Guild Wars 2

I think that the pale tree is preventing sylvari from reproduction( part of the Pale Tree Dragon theory), or they have sex organs as a fallback in case the tree dies.

If I could make a guess on what the elder dragons look like, I’d assume Jormag would be wurm like in appearance, not necessarily a Chinese dragon, but more like a serpenty dragon with legs and huge wings. This is because Jormag totems are particularly serpenty in appearance.

Krakkltorik I won’t even try to imagine…

I think Primordos will have the basic dragon look, mostly because we’ve already scene his head.

Dream is sort of like the matix.. sort of . You develope an identity while growing up in dream, living through the collective memory of the sylvari before you and everything the pale tree herself has experienced.

It should have really been some sort of sound bloating buff or something.

Now now gentlemen, lets not let this digress into an argument about the color and appearance of the elder dragons.

Certainly now one foresaw Zhaitan being a mass of drag corpses patched together, not even the concept art hinted at this.

Arena net could very well design Krakkletorik in a manner unimaginable, he could be a winged turtle for all we know.

the night elf thing was exactly what I was thinking of. Blizzard basically gave one theory, but said elves denied it. They never gave another theory to keep the player guessing.. and then predictably, the theory was a fact. I generally take the “mystery” thing as a way of saying that “so and so’s back story is this but we won’t make it official until we are certain we don’t have any better ideas integrated with the gameplay.” Hence why rival theories are never introduced, just denial and stuff.

I know the idea is a stretch but I always find humor in those artistic promotions of evolution, the kind that show mankind directly evolving from a salmon, or Dennis Hopper playing a race of human that supposedly evolved from T-rex in that terrible Mario movie.

There is also a theory that Norn are related to Juton, However the lore that suggests it states that norn and Juton shared the same territory in an Age of giants and when both fell out of power the norn survived by joining the spirits where as the Juton fell into a primitive state. This doesn’t really indicate the 2 species are related or disprove Norn evolved from bears.

As for Kodan keeping bear traits that aren’t useful for a bipedal species.. perhaps they have some use we aren’t completely aware of.

SeTHBeaRz.3456:

Oh… how I wish that a Dev would give us anything at all regarding this matter T.T

Everyone knows class forums are designed to resdistrubte class complaints away from the suggestion forums where they won’t be heard, because everyone is wrong about their complaints :P

Joking aside, I wish elementalists could use pistols, at least pistol main hand.

I want to shoot gravity bullets in earth form.

Perhaps, they were fragments of a slumbering Elder dragon…. that re-conjoined when it “awakened”

Everyone compares their class to warrior and Guardians.. they are technically OP. humorously, just about everyone on any class forum compares it’s class to guardians or warriors at some point.

I agree we need a long range kit, but not something to incite those that want engineers to be a sniper ranged class in entirety (Those who aren’t pleased with anything the class offers and desire to change it to their specific fantasy)

I don’t want them to nerf the hell out of grenades, I still want them to be the staple of demo Engi’s.. I just want them to be on par with bomb kit so both are required of demo engi’s.

Logic doesn’t always apply, Did you know in the order of whispers norn quests where you are dealing with dredge.. that somehow invisibility makes you undetectable to a species that depends completely on sound, smell and touch to observe their surroundings?

These things happen…

So, generally when a franchise gives a theory out about the origin of a race and adds “speculator”, this is generally a sign that the “answer is right in front of you”. I’ve witnessed this time and time again in several franchises.

With this in mind, it’s pretty obvious that the Kodan are right, the norn evolved from them.

This of course, would mean that the norn are essentially a Bear to Humanoid evolution linage, much like that terrible Mario Brothers movie where Humans evolved from dinosaurs in an alternate dimension.

How would you feel at the notion that the norn are essentially Ursus Sapiens?

Erebus.7568:

anet is just terrible to balance and ignoring their community completely, every one have been riding this complaint since beta and they still havent even tried to address it -_-

You clearly haven’t played MMO’s by other companies.

WoW was famous for catering specific classes and ignoring others for ENTIRE EXPANSIONS. Not to mention they had pride issues when it came to mechanics. If they introduced a new mechanic to fix a problem, and it didn’t work.. they would scrap the entire mechanic and replace it with a worthless one, rather than balance out the mechanic. Why? likely because they were too prideful to admit they made a mistake and had a rule about balancing only through experimentation.

