Guild Wars 2

As of right now, it takes exactly 400 Hero Points for a character to fully unlock an Elite Specialization. Within the four, new Heart of Thorns maps, there are exactly 40 Hero Challenges, each worth 10 Points each.

By this math, in order to unlock an Elite Spec, you either A ) have to complete all Hero Challenges in Heart of Thorns maps, most of which are Group Events that cannot be completed alone, and many of which are impossible to complete without higher-tier Masteries such as Itzel Poison Lore, Nuhoch Proving, and Leyline Gliding, B ) Complete all or at least a large portion of Hero Challenges in Central Tyria, then returning to Heart of Thorns to complete the rest, for a total of 20 Hero Challenges in Heart of Thorns maps, if you farm all Hero Challenges in Central Tyria, or of course, C ) WvW.

The problem is, all three of these methods require enormous time investments and farming in order to achieve an Elite Specialization. I do understand that an Expansion is not meant to be played in one day, Elite Specializations are not long-term progression: that’s what the Masteries are for. Elite Specializations are meant to be a new way to play an old profession in new and old content, however, as it is now, you are either forced to grind old content to get far enough along for the Elite Specialization to be worth using in the new content, or you are forced to use an incomplete Elite Specialization in the new content.

My suggestion is simple: increase the Hero Points gained from the new Hero Challenges, ESPECIALLY the Group Event ones, perhaps by five or even ten Hero Points. This will prioritize the Group Event Hero Challenges, ensuring there are always people doing the events, and it will also allow players to reach their Elite Specialization faster, so that they can use it to its full potential in the new content.

Hey there! If you usually start training at 8 PM EST, I can probably make it a bit later than the start-up time, as my classes run to about 8 or 9 PM EST (Depending on the professor’s moods). I am pretty good at Power Well Necro, Juggernaut Warrior, and Bunker or Meditation Guardian. HMU, if you think the slight lateness won’t be too big of a deal.

Link to post regarding “Selfish/Offensive” shouts: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Shout-Suggestions-Offense-Orientated/first#post5485191

In this post I mentioned that some of you might feel that Ranger shouts should be more ‘selfish,’ in that they primarily focus on buffing the Ranger’s damage output. Additionally, most of you felt that “We Heal As One!” and “Strength to the Pack!” Were in a good place and that they didn’t need any new functionality.

With that in-mind, here is the next set of Shout Suggestions: Ranger Shouts

Guardian shouts apply boons. Warrior shouts grant sustain and damage increase, Tempest Shouts provide AoE damage and sustain, and Repear shouts provide AoE damage and control.

For the Ranger, I felt that a set of single target focused control/damage shouts would be best to compliment their traditional style. These shouts can be functional in a group fight, but they really shine when you are against a single target.

In this set, “Sic ’Em” and “Search & Rescue” Are the same as the Support set. I talked to several players who main Ranger, and they all said that one of the things Ranger’s needed most was a post-Stealth Reveal access. “Sic ’Em!” With a post-Stealth, AoE Reveal remains perfect for this. As for “Search & Rescue!” There aren’t many ways to make a revival skill control/damage oriented, so I chose to leave it as it was for the Support set, as the ally teleport at least provides some control on the battlefield, to go along with the other shouts.

“Protect Me!”

As I mentioned in my previous post, Rangers don’t need two invulnerability skills, and they don’t need one that only works with certain pets or utilities.

This change makes “Protect Me!” An actively defensive skill. When activated, for the next six second, enemies that attack you will be dazed for 1 second. It has an internal cooldown of two seconds, meaning enemies will have 1 second to pull back, stun-break, proc stability, etc. to counter this skill. This skill will be incredibly good at breaking Defiance Bars in PvE, as it will cause the opponent to break their own bar, especially since most PvE Enemies use large, multi-hit attacks and AoEs.

“Guard!”

“Guard!” Now has a very powerful knockdown affect that procs when a foe enters the area. It works similarly to an Elementalists’ Lightning Cage or a Guardian Ring of Warding. You can easily pass through it with Stability, but for a short duration, it’s very powerful, localized control. To reflect this, the Cooldown has been brought up by quite a bit, and the actual duration of the skill is much shorter.

I’d especially love to see this skill in, for instance, the Grawl Fractal, by placing the pet near one of the sacrifices as an emergency CC, in case you miss one of the Grawl.

