Guild Wars 2

In retrospect yes, I agree. Knockdown chance on AA would be either annoyingly strong or annoyingly unpredictable with the very low chance it would need to be balanced. A guaranteed knockdown on weakened foes on other non-AA skills would be better.

Eruption is a good choice. But I would also consider Shockwave too: If target is weakened, the Immobilize is replaced by a knockdown.

Earth’s staff autoattack would be a lot stronger if Projectile Finishes would be worthwhile. That 100% projectile finisher chance would be the actual utility of Stoning, not the weakness it inflicts.

Another thing that came to mind is the Stoning skill of Guild Wars 1. It didnt inflict weakness, it knocked down the target if it was inflicted with weakness. (Enervating Charge followed by Stoning was a skill combo used by some annoying mobs). So what if GW2 Stoning kept inflicting weakness, and had say, a 33% chance to knock down if the target is already suffering from weakness?

Generally speaking I don’t believe buffing damage for all non-fire element autoattacks would be the way to go. Fire is meant to be the damage element, naturally it should outshine all other elements in that regard.

Its also worth considering that staff is generally the long-range weapon of the elementalist, and when you are safely away from the hostile situation you feel more confident going full-on damage most of the time, which can also contribute to the feeling that Fire is the only worthwile element on staff.

I would be happy enough with Air staff AA if it was actually faster. For a chain “lightning” the projectile is painfully slow. Give it a 10-20% damage increase as well maybe, but otherwise the fact that it jumps between targets relatively far from each other makes it unique enough. Its just slow.

(Oh, and sometimes the bounces just go wide to who knows where. Probably a bug, or its supposed target gets killed by the time the bounce happens…)

I can agree with the first point: It would be nice if we got heat upgrades to all weapons we can use. Its not like we need completely new skills like weaver, only a trait that scales damage and/or applies some condies based on heat level.

on the side note however, nah, not needed I think. that would increase the amount of stuff they would need to properly balance.

Abaddon was the god of secrets and the depths. He was imprisoned in the Realm of Torment, and in time he went mad and became a menace. During the events of Nightfall Kormir, who was a sunspear general gained the blessing of the other 5 gods that effectively made her be able to take on his power.

Abaddon was defeated in the Realm of Torment, and his power kinda lashed out, threatening to destroy everything, but then Kormir basically ran in and absorbed the power and became the new goddess of truth. Abaddon’s will was broken and his power was taken. Supposedly its as good as dead.

Except that another example of a god being usurped similarly is Dhuum (former god of death very much against resurrection of any kind) being usurped by Grenth, and Dhuum as it turns out is very much alive and even has some power in the Underworld.
And now coming to Balthazar it seems a defeated god drained of its power can still very much be a threat. Why we havent heard about Abaddon’s comeback? Probably because that story is done and ANet wouldnt want to beat a dead horse and redo the same story over and over again.

“Being resurrected in the Mists”… I dont know where that option comes from. Kinda makes me think of Razah who was an unfinished creation of Abaddon created in the Realm of Torment (which is part of the Mists as every realm really), but I dont see what that has to do with Abaddon’s supposed resurrection.

According to one of the Shining Blade agents (Exemplar Caulden) after the ceremony, Anise thought the PC would “provide the tipping point between failure and success” in the whole plan, and she did actually string us along for that purpose. Lying is like breathing to her. So there already was some misleading here.

Which is so encouraging to hear just after saying a killer oath that weighs our lives upon giving up information that half the time might not even be true

Even under this oath we are able to bring Lazarus back to existence. If that is not a danger to Kryta as far as a spell’s wording is concerned, I don’t know what is. Or the spell itself has an intelligence of its own. The only way this would be allowed is if the spell knows that you only want to bring back the last most powerful mursaat to kill him right on the spot, and also reasonably assume that you would be capable of doing it.

Which it would not know of course, because fighting a mursaat is dependent on being a Chosen (Edit: having True Sight I mean), and the spell should definitely not know that even if its intelligent (which in itself is a ridiculous assumption).

