Guild Wars 2

Slowpokeking.8720:

The Pact sent some forces, nowhere said Lion’s Arch or other nations/factions sent the majority of their forces to fight Teq. Teq’s influence was just in the swamp mostly.

Karka also didn’t gain everyone’s attention.

The PACT is the same force we’re assuming would be sent to fight the Risen Fleet. So if they are distracted elsewhere by a much larger and more powerful threat they aren’t also casually wiping out a massive undead fleet that can travel underwater.

And the Karka DID attack Lion’s Arch and cause a lot of damage. Lion’s Arch is the primary trade port of central Tyria that also happens to have the largest sea faring fleet.

Just the Pact, we don’t see the races and lionguards sent their main forces.

Again, the PACT is the military power that you’ve been stating would go after the Risen Fleet. If they are busy elsewhere then they cannot do that. The other nations have their own problems.

The humans’ main enemy is Zhaitan, all they got left is just some politics.

Oh, you mean that human kingdom that is separated from the sea the Risen Fleet is in by the entire continent of Tyria? Krya is a heavily landlocked nation that’s only access to the ocean is a river system that leads north. There is no reason to suspect Kryta itself has a fleet large enough to contend with the Risen, nor would it be an easy venture for them to travel such a huge distance to fight the Risen Fleet, nor would they be in a position to benefit much from trading.

They are also still recovering from a massive invasion from the centaur who pushed all the way to Divinity’s Reach. It’s only been three years, that isn’t enough time to fully recover the population lost. Especially when they are still sending troops to aid the PACT.

In the battle of Orr, we still see Pact forces help fighting Icebrood and the Branded with the dragons alive.

Because the Icebrood are aggressively expanding south and the Branded are a constant threat to the people in the area.

The Risen Fleet are out at sea guarding trade routes nobody uses anymore and have no will directing them to return to the mainland and attack.

But the Pact did, they are still in Ascalon and FG to help fight Jormag and Kralkatorrik. Why would they and everyone simply let the Risen fleet go free to attack people?

Exactly. They are so spread out between fighting all the Elder Dragons. Which front do you want to give to the dragons in order to relocate the PACT forces to fight that fleet? Do you want to give land to Jormag or Kraalkatorrik?

You HAVE to choose. This isn’t a video game (Okay it is but not by lore standards). You don’t just spawn new troops when you want to attack another target. It takes two decades to grow a new person to replace the person you lost in battle. There is a finite number of soldiers under the PACT control. They can’t be everywhere and meet every threat, so they pick and choose their battles based on what is the most dangerous to the people of Tyria.

Remember the Risen Fleet are the most aggressive enemies, even if you ignore them, they will chase you up when you get to the sea. And it’s necessary for most of the races because in the story, we don’t always use the waypoints easily to get around.

If the Risen Fleet were more aggressive than the Icebrood or Branded they’d actually be doing something. We’ve not heard from them since Zhaitan died. Thus they aren’t doing anything worth hearing about.

Tyria pretty much doesn’t use naval fleets anymore. We use airships and portals for the vast majority of our trade. The path to Elona and Cantha are only valuable if you want to go to those places, but for travel in continental Tyria there are better options.

I also really dislike Foefire.

Controlling mid is too important. It’s right between home and far, which means the only way to hold both of those points is to rotate around the entire map or try to run through mid where the enemy bunker sits.

Speaking of said bunker, it’s far easier to survive on Foefire’s mid because you can just walk out of any and all AoE attacks and kite around the huge circle. I’ve bunkered with glass builds on Foefire before because if how easy it is to stay out of damage fields and away from your opponent’s melee attacks.

Then the lord pretty much prevents comebacks. Whoever has the lead can rush lord and kill it with ease bringing the game to an end, so the team that’s already losing has to spend resources defending the lord.

The fact the lord can be soloed rather easily also means that once the gate is down a lone enemy player can slip in and kill said lord, so if you’re on the weaker team you constantly have to run between the actual game and the lord to chase off whoever keeps attacking it.

Personally I prefer the more vertical maps. It makes the gameplay less predictable and opens the door to using the terrain more creatively, which should be a huge part of PVP in an action RPG like GW2.

Honestly, I am hoping that Kraalkatorrik and Jormag, upon seeing how we’ve managed to defeat Zhaitan and Modremoth, finally realize how big of a threat we are as a united front and launch a two pronged invasion from the Crystal Desert in the south and Shiverpeaks in the north.

I doubt the remnants of the PACT could handle a two sided assault with the same relative ease at it does with just one. Then you also have political conflict between the Charr and Norn as they both insist on focusing most of the PACT’s resources on the threat closest to them, forcing the other three races and the PC to choose sides. The Vigil being lead by a Charr might even break away from the PACT if the PACT’s choice is to focus more on Jormag than the Iron legion.

Even among the Charr there’d be a divide in interests. Blood Legion is a lot closer to the Nothern Shiverpeaks than they are to the Crystal Desert. So do they defend their own borders or risk it to support Iron? It might even force Smodur into using the Claw of the Khan-Ur so we can finally resolve that plot thread.

Maybe even have a player vote to decide which dragon gets the largest amount of our attention, which changes the outcome of the story. I’d like to see one of the racial capitals get wrecked next, and us focusing on say, Jormag, would lead to Kraalkatorrik destroying Black Citadel and vice versa.

After we defeat both dragons I’d also want the next expansion to involve something not dragon specific. With Jormag and Kraalkatorrik gone the last two dragons are both fairly distant threats, which opens a period of safety that could be advantageous.

My vote would be to open up Elona by having Palawa Joko take an interest in the now dragon-free and very weakened and vulnerable Tyria.

When would they have time to go after the fleet?

Shortly after Zhaitan was slain Tequatl became even more powerful and started attacking. Southsun sprang up from the ocean along with the Karka that proceeded to wreck Lion’s Arch. The Karka had to be dealt with as a priority because they were attacking the city itself.

So we take Southsun. We have to spend time building up a trade port there, and by the time we’re feeling nice and secure we get attacked by multiple alliances of enemy factions that pose an even greater threat to the people of Tyria than before.