This games only been out for a short period of time and we get bug patches every week, which is already outstanding for an MMO. if you hadn’t noticed.. 90% of the classes are broken and imbalanced to various degrees so it’s going to take long to fix things.

How come grenades out compete the bomb kit, wouldn’t the bombkit deliver a higher DPS result given the sacrifice of literally being in a monsters face?

Order of whispers, because my engi is a demo expert

The backpack does give crit and swiftness though… that’s something to consider

I’ve had no problem with 0/0/30/30/10

Also, Akuma and RYU are only the plate classes

Everyone else is Dan

So in my travels across Tyria, I have noticed that a good portion of the wildlife are in fact based off things that actually existed.

Now an MMO borrowing from ancient animals is nothing new, but what pleased me about Arenanet is that they chose species that aren’t your normal run of the mill “Jurassic Park” cast.

So far I’ve been able to identify some of the following

Sea Scorpions, Something I haven’t seen in a video game since the now very rare OCEAN HUNTER: 7 seas adventure Arcade game. Granted they move a bit too quickly for something that had very little need to move at high speed. I’d imagine fighting a sea scorpion would be relatively easy so I can understand why Arena would sprouce up their speed a bit.

Siamoths

Based heavily off of ancient ungulates, though I debated with a guy about what kind of ungulate they were based off of. Based off their feet they are either a very ancient Odd-toed ungulate (Given that they were called Tapirs in the Beta, this also makes sense) or a very early Proboscebia(Early ancestors of Elephants). Their head screams Proboscebia but we couldn’t come to an agreement. It appears arena net might have based the creature off a skeleton, because we both agreed that the nose of the creature seems fabricated.

Plated Behemoth

This Creature seems very rare, though I assume it’s native to a part of Ascalon that I haven’t explored, given that Ascalonian grazing animals in Charr territory are all based off Mammal like Reptiles.

The Behemoth is clearly a Mammal like Reptile, though I was unable to conclude exactly what it was. The closest thing I could link it to would be a dicynodont, given it’s beak, tusks and semi crested head, and lankly arms.

Triop

Massive version of an ancient crustaceans that are still around today. You can buy them as an alternative to Sea Monkeys.

I’m sure there are others, given that the wiki’s beastairy is lacking, so feel free to contribute.

Lol I didn’t mean sage, I meant seer.

I get Sages and Seers mixed up.

I actually meant Seer.

Lol myst

People need to stop comparing ele’s to gaurdians. I’ve been to every class forum and it’s basically a similiar rant with everyone comparing their class to one of the two plate wearers.

Remember what I said earlier? If the majority is weak against the minority, then the minority is overpowered.

You guys complain about being the worst class, Go into the necromancer forums for once and see how bad it gets in their. In fact as Ele’s, we’ve been praised for our unique spell animations, where as Necro’s often get depressed over how recycled their spell animations and sounds are. Sure necro’s can currently pvp at a better rate than Ele’s, but they still are in the bad boat with everyone else.

You need to realize that every class is basically bad save the two plate classes with unjustified burst damage and heavy armor.

Because of this I kept telling my self I wouldn’t visit the forums unless a real gameplay weakness was noticed. Granted, I naturally chose a Bunker/support traitline because I was attracted to Double Dagger earth and water attune game play specifically, ignorant that it was “The only viable trait spectrum”. What got me on here was the fact that my theifs pistol duel wielding got incredibly useless around 17 and I wanted to know why (to my suprise mainhand pistol was broken and poorly designed with it’s skills and that Pistol Pistol was damage confused to the core and useless). Shouldn’t have done so though, I didn’t want this game to be like WoW, constantly complaining and stressing out over classes, insulting poor balance decisions and having a zealous standard, at that point my fear of playing something inadequately or in of itself inadequate ruined game-play for me, so just a warning to all.

There isn’t any real scientific poles stating “What etheopeans consider themselves and what the world considers them”. Some could consider themselves black African, others would take offense to it.