I love hearing suggestions from all of you, on how to make things more balanced or more streamlined. The more of us that pitch in, the more likely Anet is to take notice of some of the issues that we are bringing up.

As Wondrouswall mentioned, both of those ‘Shouts’ didn’t start as Shouts. They just got the added skill fact, cooldown decrease, and rune/trait proccing. All of the actual ‘Shouts’ are still flawed in most of their major functionality.

The main reason I didn’t have the shouts affect the Ranger in their more active means is that I felt that was more in-line with how Signets work — providing a passive and active effect that links the Ranger to their Pet. Shouts always felt more like a way to command your pet to change its tactics. In this case, you command it to deal more damage, move faster, attack more ‘precisely’ (Critical Hits), or more ferociously (Steal Health.)

I’m working on the ‘selfish’ versions now, and I’m considering how to make them more like what you’re saying, without being too powerful. It would be horribly broken if a skill like “Sic ’Em!” Gave the Ranger +40% damage and movement speed.

Offensive Oriented Link

It’s been discussed a lot lately: there are problems with the Ranger. There are bugs that haven’t been fixed, the AI on pets is poor, many of the traits and skills are lackluster. The complaints go on-and-on.

Ranger has a special place in my heart — I’ve always loved the ranger archetype in fantasy, and seeing Ranger get so little attention made me just as sad as when we saw Necromancer suffering.

It’s not much, but here are a few suggestions I had for Ranger Shout changes. I’d love to hear all of your suggestions as well, and any feedback on the ideas I’m tossing out. Hopefully, if Anet sees the community putting some work into it, it’ll make them realize that we’re not just whining because we’re spoiled — we really want to see this class make a come back!

So, here I go:

The inherent problem with Ranger shouts, as they are is:

A They offer no team support, in the way that Guardian, Warrior, and Tempest Shouts do.*

All but one of the shouts only affect the ranger, the pet, or a single enemy, and the one shout that does affect allies, “Search & Rescue!” Only affects a single ally, can be interrupted by CCing or killing the pet, and has far too long of a cooldown (Currently longer than the Elite Shout). The only thing seriously useful about it is actually a bug that causes pet’s using “Search & Rescue!” To continue resurrecting an ally that is in the Defeated state, if they began resurrecting them while the ally was in the Downed state.

B They offer little to no damage increase or sustain, in the way that Reaper shouts do.

“Sic ’Em!” Only increases your pet’s damage and speed, and the 6 second Reveal can only affect a single target, and can only affect a target BEFORE they have entered stealth, as they must be targeted for the skill to affect them.

“Guard!” Is an incredibly useless skill that does not support you, your allies, or your pet’s damage or sustain. It’s only current use is as a short cooldown proc for Runes of the Trooper, or the Shout Trait, and for pet placement, which should be something you can do on your Profession mechanic bar, not something you have to allocate a slot on your Skill Bar for.

“Protect Me!” Is a powerful but flawed skill. First off, Rangers have Signet of Stone, another six second duration invulnerability skill. From a balancing standpoint, Rangers don’t need another. Not even Warriors, the tanks of Guild Wars 2, have invulnerability skills that last that long. Other classes that have shorter duration invulnerability skills cannot even attack while invulnerable. Balancing aside, however, this skill is flawed, as it rarely even reaches its six second duration, as only the bears can generally take the large amount of damage that the Ranger takes. You have to partner it with “Guard!” To get the pet out of range of cleave and AoEs, or with “Troll Ungent” To keep them alive — a skill should never rely on two other skills to function properly.

“We Heal As One!” Is a decent heal, in terms of cooldown and raw numbers, but frankly it’s boring. It’s the most simple and generic heal in the entire game. You cast it and heal yourself and your pet. That’s it.

“Strength to the Pack!” Is probably the best of the shouts, and this is definitely seen in the fact that it is one of the few shouts that is consistently used by players in all game modes. All-in-all, my only complaint about this one is that its cooldown is actually shorter than “Protect Me!” and “Search & Rescue!” The Elite skill in a set of Utilities should never be more accessible than other utility skills, which I think, speaks more to the other skills, than to “Strength to the Pack!” Itself.

So, now that I’ve explained the issues with the current shouts, I’ve made a few possible changes. Please note that these suggestions were made with the idea that Ranger Shouts should be more in-line with “A.” That is, that they should be more support oriented, aiding the Ranger and their allies. Some of you may feel that Ranger shouts should be more like “B,” and in some ways, I agree. Maybe, at some point, I’ll make a set of counter suggestions that fall in-line with that concept. For now, however, since we don’t know what Druid will bring to the table, what Ranger needs badly is better team support.