More likely the oath is not as far-reaching or deadly as one would think. I imagine its just a cover for Anise planting some kind of bug in your mind to sense if you are starting to have treacherous thoughts.

Edit: Would have made more sense if Anise and the good Exemplar misdirect us a bit to help them fulfill their plan, needing us specifically because we are not under the spell of an overhyped murderous pinky-swear. Maybe we would get some info out of it about Balthazar, maybe not, but they needed this done, and such disregard for our own plans fits better with their “at any cost” mentality.

I liked the mechanic of the fight against guilt. That was a cleverly symbolic way to do it, slowing your recharges for the longer you didnt “face” your fears, like doubts and fears stop you from doing anything. Also, possibly a test for some new/returning mesmer mechanic?

I dont think we can answer that question at this point. He was a god and had his scripture but it actually lacks the usual rhetorics about worship.

“Lift up thy weapons. For you are my soldiers, and must you be steadfast, strong, and brave of heart. They who neither hesitate nor stumble shall be rewarded. Then shall you have glory. Then shall your deeds be remembered for eternity.”

This is mostly just about fighting, not fighting for a holy cause or zealotry. But even so it is pointless to debate at this point since he seems to have undergone some character arc with the whole “There is no Honor in War” mindset.

When measuring power levels of gods we have encountered or seen the effects of, I think we need to take into account their actual levels of effecting the world. Abaddon was way more powerful than just a chained broken giant shooting purple beams, he was halfway in pulling the entire world into the realm of torment when we got to finish him. That is pretty godly in my opinion. Menzies and Dhuum control their own little private armies/creatures, but they rarely inflict any massive environmental change. (Someone correct me if I am wrong, I havent frequented the Underworld or Fissure of Woe enough to remember).

Balthazar right now does feel really worthless in comparison at this time, but consider that maybe he is just warming up, or, given that he is mostly uninterested in the world as long as he gets enough magic from it to repower himself, he might not be unleashing his full potential. It is a gods perogative to underestimate everything mortal to the point of not even swating a mildly annoying fly. Not when there are more important things to worry about, something the fly wouldnt even be able to comprehend.

Aurene is a tuppleware. Supposedly she should be getting the majority of magic the other dragons release upon death. Balthazar might have enough magic from Primordus and the Bloodstone for now, but thinking a bit forward it would pay off to keep Aurene alive (and somewhat trusting) if or when the dragons are dealt with (by us) and he happens to want to take another bite.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

At the moment, it’s not clear. We know from the post that not all revs are blind, but we don’t know the specific situation with Rytlock. He seems too… pragmatic, and self-reliant, to cover his eyes and rely on another entity’s senses if he could just do the seeing for himself.

He has 4 ears and a snout with probably the best sense of smell of all intelligent races. I think charr are well covered on the non-visual sense front generally.

I wonder if we would have more to go on now if we had the Abaddon’s fall fractal way back, after Cut-throat Politics. I suspect that was a way for the devs to decide if we knew about ley-lines first, or about whatever is going on with the human gods. I suspect that fractal would have some of the key information we are missing, and this looks like the best time to go back to that project.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

The device didn’t really seem to have a range. Taimi made it sound like it’d be as simple as pressing a button in the Rata Novus lab- as long as it didn’t blow up in our faces.

Sure, Balthazar took it down to the Primordus chamber, but I figured that was because he’d already secured the chamber as part of his previous plan, whatever it was he was intending to do before he learned about the machine, and that made it the safest place for him to phase out without the machine being tampered with.

There was a beam of Jormag energy (or I at least assume it was, considering the background explanation of how its supposed to work and the color theme of the beam) coming from the machine. So I was wondering if Jormag got his own beam of Primordus energy in the face, and where it came from, because there was definitely no orange/fiery beam shooting out from the device to somewhere in the distance.

But maybe I’m wrong and the beam is actually Balthazar siphoning Primordus’ energy. Dont know why would it be bright blue considering both of their color themes, red/orange, or even dark green (from Zhaitan) and bright green (from Mordremoth).