So we deal with that. Then it is revealed that a crazy Sylvari woman has an army of air pirates and robot monsters, and that she’s using it to attack the people of Tyria. Scarlet ends her war against Tyria by completely leveling Lion’s Arch, leaving it nothing but a smoldering ruin.

With Tyria’s main port city in ruin we naturally pull our resources to deal with that, but as that’s happening Modremoth begins to stir. He sends his champion to attack the Pale Tree and begins to aggressively assault various forts and outposts across Tyria with his vines.

So we push on the offensive. Dry Top and the Silverwastes open up, and we have to dedicate most of our extra manpower to keeping Modremoth contained. We go on the offensive to fight Modremoth and he wipes out the entire PACT airfleet single handed.

Keep in mind during Season 2 we’re sent around Tyria to gather support for our war against Modremoth and every other kingdom tells us the same thing. They don’t have forces to spare because they are under constant attack by their own personal enemies.

Tyria as a whole has been suffering a near constant series of terrible events, wars, and catastrophes over the course of three short years. All of this while every faction is in a constant state of war against foreign or domestic threats.

At what point should the PACT have taken a large chunk of their manpower and whatever ships they still have and sailed out to fight the Risen Fleet? What group of people would you let die so that you can open up trade with Cantha and Elona, neither of which is a guaranteed ally?

Because you absolutely would be taking forces away from one front to make this assault. You would be condemning hundreds, possibly thousands of people to death.

Technically it’s also possible Glint, being a prophetic dragon, foresaw her own demise and told the Forgotten of it.

Granted then it should’ve read “Will kill her for it” and not “Killed her for it”.

Dang, I must’ve not crossed paths with that Sylvari because I don’t remember that dialogue. It’s very interesting.

Should make the next living story really interesting. All the Modrem should be working on their own now. I have no doubt many will continue being Modrem and trying to seize power, but many more will just be confused and disoriented in a very hostile environment.

At any rate, we seem to have come to the same conclusion. Modremoth didn’t have any unique mental powers aside from his connection to the Dream. His second domain seems to hint at his ability to transfer his mind to a new host.

And I really hope he had more than one seed. I’d love to see a new, weaker Modremoth sprout up later as a sub-plot in a future arc. Shoot, a part of me even kind of hopes Zhaitan makes a reappearance in some shape or form.

Well yes, the White Stag. But that’s a special case.

And we don’t know what happened to Malyck and his Dreamless tree yet.

But we know that Modremoth’s mental powers only really effected the Dream and those connected to it. He didn’t mind control anyone else. So it doesn’t seem like he had any sort of extra special mind powers the other dragons didn’t aside from his ability to transfer his mind to a new host.

We didn’t know Zhaitan’s special weakness either, and we took him out with that fleet. And Zhaitan was awake for over one hundred years consuming the magic of Orr. On paper and as far as we knew Modremoth SHOULD have been substantially weaker than Zhaitan.

That’s why we made such a hard push against him. To cut him down before he could amass the kind of power the other dragons already have. He was already going on the offensive, and if he kept expanding at the rate he was he would have become a far greater threat to us personally.

And keep in mind this same tactic was very nearly successful against Kraalkatorrik with only Destiny’s Edge and Glint. This time we had Destiny’s Edge and potentially hundreds of airships, plus Trahearne and the weapon Caladbolg from the Pale Tree.

It is possible the second sphere merely hints to what the dragon’s greatest advantage is and how to bring it down. Going by that logic Modremoth being the dragon of mind means only that his greatest power is the ability to transfer his mind to new hosts and constantly grow so long as his mind is intact.

After all, he didn’t really use mental magic on anyone that wasn’t one of his own creations. The PC also made a big deal about Modremoth attacking through the Dream, which as far as I know non-Sylvari don’t have access to outside special circumstances.

Granted the death of Zhaitan had little to do with shadows or light. But then, we never really learned Zhaitan’s special weakness. We killed him by poisoning his food supply then vivisecting him with a laser.

Similarly one could in theory do the same to Modremoth. But his special regenerative ability makes killing him physically impractical, as you’d need to burn every last inch of his immense corruption to ash. Zhaitan was just unlucky in that he was really, really easy to physically destroy comparatively.

I’m running through HoT with a rabid armored trapper ranger with Runes of the Trapper. It’s been more challenging than core content, sure, but it’s far from impossible. Shoot, most of my deaths are from either landing on something unpleasant that didn’t render in time or me getting too kitteny and trying to fight a Champion that isn’t as easily soloed as other champions I’ve taken down.

Don’t build yourself like you’re about to run a dungeon. You’re not. Build to survive groups of hard hitting enemies that are going to focus you. It’s a lot more like surviving in WvWvW than it is a dungeon run, which is probably why my build has had such a breeze.

I adore this trait for my trapper build in Stronghold and open world where you spend a fair amount of time running.

Especially in open world where the only way my trapper build has perma high speed is if I use a specific and very expensive rune or slot Signet of the Hunt which is utterly useless to said build.

With it I can run Runes of the Trapper and take triple traps for maximum damage spread and another short cooldown access to stealth to easily escape mobs I don’t want to fight.

It might not be optimal in every game mode for every build, but it is fantastic for what I need it for.

I laughed out loud at the coffee bit. This was a very amusing thread, and I don’t even mean that in a mean spirited way.

PopeUrban.2578:

The counter to traps is walking in to traps, got it.

I suppose the counter to ranged attacks is getting shot, right?

Those AIs aren’t expendable. They’re actually kinda core parts of those classes/builds. You can’t shatter a dead clone, you can’t use a dead minion, and you can’t really use a pet that’s all screwed up from traps effectively.

The counter is to set off the trap with something that isn’t your body.

The shortest cooldown trap a ranger has is Flame Trap on a 16 second cooldown. A mesmer can output clones much, much faster. So yes, a single clone to clear three utilities worth of traps that will be out of the battle for anywhere between 16 and 36 seconds is a hard counter.

