn, magical sand or something along those lines. The djinn and the roaring ethers were closely related and they look similar so it’s possible sand lion and roaring ether are the same thing.

The one on the left look like Cheeta…. I think Cheetah? Maybe Cheetalk? The last two letters were hard to make out. It’s skill is Savannah Strike. Cheetah makes the most sense but it’s kind of purple? Maybe it’s a branded cheetah or something?

Jacranda looks like a proper support pet?

Spiritual Repreive
Restore Health to your allies and grant them a repreive from conditions.
Healing 4,235
Resistance 3.5 seconds
Targets 5
Cast time 1.5 seconds
Cooldown 40 seconds
Radius 600

and

Photosynthesize
Restore health, gain regeneration and remove conditons.
Healing 2,572
Regen 6 seconds
Conditions removed 2 seconds
Cast time 1 second
Cooldown 20 seconds

It also has a skill called Call Lightning (which fits the GW1 jacaranda tool kit).

From what I can tell, rangers get two skills from the pet (not the F2 skill unfortunately) and one skill from the pet category (different from family). In the case of the jacaranda, Photosynthesize and Call lightning are the pet skills and Spiritual Reprieve is the pet category skill (which is likely shared with other support type pet, like maybe the fern hound?).

When she goes over the Iboga skills it shows three skills, so it looks like rangers will absorb their pets and gain access to three skills from them. Iboga skills inflict confusion, so I’m betting they want you to play a condi ranger in PvP. The category skill (which is also shared with the warthog) is an AoE ranged bleed.

Also keep in mind, it’s likely the pet skills when used by the ranger will use ranger stats, so poor condi values on pets will be much more powerful when used by rangers with viper gear. The dagger skills seem very condi oriented, so expect lots of condition stacking from soulbeasts.

While merged with the Iboga she has a buff called “Deadly”.

Deadly: Merging with a Deadly pet has increased your condition damage and precision.

This might be how they make up for losing the raw stats of a ranger pet. If pets are classified into types and give buffs like according to their type (Deadly for DPS condi pets like Ibogas and maybe spiders, possibly something like Hearty for toughness and vitality from bears?) then this is the stat buff rangers have been asking for. I’m skeptical if it will be enough for the low damage numbers rangers get from their weapons – especially power rangers who are already struggling really bad.

It’s worth noting the warthog doesn’t give her its F2 skill (which is forage). It gives her Brutal Charge and Maul (in addition to a Beast skill that the Iboga gave her, so maybe warthog is a deadly pet and all deadly pets get that skill?). The drakehound doesn’t either, so you lose pet F2 skills in beast form? It’s really hard to tell.

There appears to be five new pets. Jacaranda (floating shrub thing that uses lightning magic), Iboga (cobra plant thing that inflicts confusion), Rock Gazelle (shown in the announcement trailer), Sand Lion and Cheetah.

From what I’ve gleaned from the stream, there looks like at least four new pets.

The Iboga (the plant thing in the soulbeast video on the website), some kind of rock deer thing (briefly shown in the trailer) and those are the two pets in the OPs post.

The other one I saw seems to be a Jackaranda (https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Stormseed_Jacaranda) another plant creature from Nightfall. Bizarely they were air elementalists with lightning magic (which might be strange on a pet) and the Ibogas were mesmers with domination magic iirc. It seems possible that the Iboga and the Jacaranda may be from the same pet family, both being plants.

The other creature I saw that I think is a ranger pet was in the Woodenpotatoes stream in the PvP lobby when he’s by the golems showing off elite specs (sadly he doesn’t do soulbeast). You don’t get a good look at it but it looks like some kind of wolf/cat-like creature with a longish tail. Another ranger walks up to the golem and seems to have it as their pet, although he quickly merges with it so it’s hard to get a good look.

Most of those skills in the Peachy video seem to be the new soulbeast stance skills, not a sign of a dolyak pet family.

maddoctor.2738:

So your group wiped 10 times at some content you did for the first time in your life. And then you complain that the content is the problem. Right. And then we don’t know why we can’t have good things in the game.

To be fair, he said he did it on level 25. Low level fractals are supposed to be incredibly easy, easier than dungeons.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Shiren.9532:

The fact that there is some magical curse on me that stops me from working against Kryta is horribly wrong, especially as a charr.

That’s not what the oath does. It merely prevents you from talking about the secrets of the Shining Blade order. It doesn’t force one to work for Kryta, nor does it prevent one from working against Kryta – they just cannot tell anyone about the groups’ secrets.

Except it does. Anise specifically says when you ask about it that it prevents you from acting against the interests of Kryta. It’s not just a seal on your ability to say something they tell you in secret, which in itself is unexplored territory. How is magic sentient enough to detect if we’ve told a lie and trigger a kill switch? That implies some kind deep meddling with our minds and that makes the whole thing far more stupid of an act for us, especially if we are members of intelligence organisations like the Whispers or Ash legion for example.

Commander: It’s just an oath of secrecy, right?
Kerida: (laugh)
Anise: There’s more to it than promising to keep our secrets. The magic involved requires igniting certain of your emotions.
Kerida: You could die.
Commander: What do I have to do? I won’t be at your beck and call. No way. Besdies, I have an important mission to complete.
Anise: You will be an agent at large. You will have special freedoms, so long as you’re not working against Kryta.

We signed ourselves over to people who we know are untrustworthy, who we know have deceived people on their own side (Anise’s deception of Logan during the Queen’s Speech as one example) and who we know are ruthless in their determination to protect Kryta above all else, something both Livia and Anise have been shown to do. In recent history the humans have destroyed their own kingdom twice using powerful artifacts, both times in opposition to the charr. Theoretically would Logan’s decision to ignore Jennah’s call for help and instead help Snaff and Glint take down Kralkatorrik be considered acting against Kryta? It’s subjective. Would working undercover for the Ash Legion with rebels in Fields of Ruin be considered acting against Kryta? What if we had to kill Krytan soldiers to maintain cover? What if Jennah forbids the Pact commander and our allies from going through the gate at Ebonhawke? What if she decides to ally with Balthazar because he is a human god?

We simply cannot justify giving this ridiculous power over our lives to the Shining Blade. It was a grave mistake on part of the writers to put the player character into this position, particularly with such flimsy motivation to do it.

My charr is a member of the Blood Legion. Can you imagine a US soldier swearing a death oath to never act against the interests of the Russians and to keep their secrets simply to find out information the Russians might have on something useful? The charr race’s relationship with the humans is still not stable and the peace talks as far as I’m aware are between the Iron Legion and the humans, not the Ash and Blood Legions. Ash and Blood Legion charr respect Iron Legion policy while in their territory but have no official treaty with the humans themselves. It’s insane that a Blood Legion charr would have sworn this oath, imagine an Ash Legion charr swearing it. That’s like a CIA agent swearing to to protect the secrets of the KGB even from the CIA and the US government. It’s ludicrous!

What if we find out something which will save Pact lives, or the lives of our guild, but in revealing the information it will compromise the Shining Blade or Kryta in some way? We won’t be able to fulfill our duty to protect our allies, as their leader we are enslaved to an organisation we have no business committing to.

How can a sylvari even guarantee the Shining Blade’s secrets won’t become a part of the Dream? How can the Shining Blade be sure how the Dream works and whether than information can be entrusted to a race with something like the Dream?

On top of all that, it’s simply bad writing for us to be joining yet another organisation when they aren’t respecting the organisations we are already members of. As a charr I’m a member of the Blood Legion, I have my own warband, I joined the Vigil and I was a founding member and commander of the Pact. We’ve also since founded our own guild, which is all but a joke at this point.

That’s all assuming the oath is only as sinister as Anise claimed it was. What if it’s an indiscriminate kill switch that gave Anise power over us and she’s free to use it whenever she wants know? What if it compromised our minds allowing Anise access to the secrets of our legions, the Pact, our guild or our order? We simply cannot trust Anise to have any kind of power over us, certainly not power we don’t fully understand.