First time playing through, I was in a constant “holy kitten ” state… up until the druid spirit first showed itself.

We had this setup, that Balthazar was up to no good. Using Lyssa’s magic mirror (that could have meant that she is in team Balthazar as well), then getting do Draconis Mons the asura and the tracking device is taken by a vine, so what, Melandru is against us too? Then the mysterious voice -that reminded me of whoever gave Glint’s egg to the Zephyrite master- seem to help us… who at some point was being speculated to be (related to) Abaddon, and my mind was going to old places that got me excited again. Like how Abaddon might have been the only reasonable god until they threw him into the realm of torment, the moral and religious ambiguity, how humanity is basically going to go through a similar existential crisis like the sylvari when they heard the call of Mordremoth…

But then the druid spirit showed up. I hope they are going to play an important role later, because it just feels such a missed/derailed opportunity right now.

Considering that Rytlock still hasnt talked about what he was doing in the Mists, and that Balthazar as a god is more native to the Mists, I guess you must be right. Seems like a nice enough starting point with a lot of potential revelations to boost hype for a season finale.

How exactly did he know what that device was meant to do? I thought Taimi kept it a secret. How could he operate it (I dont think a god of brute methods should be able to operate asura magitech that was purposefully designed in a way that other asuras dont know what it does), let alone change it in a way that lets him absorb what energy Primordus bleeds out when hit by the Jormag-beam? Also, wouldnt we need another similar device at the close proximity of Jormag’s dragon form for this to work both ways? The whole concept was, I thought, to use two dragons power against each other, so it should only work both ways.

I think Lich Form would make somewhat more sense.

Tornado form is strange because it’s too magical. For an elementalist or any kind of professional mage character you can kind of suspend your disbelief when the character “Turns into a swirling tornado”, but if you put any science into it, you start to think too much into it.

“Does his body actually break down to small particles? How does his will remain intact?”

With the rampage ability, its easy, its practically a Hulk serum. With Lich Form it would be an elixir of concentrated necrotic essence (probably not very healthy) that for a short time infuses the inviber with powers similar to the necromancers Lich Form (along with a physical transformation).

But with Tornado… I don’t know. It just feels too much.

Your friend might consider trying to expand on his original plans and try to connect to actual lore on the Mists. The Mistlock Observatory fractals is a good enough place to start. With some forced plot-complexity a living character might be called into a fractal that replays a historic moment, and somehow he might escape the endless replaying of the fractals and end up walking on Tyria again 200 years after the event. The player might want to employ a big dose of mystery and magical mumbo-jumbo in the explanation, while also building on events that are set in the lore. “Being hit by a rock” is downright insultingly simple for such long shots. I would also be careful about flaunting this backstory casually during RP, as it very well might result in him not being taken seriously.

The antitoxin injector looks like the ideal alchemist backpack. Dont know how to get the skin if you werent around during the Tower of Nightmares living world events though.
http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gw2-antitoxin-injector-2.jpg

See, there is my little problem. We are led to believe that the dragons spread their corruption. Thats alright. Anything can spread corruption, really, even inanimate objects. Heck, even ideas and suggestions. (Jormag and his Sons of Svanir)

The problem starts when we try to comprehend that the dragons themselves have been corrupted.

-We cant talk about moral perversion, immorality, as the dragons are just too darn big in every meaning of the word to be subject to our lowly mortal morals.
-We cant really measure the proposed perversion of their integrity. We know the dragons as they are, all the races we know of to have encountered them knew and know them as they are now. Technically speaking, the “purification” of Glint fits more into this definition of “corruption”.
-decay contamination and rot is tricky too. Suggesting that the dragons are corrupted in this manner would mean that their cycles had been messed with majorly. Their entire system would be disfunctional. Which might be the case, really, but we cant know without more information about the earlier cycles. But in either case, we are majorly messing up the system ourselves, killing one ED after the other.