A ranger pet can be swapped out, removing all damage and conditions on it. Again, you just took out three utilities worth of damage by sacrificing what amounts to a 20 second cooldown. Rangers can also capitalize on the second biggest counter to a trap set up which is range. If you don’t come near the trapper you won’t set off the traps, and they have to blow their traps to access stealth to easily close the distance.

A minionmancer would be sacrificing utility skills to stop the ranger’s utility skills, so it isn’t as hard of a counter. But then you consider that a minionmancer’s minions are traited to absorb conditions and transfer them to their target as attacks and the trapper ranger’s main source of damage are conditions. It is again a hard counter. The ranger is being fed their own trap’s damage through the minions.

But then the ranger traps are condition based and anything that hard counters conditions will hard counter them as well. Which means condi immune elementalists and any profession that carries a ton of cleanses will be exceedingly hard to put down with a trapper ranger set up.

I’ve been playing trapper ranger for years. Long before it got any of the more recent buffs. These have always been the hardest fights as a trapper ranger for me, and continue to be so after the buffs to traps.

Trapper ranger is not without hard counters. I only hope my build doesn’t get more hard counters added because the traps of Dragonhunters are over performing.

Orpheal.8263:

Traps have incredibly went out of control lately, especially since Anet added the stealth effects to rune of the trapper and traps should be also in itself a skill mechanic, that should be either somehow, or by certain classes/builds COUNTERABLE.

Traps do have counters. Specifically mesmer clones, necromancer minions, and ranger pets. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to fight one of these professions as a trapper ranger when every time you lay down a trap it gets set off by an expendable AI.

Trapper rangers are also very easy to lock down as they will typically have a single stun break on their bar, and only if they’ve chosen to only take two offensive traps.

@Amraston

Ah, morphs. Thanks! Biology is a hobby of mine and I always enjoy learning new aspects of it.

So yes, the Sylvari should definitely be considered living beings because while the Sylvari phenotype itself doesn’t reproduce it is but one of two morphs for the species as a whole, the other of which does reproduce. Both form a symbiotic relationship within their own species.

You could argue that the Sylvari being capable of independent thought and even rebellion is a weakness in the species, but that is where the “Fantasy” part of fantasy race comes in.

There is no fully recognized definition of life in the scientific community. There are certain guidelines that are used to decide if something is alive or not, but it isn’t as clear cut as you make it sound. There is still some debate as to whether or not viruses should be considered living things.

http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/yellowstone/viruslive.html

So the idea that they NEED to reproduce to be considered “alive” only works if you’re using a very narrow definition of what life is. Sylvari are organic, are born and grown, have a metabolism they need to update, and are sentient.

In addition, while the Sylvari themselves cannot reproduce their species DOES reproduce. The Pale Tree produces Sylvari through a form of asexual reproduction. The Sylvari themselves don’t have a biological need to reproduce because the Pale Tree does that for them, and since the Pale Tree came from a seed we can presume that the Pale Tree is capable of making more Pale Trees in a similar way. She just hasn’t so far.

So the species known as Sylvari have two… Let’s say “Sub-Species” even though that isn’t a correct term. I don’t believe there is a correct term simply because no life on Earth is close enough to this form of life. There is the Pale Tree herself that is the primary organism that is stationary and handles all the reproduction. In order to defend itself and spread it’s influence over a wider area the Pale Tree uses a secondary form of reproduction to create the Sylvari who themselves cannot reproduce but serve a vital role in the species’ survival none the less.

If you look at the Sylvari as an extension of the Pale Tree rather than their own separate organisms it isn’t hard to justify their lack of reproductive organs. The Pale Tree is the reproductive organ and the Sylvari are the hands.

It’s very similar to certain species of ant in which only the queen can produce fertilized eggs that can create other females. If the queen dies the worker ants can still reproduce, but as they can only make male ants they cannot sustain a population on their own. Only in this case the workers can’t reproduce at all, only the queen.

Hakuryuu.8634:

As much as I hate the idea of an Eir legend, she is pretty much the next one.

I doubt they’d make her a legend. It’d basically spoil the plot of Heart of Thorns for future players doing it for the first time, and it’d be really weird to channel her while talking to her still living self.

Getting the 1,200 range back would make a ton of sense given the range was only reduced to give the longbow a niche. Now that the longbow’s base range has been bumped to 1,500, I see no reason why the shortbow shouldn’t be returned to 1,200.

I feel like a ranged pet that burrows into melee range isn’t desirable. I’d rather have it still burrow away from the target. Maybe it leaves something like the elementalist Eruption skill in place then burrows away? That way it can kind of protect itself and stay away from enemies, but still leave a nasty surprise.

In order to prevent enemy mobs from chasing the devourer you could just make it an aggro dump like entering stealth.

I too wish I could be a frog. I am surprised there isn’t a normal Hylek tonic too.

I would remap the pets so that every pet family has a specific thing it excels at and the different pets in the family perform that role in different ways. Make it so less used pets bring more to the table. Give bears an innate taunt, some damage immunity, and better health regen so they can fill the role of a tank pet even against PVE boss enemies for short periods of time, improve the healing power of moas so they function better as support pets as well as improve their boon spread on F2, make the porcine forage items go directly to the ranger’s hand in addition to dropping a second on the ground that only allies can pick up. That sort of thing.

I’d also make drakes able to rotate when channeling their F2, decrease the cast time for the short range drakes and increase the radius of their breath so they can actually hit their targets while also increasing the damage output to make them more bursty than their longer range brethren.

And I’d fix up the wyvern attacks so they can hit at least as reliably as the other pets, while emphasizing their use of the combo fields they generate more.

Then I’d completely redesign spirits so that they are more similar to the GW1 equivalents. Specifically I’d remove the annoying “On hit” proc concept and make the effects pulse on allies and enemies as they remain in the effected area.

For example:

Storm Spirit: Pulses Swiftness to allies. Whenever an enemy suffers from stun, daze, or is interrupted that enemy is struck by lightning, dealing burst damage.

Stone Spirit: Pulses Protection to allies. Whenever an enemy suffers from knockdown, launch, or immobilize the enemy gains bleeding stacks and weakness for a duration.