As always, the numbers are not final, and will need tweaking. Just a starting point.

Without further ado: Ranger Shouts

“Heal As One!”

Pets have trouble surviving in large scale encounters, everyone knows this. This shout provide the basic, large heal for the Ranger and their pet, while also providing a ten second buff to the pet that causes their next five attacks to steal health. This increases their damage in the next five attacks, while giving them continuous sustain in a fight while the effect lasts. It may not compete with Troll Ungent in terms of long-term sustain, but it allows for a different gameplay, as the skill is a burst heal, and of course, can be traited with “Nature’s Voice” and Runes of the Trooper to have more utility.

“Sic ’Em!”

This may be my opinion, but I find it odd that Stealth is a counter play for Rangers, from a lore perspective. Rangers are meant to be hunters who are skilled at spotting hidden prey. The original “Sic ’Em” ‘s main issue was that it had to be activated before an opponent stealthed to be effective. With this, it allows a Ranger to reveal enemies that are already stealthed, but for a much shorter time. This means, most importantly, that timing is seriously important. If you panic and use “Sic ’Em!” At the start of a Thief’s “Shadow Refuge,” then the Refuge will outlast the Reveal, and you will still have a stealthed Thief on your hands. It also means that enemy’s like Mossman can be Revealed after their stealth is active, instead of having to predict when he might be about to stealth and using it before.

Protect Us!"

This skill acts as a combination of “Protect Me!” and “Guard!” Bringing the best aspects of both skills to the table. It gives the Ranger access to “Guards!” ’s pet control, allowing you to send your pet to a specific location, and its pet sustain, while providing “Protect Me!” ’s self-sustain. This skill applies Protection in the area that the Pet is ordered to guard, pulsing two seconds of Protection every three seconds (One second of Protection downtime, unless traited to increase pet boon duration!). This means that it can be easily countered by AoE Boon corruption and rip skills, like “Null Field” and “Well of Corruption.”

“On The Hunt!”

Similarly to “Sic ’Em!” I always found it strange that Rangers, the hunters, had such little access to stealth in their kitten nal. I always thought that, like “Hunter’s Shot,” Rangers should have access to a variety of short stealth skills, rather than access to longer stealth like Thieves and Mesmers. This skill reflects that, applying a short, AoE stealth to your allies. Any amount of stealth helps in dungeons, and the short cooldown means it can be quickly swapped in and out between running sections, making it a good partner to Engineer’s and Mesmers, if a party doesn’t have a thief. In WvW and PvP, it allows for quick stealth for resurrecting, stomping, and switch plays.

“Search & Rescue!”

I’m particularly proud of this one, as it keeps to the original design, while borrowing some recent tech used in the Specialization Feature Patch. Essentially, rather than resurrecting a single ally, this skill functions the same as the Necromancer, Blood Magic Specialization Grandmaster Trait “Transfusion.” It pulls nearby downed allies to the pet’s position (Only 3, instead of five, like the Necromancer Trait) and resurrects them, in much the same way as the original “Search & Rescue!” It has plenty of fun counter play, as stacking all those dead bodies has a chance to make things much worse, but if played properly, can change the course of a fight. Some of the issues of the original “Search & Rescue!” Remain, like being able to kill the pet, but I think, considering the rather short Cooldown, that’s fair.

“Strength to the Pack!”

I still think this skill is in a good place as it is, but keeping with the idea of a support themed set of shouts, I realized that one aspect of the skill could be tweaked to make the Ranger far more viable in team-play. Currently, when you and your pet hit an enemy, you grant each other a stack of might for about eight to ten seconds. In this rendition, you now grant might for six seconds to allies in an area around you. This gives the Ranger a brief, ten second, Phalanx Strength-esque support style, which will seriously help their party viability in high-level Fractals and hard-core dungeon running.

That’s all of the ideas I had, for now. I’m actually working with a friend on a set of “selfish” shout suggestions, to go along with the way the Reaper’s Shouts work.

I love hearing suggestions from all of you, on how to make things more balanced or more streamlined. The more of us that pitch in, the more likely Anet is to take notice of some of the issues that we are bringing up.

Several of my guildies and I have been discussing the weapon skins available to us, as of late, and after weeks of talking about it, the final verdict we’ve come down to is that we want more simple weapons.