We’ve thrown all logic out the window to fulfill someone’s fanfiction of joining the Shining Blade.

ugrakarma.9416:

…. I do not know the lore of Guild Wars 1, what is the gap between the events of Guild Wars 1 and 2? Are they 100, 200 years old? Does this mean that most of the GW1 characters are unknown to the “current generation” and remembered to us as old stories or legends? Those who are alive as Livia, are those who had “something special” to have longevity?

There was 250 years between the end of GW1 and the beginning of GW2 (give or take, I think War in Kryta – Living Story of GW1 – cuts into that by a few years). Almost everyone from GW1 should be dead unless they live for a long time or had supernatural means of staying alive (Livia had the Scepter of Orr – an incredibly powerful artifact).

Off the top of my head only Livia, MOX, Ogden, Lazarus and almost Glint (was killed a couple years before GW2 begins) have been revealed to be alive today. Multiple Ascalonian ghosts were brought back, almost everyone else should be dead (including the GW1 norn who I think live longer than humans).

It’s likely some other creatures might still be alive just not seen yet – like the seers, forgotten, other dwarves, Palawa Joko and his undead army, and Razzah – a magical humanlike creature.

I have to echo many of the above comments – the idea was good but the execution left much to be desired. It feels like Season 3 was two plots mashed together and they both suffered because of it. It looks to me like the Lazarus plot was supposed to be the main plot but it was clumsily merged with Balthazar as a hook into the expansion. This made the Balthazar reveal confusing (why pretend to be Lazarus, why was he interested in Lazarus at all, it’s just a bloody coincidence to tell the stories parallel). It also made the Lazarus re-reveal confusion – so he was still around and we are still chasing him? I think the season would have been much stronger if it had focused just on Lazarus.

I was shocked (in a bad way) when my charr joined the Shining Blade. The whole idea of my charr joining a human secret cult dedicated to Protecting the human monarch had be crawling in my skin. It felt so unbelievably wrong taking some kind of suicide oath for a poorly established motive. The entire second instance, or at least the bit where we join the Shining Blade, felt entirely unnecessary and conflicts so much with how I see my character. As cool as the secret hideout was, it’s a rehash of the Hidden Arcana trope with the Priory Archive (which was done much better and shows you don’t need a ridiculous suicide oath to access classified information). The fact that there is some magical curse on me that stops me from working against Kryta is horribly wrong, especially as a charr.

The actual act of joining the cult came off as comical to me, which was the wrong tone considering the gravity of what the oath means. If I didn’t feel so out of character joining them I would have laughed at the cringe dialogue while the inner circle throws rocks at us. To make it worse – the fire trial takes place under what looks like Flame Legion assets, which further felt wrong on a charr. Trusting Anise for such a flimsy motive is probably the dumbest thing my character has done.

When I found out we were going to Orr I assumed it was to contact the other gods (maybe it’s the closest place between Tyria and wherever they came from seeing as it is the city of the human gods) or at least to access hidden information about Balthazar in the archives, kind of like the explorable paths of Arah. That would have made a lot of sense to me. The Lazarus aspect being conveniently placed on the map as the only reason for being there was a huge wasted opportunity.

I was also disappointed to see limited Pact presence on the map. I was expecting to see some serious closure to the Zhaitan plot here with a robust representation of how the Pact cleansing of Orr is going. Overall I feel like so much more could have been done with Orr. The environment artists hit it out of the park as usual, but the lore and story of the new map left much to be desired.

I’m glad the supporting characters weren’t in it much, the story flows much better without them. One of the strengths of Season 3 is that they were used sparingly and it allowed the story to better be told by characters like Anise, Logan or Livia. I was also glad there was recognition of Caithe’s wyld hunt and our entitlement issues over the egg. We were both given a vision from a dragon champion to protect the egg, one of us decided the other was a traitor for trying to fulfill it.

Livia felt rushed and out of nowhere. It doesn’t really explain where she was during the numerous times Jennah was possibly going to die or Kryta was under serious threat. It’s a shame the entire Lazarus aspect gathering plot happens off screen only to be rushed in at the final moment. I also wish they had put some effort into recreating Livia’s actual hair rather than the weird one they went with. I also missed her old outfit. It really doesn’t look much like Livia.

How many people actually got Crystal Desert from the teaser at the end? I certainly didn’t and I’ve seen the expansion spoilers.

Thustlewhumber.7416:

PabbyGaul.9682:

The 2k rewards arent for new players. #notyourpvecandy

If I could upvote, I would

IMHO they need to RAISE the requirement to at least 3k on the T3 armor. It is a reward for those who have actually put in the time/effort, not for those wanting a new shiny. There needs to be something that distinguishes veteran WvW players from fair-weather players with entitlement issues.

If you want the T1 Triumphant armor set, you can already get it easy enough through the WvW rewards track. It should take you about 2 weeks to get a full set, tops.

What about the scouts, upgraders and yak escorts, keep siegersand tappers, and home BL camp flippers? They will have much lower WvW ranks than someone who ktrains or people who sit between SM and a keep fighting zergs yet they are some of the most important, hardcore and dedicated WvW players in the game.

Why don’t they deserve to be able to purchase the prestige WvW armor when their contribution to a server is often far greater than any one person in a zerg who has a much higher Wxp yield?

It’s not OK that the current rank requirement unfairly disciminates against low Wxp yielding roles in WvW which were already marginalised by WvW rewards. Now many players are having to choose between working towards the rank requirement for the game mode they are objectively hardcore players of, or performing the vital server role they have done up til now with far less reward.

Sylvyn.4750:

Others have calculated it would take 2 years to go from 0 to 2000…it’s a reward for those that have put the time into keeping the game mode alive.

Except it’s not. It’s a reward for people who happen to have played WvW in a way which awarded lots of (or enough) Wxp to reach rank 2k, and anyone who spends much time in WvW knows Wxp is a fundmantally flawed way of measuring a player’s pariticpation, contirbution or value to WvW.

For the longest time, EotM was the fastest way to gain WvW ranks. Some of the highest ranked people in the game played EotM exclusively and EotM was mostly uplevel people ktraining. These people contributed almost nothing to keeping WvW alive.

Of regular WvW players, the best Wxp farms were ktraining undefended keeps (and strategically not defending your own for easy rewards capturing it again, yes this happened/happens and yes it’s sometimes even organised between commanders on opposing servers to ensure a smooth ktrain) and tagging lots of people in zerg fights. This favored people who were on the highest tier servers (the largest populations with the most loot bags to farm and the most potential Wxp from kills), who played during more populated hours (so less populated time zones had less loot bags and less potential Wxp from kills).

Which committed WvW players got the least amount of Wxp? Siege builders, defenders, scouts, upgraders (back when they had to be ordered and paid for by an individual) and to a lesser extent sentry and camp flippers, and roamers. Those people are some of the most committed and dedicated WvW players and in many communities are the backbone of a healthy server. They are traditionally rewarded less than a ktrainer or a frontline guardian that tags loot bags and WxP things simply by being hit (retaliation), yet these players will spend hours each time contributing to their server’s war efforts, giving scouting reports, repairing walls, disabling siege (which cost them badges out of their own pockets), building siege, and fighting against the tide on a home borderland trying to flip back camps to prevent an enemy taking it over.

Already this group of players were marginalized in WvW rewards and accepted they will never get as many loot bags as a guardian that can survive long enough to take a few hits with retaliation on them, but now many of them are in a situation where they cannot access the prestige WvW armor because ArenaNet’s unit of measurement for WvW commitment once again unfairly excludes the ways they have contributed to WvW.

The worst part of this whole situation is that a dedicated scout, defender, siege builder, repairer or camp flipper, or anyone considering becoming one, now has to choose between progressing towards the WvW rank needed to buy the armor, or playing the play style they prefer, one that entire servers benefit from but few WvW players volunteer to do themselves.

The success of many players who have rank 2k is built on the backs of people who upgraded towers and keeps (allowing a server to maintain the PPT needed to remain in higher tiers, the waypoints needed for map mobility and the map presence to maintain server morale). People who scouted that giant zerg you got all those loot bags from after responding to a call out. Many of these people are losing out in this system (many will no doubt have done enough to get 2k despite all the disadvantages of being a scout or defender) and the entire WvW community has to decide if that’s fair. Otherwise rank 3 WvW has just become one of the biggest reasons not to scout, defend, camp flip or anything which yields low amounts of Wxp compared to zerging and ktraining, and in my opinion WvW already has enough of those.