The reason I’m not going around linking wikipedia articles is because the same page you’re getting information from is also the same page that throws around EVERY theory about the ethnicity of egyptians. Why would I link the same page when you clearly ignored 90% of the theories in favor of the one that applied to you. Today I asked a history major friend about it, he said the most accepted theory regarding the instances of black Egyptians is the fact that those were Nubian, Not Egyptians. History professor couldn’t answer, because there isn’t enough evidence on exactly what Egyptians were, and because it attracts controversy and people claiming coverups and scientific racism.

Clearly you are seeking some sort of ancient role model to base linage connections off of or to pull something by association( like a Scandinavian claiming that because his people are distantly related to Persians(or any other near east Caucasoid), his people therefore also hold the title of the feats of the Persian empire). It doesn’t work that way.

Charr Area used to be the home of Ascalonians.. Guild Wars One only had playable humans, so a lot of focus was put on the multiple human cultures that in some ways paralleled real human races/ethnicity/culture.

Ascalon was pretty much Europe. If you play a Char character you will learn a bit about it’s history.

Ah, yeah they’re in Jungle territory. Very different looking compared to others.

Even though I consider Kralkatorrik the earth dragon (Despite people thinking crystals aren’t earth, You are aware most crystals are minerals, therefore stone?), He does have some sort of storm concept being applied, despite claims that all dragon corruption is electrified. They do describe him as a hurricane, not to mention many crystals have effects on electrical current.

You Forgot the noble Mossheart.

So far they seem to be some sort of living plant trent that has a symbiotic relationship with the forest it lives in. They don’t seem to be highly intelligent creatures, like Trents in most fantasy genres.

That’s all I can gather from events and renowned hearts

It isn’t an uncommon fantasy trope that magic Conjures (draws one thing from somewhere else) to explain how magic casters have access to certain elements when none are present. However, since games seldom focus on the exact mechanics of magic and it’s working outside of flavoring it up with things like class ties (Bloodstones filtering magic use) we can never be entirely sure. Back on the WoW forum it was fiercely debated in the difference between mage and shaman mechanics that no one could come to term (Fire under water example blasted around), so this isn’t a new thing. However, given that most elementalist skills are shown off where there are plenty of said element in the area, I think I hold some ground here.

As for the sage thing, that doesn’t do anything with my argument, you just basically spoiled a lot for me because apparently you thought I was questioning your knowledge on dragons being associated with magic… Really wasn’t necessary, you could have just said you already know the connection between Dragons and Magic…

The Entire reason for this argument, as you know.. is to question dragons of elements not yet covered, indicated by what magic has been shown to manipulate.. which would leave nature, light and Choas left, because leaving it on the footnote of nature dragon, while also dividing ice from water.. leaves ALOT left over sitting around.

Did you ever ask if Ethopians themselves considered themselves Black African? Some may, but being that they are of a sematic speaking people they generally prefer to considered Arabs, which a large portion of their heritage is composed of (Hence the more Arab like facial features). Ethopains are like the peoples of Turkey, Morroco and Southern East Europeans, they are a kittentail of various races.

One of the ethnic issues in today’s world is considering race based off skin color and nothing else. Did you know that Thomas Jeffersons famous “servant”, Sally Hemmings was only 1/8th African? on any practical term that pretty much justified she was white, but because her skin color wasn’t, she wasn’t considered it.

Also, Heterodus could have been describing Nubians, Which were living in egypt and often copied egyptian culture, mistaking them for the entire Egyptian people. I believe they discovered that some Egyptian tombs were actually Nubian tombs.

The Kits are scaled tier guild, you can have up to three kits at the sacrifice of random buff mechanics (Potions) to polished utility cooldowns(Gadgets) and turrents(Alt gameplay cool down). Changing the kits to scale with weapon damage would require them to do some re-balancing of their damage output. Granted there may be some truth behind the kits not being scaled properly, Engi’s already have slight issues with effective damage output with their main weapons alone so the entire issue on damage is moot. I can see your sigil point, kits should proc based on any sigil equipped

However, I completely disagree with this suggestion. Weapon Kits aren’t a hindering weapon swap, they are an improved utility segment. To revoke them from utility would be changing the class in it’s entirety.

Also, this game isn’t like other MMO’s, endgame is nothing massive or to look forward too. This game is more about the journey too endgame, there is no rush. So if you’re rushing to 80. you’re really missing out.