Effects that enhance certain skill effects allowing for a ranger and their team to build around that effect to maximize the benefit of the spirit. Something unique that no other profession offers. Drop Stone Spirit at mid and let your hammer warrior friend stack bleeds on an enemy that do damage based on the ranger’s condi damage for example.

Water Spirit could provide it’s healing whenever an ally receives healing, which would work very well with a healing druid. Doubling up on the druid’s own healing effects and letting the druid heal through it’s allies heals.

And because the spirits are persistent and immobile a ranger could drop a spirit and be contributing to point defense on on side of the map while fighting on the other.

I also live in NA but have to use satellite internet because my area doesn’t have broadband coverage. That one Hylek scout that won’t talk to you unless you glide by them took me forever to do because I had to try several times from different areas to actually reach him, as the area they tell you to jump off of wasn’t high enough to account for my lag.

Bonfaaz Burntfur would be the best candidate for a torch. He may not have used it himself, but the Flame Legion were all about setting things on fire. Bonfires were a religious experience for them. I can’t think of a better weapon to invoke his spirit through.

I don’t see us getting Abaddon as a Legend. It’d be strange to have two characters as closely linked to one another as Abaddon and Mallyx are.

Khilbron would work well though. While Mallyx focuses more on torment Khilbron would have a heavy focus on poison and life stealing to both weaken the enemy’s ability to heal while siphoning health from them. Could be paired with Mallyx for a strong condi build or Shiro for a strong life stealing build. Could also throw in some undead minion skills that create swarms of life stealing temporary minions like the jagged horrors.

And of course the elite skill could be “The Cataclysm”. A huge AoE attack that pulls enemies into the AoE, does heavy direct damage while stacking poison, and summons a small swarm of undead creatures on the final pulse.

I’m more interested in the lore behind Sylvari and asuran weapons.

I know Sylvari gear is grown magically, but the verdant and warden weapons seem to have some sort of glass or crystal component. Is it also grown? Is it hardened sap? Or do the Sylvari have access to some sort of highly resilient crystal substance that doesn’t shatter?

Meanwhile asuran weapons are clearly magically based. I know there are asura who roleplay the weapons as having the same cutting power as lightsabers from Star Wars, which I don’t know if I agree with. A lot of them could just as easily be electrical stun weapons instead of plasma edged cutting tools.

I wish we have more information on what some of these weapons are made of and how they function.

I’m not sure Palawa would be able to expand beyond Elona at this point. Even with the dragons gone he’d have to deal with factions that have technology far beyond what he likely has.

His undead armies wouldn’t fare very well against a fleet of airships bombarding his realm from a high altitude. Joko is essentially a weaker Zhaitan, and even Zhaitan wasn’t able to deal with the PACT’s airship fleet. And unlike Joko, Zhaitan had access to a massive army of giant dragon zombies for air dominance.

Granted it may be presumptuous to assume Elona hasn’t advanced as much as Tyria proper, but there are a few factors that make it a pretty reasonable assumption.

Unlike Tyria, Elona doesn’t have a cultural mixing pot of several races working together toward a common goal. Elona doesn’t have the Charr Legions and the Asura making huge leaps in technology and magic. Furthermore half of Elona are undead now, and a society that has all it’s needs met by the slave labor of undead that don’t have needs or wants likely isn’t going to feel the need to make large innovations.

If Joko has a desire to take Tyria he’d be best off waiting until the very last dragon is dead and Tyria has used up the vast majority of it’s resources and manpower in the process. Even then Tyria may be too powerful to take. We’ll have to see if the dragons keep letting us fight them in their own territory or if one or two will get the idea to take the fight to us personally.

Mallyx had an immense societal impact. Just not on Tyria. Remember, he was the last bastion of resistance against a literal god. He pulled together the remnants of the Margonite army and drew legions of terrible demons and monsters to his service. His impact was on the Mists themselves as he was powerful enough to draw Mist dwelling creatures from it to serve him.

Beyond that he himself was a being of great and terrible power. Arguably the most powerful of the Legends we have save for perhaps Glint.

Keiran was a good soldier and a good leader, but his largest accomplishment as a hero was being one of many soldiers fighting the White Mantle in the Kryta civil war. His impact in the lore as Gwen’s romantic interest and eventually birthing Logan’s family line is his biggest contribution to the world. It isn’t what I’d consider worthy of being put on the same level as characters like Mallyx, Shiro Tagachi, or even Ventari.

Eir similarly hasn’t done much on that level. Maybe if Destiny’s Edge had succeeded in killing Kraalkatorrik it’d be different, but in the grand scheme of things her life hasn’t had that large of an impact on anything.

Of the Destiny’s Edge characters, I’d suspect Snaff as being the best choice for a Legend as his designs did revolutionize golemancy as the asura know it today, which is a huge part of every asura’s day to day life. He’s also one of the very few asura that is venerated with such awe and passion that I’d feel comfortable describing him as a cultural hero.

Keep in mind a Revenant legend has to be someone who has left a huge impression on the Mists through their actions. Each of our current legends have had a huge impact on a societal level. I don’t see Thackeray becoming one. Or Eir for that matter. I doubt we’ll be getting Vizu since we already have a Canthan assassin Legend.

Pyre Fierceshot is a good candidate as he started the rebellion that would go on to completely change the Charr Legions forever. I feel a shortbow would fit him the best, and the Revenant need another ranged option.

I’d LOVE a Mad King Thorn legend, likely with a scepter mainhand or torch offhand. Heavy conditions and control. The utilities for the legend could involve “Mad King Says” lines as shouts.

Mad King Says: Cower!: AoE fear plus Torment stacks.

Mad King Says: Laugh!: AoE confusion stacks on anyone standing near the Revenant and forces enemies to /laugh.

Mad King Says: Applaud!: AoE daze and forces enemies to do the /applaud emote.

The Elite could trap a single targeted enemy inside a block of candy corn where they cannot attack or be attacked for say, 10 seconds. Takes them out of the battle. Or maybe summon a candy corn elemental to fight for you.

morrolan.9608:

D/D Elementalist works with higher latency because its heavily rotation based and has very good sustain.