[quote=6609639;Sylvyn.4750:][quote=6610839;Deratrius.4035:]

Thank you so much for the ranger pet changes! They have been needed since the game came out (the ability to hit a moving target in PvP) and I’m overwhelmed by the idea that multiple pets could become more competitive now.

Are we going to see more specific changes to pets, like buffs to underused F2 skills like the fire wyvern?

I’ve noticed a lot lately that condi ranger is so much stronger than power ranger despite both investing fully in their respective form of DPS (I’m talking a full DPS build not power ranger + druid heals). Might we see some power ranger buffs (sword and maybe gratsword?) to bring them up closer to compete with other solely focused DPS builds or do you consider it fine that there is a large disparity in DPS builds of different types? Elementalist was top tier DPS in PvE for a long time with a ranged weapon (staff), could we maybe see longbow become more competitive in an organised PvE environment for DPS?

How much of current balance decisions are taking into account the eventual introduction of the second elite specs? Are we seeing changes and shifts in the way core specialisations are balanced that might not make complete sense until we see what the new elite specs will bring?

Thanks again for all the improvements that have been made to core ranger since just before HoT launched. The profession is moving in a very positive direction (Call of the Wild on pet swap, condi is really strong, numerous great pet buffs, sword root removed etc).

draxynnic.3719:

My general thought on this is:

Logan was never going to be viewed by the Krytan establishment of being worthy of being Prince Consort while acting like a glorified bodyguard.

If she ever wants it to be possible for them to be a couple, she needs to push him away so he can make a name for himself as someone who can be a near-equal rather than a lovesick puppy. There’s no guarantee even then, but there’s no chance if he doesn’t prove himself a leader in a context where he isn’t Jennah’s subordinate. A Pact Marshal who manages to get another dragon or two down under his command may well get there.

Logan is a founding member of Destiny’s Edge and took down numerous dragon champions and even performed a vital role in defeating the first every Elder Dragon to fall. It’s ludicrous to suggest he needs to prove himself some way beyond his already incredible accomplishments. It’s difficult to overstate how accomplished he already is. Even his family name is prestigious – he descends from some of the greatest heroes in human history. He hasn’t really acted like a bodyguard since Scarlet attacked and even there he only briefly attempted to protect the Queen before returning his complete focus to his duties to the Seraph.

We just saw Jennah hold all her ministers against their will and a major rebellion within the Krytan government. The Ministry has long been resisting the Queen’s power and there was a lot of support among the common Krytans against the Queen. If Logan’s class is in any way an issue for the Krytan people they simply aren’t being written as rational thinkers.

I suspect the nobility/commoner plot was a weak attempt at a star crossed lovers storyline for the two of them that fell flat in the novel Edge of Destiny where a good portion of the audience finished the book thinking she had mind controlled him. It seems clear to me that Jennah either had feelings for Logan or she was manipulating/using him and leading him on, which is pretty terrible for a heroic protagonist.

Keep in mind Logan abandoned his friends and team to come to her aid resulting in Glint and Snaff’s deaths and Kralkatorrik roams free, yet we see constantly that both Anise and even Jennah herself are quite capable of defending themselves. It’s pretty messed up if she had just been manipulating him this whole time when it is clear he wasn’t needed to protect her (nor was his position to protect her either).

To me this was the plot finally accepting this romance didn’t work. It was cliche and it turned an interesting character into a frustrating one whenever the relationship was involved. Logan is great as the Seraph captain, he is great when he’s fighting alongside Rytlock and he was great before he even came to Kryta, but the whole romance plot was holding him back.

He has a tonne of experience commanding troops and fighting Elder Dragons and their champions, so more than most he is very qualified for the position of Pact Marshall. The Seraph isn’t likely to be as important going forward now that the primary human conflict has been resolved.

I don’t doubt the romance might come back, part of the cliche is to create drama by separating the two lovers before reuniting them later, but for now this is the most interesting development we’ve seen for login since the game came out.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Not so with Dorian, Hablion, and Thommis. In Prophecies we see that they’re fanatics who’d happily offer up Mantle lives to the Unseen Ones’ service.

They don’t know that. They take Saul and leave the others without either of them saying how they feel about the mursaat.

You make a huge assumption that the mursaat know something they don’t know – that Saul will reject them while Dorian, Hablion and Thommis will accept them and their brutality. Nowhere is it established before Saul is taken that the other three are more willing to co-operate than Saul would be.

As far as I know, and correct me if I’m wrong, draxynnic has completely fabricated a super power that the mursaat are not established to have anywhere in the lore – the ability to detect whether a person will kill an innocent in cold blood.

Your argument doesn’t hold water because it’s simply not established at the time (to either the audience or the mursaat) how Saul or anyone else will react to the mursaat.

Could these clues point towards Livia? It’s the only plot left that makes sense for her to be in. She didn’t turn up during either raid and that’s all resolved, she didn’t turn up during the attack on DR nor to take down Caudecus and the White Mantle, so why else did they deliberately reveal her to be alive during Sea of Sorrows if not to participate in one of those plots?

Livia was loyal to Kryta, which in her life still includes Lion’s Arch. Livia has been around long enough to have strong ties to any organisation, including the Order of Whispers, it may even be canon that the GW1 Master of Whispers worked with her or met her through the player character (obviously during the human migration from Elona she would have been involved on the Krytan side of things and thus likely worked with the Order of Whispers back then). I’d be surprised if the Master Exemplar of the Shining Blade didn’t have some kind of formal relationship with the Order of Whispers.

Livia is known to work with races other than humans to further her agenda (Zinn and Blimm) and she’s a bit of a schemer in Sea of Sorrows, iirc she even has some lines about securing the royal bloodline that don’t exactly look favorably on the king at the time. It might also explain why there are so many Seraph working for E – Bartholos led the Shining Blade before Livia but stepped down to form the Seraph, so their origins actually go back to a former Shining Blade leader and Livia might still hold some influence on the Seraph. Anise is hiding in plain sight, but if Livia believed the White Mantle were on the rise, she might best be able to protect the Queen and Kryta by acting behind the scenes as E.

There are a couple other obvious clues in the notes. The second note mentions suspending someone’s regular duties working for E to plan an evacuation to get “her” out, possibly against her will. The obvious guess as to who “her” is would be the Queen, but it could also be the other heir the Krytan locket hinted at (if that story ever goes somewhere). I assume the person who E sent the letter to was the dead Seraph girl on the floor? So the question becomes, who is her brother and what special skill does he have? If we assume their charge is Jennah, what special skill would force Jennah to do something she doesn’t want to do?

I thought the locations of the letters would be important but the letter to Kasmeer (which presumably didn’t make it as Kasmeer didn’t turn up to investigate minister,s unless it’s referring to Party Politics, and there is a dead Seraph next to the letter) was east of Lakeside Bazaar which seems to be on the way to nowhere.

The interest in Logan might suggest he is wanted to protect Jennah, that would fit Livia’s goal of securing the bloodline (is it possible he’s seen as a suitor for Jennah, is it even possible Jennah has a child with him we don’t know about?). There is a mesmer stealthed Seraph archer next to the note near Logan, so clearly E is keeping tabs on him in Lake Doric.

There are too many links to Seraph, Shining Blade and Krytans, a strong interest in protecting Kryta and probably the Queen, an interest in Logan and a dislike of the White Mantle. The Order of Whispers mention is the odd one out, not the norm so I’m thinking E has contacts in the Order, not that he/she is a member. Livia fits most of the criteria and there are explanations for the criteria she doesn’t fit (mostly, magic).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Let me repeat:

He despaired, seeing the true nature of the mursaat, and they noticed this immediately.

The events weren’t simultaneous but rather consecutive within moments. They killed, he regretted, then they took.

Watch the second cinematic at 1:20, and it shows the transition – from the mursaat trying to convince him kindly (when he was first taken), to torture (when he refused).