Micro Hard.3601:

You seemed to make it sound like being hit for 6k is an instant end to an ele. And make rtl sound like a useless ability. You give too little credit to it and for me it rarely bugs. Terrain plays a huge part, even the smallest bump on the ground will often ruin it. Jumping before casting it is also slightly helpful for a successful hit.

I think you’re talking to Bond, not me, I’m against all this crying over ele’s.

No one seems to notice that every class accept heavy armor classes are complaing about the same issues, give or take some strengths/weaknesses in pve or pvp.

My philosophy is when 70% of the classes are crap compared to just two, the other classes aren’t broken, the two are overpowered.

Till then all these flavor of the month players might as well role the godly warrior or guardian until they get their receptive nerfs.

Micro Hard.3601:

@Bard I challenge you to a 1v1 spvp match in an empty room. If you wish to stay arrogant about it and just cry then feel free. I am confident that I will not lose against any class. That said, I may end up in a rare stalemate where niether player dies, but will not fall.
Cheers.

Not really sure what you’re getting at.

My post was generally questioning the validity of complaints on the grounds that people can’t play the class correctly.

By this challenge, either you assume I was insulting the Elementalist class or you’re trying to prove Heavy Armor classes can’t be killed by ele’s.

Dragons also eat magic, which expands their power, furthering their connection

You don’t seem to have much of a source stating the particular method in which magic produces effects that mimic the elements themselves. My elementalist is literally pulling stone from the ground, I’m not manipulating magical energies so that they look like rocks. Granted this is more on the grounds of an observational and logic based sources.

The bloodstones were a control device, hindering magic from it’s full use. A Water spell in destruction that does damage and a water spell in preservation that heals are only separated in their methods of manipulation via the bloodstones, where as something free of such control could use magic to freely manipulate the elements, aka Dragons.

Blood stone methodology has no presence here, a spell that manipulates Ice whether to heal or protect means nothing to Jormag, who can do whatever he wants with the ice he represents. So the very powers that magic iself manipulates all have their elemental orgins with the dragons, indicating there are dragons that represent things such as light, Choas among other things magic just so happens to touch.

Given that dragons feed off of magic and the various claims of magic existing before the human gods, I have doubts that magic was ever truly a gift from the human gods, In fact chronologically it’s more or less hinted that the Gods reintroduced magic after the slumbering of the dragons, indicating the dragons themselves were either the source or the revoker of the worlds original magic supply.

I think where we disagree here is that I see no difference between the elements themselves, When a scholar uses an element, regardless of how the blood stones divided it up, he’s manipulating what is already there. You think magic produces an effect that looks like an element but is really just magic itself.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

30 earth

30 Water

10 Arcane

No problems, Maybe because I know how to switch attunes.

I’m having fun with grenade spamming atm, makes me go into a state of adrenaline rush before I swap kits when they get close.

Perhaps they should allow the ability to reset itself if the user holds down the key.

How are you playing? I’ve had luck with a survival heavy Earth/Water DD build.

I wasn’t really thinking about range versatility, but more of an explination for why people are so unhappy with the class when I haven’t noticed any problems. I role D/D earth/water primary build, I switch attunes constantly and use self combo’s effectively. It doesn’t take me 25 seconds to kill mobs like some have often spouted. I figured it had either something to do with a serious misunderstanding of how to play the class or the difficult game play associated with the ground target heavy Staff. I have seen some people on here claim that staying in an attune based off your traits unless shifting is needed is how you play an elementalist, so I have a very high skepticism regarding the legitimacy of whats posted here on the forums.

If you think pressing the one key will make your hand sore, wait till you enter the world of constant thief dodging….

Are these complaints focused on any particular weapon, or every weapon set up for the class?

Earth/ Water Ele here, I mostly play Dagger/Dagger so I assume most of these complaints are from people sticking to staves and scepter combos.

Granted, My Ele is more of a Battleground PVPer.