Don’t get me wrong, the Black Lion Weapons are gorgeous. I loved the Dwayna and Balthazar weapons, and even some of the lesser used sets, like the Mordrem and Ley-Line Weapons are very interesting conceptually, but in the end, they feel very gimmicky. They have neat effects, cool glows, smoke coming off the handles, tassels flailing about, but what I’d really prefer are simple but elegant weapons.

We’ve already gotten a couple: Bonetti’s Rapier, Lord Faren’s Rapier, and praise the gods, the Gallant weapons set, but despite this, it feels, for the most part, that weapons can be divided into:

1) Crude/Rugged looking, like the Old Ascalonian Weapons, the majority of Level 80 Rare weapons, and almost all craftable weapons. These weapons look functional, but are often rusty, rugged, or old looking.

2) Fantastical Weapons, like the Pact and Orders of Tyria weapon sets, which look nice, but for the most part are just that, Fantastical. They don’t feel like a real weapon, but like a fantasy weapon, and of course.

3) The Glowy Weapons. I don’t think I need to list these. They are weapons with various glowing and particle effects, some of which are nice, some of which are kinda weird (Looking at you Scelerite Weapons), but are usually defined by their glow and particle effects.

What I’d like to see are weapons that are simple but elegant. Things like an officer’s saber sword skin, or our personal favorite a battle-axe hammer skin. The most difficult idea we had, but one of the best, is a crossbow pistol/rifle skin.

What do you think? What kind of weapons would you like to see? Do you think the number and designs of weapons we have now are good enough?

As the title says, “What are your thoughts on the Moa skills of the Mesmer and Engineer (Two classes that already have heavy CC access) being able to override other transform skills?”

I put this under Necromancer because Lich Form suffers from it worse than some other classes, primarily because it receives such a low amount of stability from the transformation, but other transformation skills suffer from this as well: Rampage, Plague, Tornado, and others all suffer from the same problem — if the stability is ripped off through A ) Boon Rip, B ) Boon Corrupt, C ) Rapid CC, then the transform can be overridden by the Moa transform, putting the transform on full Cool Down.

Frankly, I’m not against the skills being completely unable to be overridden, but being placed on full cool down after is where I have an issue. Especially for Engineer ‘Toss Elixir X’ which can be activated twice in a row using Kinetic Charge, and has a far lower cool down than any other transformation skill.

My personal preference would be that the new transformation temporarily overrides the former. While in Moa form, you still have the ‘Lich Form,’ ‘Rampage,’ ‘Tornado,’ or ‘Plague’ effect, but for the duration of Moa, you remain a moa. When moa form ends, you return to the previous transformation, having lost 3-6 seconds, depending on whether it was an Engineer or a Mesmer that transformed you.

I understand that transformation skills need some counters, but these are skills with very long cool downs and very high risk to the user, as it makes you a larger target and removes access to heals, condi-cleanses and utilities. Skills like ‘Slick Shoes,’ and the ‘Diversion’ Shatter can already CC them, and their stability is susceptible to all basic CC skills and boon rip/corrupts. A CCed Lich or Rampage is as good as dead, without any stun breaks.

Edit: Stealth Emoticon

So recently, a good friend of mine has been working towards Juggernaut, that beautiful legendary that haunts the crafting stations of Lion’s Arch and the hills of WvW. However, he’s been stumped by farming something called Silver Doubloons.

These lovely little crafting materials drop in the 20-30 level range, but after you pass 30, you’ll start getting gold and later, platinum doubloons instead. Despite this, they are still required for a level 80 Legendary, and because the level at which they drop is usually not the level on which people get them, the price has inflated to a lovely 1 gold + on the Trading Post. Currently the only way to get Silver Doubloons for level 80 players is A ) Farm gold and buy them or B ) Create an alt, level that alt to 20, then farm Jumping Puzzles, but be careful not to reach too high of a level, because you will have to make yet another alt!

Obviously, this is counter-productive to the idea of getting a legendary. You make a legendary so that your character will look the best/have the best gear, or whatever, not so whatever puny alt you will likely delete when you get them all will get it.

There are a few other instances of this problem across the board — that is, needing materials that only drop for lower level characters. Sure, mats will still drop from their respectively leveled bags, like the Tiny Moldy Sacks and the like, but the gear you get won’t salvage into the materials you need, and we all know that the primary source of materials, such as cloth scraps, ingots, and leather squares, comes from salvaging, not exploring and the like.