Scarlet Briar (in thaumanova reactor fractal) notes that dragon magic and chaos magic is technically the same, or at least they are closely related. She doesnt differentiate between the dragons when saying that. From this I can guess that they either have some connection to chaos themselves (part of creation, the original state of the universe before creation, so maybe the part of the recreation of the world as well?), or it was this Chaos that corrupted them and their nature, if your theory is considered.

I would like you to specify what ‘corruption’ is and what is not. Not just in a single dragon’s case, but on the whole, since you theorize that its a global thing that the dragons just picked up.

Some forms of corruption are easy to see as examples. Jormag’s corrupted ice. Mordremoth’s beastial plant creatures. Zhaitan’s undead nation. But what exactly is ‘corruption’? Is it a change in something’s nature? After all, dead things and plants are not supposed to move around killing people.

Of course I did overdo the scaling quite a bit. What we see and know of the Elder dragon’s influence and power comes from what they can do to Tyria, the continent, not Tyria the planet. We have no real clue of their influence on the rest of the planet.

The thread title was about Elder dragons on Earth. I projected the relative magnitude of the threat and the effects that we get to know from a small continent ingame, onto our entire planet. It was part of the fun of the thought experiment, because “military will shoot them down in a week” isn’t that interesting (though probably more true considering the actual scales and limitations of magic use).

Good thinking on Zhaitan. To be honest, he would feel pretty homely in most of Europe. Just because in Tyria he stayed in Orr and Arah doesnt mean he would stay in one spot on Earth. And even on Tyria he tried to expand his dominion around the time of the game.

Its a strange thing to consider both Jormag and Primordus on the same region, the Himalaya. Though in truth they are pretty close in Tyria as well (Shiverpeaks).

My main thought on putting Jormag on the north pole was to have a bigger influence over people. North America and Eurasia are the dominant powerplayers of this world, and he would be on the right place to make that Ice Age happen with little fuss. Granted, in the Himalaya he would be closer to another source of massive number of humans and another powerful nation, China.

On the other hand we can consider their times of arrival/awakening. Again going with how it went down on Tyria, Primordus would be first. That would be bad. On the one hand, if he manages to rouse a volcano or two in quick succession, or even just a single super-volcano (thinking of the Yellowstone park, Rocky Mountains) he not only would shake one of the most powerful nations in the world, the resulting dust and smoke would halt airline travel, and bring down the temperature significantly on the whole planet. We wouldnt even be able to retaliate either, because he would keep underground.

The approximate 45 years between Primordus and Jormag would not be enough for temperature to return to normal, even more so if Primordus remains at large. Either on the North Pole or in the Himalayas, Jormag would devastate either region’s leading civilizations, and while it might be easier to pinpoint a nuclear strike on him than on Primordus, the fallout could cause as much trouble as the dragon itself.

Sometime the Deep Sea Dragon would wake as well, and though we might not see it or know of it, if it’s intelligent enough it would probably cut down some trans-ocean communication cables as well as making sea travel impossible. Mass extinctions in the waters can occur, devastating the oceanic ecology.
With underwater lines cut, we would be forced to rely on satellite communication, but that too would be problematic with the dust and smoke from the other dragons.

Temperature drop would force mass migration toward the equators. About that time Zhaitan would arrive, most probably evacuating what little population remains in Europe. If we want an ultimate apocalypse scenario, we can be pretty certain that a zombie virus would be spreading rapidly. Thankfully with air and sea travel pretty much destroyed at that point, it would be mostly contained in Europe and the Middle East.

Zhaitan is another dragon that might be pinpointed for a strike, but at this point its unpredictable how much we would be able to do. International communications cut, the most powerful nations eradicated, locating through satellite scans made impossible (either because of the clouds of smoke and dust or because of the satellites falling to disrepair at this point), pinpointing nukes might not be possible. Only blanket-bombing the infected regions in hopes of it hitting the dragon. Again, the resulting fallout would make things similarly worse.