I don’t understand why people dislike kits, I hear complaints that they “Don’t do enough damage because they don’t scale with weapons” or “they make engines close range”. However I’m the complete opposite, I don’t use torrents because they seem slow, clunky and just drab in appearance, even when buffed by their overload abilities. Kits offer a way to change your ability type with no cool down in the blink of an eye. I also can’t comprehend not using kits in the explosives trait. I usually go with both grenade and bomb kits, while either having Elixir Gun or flamethrower on hand. I’m going to assume I’m somehow playing wrong, given everyone resentment toward kits and I’ll prob be bombarded with questions about not using elixirs or Gadgets either (Most gadgets just seem to be long cooldowned emergency debuffs and a waste of a slot and elixers are just buff randomizers)

The original design looked like your standard elf, but with greenish skin.

I generally don’t have a problem with elves but there are literally elves in almost every fantasy franchise (I dub them superhumans, because they essentially are everything humans want to be, beautiful, immortal and physically fit). So I support the changes to their design, however I wouldn’t think that Sylvaria are who a plant race would look like if it was going to be humanoid, I’d imagine something with far greater emphasis on the plant parts.

You are aware that Ethiopians could seldom be considered the purity of ethnic african? You questioned why I would assume a country wouldn’t be like their neighbors and mix? Ethiopians are an example of said mixing. Think of it like Argentina, not everyone there is thoroughly mixed between introduced and indigenous people.

I find it amusing that you actually believed the SS blew the nose off the Sphinx and that they did so under the pretense of hiding the racial background of a key civilization in western civilization.

True, but then how did the seeds get from said cave to another continent?

As for the dream contribution, I don’t think the sole morality of Ronans family was passed over, particularly because they were dead and buried. If anything could be taken from a corpse, it would be it’s form.

Recall that I’ve taken great questioning to the attributes of the Sylvari race under the idea that the Pale Tree or her creator designed them.

I was wrong for using the concept that the elder dragons have class parrallels, again it was more of a magic type/ element of said energy divide I was refering too.

I don’t think the bloodstones discredit the idea that the dragons have a representation as the elements.

Abaddon’s gift of magic and it’s later divide, they all manipulate things that already exist. Elementalists manipulate the rock, wind, water and fire that has existed before since the gods even set foot on tyria. Necromancers manipulate the life force that had been on Tyria since time inremerable. Guardian manipulate the aspiring light of the world, and Mesmers the choas. These things exist without magic, magic was just the catalyst of their manipulation, the manipulation of the elder dragons own elements. This is why I think there is an elder dragon for every force, regardless of the magic of the gods.

Hederotus wasn’t known for his accuracy, claiming that on any history test will give you an incorrect answer. The guy very much mystified his works, often claiming divines did certain things.

In addition, the color of ones skin isn’t a give away of ones racial background, I assure you. I’ve seen East Indians with skin about the same description that Herodotus described.

Now, I won’t deny that the peoples that make up modern day Ethiopia were a part of the Egyptian people, there is certainly evidence that they were there. But my point is that they were not the majority.

DjJazzman.4031:

The rare, and elusive Norn Engineer, that I am.

Nonsense, who ever said a Norn could not into technology?

My Norn is a proud Pirate Demowoman and I wouldn’t have an engineer any other way.

The minions are undead, In this Fantasy realm, raising a corpse so that it still looks like a corpse is incredibly offensive.

So what do necromancers do? They reshape the flesh so that it forms different undead constructs to do different tasks.

They are not demons, the removal of the corpse mechanic was for practical game mechanic reasons and isn’t canon, They are reshaped, Mindless, Corpses.

It’s just speculation, but normally I don’t take details about a race fundamental beginnings in a fantasy franchise as being nothing more than pointless flavor. There is a significant reason why Arena states Ronan grew the tree over the graves of his family. It also seems to go with the theory that the Pale Tree is Dragon Related, as every dragon revealed so far accept Primordus conscripts minions from previously existing creatures, or like Primordus, attempts to create their own versions. In that context we don’t even know if Primordus had copied the “DNA” of trolls, harpies and crabs to produce his destroyers.

As for Malyck, He’s pretty strange. It could be possible that there is another tree. I didn’t chose the white stag storyline for my Sylvari so I’m not sure if he mentions another tree or that is implied by him stating he’s not from the grove. It could be possible that perhaps first born sylvari traveled to another location and developed the ability to reproduce. Or he isn’t really a Sylvari, generally strange outsiders with backgrounds that don’t make any sense are prime subjects for Shapeshifter Tropes. Malyck could have very well not been Sylvari, but something mimicking one.