There’s nothing unclear or uncertain here.

They take Saul, but leave his other followers. Hablion, Thommis, Gisinger, Dorian, Bryen, Jaemes and Rebekah were all there. At least three of them around still around leading the White Mantle after Saul is taken.

Why take Saul for seeing what the mursaat did but leave Dorian and the others? Any reasons for taking Saul remain the same for taking Dorian don’t they?

DarcShriek.5829:

Don’t you mean “Gleam”

Who can absorb magic?
Who would be interested in protecting Aurene?
Who would want to keep their identity hidden?

Gleam.

Why keep his identity hidden? Lazarus seems like a bad pick to gain access to Aurence – the last surviving racial enemy of Glint and her legacy, someone relatively unknown to everyone else but mostly thought to be from a villainous and untrustworthy race.

Think about it. No-one alive really knows Lazarus, if they’ve heard of him at all. But they do think the mursaat are the boogeymen and they know the mursaat don’t like Glint. If you want to protect Glint’s child, why pose as her racial enemy? Why not pretend to be a powerful Dwarf, or Zephyrite or even a seer?

Why would Gleam interfere with Caudecus in Bloodstone Fen (the first appearance of the false Lazarus, if that was the false one and not the real one)?

It’s two things. One is to give the biconics a reason for being in the story so often (they weren’t prominent enough on their own to be as prevalent as they were in the story) but also, and primarily imo, to be the replacement for the Pact.

I suspect the writers really didn’t want to tell the story through the lens of the Pact as the primary protagonists (why they couldn’t just make Dragon’s Watch an elite team within the Pact I don’t know) so they sidelined the Pact in Season 1 and 2, they decimated the Pact in HoT and they had us officially leave our role in the Pact in Season 3.

Dragon’s Watch or Destinty’s Edge (if we ever just take on that mantle) is set up for expansion 2’s story. Now that the White Mantle threat is largely resolved, the story will likely move more towards dragons an Dragons Watch again.

ugrakarma.9416:

Randulf.7614:

Anyone notice the Lord Faren illusion in the manor?

Same. And he dissapeares when we enter on room.

The lore wise guys have any speculation? its kinda misterious.

It’s a running “joke” that Lord Faren is used as a sex object in the story. He was put in a speedo on Southsun Island, he was stripped down to his speedo in Scarlet’s attack on the Queen’s Jubilee, for some reason he turns up in in the jungle in a loincloth and now the female mesmer was summoning him as an illusion in a loincloth to entertain her as a sex object again.

Originally he was put in a speedo because Kasmeer was going to appear in a speedo on Southsun Island (gender parity) but she went on to become a primary protagonist while Faren is a recurring sex object gag (his appearance during the first story instance was also along these lines).

I really liked the GW1 references in Noran’s homestead. It’s just sad that Aiden’s and Zho’s legacy ends so tragically in GW2.

Overall I thought this was one of the stronger story releases, in no small part due to the absence of characters that didn’t need to be around. Seeing Jennah, Logan, Anise and Demi (with some less prominent Krytans) all deal with the White Mantle really showed the stength of GW2’s world building when people other than the biconics are allowed to take the spotlight.

Lake Doric really feels like a nostalgia trip of Kryta’s core maps – many of the hearts and mechanics returned from Queensdale and the other Krytan regions, but with enough new stuff to make it fun and interesting for level 80 content. I’m still running around soaking up all the NPC lore and locations. I’m glad GW2 has a level 80 map filled with White Mantle, as annoying as they are to fight.

What was the point of the charr presence in Lake Doric? Shouldn’t that unnerve the Krytan’s in the region and empower Caudecus’ cause? First she recognises the charr/human treaty despite being Krytan and not Ascalonian, now she has charr forces fighting Krytan citizens just outside the capital. Did I miss some greater purpose or story to the charr presence or is this a continuation of the World Summit charr characterisation (our allies’ fight is our own) and set up for something to come?

If Lazarus isn’t the real Lazarus, who is he? Obviously someone really powerful but the reveal of the Horcrux plot really makes that whole scenario confusing. Could it be Palawa Joko? I really don’t know who would disguise themselves as mursaat to fool the play protagonist to gain access to the dragon.

Jokubas.4265:

What I didn’t like was how moustache-twirling Caudecus was.

He was a terrible foil for Jennah. The set up was great – the monarch vs the minister, a bloodline vs a new age of representation in government. Unfortunately Caudecus wastes all the potential for an interesting power struggle in DR by not being smart or interesting. Not the fault of this release to be honest, his role with the White Mantle, the centaurs and the bandits was all thoroughly explored in the core game at launch. It’s difficult to make Jennah or any of the Krytan protagonists look clever or accomplished with such a poor character is supposed to be their foil – this is an area where Game of Thrones shines and GW2 disappoints. In that sense, killing him so easily here with no big fanfare is a fitting end.

Jokubas.4265:

Also, Jennah and Anise continue to act ignobly and no one really seems to care. It’s kinda scary that Jennah has the power to just instantly kill people, and her doing it one by one while taunting came across as pretty creepy.

Yeah Jennah seemed out of character to me with the boastful glee she displayed killing the mantle in DR (whatever else they were, they were her subjects, it should weigh heavy on her that she let them down enough for them to rise up against her and she is forced to kill them in self defence). Even the bit about how the Pact Commander slashes his/her way through problems seemed more like it should be Canach’s line rather than the Queen of Kryta’s line. I think they were trying too hard for humour here.

I was almost certain Jennah was a White Mantle mesmer clone when she said she’d forcefully detain the ministers against their will – to me that’s a villainous abuse of power, not something a just ruler would do. I hope this is an intentional direction of her character and there will be consequences for her behaving this way. I suspect it will simply be forgiven by the plot and she will continue to be the beloved and “just” ruler of Kryta.

Jokubas.4265:

Anise was really violent this episode, but at least she got talked down.

They tip-toe around the fact that Canach is basically the property of Anise and forced to risk his life to regain his freedom so Anise was always unjust in that way.

I really wish they had put Valette on trial and either executed her or locked her away never to appear in the story again. She’s a poor replacement for Demi. We don’t need a fourth human female mesmer in the Queen’s circle (Jennah, Anise, Kasmeer and now Valette). Anise’s decision is logically inconsistent – why is she so quick to distrust Demi, who has been loyally working for the Order of Whispers for years now but recruit Valette minutes after she tries to kill us all.

Another thing about this plot that bothered me is that it’s essentially the Caithe/Faolain plot resolution we deserved but never got. Faolain is unceremoniously killed in HoT and Caithe was barely involved. We don’t really see the fall out from that for Caithe. Anise’s line about how Valette is gone is almost identical to Caithe’s words about sylvari fallen to Nightmare (side point: we still don’t know what that means). It seems like a messed up priority to give so much screen time to Valette when Caithe/Faolain was the foundation of the most iconic sylvari’s entire story and it its resolution was all swept under a rug.

I just want to bring up the Logan painting in the end. Did ArenaNet just establish GW2’s first major gay (male) character and make him a disgusting creepy old villain obsessed with the straight Krytan protagonist? This is a really harmful myth (that gay men are creeping on straight men and jealous of their girlfriends) and it’s a stupid way to undermine what little integrity the Caudecus plot had at all (is it meant to imply he dislikes Jennah partly because he is obsessed with Logan?). I’m reading into a painting in Caudecus’ private room, but it’s a joke in poor taste at best, and an unnecessary offensive trope tacked on at the end of hist story at worst.

I love the move to have Logan become the new Pact Marshall (did I understand that right?). Almorra should lead the Vigil (it was an awkward move when it’s so specific Trahearne was chosen partly for his neutrality among the three orders). Logan is always more interesting away from Jennah and he is redundant with Anise around, so this can only be good for his story imo. It is funny they took one of the least liked DE members to replace the commonly disliked Trahearne.

I expected Kasmeer, unlike some of her appearances she’s actually relevant to Jennah, Anise and the Kyrtan throne yet she wasn’t seen (at least not as herself).