That pretty much guarantees that whatever humanity has left would migrate down south. About a hundred years after Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik would come. Unfortunately we cant really expect Primordus to be as quiet here through all that time as he is in Tyria, because we dont have a nation of immortal stone dwarves holding the line underground. Thus we must expect more volcanic activity, and thus more dust, and a more stable Ice Age. Im unsure how that would change the Sahara, but it might still be the best bet for Kralkatorrik’s place. Or Australia, since the southern hemisphere is mostly untouched by dragons as of yet.

Then in quick succession Mordremoth, though the quickness might be off. If we assume we dont have stone dwarves to keep Primordus occupied, we must also assume that we dont have a Scarlet to wake Mordremoth early. In any case, the regions most survivors migrated to would be shaken by these last two dragons. Ironically, maybe Mordremoth would be the least powerful dragon at that point, with the Ice Age weakening the jungles, and the remains of humanity starting massive processing of the rainforests.

Makes me wonder if that is usually the plan for Tyria. The first dragons making the planet uninhabitable, then seeding it with new life through Mordremoth.

Interesting thought experiment there. The main point of consideration would be where the dragons wake up/go to though. Just from what we know from the actual dragons and some places on Earth…

Start with the easy one, the unnamed deep sea dragon. We can pretty much bet its going to be somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, maybe right in the depths of Mariana Trench.

Mordremoth or his equivalent would be either Africa or South America, in the rainforests. My guess is SA. Why?

Kralkatorrik seems to favor sandy environments, deserts. I know he just flew to the Crystal Desert to find Glint, but he still havent left, so I guess he likes it there. On Earth, that would probably be the Sahara Desert. So to stay as far away from Mordremoth as he did in Tyria, Mordremoth would be in SA instead of Africa.

Primordus is a hard one. He would probably stay underground as he does in Tyria. If I had to give him an area though, I would probably point at the Rocky Mountains or the Himalaya. Or somewhere in the Fire Ring (the volcanicly active ring around the Pacific Ocean)

Jormag would be either Antarctica, or just to have a more ready supply of people, North Europe, Canada, and/or Siberia.

Zhaitan, merely for the sake of keeping to what happened in Tyria and because hey, this is a thought experiment so a bit of mythology can go into it, might just raise the unfound remains of Atlantis. If not that though, I would point him somewhere right into the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, maybe a bit east to have some dominion over the middle east, where there were the ancient civilizations.

But what would be the immediate effects of their awakening, even with as little magic as they would get from Earth? Well earthquakes and floods are a given. Plus Primordus’s volcanic activity (mostly the dust going into the air from a single super-volcano he might rouse) coupled with Jormag’s blizzards would pretty much guarantee a pretty bad new Ice Age. Humanity would be forced to find warmer climates, and would be in a bad situation with Kralkatorrik, Zhaitan and Mordremoth all controlling the more southern/equator areas.

And only then, if we manage to answer with our most obvious solutions, the nukes, we would have another nasty nuclear winter to look forward to, with probably all the rainforests gone, the oceans unable to sustain life, and the dry grounds either sand, crystal, or ice.

Tl-dr: We would be kittened.

Im looking forward to the gliding in Central Tyria.

1 question though: Cities, and more specificly home instance areas.

More than a year ago in some updates invisible walls were put up in Divinity’s Reach to prevent players from accessing the home instance areas without making it an instance. This mostly effected the Roleplayers who enjoyed the open empty areas with no NPCs, and couldnt get there anymore conveniently.

So my question is, will we be able to glide freely there now? Or the bottom of Rata Sum? As the blog post said “As long as your explorations remain harmless, it’s all part of the fun!” It was harmless jumping from rooftop to rooftop to get to Salma district to RP, but it was taken away just the same.

10 secs cooldown is too short for a lightning field that happens at your feet. Some would say its too powerfull for such a short cooldown, others would say that unvolunterly producing lightning fields that overwrite intendedly placed fire fields would be bad.

Its mostly annoying for engineers because we have no weapon swap. I guess its just going to take a bit of time to get used to the fact that your main weapon is melee and you can only range via kits.