I have latency troubles and D/D ele is almost unplayable for me.

The blast on Burning Speed goes off behind you instead of where you land so you can never land it and Ride the Lightning has awful rubber banding issues with high latency. These two skills are crucial to your ability to use this set, so you’re far less effective.

Staff ele works fine however. You get similar sustain but less dueling power.

You don’t think a frog can be scary? Have you SEEN how they hunt? Yes, hunt. Frogs and toads are almost all carnivorous hunters.

Let me paint you a picture. You’re downsized to the size of a small bird and you’re on a hunting trip to track down and slay a deadly tarantula. You know they are fast and strong, and you know their bite is deadly. To that end you’ve brought a spear. But while looking for your terrifying foe you hear a rustling in the grass. You narrow your eyes and ready your spear as you approach, expecting to face the eight legged horror that is the tarantula. Suddenly a blur leaps from the grass with such incredible speed you can scarcely react. In an instant you find yourself in total darkness as it’s massive maw encases you. The mouth comes shut and shatters your legs, and as you let out a blood curdling scream it’s tongue rises up and crushes your body against the roof of it’s mouth before you’re swallowed whole.

Larger species of toads have been known to swallow tarantulas, rats, and birds as large as a parrot in one gulp. Their jaws are strong enough to crush just about any creature just slightly smaller than it to death.

You only consider frogs and toads to not be a threat because you are too large to be threatened by them, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be terrifying if they could get you in their mouth.

Oh, and in addition to that many species of frogs and toads, even some of the larger ones that are already big enough to crush birds to death, are also highly toxic to the point that just coming into contact with them can make you sick.

Jennah’s feats are pretty in line with what we’ve seen from other mesmers who push themselves beyond safe limits, actually. Palawa Joko however isn’t even the norm among liches. He’s accomplished far more than any other lich in history.

I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to trim the fat of the discussion, so to speak. We’ve spread out into several smaller conversations and it’s getting a bit cumbersome to manage them all in unison.

Regarding a lich being caught in the blast: I’d intended to include that caveat myself, and evidently forgot in the long post. Nevertheless conceded, but on the gripping hand, a smart lich could just hang back and send in the armies until the elementalist is forced to expend all their power, unless the elementalist has some means of picking and choosing their fights (under which circumstances the elementalist can win, as I described myself, but still could not hold down a nation like a necromancer can).

Actually elementalists are a far more mobile profession both in mechanics and lore. They can teleport, dash, and nearly fly using air magic, as well as have aerial support from flame and air elementals. Along with access to items enchanted with air magic that allows true flight.

If both sides have similar prep time an elementalist seems perfectly capable of having a substantial advantage in mobility, so picking and choosing where they fight would be their prerogative. Which plays into my point about the professions being roughly equal in power but specializing in different areas.

For instance, let’s imagine Isgarren has some sort of grudge with Palawa Joko and has been preparing for decades to take Palawa on. At some stage, he decides he’s ready, flies over to the Bone Palace, and things work out pretty much as you describe. And then, Isgarren declares himself ruler of Elona by right of conquest, but none of the Elonians agree. What happens next?

What comes next is political power, not magical. If we’re discussing what profession would be the best at gaining political power mesmer is hands down your best bet for becoming a shadow ruler. As far as we know mesmers are the only profession that has a secret shadow society of other mesmers dedicated to keeping their own kind in check.

Again I have to point out though, that Joko didn’t conquer Elona through necromancy alone. He dammed the river which caused mass starvation in Vabbi and Kourna. They surrendered to him because if they didn’t they would die from the natural environment of their homeland.

Joko also isn’t ruling Elona through necromancy. He needed the support of mortal followers as well, and to that end turned the living into his allies with promises of wealth and power. Joko, more than any other lich in history, had the most time to prepare, best conditions to set up his rule, and most resources at his disposal, yet he still needed the living to support his rule.

So what makes Joko needing living support different from an elementalist needing it? In both scenarios the caster rules through fear and suppression and call allies to their side with promises of wealth and high social standing. Both have the potential to be supplanted by a small, coordinated group or taken out by a glorious martial hero.

You could argue the necromancer’s army makes the living army less necessary, but then the entire point for the Empire constructing the Death Star was so that they could lessen their military expenses with the knowledge that no one in their right mind would rebel against someone that can wipe out their home with the press of a button.

draxynnic.3719:

Like I said, I consider that if it’s easier for them to reach a more powerful form, that gives them a better potential to be more powerful, unless there’s reason to think that the more powerful form of the other profession is even more powerful to compensate for the added difficulty of getting there. At the moment, we have no evidence that this is the case.

We seem to be discussing different things here. You’re saying the practitioner has higher potential while I’m discussing the magic itself’s potential use. A necromancer might have a higher chance to reach a higher level by becoming a lich (and thus gaining more time to study and practice his art) but that doesn’t necessarily mean a user of necromancy is inherently more powerful if both practitioners are at the same level of skill and experience.

Joko, for example, had centuries of experience as a necromancer. It’s impossible for me to find an elementalist of the same skill and experience because none live that long aside from perhaps a Mursaat elementalist, and they tend to rely more on their hax powers than upfront magic.

Every known lich is a necromancer, and including GW2 liches (which are less powerful than Khilbron and Joko, but still quite dangerous) I think there’s enough to set a trend. There’s a quest chain in Nightfall involving a Shiro’ken that was given some lich-like properties (namely, being hard to make it stay dead…), but it was Khilbron who gave it that power, so it comes back to necromancy.

Every lich is a necromancer but not every necromancer is a lich. The vast majority of necromancers will never become a lich. That makes liches an outlier that are not a representative of what mortal necromancers can do.

Regarding non-liches creating sapient undead: Unclear, with a caveat. The sapient undead in the Shards of Orr dungeon were created due to a curse placed by an ‘advisor to the king of Orr’ – either this is indicating that Khilbron was a lich all the way back then (and thus, not made a lich by the Cataclysm), or that sometime in the past an Orrian vizier, presumably a then-living one, had the power to do this.