Olithia.4635:

ancient Egyptian, we all know that ancient Egyptians were africans not arabs just like those two.

Not to derail the thread but if you mean ancient egyptians were african in genetic background I’m sorry to inform you that there is no substantial evidence to support this.

The notion that the majority Egyptian populace was of said decent is part of a counter-racial claim against an accusations of scientific racism against early historians, Archeologists who may have put racial biased in their records.(However claiming it was a conspiracy to insert ones race in place of anothers history to discredit them from having ever founded the civilization on the grounds of racism doesn’t mean the accuser is instantly correct out of the possibility) No one truly knows exactly what ancient Egyptians are given multiple artistic depictions of various skin colors and various traits associated with at least three different races.

As for the actual topic in this thread, I’m going with the theory that most of the original ethnic
Krytans had died due to Zhaitians flooding and that the fleeing ascalonians populated the kingdom. despite this, the majority of humans do not look completely Caucasian at all, there is defiantly a stronger presence of Canthain in their faces if anything could be said about the intermixing at divinities reach.

Also, it’s quit obvious that Elonia is still around and that we could be getting playable egyptain style undead so I wouldn’t get too upset.

Maybe I wasn’t to clear by using class as the basis for the dragons, because you’re right in the sense that most would fall under the abilities of an elementalist. I was thinking more along the lines of the energies that certain classes use, Elemntalists being the spearhead by using five. Perhaps if we further divides these natural “elements” into a category that extends beyond the four elements of an elementalists, you can better understand what I mean.

Earth
Fire
Water
ice(in this case, separate from water)
Air/lighting (Always combined in fantasy for some reason)
Light( Guardian stuff, associated with Dwayna)
Life/Undeath(Necromancers dark power is defined as life energy, drawn from living things and used for attacks and minions)
Choas/Arcana/Unaffiliated energy (they say Lyssa is associate with unaffiliated energy, but we can call it Choas if you want).

This entire concept is partly based off the presence of Zhaitan. If he wasn’t such an oddball than the lack of a potential Light, chaos and nature dragon would make more sense, restricting the elder dragons to a solely elemental/natural phenomenon paradigm. However with a big undead necromancy like dragon the game is basically begging for more roles to fill.

Also, I’ve never seen a fantasy where Crystal wasn’t considered an aspect of earth. They’re usually associated with the energy and electrical powers of earth as opposed to the primal and furious powers of earth, but earth none the less.. Crystals are still basically rocks.

My belief is that Arena wanted an earthly dragon but wanted it to be different from Primordus, since the best was to portray natural fire and destruction is through volcanic fury, rather than some born of fire phoenix monster. Crystals were likely a more interesting approach to an earthly entity than a rocky stone dragon, and if the Pale tree theories are true than a Stony moss covered Colossus like dragon would be too similar to nature in appearance. Crystals would be the most original way to portray an earth elementalish dragon if I were a creative dev for a fantasy genre.

Saw the quest, Not sure what to think of Malyks origin, but it doesn’t necessarily disprove the notion that Sylvari are partly conscripted from deceased humans since we do not even know of the history regarding this second tree, It could have very well had a similar origin to the pale tree, A human finding it and planting it over the remains of his people(Humans were everywhere remember). Malyk might not even actually be sylvari, he seems perfect for a “Shapeshifting Trope”.

I feel the most supportive thing with this conscription concept is the fact that Arena net takes some practicality when it comes to races without constantly having to resort to gender dimorphism for sex appeal and the likes (Female Charr having cat mammary glans instead of going the humanesqe kind, for example). With this in mind it wouldn’t be practical for the pale tree to produce an influence race to combat the dragons with all these useless features that apply to something they are not. They have sterile sex organs and sexual dimorphism to the point where it feels like the tree didn’t purposely place these features with them, they merely came as a byproduct of the blueprint she borrowed. There also has to be some significance behind Arena Net pointing out that Ronan buried his family under the tree other than fertilizer. I don’t think they would mention that fact without it having some level of importance, as everything involving Ronan and Ventari and the tree is almost fundamental in importance to Sylvari existence.

Also, The animal companions being dogs, which would have also been buried under the tree, and not something like a fern owl or other random spawn the pale tree could chose to produce.. is really hinting at something.