On the other hand, more related to the topic, at least you know what trait-line you will obviously want to switch out for scrapper: Firearms.

Would it be fair to ask to have it work on everything that needs the F-key? From opening chests to revive downed or fallen PCs and NPCs, to using consoles or even pick up loot? I feel like the FUNCTION gyro has too little FUNCTION to it (and even less FUN) doing just one single thing that mostly results in scrappers actually wishing another player to go down just for the joy of having a chance to use their specialization.

while Im very happy with most changes (yay no more hobosacks!), the pistol 1 is back to its bad mode now with no way to make it pierce (which was said to become baseline). Also its still not an explosion…

Were these ideas scrapped (and if so, then why exactly), or were they just forgotten?

I agree that there should be an option that doesnt include the core game for those who already have it. Maybe via the Black Lion Trading Company (gem store), since thats already a link to your existing profile. Make it so that you can only spend real money on it if you dont want it to be accessable through farming gold in-game.

The condition damage changes are sure to bring a big balancing and revamping wave through all classes. Specializations as well.

Some of the kits are going to be changed, mechanically as well as visually. Med Kit for example will no longer have 3 identical skills in slots 1-3. One is going to be a Healing Breeze kind of cone spray of healing. That visual and stylistic direction derives from the new kit bundle, Med Kit becoming a sort of tech-gauntlet. So yeah, I think (and hope) that the hobosacks are going in next patch, with a lot of nice stuff coming in.

Just giving my voice to this. I also noticed the custom battle music not playing as often as it should. Also when a world boss event starts (Vinewrath, Tequatl, even back at Marionette) it always starts with the same track even though I have a silent randomizer file in the start of the playlist.

Would love to have a better tool for doing the lists too, but I guess them fixing this issue would be a good start already.

Buuuut…. just in case they ever decide to do something more than just fix, It would be quite usefull to have some kind of option to leave the living story soundtracks alone, because the new battle musics ingame are quite good otherwise.

Depending on her overall motivations that are still up to debate. If she, by any chance, wanted to prepare Tyria for Mordremoth’s awakening (as its vaguely theorised every now and then), and you take into account the similarities between the fights with the Marionette and the Vinewraith, one could argue that the marionette was to test us, not just for her attack on Lions Arch, but for attacking one of Mordremoth’s champions.

This thinking feels a bit backwards though; How could she predict that kind of confrontation quite so accurately? Well, she heard the whispers in her head that could come from Mordremoth (still unsure though), and she saw the Eternal Alchemy (or parts of it) through her experience and experiments with Omadd’s machine. It could also be quite an unconscious choice from her part to make a fight so similar to the Vinewraith’s .

(Of course there is also the fact that Anet could just figure that the Marionette was a winning formula for a large world boss battle and adapted it, but thats out-of-game theory that I’m not going to involve in the lore discussions)

From the screenshots, my only small issue is with the Bomb Kit bomb, it looks too big still. For reference just look at the bomb-placement animation where it happens using one hand, thus suggesting that the bombs placed are not so big and heavy. I would suggest making them smaller, maximum the size of the barrel we see on the current bomb kit sack. Its not that much work on an already finished model, it reduces the ugliness of the actual thing a bit, and since its a close range weapon kit, it should be still visible enough to tell what the engi is using.

As for the suggestive jingling grenades… yeah, that was my first thought of them as well. While not as bad as the bomb and helluva lot better than the kit, i still think a grenade launcher kind of weapon would be better, especially if we still get a range expanding trait that makes us “throw” grenades further than pistol and rifle bullets travel.

nice! but what about flamethrower and EG? Do they still have the humongous bags?

Wait what? who? where? I need links to feast my eyes upon!

I was about to point at the futility of discussion if we cant even agree on what “correlation” is, but come to think of it, we dont even know the full range of these aspects and what smaller concepts they could include within themselves. We have only heard, what, four aspects being mentioned? Shadow, death, mind and plants(or nature, cant remember which at the moment).