So more than likely they can’t. Or have a heavy reason not to like not being able to control intelligent undead, which seems reasonable. Otherwise liches would be making themselves vulnerable to normal necromancers, and that would be silly.

Citation please? From what I recall, the Modniir were driven out of the Shiverpeaks by Jormag and competition from other inhabitants (such as norn and dredge), but were still a stronger tribe than the other two – certainly not “nearly extinct”.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Harathi

I’m afraid my gaming computer is down so I can’t go ingame to hunt for text. The wiki states the Harathi are the largest of the three tribes and make up the bulk of the centaur army, and that the Harathi and Tamini were forced into the alliance out of fear for Ulgoth, not out of fear of Ulgoth’s much smaller tribe.

I was considering Tahmu earlier and didn’t think it countered my position, for the following reasons:

1) Like you keep claiming regarding the liches, we don’t know the full circumstances. She might have had help from an artifact or some outside intervention. Putting that aside…

I’m fairly confident that if there was an artifact involved the story would have mentioned it. This is, after all, the only bit of lore we have on Tahmu, unlike Palawa Joko and Khilbron who both have major story arcs dedicated to them.

2) It cost her life. In the theoretical matchup between Tahmu and a lich, the lich will simply send in another army after she’s blown herself out of the picture.

Unless said lich got caught in the spell along with the army he was commanding. In which case it’s a draw.

3) Similar to the great mesmer feats of magic above: It only covers a relatively small area (compared to having enough undead to dominate an entire nation). Larger feats of destruction did require the use of artifacts.

True, but that army can be torn a part by groups of soldiers and completely circumvented by use of stealth. Palawa Joko didn’t conquer Elona through sheer military supremacy, he did it by crippling them by stealing their only water supply. Something an elementalist could also do with water or earth magic.

In fact the elementalist Teinai was able to melt a frozen lake, re-freeze it, and then nuke it with lightning to defeat a powerful demon that was terrorizing the countryside. Clearly showing they can block huge bodies of water with a single spell if they were inclined.

If not for the lack of water the people of Elona could have resisted Joko and potentially put him down like what happened the first time he tried to rule them.

A necromancer has a greater reach with his army, but his presence in those areas is substantially less potent than an elementalist who could simply start nuking a town instead of razing it with soldiers.

4) Even when such feats of magic don’t kill the user, they tend to exhaust them, and for mesmers and elementalists both, once the feat of magic is done, it’s done. They don’t have the ability to ‘ramp up’ to the degree that liches have demonstrated, creating a massive army over time that can dominate a territory and literally bury a foe beneath a pile of bodies.

Elementalists do have the potential to ramp up, though. They can continuously make/summon/bind elementals to form an army. It’s just that, as we previously discussed, they don’t seem to be able to do it as quickly as a necromancer can with raised corpses.

Could a powerful elementalist take on a powerful necromancer’s undead army and win? It’s certainly plausible. Pick battles so that they’re only facing a manageable fraction of the army at a time. Conjure some elemental cataclysm to turn the tide, send in elementals to mop up, take any time required to recover, and repeat, hopefully wearing down the necromancer’s forces faster than they can replace them.

Given a decade of peace, a necromancer can raise an army. Given a decade of peace, an elementalist’s capability to wreak havoc will have gone unused, and what they’ll have is the likely significantly smaller and less powerful force of elementals that they were able to gather in that time. Start a lich, a post-apotheosis elementalist, a post-apotheosis mesmer, and for good measure let’s throw in a post-apotheosis guardian at roughly the same power level, and give them each two centuries. In that time, the lich would likely have raised a huge army, while the elementalist might have a small army of elementals, while the mesmer and guardian probably might as well have been sitting on their thumbs the whole time. This is why I think necromancers have the most potential to be super-powerful: because what they do lasts and can be built up more than what others can do on their own.

I can understand your point of view. I still don’t feel it makes necromancers potentially more powerful. After all, while we don’t see entire elemental armies in the lore we also don’t see non-lich/Zhaitan factions conjuring huge armies of undead to supplement their forces every engagement.

Necromancers use their undead as auxiliary forces just like elementally inclined factions use their elementals. Likely because they are in a state of war and are losing undead/elementals at the same rate they can create them. In fact the necromancer Naku, a non-lich necromancer of great power, had to sacrifice himself to create a full sized undead army, which clearly shows that making massive, persistent armies is a lich exclusive affair.

It’s interesting to note that RANGERS of all professions have a similar ramp up ability to necromancers. Zojun and his rangers were able to create an entire army of beasts to defeat Magadore, and the way the story is written it sounds like a ranger left to their own devices in the wild has the potential to come out of a forest with an army of wolves if they desired. Whether they can keep the army after the battle is unknown, but I don’t see why they couldn’t. Rangers don’t magically bind animals to them. While there may be magic involved it’s just creating a bond with the animal so they become loyal and has no upkeep cost to speak of.

As for what an elementalist can do in peace times. Aside from raising an elemental army it seems casters can also store magical energy as is the case with Magadore, who was storing up that energy to launch a war of magic on the emperor. We know signets are items that hold spells for later use, so an elementalist could produce quite a few of those in preparation.

Then there’s the giant floating castles we see occasionally. While we don’t know what’s keeping them afloat we DO know it’s elemental magic that the Zephyrites use to keep their flying ship in the air (The aspects are different forms of air magic trapped inside Glint’s crystals), so it’s reasonable to think that the flying castles could be powered by elemental magic as well. Especially given Isgarren has an army of elementals, which implies he’s an elementalist or has access to multiple fields of magic.

So let’s say an elementalist has 60 years of prep time. He could store air magic inside some crystals (Not necessarily Glint crystals, there are a lot of crystalline objects that can store magic), use it to levitate a castle he shapes with earth magic, create an army of air and fire elementals, then laugh as the necromancer’s army can’t reach him as he drops meteors on them from above.

draxynnic.3719:

My contention is that being easier to attain that power as a necromancer suggests that the necromancer has greater potential. If there are three super-powered necromancers (including Zoldark the Unholy from Vloxen Excavations) and only one potential super-powered elementalist on a similar scale that we know of, that suggests to me that necromancer is the profession with more overall potential to become superpowered.