I am underwhelmed that the regicide plot amounted to nothing again. It feels like regicide in GW2 is as played out as a centaur attacking a farm now. No tension or excitement about it.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ashantara.8731:

Randulf.7614:

Well, grief over a lost parent seems a good reason

Sure, because Eir and Braham were so close to begin with.

They had no connection and only just begun to know each other a little when he was already a grownup. So that didn’t convince me, sorry. To me, he is being rude for no reason other than being a thickheaded jerk, endangering the whole world with his mindless actions. Like a pouty child that didn’t get its lollipop. Or like Donald Trump.

Actually, people get angrier in just that situation, when they have had no contact with their parent early on and lose their parent before they can get to know them.

Or they were never emotionally invested and it doesn’t hit them as hard as killing Trahearne (firstborn sylvari, brother to all other sylvari, Marshal of the Pact, close friend to the player and the closest person to understand our burden as Pact Commander) or losing a massive Pact fleet, or losing hundreds or thousands of sylvari lives (brothers and sisters to sylvari PCs and Caithe who hasn’t even mentioned the devastating loss the sylvari suffed since HoT, who also lost Faolain who almost completely defined her identity in the story up til now).

How are we supposed to take seriously an estranged son’s grief over his mother’s death when almost everyone else in the current story has suffered far greater loss across two dragon campaigns (and more) and they all soldier on without even mentioning it? Seriously, it is the greatest writing fail of GW2 on how they handle the sylvari/Mordremoth story (or the lack of the sylvari lore and exploration in HoT) and the complete absence of a fallout from it when you consider how overblown Braham’s soap opera grief is by comparison to the massive numbers of dead sylvari lost to Mordremoth.

The current Braham plot is stupid because it tunnel visions on Braham’s situation (in the eyes of himself and everyone around him) and ignores the reality of everyone else around him who also suffers. It isn’t a case of “What would Braham feel in this situation?” but rather “Why doesn’t anyone else feel like this?”. It’s dismissive of everyone else in Tyria including us, the players who have faced massive losses.

Imagine how a sylvari, who looked up to Trahearne as a brother and leader, not only of their race, but as the first hope for Tyria slaying a dragon. Then you have to kill your brother, friend and leader to save Tyria. That gets no attention at all while we have all this attention on Braham? Fudge that.

Danikat.8537:

I’m confused by all the people saying Braham didn’t know Eir.

He was raised by his father until he was 7 and then by the people of Cragstead, but he still had some contact with Eir, and he explained at various points in the story that part of the reason he felt distant from her is he found it difficult to reconcile the stories he heard of her adventures with the woman he knew as his mother.

My understanding is that Eir explicitly did not visit Braham because that would mean she knew about his father’s death. His father didn’t want anyone to tell Eir about his death because he believed she would retire and return home to her son.

“Your mother’s name is Eir Stegalkin. Remember that, but I will tell you what I told Yngvi and Brynhildr. No one must send word to your mother that I am gone. I forbid it. She is capable of great things, as are you. She must not be tempted to stray from her path. Wolf walks beside her. But you mustn’t worry. He walks beside you as well, my son. Never forget that.”

It’s a clumsy way of explaining how Eir had a son that magically appeared in the story with no prior mention, but it does indicate Eir had no contact with Braham when he was a child. He knew who she was but she didn’t spend time with him. So again, a lot of people are projecting their own feelings about their mother’s onto Braham but Braham’s relationship with his mother was nothing like a normal person’s relationship.

Arden.7480:

He has to meet with Taimi, she can reminds him who is he.

Is she also going to make us forget how unqualified he is to be on our team? About how he behaved towards us?

Yeah the map definitely needs more waypoints. It also would help to have more thermal tubes moving to important locations like Ember Bay did.

There is so much that was awesome with the new map.

• Exploration was great. A mix of central Tyria exploration and completion enhanced by some use of the new masteries. I really enjoyed it.
• Diverse scenery in the snow environment was well done (intensity of the snow storm, underwater, the hot springs, the massive trees).
• Rewards seem much better (mini dragon, gauntlets, fractal skins, tonics, minis etc).

I do think it has a couple issues.

• Inventory items for the elixir and the icebrood disguise are tedious to carry around. Doing it more than once is something I really hope is patched out.
• The elixir itself feels like it should be a mastery. It’s basically the poison immune mastery from HoT, no-one wants to make an elixir every time they access part of the map.

Darcness.2408:

I’m waiting for the moment when Rytlok, Logan or Zojja tell Braham, “You didn’t even know your mother,” and I know that would probably drive some points home for him.

More likely we will see a moment where Marjory (who lost her sister) and Zojja (who had a grudge with Eir but knows that Eir wouldn’t make the mistakes Braham is making) hold his hand and make him feel better, but you’re right – he didn’t know her well at all. Sure there would be some emotional impact on him but taking it to this extreme is ridiculous – this is not someone losing their mother, this is someone losing their estranged mother. Sure Braham is less mature than Marjory so he wouldn’t handle death as well as Marjory did, but I feel like they’ve taken it too far.

What really bothers me most is how unqualified Braham is to be in any position on our (or anyone’s) team – why are we even trying to recruit him or wasting our time with him? He’s a capable fighter sure (so is everyone else), but he rushed in at Verdant Brink, he doesn’t follow orders (what’s the point of being the boss or commander if people don’t respect our authority – Marjory and now Braham) and now he’s a whiny manbaby with his hands on the norn nuclear switch about to charge his own people into death who doesn’t listen to tactics or reason (norn don’t have armies, at least not according to established lore and cultural norms, so I’m unclear how this will play out).

Braham is not an asset to our team at all and he has no business on the front lines, let alone our front line. It also appears he might be picking up the bow now, so a newbie using a combat bow (I’m sure he hunted before) who’s emotionally unstable, not very bright and immature is an easy rejection for anyone taking this seriously.

I also don’t understand why we are being so precious around him. We went all-in chastising Caithe, going as far as to remove her weapons for doing exactly what we would have done with the egg that belonged to no-one (she didn’t steal it from us – it was never ours, she also took it to Tarir which is where it belongs). Canach got a rough time too (although he is actually a former terrorist so somewhat justified) but when Braham is being a complete brat and endangering others (Rox in this instance, possibly the strongest norn in the near future), we become total doormats and pander to his emotions.

Also what a lame way for the Fang of the Serpent to turn out. An immature edgy teen dispels the mystery about the fang by using a magic bow that any norn could have used to pierce the fang. I hoped that plot would play out with a more in depth focus on norn culture and the eventual norn to break it would be someone who embodies the norn at their best.

I expect Braham will turn around from this and eventually work with us in our plan to take out both dragons (probably with a hybrid plan rather than whatever dues ex machina Taimi is researching in the Rata Novus plot device) but I really think the story would be more satisfying if he has a tragic ending at this point. Lead a failed attempt to take down the dragon, do some damage (enough to help us) but pay a huge cost in norn lives including his own. I really don’t want to take him back at this point.

Isles of Janthir shout out was interesting. If we do go there, I hope they do it justice, although something so special to the White Mantle/Mursaat feels wrong to be used by a non-believer like Caudecus. I expected a showdown in Caudecus Manor or Divinity’s Reach so I’d be very (happily) surprised to see Janthir instead.

I suspect Braham’s story is heading in the direction of Bard from the Hobbit. He won’t kill Jormag himself but he and his bow will play a role in maneuvering Jormag so that a bigger plan can succeed. Maybe Braham needs to lead some norn to a tragic death before that happens though (mirroring Eir’s thoughts about wasted norn lives gone off to fight Jormag for glory, also mirroring her failure against Kralkatorik, and the weight of Snaff’s death on her conscience). Or maybe Zojja will talk some sense into him, at this point I’m fine if he dies though.

@Valmir Eir would have gone with Taimi’s plan. She knows the typical norn approach will just get more killed.

I didn’t much care for the Aurene instance but that’s probably because I don’t care for Aurene. The story elements and dialogue reminded me of a children’s cartoon rather than a conversation of a battle hardened commander but I do appreciate this is trying to get us to experience teaching and raising Aurene through gameplay. I don’t find the concept of raising a good dragon too interesting (I assumed as much was possible from GW1 and the baby dragon, never mind the sylvari) so I wonder what the purpose of this is.