How to solve this? My suggestion is to take a mechanic that’s already in existence and spread it across the game, and that is the Reward Level seen in Fractals of the Mists.

Essentially, how it would work is, at any level, you have the ability to down scale the level of rewards your character will earn in PvE. If you are running a level 80, farming for Ascended Armor, and you need linen scraps, you can scale your reward down to level 60-70, to receive armor that will salvage into Linen Scraps. There are downsides, of course, as, for instance, you won’t receive lodestones or other level 80 gear, but you would be accepting that in exchange for easier farming of other mats.

This would allow players to farm for lower level mats, easing the crafting of Ascended and Legendary gear. Additionally, it will help ease the price of Tier 3-4 Materials, which are currently much higher than should be. Iron Ore sells for more than Mithril, because it doesn’t drop in high quantities for high level players, despite Iron Ore being the lower ‘quality’ material.

This is just a suggestion, of course, and I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the matter!

I’d like to weigh in on this: I attempted to farm world events today for dragonite ore, and I experience a similar problem. By similar, I mean, exactly the same. At one point, just to test it, I started counting out the lag in seconds: I had twenty-four seconds in lag. At that point, when I couldn’t move, attack, or even waypoint, I simply gave up and quit. I’d like to think that I’ll be able to try again another day, but that’s just it: I won’t. Because of the system, I have been assured by Anet that I will be able to play with a full map of players, consistently, for the rest of my days.

Hi, this has now happened to me four times now, once in the norn tutorial, and three times in the Charr tutorial. I enter the tutorial, and a new patch is announced, and there is still an hour left on the “Game will update in x-minutes” notification. When I get to the end of the tutorial, kill the big boss, and go through the cutscene, before it loads me into the starting map, it boots from the game and forcibly updates, which, because it boots me before the tutorial has technically finishes, forces me to completely redo the tutorial.

I’m normally very patient, but after having to do the tutorial eight times in a row on various characters (I was making different professions to test in PvP) my patience starts to run out.

I’d like to add on to this. Once you’ve decoded the journals, you will find a map of Tyria containing the locations of all the probes. On the third map, which I have attached, you will find X’s over the exact locations of the Vigil Keep, The Durmand Priory, The Chantry, and Lion’s Arch. It seems likely that her test will be utilized to attack these four locations. In the fourth picture, which I don’t have a screen shot of, there is a large, conical device that resembles a drill. However, due to the blurriness of the in-game screen, it may have been the device that we currently see the marionette connected to.

I think it’s important to remember that the Marionette, while impressive, is not the weapon: the laser is. I would agree that the probes were venturing to tap into some power source, especially as the release of the nodes came around the time Arenanet confirmed Waypoints as canonical devices that existed on leylines.

However, I agree that Mordremoth was the connection that Scarlet was seeing in her visions depicted in her journal, as the “jungle dragon” is the one most closely related to sylvari, but I’d like to add on to it:

1. Currently, our only known information about Mordremoth comes from CoE, where Alpha uses a skill called Teeth of Mordremoth. On this same path, the players face an evolved Husk, showing that Husks, or a version of them are minions of this Elder Dragon.

2. In the Caledon Meta Event chain, a large Jungle Wurm appears, followed by Avatar’s of Blight, which appear as husks. If husks are related to Mordremoth, it’s likely that this corrupt, dark wurm is as well. Talking to the NPC Gamarien, he mentions that a “darker force” is at work than the nightmare court.

3. The new meta events in Bloodtide Coast contain three very large Jungle Wurms along with a plethora of husks, smaller worms, and grubs of varying type and ability. All of these events fit well with what we know of Mordremoth from CoE and what we know of husks and other wurms from locations such as Wychmire Swamp and Twilight Arbor.

Is it possible that Scarlet had not discovered the location where Mordremoth slept? That these probes were not siphoning the dragon’s energy? What if this three headed wurm is just a minion of the newly awakened Elder Dragon? We always thought that Mordremoth would come from somewhere to the far west, in the Maguuma Wastes. The trend in the current dragons does not match this, obviously (Zhaitan:Orr:South, Jormag:Shiverpeaks:North, Kralkatorrik:Ascalon:East, Primordus:Depths:Below, Mordremoth:________:West?) but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Further, Anet has mentioned multiple times that this Living Story will have nothing to do with the Dragons. This removes credence from this theory.