Or that those who choose the path of necromancy tend to have more ambition. Or that the act of becoming a lich is simply less difficult than the equivalent for other professions because it requires less magical power to do. Or that the writers just like using undead armies in their stories because of our world’s associate with death = evil.

There are a lot of reasons liches are so prominent in the forefront of lore. It doesn’t necessarily mean necromancers are more powerful than the other caster classes.

It’s unclear how sapient the typical elementals such as summoned through the Glyph are. Imps (more powerful ones, anyway) and djinn are sapient, but regular ones might not be – in fact, I think somewhere there’s a reference comparing regular elementals to animals.

I used the word sentient because strictly speaking a moving corpse isn’t sentient and neither are normal rocks. Sapient also works but suggests a higher level of thinking power than I was getting at. At any rate I’m fairly sure I’ve seen elementals speak but I can’t remember. They are, however, able to move and act independently from their master’s will as well as operate without a master at all.

We can’t say for sure that they didn’t, but there’s no evidence of Joko having such an artifact, or that lich in the Vloxen Excavations dungeon. (Even in Khilbron’s case, I wonder if it was actually the Cataclysm that did the raising, or whether that’s just what the Krytans initially assumed when undead started showing up, but that Khilbron actually did the raising.)

Weren’t there already undead roaming the Desolation? Joko could have just bound them to his will without doing the raising himself.

I’d also be interested in knowing if there are any non-liches who have managed this feat. Especially since we again don’t know if being a necromancer is the only requirement for transforming into a lich permanently.

Sure, but we still had one person being able to hold it off. The thing that makes this significant is that we’re relying on the post-apotheosis elementalist being able to make up for a smaller army by being significantly more dangerous in person.

And, to put it simply, Baelfire having his primary strength negated by a mortal (very powerful by mortal standards, but mortal nevertheless) guardian, and then picked off by a handful of heroes, suggests that he’s not that much more powerful in person than the liches. Not enough to make up for the size of armies that the powerful necromancers can create.

Looking at the player characters every profession has an equal chance of being lethal in person. Even the non-magical characters can defeat powerful spellcasters one on one. Logan and the other members of Destiny’s Edge are a group strong enough to take down Dragon Champions together, which are usually threats that need whole armies to respond to. I feel having two members of Destiny’s Edge plus a group of adventurers that include the PC is more than sufficient to match any of the liches you’ve mentioned.

The elementalists don’t necessarily make up for the lack of an army by being stronger combatants. They make up for it for having greater destructive potential when left alone to do their thing. None of your liches could summon an army on the spot. They all needed time to slowly build up said army. Huge amounts of time if you take Joko as the standard.

You can rule through fear by having henchmen that propagate that fear for you. Ulgoth is also clearly powerful for a personal visit to be highly threatening. However, he still only summons one big elemental, and a surrounding storm, that dominates the area of maybe a town center? This does not compare to raising an army.

Except we also know the Harathi was a much larger tribe than the nearly extinct Midoniir. The Harathi didn’t fear Ulgoth’s henchmen, they feared Ulgoth.

This is, essentially, my basis for ruling that, from what we can observe, necromancers appear to have the potential for the greatest impact – because they’ve had the greatest impact. We could theorise until the proverbial cows come home, but at the bottom line, necromancers have a demonstrated capability to be movers and shakers without needing to have a society supporting them beyond that which they’ve created through necromancy. The capabilities of others to do so remains purely hypothetical.

Again your evidence is purely from liches. Liches that we do not know the origin of or how it effects one’s magic. Why do liches tend to have such a major impact on the world? Because they have a substantially longer life span than anyone else, an utter lack of morals, and the ambition to try and take over the world.

I’d like to see more of these world defining feats of power from necromancers that have not transcended mortality through unknown means.

At any rate, here are some high end feats from elementalists that I’ve managed to collect.

The Emress Tahmu, upon being captured by the invading naga that had just killed her guards and were slaughtering her people, called down a storm of fire so intense it wiped the entire invading army from her city. The spell killed her, and she ascended to become a Celestial Dragon. I’d say the potential to eradicate an entire army at least cancels out raising an army over the course of 60 years.

Less fatally the elementalist henchwoman Cynn was discovered wounded by a charr warband and wiped them all out with a single spell that also destroyed the remains of her house. A warband can be anywhere from 5 to 20 charr.

The ability to do some major damage to an army is definitely there. Supported by some elementals I could see an elementalist taking on a necromancer and their own army.

I want my sylvari to have a big, bushy beard of moss. The fact this isn’t an option makes me very sad.

draxynnic.3719:

True enough. As we’ve both acknowledged, we don’t know what the process for becoming a lich is, or how it influences necromancy. It does seem, however, that at the very least lichdom seems to be easier to achieve than any similar forms of apotheosis achieved by other professions – we know of at least three, while in the case of elemental-based apotheosis, we know of only one attempt. This suggests to me that, if there is something about lichdom that enhances necromancy, it seems to be easier than any equivalents that other professions may have – and being easier to transform into a more powerful state, to me, seems like it translates into having a higher potential.

Not necessarily. A new form being more common suggests it’s easier to attain that power, but not that said power is greater than the equivalent power achieved by a different transformation.

It did strike me that in all this, I’ve been avoiding mentioning Khilbron, since it’s hard to say how much of his army was his own work and how much was the Cataclysm. However, the inhabitants of the Shards of Orr dungeon were the result of a curse by an “advisor” to the King of Orr, which may be Khilbron or may be a predecessor, but seems to indicate another case of being able to create an army. This may be because Khilbron had already turned himself into a lich before the Cataclysm and had been hiding it, or it could be that being a lich isn’t necessary to have this power, but having that power is necessary to becoming a lich. (Most necromancers don’t seem to be capable of creating sapient undead, or choose not to. Becoming a lich of one’s own volition would require finding a means to transform yourself into a sapient undead, which is probably harder than doing it to someone else.)