Bitterfrost Frontier is my favourite new map by far. Something about it reminded me of GW1 (I think a big part is the soundtrack). It was nice to not be around asura everywhere. For the first time I actually didn’t mind the quaggan. I don’t love quaggan, but I felt like they did a good job of fleshing out this part of Tyria and fit well into our purpose up north. Overall the map felt more like a living part of the world, unlike Ember Bay and Bloodstone Fen which felt like almost empty maps with mobs generated in them.

I thought the open world elements of the story were a lot better implemented in episode three than two. Two felt like an excuse to have us do each heart, this time I actually felt like I was doing something and learning about the world up north.

Braham was a pita the whole way through and I honestly didn’t think he was worth the effort (I was done with him when he ran off on his own when we first entered Verdant Brink). He resented his mother for his whole life and only recently spent a few days with her and it’kittenting him this hard? Everyone is different but it seems bizarre he’d be this upset over someone he barely knows, even if its his biological mother. As he himself pointed out, plenty of people in Tyria have lost someone to the dragons, he isn’t a special snowflake for losing his mother. I’d be fine to see Jormag turn him at this point.

The biggest disappointment for me by far was the final scene. I love fantasy because of legends like the one about the tooth. I was really looking forward to seeing the norn rally behind someone who damaged the tooth and took us into a dragon campaign for of legendary feats and crazy norn tales. I expressed a while back I hoped Braham would not be the one (it’s bad enough he co-opted Eir’s story, I really didn’t want to him to co-opt the Fang of the Serpent as well) and instead we would see some other norn man or woman rise up and flesh out our roster of legendary heroes, or give more screen time to someone we don’t see enough of.

It was nice to not have an instance in Rata Novus for once. I actually dreaded when Taimi said we get samples then test them out, the first two episodes have played that one out. I agreed with Braham about using Destiny’s Edge instead of Dragon’s Watch, I hope we join it when the others recover. I don’t see Braham dieing to Jormag (although it would be the perfect tragic norn legend seeking death that mirrors his mother’s earliest portrayal in Hoelbrak and a truly surprising twist in the story) so I suspect there will be some melodrama with Braham before he rejoins the fold and aids in taking down Jormag.

It’s nice to see and talk to kodan again, they have some of the cooler lore in GW2, I also thought each of the renown hearts told an enjoyable world building story. Episode 3 is probably my favourite when I don’t focus on Braham’s role in it.

It’s probably just the case that the story right now has gone all in on establishing the new main plots (Aurene, Lazarus, Primordus rising, Jormag rising) that they haven’t had room in the story to give the NPCs their own little spotlight drawing attention away from the main plot.

Just like Braham and Rox will almost certainly be in the next release (A Crack in the Ice) because they are relevant to it (Braham first reported Jormag’s activity and he will be a contact in exploring that plot further, Rox will probably help us track him down as his friend) Kasmeer will almost certainly be in any plot involving the Queen in the future. Given that Caudecus has now gone rogue with his followers, I expect this will happen sooner rather than later.

Once the groundwork has been laid on the new plots (HoT resolved the former main plot so right now a lot of work needs to be done to set up the new ones) we will probably see everyone together again.

My understanding is they have several dedicated guilds testing content on test servers, so while there is no open PTR, it’s not true to say there is no player testing of content. Whether or not the guilds testing future raids are also testing future balance at the same time is unknown.

People quit MMOs all the time, and they come back all the time. It has nothing to do with whether we have a PTR nor would a PTR stop players from disliking nerfs to popular builds.

Wouldn’t a better goal for raid balance be multiple comps are desirable, not multiple professions are required because each one has a super buff like Spotter or Empower Allies? GW2 doesn’t have the trinity to add depth to its combat so it struggles a bit more to give roles to different players in a raid and diversify combat beyond your DPS rotation, but this also means the balance on DPS and utility has to be a lot tighter (certainly more than it is with elementalists so strong compared to other professions) to create a healthy meta.

Boon meta is a crutch for the real problem – DPS isn’t balanced and GW2’s combat system struggles to create meaningful roles outside of DPS. It becomes even harder to create meaningful roles outside of DPS when a single build was permanently maintaining the most powerful boons for the entire party.

Maybe right now the meta isn’t as diverse as it was when we had the crutch of boonshare, but you have to get rid of the crutches if you’re going to learn to walk without them. It won’t happen right away (just like how balance isn’t a single patch fix, it takes iteration and constant evolution) but the crutches were going to hold us back until we begin to progress without them.

otome.2673:

Walhalla.5473:

otome.2673:

Walhalla.5473:

And if Anet stops nerfing Classes not called Eles and stops buffing Eles we could see more variety.

Necro is their main target for nerfs lol

Fixed it.

1 nerf and you start crying lmao.. Ele got nerfed so often over the years

Probably because of this:

http://qtfy.enjin.com/DPS

Elementalist has been top DPS the entirety of GW2’s life (and in the past it was far higher than it is now). First it was Fiery Greatsword’s rush skill into walls (massive AoE damage stacked on top of itself), then it was Frostbow (very high AoE damage, especially strong against bosses, at the time – the longest stun in the game – and each elementalist was able to spawn two at a time) and now we have not one but two elementalist playstyles topping the DPS rankings. This on top of all the utility baked into the elementalist’s attunement and overload designs, and to a lesser extent their utilities.

Every profession has had nerfs since launch but elementalist is the only profession to remain the top the entire time.

A single mesmer should never have been pumping out perma quickness/resistance. That’s broken and honest people can see that. The impact of removing it might be (likely temporarily) worse than having it, but shaving down the clearly broken power level of some professions and builds is a necessary first step towards balancing the wider meta. Quickness wasn’t designed to be accessible permanently for such a small price (I suspect any form of perma quickness is imbalanced) and mesmers were doing a lot of boon carrying with a non-elite skill, this was clearly a balance problem (especially when so much of it existed outside of chronomancer and thus would impact every future elite spec for the mesmer). Rather than balance around it, it makes sense they would bring it back in line.

The same goes for herald’s boon duration. What kind of power creep would be needed for the second revenant elite spec to compete with 50% boon duration? Every other profession and build would need to exist in an environment where that kind of boon duration existed. That’s a nightmare for balance, especially with nine more elite specializations around the corner.

Rather than buffing mesmers and heralds back to their former broken state, why not consider the possibility that top tier DPS being so much higher is what’s pushing other professions out of the meta?

We need trait options in the druid line which give DPS choices. The raid meta for druid is almost completely static now – the same two traits dominate druid choices and the other options are mostly ignored most of the time. A big part of why druid wins as the raid healer is Grace of the Land lessens the DPS loss of going into CA (it also boosts DPS with every Seed of Life which also benefits from Grace of the Land).

Compare that to Lingering Light, the GM trait which blinds. It’s not even used in PvP afaik. What if they replaced one GM trait with a trait which buffs the ranger’s DPS and not the party’s? You could still bring your GotL druid, but everyone else could pick the other DPS trait, losing the biggest offender from druid buffs.

It would be difficult to balance core ranger specs to compete with druid (because the two best could simply be taken along with druid), but why not tweak druid trait options so there is a DPS path that comes at the cost of most of the druid’s buffs/support? There are necro traits which change death shroud and there are DPS traits that compete with utility/support ones, why not actually design the druid line so that there are compelling alternate options on how to play the druid?

It might be very difficulty, support/healing might be too baked into druid to make a balanced DPS path, but it really sucks that rangers have to be healers until the next elite spec is released.

It was a bad patch for druids but pretty ordinary for rangers. Core ranger has a lot of problems and minor shortbow buffs won’t fix them.

It sucks that the druid spec is becoming increasingly bad unless you tunnel vision on healing – no other elite spec is so single minded when it comes to stats, but to me this is a core flaw of how the druid was designed (it’s not a ranger spec, it’s a healing spec tacked onto rangers). The sad reality is, the healing isn’t what makes druids desired, it’s Grace of the Land, Frost Spirit, Spotter and Glyph of Empowerment. Without those passive damage buffs the druid would be seen for what it is – a vanilla healer that takes the spot because it’s propped up by passive damage buffs.