Look at what we (presumably) know for sure: Zhaitan=shadow and death.
Not even undeath. Not stagnation. Not rot and decay. Not darkness. But all these can be included in Shadow and Death. Even though it sounds grammaticly illogical to connect Death with UNdeath (undeath is the negation of natural normal death), while we know full well that undeath fell into Zhaitans sphere of influence.

We dont have a list. For all we know, we only have concepts. Knowledge could be a part of Mind. Secrets can be a sub-aspect of knowledge. The Unknown can equal Secrets, and that in turn can connect to the deep unknown of oceans.

Its possible, but we dont know. We dont have a full comprehensive list.

I still think that the more important question still is why does a book about the 5 “true” human gods delve into ancient dragon lore and their spheres of influence.

That is mostly because we strive to line up everything perfectly while most of the time we ignore that the human gods as well as humanity itself are alien to Tyria, meaning that neither originated here, which in turn warrants that if there is a whatever connection between the two types of powerful godlike superbeings, there will still be differences.

There are too many things pointing at a possible connection, but not nearly enough things defining what exactly this connection might be.

Technicly speaking the moment we step into the new areas we will be inside Mordremoth. When we jump into the breaches at the forts on the Silverwastes? That sticky-gooey cavern?

Consider that the giant vines are said to be the actual body of Mordremoth (Taimi says so in S2, around the waypoint dilemma). The vines tearing the Pact fleet apart were not just some vines, it was Mordy himself.

So yeah, the heart of thorns might actually refer to a place in the jungle (The jungle that is Mordremoth himself) where the dragon is somewhat vulnerable. A place where the flow of his power can be disrupted with a decicive blow, similar to a stroke, or if you will, similar to the cleansing of the orrian Artesian Wells.

Sylvari do sleep and do dream. They can also experience nightmares, as one sylvari explains to the other on the upper levels of the Grove. Nightmares are usually taken as attacks coming from the aptly named Nightmare Court, or more likely the increasing influence the Nightmare has on the Dream.

As far as I understand, when sylvari sleep they connect to the Dream and in a way “upload” their daily experience (“I’ll pass this along to the Pale Tree!”), and from there other sylvari can find stuff if they happen to dream about these experiences. Its not like a hive-mind in the sense that every sylvari knows everything the other sylvari knows. Its more like the Internet. Full of information, some more or less usefull or important than the others, some wonderfull, some horrific, and you get to know only the parts that you happened to click on.

I hope it will include a replayability option. I made the mistake of moving ahead, and my guardian’s story is missing way more than just the greatest fear plotline. She never cleansed Orr with Treharne… but her next mission after escorting the tanks to Cursed Shore is to kill Zhaitan…

Not trying to strengthen the idea of the connection between gods and dragons, but isnt it strangely convenient that only the Deep Sea Elder dragon’s name is damaged beyond recognition in the Tome of the Five True Gods? Given that Abaddon was a god of the seas as well as secrets, and that the tome is specificly assigned to 5 gods, without Abaddon, whose name was nigh erased from history after his fall.

And I would be quite interested in the context of the entire book supposedly written about the 5 true gods where it dwells into 10k+ years old lore about elder dragons in such specifics as their names and spheres of influence…

Again, not trying to beat the dead horse about any connection, but that supposedly important book certainly isnt weakening the idea either.

As Abaddon was the god of knowledge and secrets, and his libraries were full of forbidden knowledge, it stands to reason that his servants would have access to some of the stuff as well.
Maybe the existence of the dragons was such a forbidden knowledge, as was their place in the All, and by proxy, the concept of the All itself.

gaspara.4079:

While I agree the sacks are ugly and make the engi less desirable they serve a fairly important purpose that ANet would need to solve to remove them. Due to the number of different kits ,the different playstyles and abilities of each, and the speed with which engis can switch between them, it is important that a large obvious visual queue as to which kit is currently in use is important for pvp balance reasons.