My second theory, and my personal favorite, regards several picture seen in Scarlet’s Lair. These images are large red diamond with lines radiating off of them. If you’re wondering where you may have seen it, just look at the Bloodseeker focus or take a run of Arah path 4, and you will recognize the bloodstones. Bloodstones are known to cause large disruptions in magic. It’s not impossible that she received visions or nightmare because of one’s corruption/distortion.

We currently only know of where four are located, and on of these four was located in the Bloodstone Cave, which is located roughly in the region between Sparkfly Fen and Strait’s of Devastation (there is actually what appears to be a place holder cave there for any interested in exploring). This cave network may extend far enough to travel below Bloodtide as well, in which case she may be using the probes to search for or steal energy from the bloodstone, as you have theorized.

As usual, these are only speculations, mostly based on my own opinions. Don’t take them for fact, but please feel free to comment, supplement, detract, subtract, add to, multiply, divide, square, cube, take the square root of, or find the vertex of my theories. That’s what makes this fun!

That depends: do you want to have more damage or more survivability or a combination of both?

My build is scepter/focus specked for damage, and I use 30 Fire (V) (VIII) (XI), 30 Air (VI) (VII) (XI), and 10 Arcana (I) with Superior Runes of Rage and Zerker or Knight’s stats gear. It focuses on heavy crit damage, the use of the blast finishers that Scepter and focus have to grant might and fury. I generally use “Lightning Hammer,” “Arcane Shield,” and “Arcane Wave.” For my utilities, as Arcane Shield provides a little defense, Arcane wave is a good AoE to compensate for scepter’s single-target skills, and Lightning Hammer’s autoattack is a blast finisher (this is why I usually use the conjurer trait). The focus’s “Obisidian Flesh” an projectile reflection skills are your main defense, but this build really focuses on having someone to hold aggro for you. I’m not a PvP or WvWer, however, in my tests in PvP, the build generally does very well — its biggest weakness being hammer warriors who can spam stuns and knockdowns.

If you want survivability, I suggest using scepter/focus with 10 Fire (IV), 30 Water (III) (IX) (XI), and 30 Arcana (VI) (VII) (XI) with runes that improve toughness or vitality and either the Superior Sigil of Stamina or Energy, and the build focuses on using the focus’s defensive skills, plus a lot of evasion, and using cantrips to cure conditions and grant might to improve damage. You can also use the fire fields and blast finishers of the scepter/focus to grant yourself and your allies might.

I usually use scepter/focus, so I’m not very well versed in the interactions between scepter and dagger. There may be bette ways to create these builds by using scepter/dagger, and others may have better options regarding these builds.

Hope this helps

I know that not giving Elementalist weapon swapping was done in order to balance it with other classes, since have all four of the elements plus weapon swapping would be extremely over powered, however, after talking with a lot of other players, including other ele players, a common theme I have noticed is that they wouldn’t want weapon swapping because it would be “too complicated.” By that, they mean that having to micromanage both your elements and your weapons would be very difficult in the middle of harder fights.

Something that has crossed my mind several times (and would apply to Engi also) is if Anet were to add in a Grandmaster Trait — most likely for the Arcana line — that allowed Weapon Swapping. This would allow players who desired this extra dimmension to gameplay and were skilled and comfortable enough to micromanage the four elements and two weapons, the opportunity to spec into a weapon swapping build.

I understand that not all traits would work with such a system and that the idea will most likely never be available in-game due to the terrible balancing issues that would arise from it, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter. Weapon swapping for elementalists: A good idea? Yes or no, and why do you think so?

Okay, so, while exploring Brisban Wildlands on my Ranger, I saw something interesting, a corpse (See attached picture) which, if you interact with it, gives you a brief description of the cause of death (From your brilliant detective character), and after interacting with it, you are only able to see, “Re-examining the corpse reveals nothing new.” Etc. This corpse is located in Lionshead Outcroppings in Brisban Wildlands, directly east of the Brenna’s Bandit’s hideout, under a little tree-thing. You can get there from the “Gallowfields Waypoint” and walk east, into the ravine, then up the southern side as soon as you agro the spiders. It’s not hard to miss since it’s a naked chick. I was wondering if anybody else has seen this, but since there is nothing on the forums, or on the wiki, I am thinking it might be new. Any thoughts? Speculations? Comments? Thanks!