The worst things about elite specs is they dominate your profession, so if you hate them – tough luck, core specs aren’t competitive. Hopefully the next elite spec is released soon, not having competitive builds outside of healing is really hurting the ranger play style for those who wanted to play the medium skirmisher that fights alongside their pet. I just hope dagger/dagger ranger has the DPS to compete for that top spot otherwise GotL could have us pigeon holed as healers permanently.

I really don’t understand why this fight was designed this way. The gameplay of the Vermignus fight is essentially no different from the kind of dynamic event you face after leaving the tutorial. Killing the little wurms to defend the battery is really boring when there is a giant wurm just behind us that we can’t hit.

One of the things GW2 does really well is to give us these large scale open world boss fights that are exciting to play through. This fight gives us a giant boss and then tells us to fight something else while a golem has all the fun. Why couldn’t this boss include some more engaging mechanics, like using the water buckets and gliding over the lava to drop the bucket and cool it to lock the wurm in place so the golem has a clear shot at it? Why can’t we at least fight the wurm ourselves instead of settling for its minions?

Not everything is going to be a Tequatl, but this could have at least been a Shadow Behemoth type fight.

The Vermignus fight feels poorly designed. I wanna fight the big wurm, not the little ones. Currently it feels like the most basic gameplay in the game. I looks like it should be a really exciting boss fight (not Tequatl levels) but it’s really about as simple as one of the game’s earliest events or even renown hearts.

The need to purchase the wood from completing the renown hearts each day feels wrong. One of the best changes GW2 did with dynamic events is they removed the need to turn in a quest after doing things – the reward pops up on your screen and you move on. You have essentially undone that good work and placed the most valuable reward behind a proxy for turning in a quest in a game that worked so hard to avoid that scenario. More than once have I moved elsewhere on the island only to backtrack to a heart vendor for the petrified logs. I understand it’s a karma sink (to an extent) but I think it hinders the design (I’m also certain a large number of players have no idea the wood is the primary reward from the hearts and thus will miss their rewards).

Going back to the idea that dragon minions can absorb the magic of another dragon after it dies and adopt as aspect of them, why don’t we see sylvari absorbing Zhaitan’s death magic or becoming more powerful like Teq after Mordremoth dies? We literally have an entire playable race of dragon minions, why can’t they absorb dead dragon magic like the other dragon minions? At the very least, the Pale Tree should be able to do it.

Haven’t they nerfed smokescale and bristleback several times now? They are good because they can hit a moving target and because the other pets are either terrible all round for PvP, or very bad at hitting moving targets.

I was thinking over Taimi’s argument that Mordremoth showed that he was using Zhaitain’s power over death in the form of creating clones from dead bodies, but there are two things which stand out to me that counter this idea.

The first is that Mordremoth creates copies of a dead body long before Zhaitan dies. The sylvari are supposedly shaped after the physiology of Rhonin’s famil\y. We see that mordrem guard are monstrous humanoid creatures, but sylvari physiology very closely mimics humans and the first sylvari were born 25 years before Zhaitain died. If Mordremoth’s power to shape a creature after a dead one is using Zhaitain’s death magic, why was he able to create the sylvari as they were long before Zhaitain died?

The second is the Destiny’s Edge clones in the second to last story mission from HoT. We fight clones of Zojja that were created by the blighting pods, but Zojja is clearly not dead, yet Mordremoth was able to create clones of her. If this is the case, how exactly is absorbing Zhaitan’s magic supposed to change Mordremoth’s powers? I thought the cloning process was supposed to somehow represent Mordremoth’s mind power (is that still a thing – are we going to see Primordus use plant, death, shadow and mind powers now?). If the other dragons absorb the mind magic of Mordremoth, can’t we just replicate the same methods to kill them?

If Mordremoth can clone dead bodies, why does he keep Eir, Faolain, Logan, Zojja and Trahearne alive (keeping them alive inside the pods would actually require some effort seeing as they would need nutrition etc)? Why not simply kill them and pump out a bunch of Mordrem Champions with their skills and abilities?

To me it seems the sylvari themselves were created from the dead long before Zhaitan died. It’s also shown Mordremoth doesn’t need his victims to be dead to clone them. Does it make sense to argue Mordremoth’s abilities had anything to do with Zhaitan’s death?

ZacHank.1358:

1: Is Aurene an elder dragon? My understanding is that when we talk of dragons we exclusively mean elder dragons. Since we’ve called Aurene a dragon, we are calling her an elder dragon.

No, Aurene is the offspring of Glint similar to how the sylvari are the offspring of the Pale Tree. The Pale Tree is a champion of Mordremoth but for some reason (unexplored because apparently HoT wasn’t the time to explore them) the Pale Tree and her sylvari were independent from Mordremoth, which goes against everything we had seen from previous dragon minions, including destroyers who were actively serving their master before it awoke.

ZacHank.1358:

2: Granted Glint turned against Kralkatorrik to help Destiny’s Edge, but my understanding was Glint was Kralkatorrik’s champion, not a dragon herself. Am I understanding this correctly?

Both Glint and Aurene are dragons. It’s not the same thing as being an Elder Dragon.

Glint was freed from Kralkatorrik’s influence by a forgotten (the race) ritual which allowed her to act on her own and make the decision to fight against her former master, this happened long before Destinty’s Edge came along.

Glint is both a dragon and a dragon champion (similar to how a risen norn can both be a norn and a champion of Zhaitan, or the Shadow of the Dragon is both a dragon and a minion of Mordremoth). The concept of an Elder Dragon is primarily a way to give a shape or form to something of great power – their status as dragons doesn’t seem intended to reflect that they are serpent/reptile creatures but rather creatures of great power (the addition of elder is to distinguish them from other dragons like Glint or the Shadow of the Dragon). Elder Dragons have also been described as forces of nature, the dragon name seems to be primarily to express these are creatures of great power. Glint is more of a dragon in a sense that she looks like a dragon and lays eggs like a dragon.

There are other dragons in Tyria which are explicitly not Elder Dragons. In Kryta in GW1 there were bone dragons (similar to Tequatl) which were as the name suggests – the bones of a deceased dragon which were brought back (suggesting there were once living dragons as well, although we never see the living version of a bone dragon). In Cantha (another land across the ocean unaccessible in GW2) there were saltspray dragons, which were smaller than Glint and some bone dragons (although there was one notable exception – Kunnavang).

ZacHank.1358:

3: Given 1 and 2 are true, Aurene will need to consume magic and as a result will become very powerful. Is she just using us for that end? How do we know her motives are good? Why haven’t we asked that yet? Can we really trust an elder dragon even if we were able to trust Glint? And if so, what does that mean for when Aurene grows up? Does this change how elder dragons will operate in the future?

There is a suggestion from Marjory in Season 2 when we explore Glint’s lair that if Glint was around long enough, she would become capable of absorbing the released power of a defeated Elder Dragon and replace them as a benevolent Elder Dragon. This was introduced around the same time as the allegory for Elder Dragon magic flooding back into the world after their death becomes a threat if uncontrolled. Aurene is likely the future manifestation of this story (although it’s going to require some gymnastics to explain how a recently hatched dragon is able to absorb dragon energy in a way that not even Glint was ready to do after hundreds or thousands of years).

The questions of why we aren’t more skeptical of this situation or why we have placed such great importance on Aurene are ones which aren’t explored in the story. It’s vaguely suggested in Season 2 that the item the Master of Peace had was important and Caithe was after it as well but nothing was explicitly said to the player until we reached Tarir. Aurene is the offspring of Glint and according to Marjory and Kasmeer, the humans of Tyria still teach that Glint was a force for good (seems bizarre given how few humans interacted with Glint 250 years ago) so it’s believable the player would hope that Aurene will follow her mother. It’s possible the story moving forward will explore the potential for Aurene to be an enemy (especially if Glint’s other offspring shown in GW1 return as “corrupted” dragon minions revealing what could happen to Aurene).

Amaimon.7823:

Nah, mordremoth is dead, so we’ll mostl ikely forget the pale tree even exists

Ironically that seems to have happened right as we launched an expansion to fight her creator.