Therefore I would suggest you make your suggestion around some sort of fairly large hand based indicator for each kit. Each one would need to be large and unique enough to be easily seen and recognized from at least 1500 range. My concern is that grenades and bandages are not really that big, so either you will have an obnoxiously large, goofy looking grenade/bandage for those kits or you will need to find some other obviously connectable symbol.

This has been brought up against the arguement time and again, but the truth is that the backpacks are not visible enough from your designated 1500 range either to actually matter. Given that they are covered by the character facing you. Those backpacks serve no actual purpose whatsoever.

But since we are practicle people and for the sake of arguement, lets say that they are super-important for some people to be able to tell what kit the engineer uses. The answer then is Standardized Character Models, a mode introduced not long ago specificly for the sole purpose of standardizing character appearences in PvP for better recognition of skills and animations. Make that mode have the backpacks visible at all time, but let the actual players who grind and spend on in-game cosmetics to actually look good regardless of what skills they use.

Appearently my guardian will never cleanse Orr. Not because I refuse to do the PS (though this mentality was in effect ever since the feature patch that brought on the NPE), but because… appearently I must have done it already. Except that I didnt. I just finished the plotline with the tanks moving through to Cursed Shore, and next thing the game tells me is to go kill Zhaitan. That is the new order. Thats fine and dandy. Except that its the last PS episode, so cleansing Orr (which comes before that in this new order) will propably never happen.

Serves me right for waiting months for them to fix this mess. It just got worse.

On the bright side, I’m just one story dungeon away from never doing this botched story ever again.

Im not entirely certain that the Secluded Glen is in the Dragonbrand. Its the most north-western point of the map. If you look at the path of the Dragonbrand, its not a straight north-to-south line, it sways slightly to the west (conveniently enough, since if Kralkatorrik just kept to his straight line, much more of Ebonhawke would have been effected.)

So the Secluded Glen could just be the closest green spot where they burried Killeen instead of in the Dragonbrand. Would make much more sense, had i had a sylvari to burry who saved my hide, i would at least let her rest not in a barren crystallized wasteland.

As for the seed turrets, i dont think Mordremoth goes as far as to directly decide what seed turrets and plant mortars attack. But to be perfectly honest, we have no idea what actually decides what they attack, lorewise. It is certainly true though, that given that sylvari were meant to be Mordremoth’s agents and that they were meant to purify Orr from the risen dragon, and how abundant overgrowth is the polar opposite of undeath in the All, it is quite fair to assume that there can be conflict between elder dragons.

I dont recall seeing Rythlock in the QJ, only as Anisse’s illusion on the presented watchknight when Logan was to fight it. It upset him for obvious reasons. Even if they burried the hatchet at that time (suggesting it to be post-PS), it was like fighting a personal demon of some sort for him.

But overall, i agree, they did flip-flop it or didnt make it quite clear. The fact that we were and are discussing the possibility is proof enough.

Yo mama is so dumb, she worships grawl.
Yo mama is so fat, the hylek fears her coming will blot out the sun forever.
Yo mama is so ugly, Kormir uses her likeness to chase away torment demons.
Yo mama is so ugly, she made Abaddon wish he was blind.
There is no Deep Sea Dragon. Yo mama just went for a swim.

draxynnic.3719:

(It’s also worth remembering that the Jubilee was made while ArenaNet still had the policy that the LS was simultaneous with rather than after the Personal Story, and thus some of the specifics of their interactions may now be a plothole.)

I recall that Anet said pretty early, around the release of Southsun Cove, that that event specificly is set after Zhaitan’s fall or at the very least after the Pact gained enough dominance over the Sea of Sorrows. While the karka were speculated to be fleeing from the DS dragon, they could reach LA because the risen naval patrols became scarce. Dragon Bash itself can be considered as the celebration (and/or rememberence) of Zhaitans fall.

The Queens Jubilee I thinks is pretty late in the story that they would know already for sure that its set after the PS. Scarlet makes an appearence for the first time, and while most of her presentation suggested that Anet didnt know what they were doing, in the end there was a plan for her all along that clearly arches over to the expansion itself.