(For anyone who couldn’t open the attachment, here is the link: http://i.imgur.com/ynMkVhj.jpg)

I have the beginning refrain and first half of the first verse for “Fear Not This Night:”

(Edit Notes: With the changes made to flute, I removed all “repeated notes” Instead just hold the notes, someone has requested a video to explain better, but I do not have any video software on my computer; however, here is the link that I got the music from originally by using the notes written for the flute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqFrF2X4tfs)

(Refrain)
6-8-(9)3-(9)6-8-7—5-7-6//
Fear not this Night you will not go astray
6-8-(9)3-6—-5-5-6-4-//
Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way

(First Verse)
(9)8—-7-8-7-6-7-8-7-6-5—7-6//
Awaken from a quiet sleep. Hear the whispering of the wind.
8—-8-7-8-(9)2-(9)6-7-8-7-8-(9)2-(9)8-7-6//
Awaken as the silence grows in the solitude of the night
(9)3——2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-(9)7-(9)1-2-1-(9)-7//
Darkness spreads throughout the land and your weary eyes open silently
(9)3—-2-3-6—3-6-5-(9)6-(9)5—6-4-2//
Sunsets have forsaken all, the most far off horizons
5-6-7—8-7-6 ……. 5-6-7-8—6
Nightmares come when shadows grow…..Eyes close and heartbeats slow

(Refrain)
6-8-(9)3-(9)6-8-7—5-7-6//
Fear not this night. You will not go astray
6-8-(9)3-6—-5—6-4-//
Though Shadows fall, still the stars find their way

(Second Verse)
(9)3-6—5-3-4-5-3-5-6—8—3-4-5//
And you can always be strong. Lift your voice at the first light of dawn.
4—-3-2-(9)7-(9)2….. 4-5-6-5-3-1-2//
Dawn is just a heartbeat away…. Hope is just a sunrise away
1—-(9)7-8-7-6-7-8-7-6-5-6-7-6//
Distant song of melody scoring through the night to your heart
(9)1——(9)7-(9)1-2-(9)6-7-8-7-(9)1-2-1-(9)7-6//
Auroras make circumstance in the solitude of our life.
(9)3—-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-(9)7-(9)1-2-1-(9)7-6//
Pleading silent arias gently grieving in captive misery.
(9)3——2-3-6—3-6-5-(9)6-(9)5—6-4//
Darkness sings a violent songs yet our hope can still rise up.
5-6-7—8-7-6….. 5-6-7-8—6//
Nightmares come where shadows grow…. Lift your voice lift your heart

(Refrain)
6-8-(9)3-(9)6-8-77-5-7-6//
Fear not this night, you will not go astray
6-8-(9)3-6—-5—6-4-//
Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way.

(This is as far as I was able to get. After the third refrain, the song switches keys three times for the bridge and final refrain, and as I am not very adept at music, I was unable to move this over to the in-game flute. I apologize if there are any flaws or discrepancies, and please feel free to point out errors and build off this! Enjoy!)

In Tyria, nature obviously has its own life. This can be seen in the Norn’s Spirits of the Wild and the human god Melandru. When discussing with Shamans of the Spirits and priests of Melandru, they provide strong support for the existential nature of all living things in nature — including plants and trees.

The Sylvari are based on the Celtic cultures who lived in the late B.C.E and early A.C.E era in what is modern day England. This culture had a firm belief in coexistence of all life (much like the Sylvari and their connection to the Pale Tree). Based on the rituals of the ancient Celts, it is most likely that dead Sylvari are cremated or buried in cairns (in Hoelbrek lodge, there is a cemetery of cairns in the caves to the northeast of the area, this shows that cairns is a common system of burial in Tyria.)

Also, they might be based off druids of Greco-Roman mythology who were the spirits of trees or perhaps even the more recent mythologies of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, living plants are very much alive and have souls just as every other living being.

Based on their religious beliefs involving the Pale Tree and the Dream, it is most likely that the death of a Sylvari results in being “reabsorbed” into the earth and possibly being reincarnated. Their plant based physiology would support this cyclic system as this what occurs with plants in real life.

Another theory could be that Sylvari are actually parts of the Pale Tree. That is to say, the Pale Tree was a living being throughout the history of Tyria, but only recently decided to begin creating Sylvari. In this view, Sylvari are not sentient lifeforms at all, but merely pieces of the Pale Trees consciousness given a physical form. If this was the case, then the idea that they live a cyclic existence would become very literal. In death, the Sylvari would not actually die, but their part of the Pale Tree’s conscious would return to the Pale Tree to be imparted to another Sylvari.