Dominik.5162:

Blaeys.3102:

maddoctor.2738:

Maybe the Raid will be inside the Foundry!

As long as they insist on the restrictive raid model they currently employ, they really need to stay away from popular lore-based landmarks/settings/scenarios – and definitely stay away from anything to do with the story the current game is trying to tell.

I realize that is an unpopular opinion among a subset of the community, but it is the situation they have created for themselves if they want to avoid alienating or frustrating a sizeable number of their players.

They need to stay away from nothing, the claim that raids can’t have interesting story/lore connected to them is beyond hilarious.

You think it’s a coincidence that the first three raid wings are more like the impression of a story rather than an actual detailed one and no major villains (not even Caudecus) appear in them, let alone are bosses? Honestly, I feel like the average dynamic event has more lore than the three raids combined.

It seems very clear to me that ArenaNet has steered clear of doing anything major in their raids because of the exclusivity issue (even the first appearance of Lazarus takes place in Season 3, they didn’t even have him make a cameo in the raid).

I think there would be a lot of salty people if Lazarus is killed in a future raid, or if we finally get to enter the Wizard’s Tower but only as a raid.

cranos.5913:

Blaeys.3102:

maddoctor.2738:

Maybe the Raid will be inside the Foundry!

As long as they insist on the restrictive raid model they currently employ, they really need to stay away from popular lore-based landmarks/settings/scenarios – and definitely stay away from anything to do with the story the current game is trying to tell.

I realize that is an unpopular opinion among a subset of the community, but it is the situation they have created for themselves if they want to avoid alienating or frustrating a sizeable number of their players.

So it has to be a 10 man fractal? Totally disconnected from anything to do with Tyria and with no real story behind it? Sounds boring.

That’s what the “dungeon” community is getting atm. Fractals – five player encounters which take place outside of the world completely and most without any dialogue or story at all. It’s why fractals is a bad replacement for dungeons (How much dev time did they waste reiterating the agony system multiple times now because of how poorly designed it is?).

I’m honestly baffled why GW2 doesn’t have different raid difficulties like much more hardcore MMOs like WoW does. An easier five or ten player raid would likely be a very popular feature with a bigger audience and it would ease a lot of pressure on raids to avoid popular or exciting lore. It’s a system that works incredibly well in successful MMOs like WoW, who learned the hard way that designing a hard raid ends up restricting some content to the minority of players (like how a minority of players ever killed Illidan before the expansion was legacy content).

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

We want to reward players for playing the map while it is in Beta and give a cool title to represent that you were there during its beta phase.

Plenty of people are here during the beta phase but will be unable to get the achievement because you overlapped the two maps.

As far as limited time achievements goes, just take a look at the massive amount of community criticism for Living World Season 1 that was so commonly focused around limited time achievments. Players hate limited time achievements. It influences us to play on your time and not ours, it makes us feel obligated to play content we didn’t want to play that day (logging in and refusing to play with your friends doing achievements in Ember Bay or not going to your weekly WvW/PvE raid because you need to play roulette to get into the map before the achievement is retired) and that’s a crap feeling when managing your game time.

The beta tag will not be there forever as we will make changes to the map to bring it up the level of other conquest maps. The achievements are in for around 3 months, going from an entire off-season into a full active season.[/quote]

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

After talking with the team we do agree it will be hard for players to get their Capricorn achievements so we have gone ahead and pinned both Coliseum and Capricorn for the next two weeks. Thank you all for you feedback and we will see you in the mists.

This is a big help but the situation is still incredibly frustrating for a lot of people, including people who are only in PvP right now to get the Coliseum achievement. With only a few days left the most control a player can have to get into the map is a 50% chance (and getting a group of four other people isn’t always the easiest thing). Too often I’ve played for two straight hours where even with five people voting for Capricorn not once has it rolled the map. Not only that but people are specifically voting non-beta maps and taunting in map chat before the match begins because they only voted a non-beta map to upset people trying to get the achievements.

I’ve attached a screenshot of one of my recent matches where I finally got Capricorn to roll (after about 30 mins of waiting for my party to fill, giving up with only one other and then waiting for the queue) and one person on my team idles before the match even begins because they don’t need the achievement. They are only in unranked for the Coliseum achievements atm and the PvP team has orchestrated a situation where they are literally wasting their time if they roll into a Capricorn map.

I don’t see any way for Lazarus to be a good guy in this. He can do good things, he can help us achieve something, but ultimately Lazarus’ story is one of a villain. His promise at the end of the EotN quest chain is also one of vengeance and the most important thing here – it hasn’t resolved. You don’t make a threat like that without a story consequence/resolution for it. Lazarus can’t move on until his threat is resolved. His threat was that future generations would suffer, not just the people who defeated him 250 years ago, and right now the next generation of Glint just hatched (and he conveniently turns up at the same time as the child of his former enemy is born) and the human descendants are still around. He made a promise and his promise specifically ensures he would be a villain when he next appeared. Because GW2 focuses on five races and even some humans wouldn’t be related to the ones that defeated him in GW1, the unifying target of Lazarus for all player protagonists is the protection of Toothless. From a narrative perspective, Lazarus vs Glint’s next generation is the plot that makes the most sense, him portraying himself as an ally is just the most convenient way for him to accomplish this goal.

As much as the Elder Dragons are a threat, Lazarus for all we know (for all he knows?) is the last of his people. Why does he care if the world is destroyed or not? What’s left for him to protect? What reason do we have to think he had a change of heart? Most importantly, what kind of narrative gymnastics would it take for ArenaNet to take Lazarus a good guy?

Lazarus the Dire: “Pitiful humans. My brothers are dead, but I will tolerate your existence no longer.”
Justiciar Naveed: “Wait! It is me you’re after, Lazarus. There’s no need to harm these people any further. I…I surrender to your will.”
Lazarus the Dire: “Surrender? That was never an option. Your only choices are death and…death. You are a tool that has served its function. Your usefulness has ended. Disappear, now, from this world.”
Justiciar Naveed: “Goodbye…”
Lazarus the Dire: “What…? What…is this? Something is wrong! My power twists upon itself! What have you done to me?”
Lazarus the Dire: “Accursed human! You have done this to me! I will not forget this!”
Lazarus the Dire: “Countless generations will suffer for your actions this day!”

Those aren’t the words of a man suggesting that his death will unleash a greater threat. It seems pretty obvious he meant he will get revenge one day. I don’t see how the narrative can support the idea that Lazarus is anything but an enemy without ignoring his character development from GW1. It can support the idea of a good mursaat, but this specific mursaat is an enemy, he swore as much, and specifically he swore his vengeance was generational, not something that would pass after his enemies died.

The only way Lazarus gets a redemption arc is if it comes after he fulfills the threat from EotN. Otherwise, why bother use him as the returning mursaat? If they weren’t going to use his characterization from GW1, why not simply use another mursaat with a background more compatible with being an ally?

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Infamous NX.6349:

Dondarrion.2748:

Is Revenge of the Capricorn even in the map selection anymore??

i haven’t seen it on map selelection after patch for 5 games now. Probably bugged, hope they fix it soon only 2 weeks for capricorn achievements left

I double checked and Capricorn should appear even though it is no longer pinned in unranked.

So now you’ve added a layer of RNG on top of the RNG to get the map for a limited time title in the final weeks where many players will be desperately rushing to complete it before their chance runs out forever? I hope you can see how frustrating this is going to be for a lot of people.

It’s a limited time title and many players were told we had until the end of Season 3 to obtain it. This is technically still true but now it has become much harder for us to even access the only map we can be on that will progress our achievement or title. It feels like I’ve had the rug pulled out from underneath me as the circumstances surrounding access to the map have dramatically changed.

We already had people AFKing when they didn’t get the map when it was pinned in every roll, it’s going to be much worse now.

Please either put it back as a guarantee pin for everyone who still need to finish their final steps of the title now, or even better – allow us to queue specifically for the map and nothing else like we can do for stronghold. If you insist on sticking with limited time, map specific titles we need a way to guarantee access to the maps to work on them.