Khilbron also had access to a lot of ancient artifacts. We can’t be 100% sure that anything he did was under his own power. Not even becoming a lich. Especially since I don’t believe any references suggest he was a lich prior to the Cataclysm. Shoot, for all we know Abeddon could’ve been the cause of his transformation as a reward for destroying Orr.

That said, I’m inclined to think that elementalists can create new elementals given a suitable supply of an appropriate element and enough magical energy. The source of most wild elementals, from what we’ve been told, is simply having enough magical energy of the right kind in an area leads to elementals spontaneously arising from the elements present there. It stands to reason that a sufficiently powerful elementalist can create an elemental by channeling magic in a directed fashion to achieve their objective, and this may in fact be exactly what the associated Glyphs are doing. Thus, I don’t think it’s an issue of availability, but an issue of it taking much more investment for an elementalists to create, bind, and maintain an elemental of equivalent power than it takes a necromancer to create an undead.

Even if you can create the elementals we’re pretty much in agreement here. It’s more difficult to summon/create/bind an elemental than it is to raise a corpse. There’s also the important point to remember that elementals are sentient entities in their own right where as most undead are mindless husks. It would naturally be more difficult to keep thinking beings under your control than an army of puppets.

True, although sapient undead, as created by the various liches and (possibly) by powerful living necromancers with lower moral standards, retain the abilities they have in life, such as spellcasting. In Guild Wars 2, even some minions appear to have some minor magic (blood fiends stealing life, shadow fiends teleporting, bone fiends doing whatever it is they’re doing when they go into ‘immobilise the enemy’ mode).

Do we have any examples of liches creating sapient undead without an artifact like the Scepter of Orr or simply binding ones who already existed like the Orrian dead? Keep in mind that to do this implies the lich is strong enough to prevent Grenth from claiming the soul. To my knowledge only Zhaitan has been strong enough to drag a soul out of the underworld under his own power.

This is something I was thinking myself. I’m quite sure that elementalists can’t maintain the army size that a necromancer can, but are they capable of simply annihilating an army through sheer power?

However, that’s hypothetical. Baelfire’s lava boulders could be stopped by Logan raising a shield – while at that admittedly early stage in his apotheosis, he could not penetrate the defenses of a mortal (albeit powerful) guardian. We could guess at where he could have reached if not stopped, but I find the demonstrated capabilities of Joko and his ilk more convincing. If we ever do see an elementalist achieving something similar, then that will be cause for reconsideration, but in the meantime, we know that liches have reached a certain power level, while the ability of other professions to do so, let alone what they might do when they get there, remains theoretical.

Logan is himself a powerful guardian, and he was dedicating all his attention to maintaining that shield to the point he couldn’t attack and needed Rytlock and the group to attack Baelfire. Those lava balls did quite the number on your PC if you got hit by one. I’m also inclined to point out that Palawa Joko was similarly taken down by Turai Ossa despite having an army of undead and his own potent magic to fight with.

It would seem that a small assassination squad of heroes is equally effective at dealing with upper tier casters, whether necromancer or elementalist. Joko just had the advantage of no one knowing how to finish him off. Then again, Baelfire would’ve resurrected if we hadn’t gone in and stopped it.

I think the distinction is cultural. From memory, it’s mentioned in Kessex that Draithor is an exile because centaurs don’t like necromancy, and when it’s stated that Draithor is powerful in necromancy, this is followed by a ‘for his kind’.

It wasn’t just a matter of culture. I’m fairly confident it was stated that Ulgoth ruled through fear. He was the most powerful earth elementalist among the centaur we saw, and it was his power that made the Harathi submit to him. Not their admiration for his closeness to the earth. Ulgoth is depicted as a monster of a ruler.

The game also supports the idea that Ulgoth > Draithor by making Ulgoth the end boss of a very long centaur event chain of the last major centaur-focused zone.

Though it’s harder to argue for Ulgoth because a lot of what makes him so powerful can be summed up as game mechanics. But based on what they’ve both achieved with their magic and the sheer scale of the spells Ulgoth uses I’d be inclined to say Ulgoth would win in a direct confrontation.

I’d offer more feats of power by elementalists but the more I think on it the more I notice how few elementalists are given a leading role in Guild Wars stories. A lot of the good feats come from minor characters that I only remember from their feats.

There was a grawl shaman in an event line that was able to use air magic on a large enough scale to deflect projectiles from hitting his grawl army, for example. But I can’t recall any other details about that event.

Anet isn’t forcing you to do anything. You are free to choose what builds you run.

Meta just means most effective in a given role. If you want to maximize your effectiveness and use meta builds provided by the community that is your choice. Anet doesn’t decide what is and is not meta, we do.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Save using sword AA for when your opponent is going defensive instead of when they’re prepared to pressure you. Because the AA allows you to stick to your targets it makes it a lot more difficult for people to get away from you when they want/need to. I don’t start sword AA spamming a Thief right after he lands/misses a backstab on me and begins to engage. I wait until he’s weak, below 40% health, then if the circumstances are calling for it, then I can AA spam him to prevent him from getting away from me. And because the damage from 1h sword is quite high, he’s either going to panic, die, or be really hurting if he manages to get away from my sticky attacks.

It was a 1v2. I was focusing the guardian who was about to go down when the thief popped out and unloaded on me mid-auto attack animation. The greatsword’s evade stopped the damage so I could down the guardian, but if I had been using the sword I would’ve eaten the thief’s burst as I wouldn’t be able to dodge.

Not every fight is a clean 1v1.

Having an auto attack skill remove your ability to dodge is really, really bad design. Even if it’s possible to work around it and do well with the sword it’s still bad design. The skill requirement for using a weapon should be in it’s other skills, like using skill 2 as an escape or gap closer for example, but not in the auto attack. Because auto attacks are meant to attack automatically. That’s what they are there for.

Kind of want to combine this with the new ascended shoulders that make bats follow you around.

While fighting you’d have a swarm of bats and ravens around you at all times.

To be fair, Joko couldn’t bind an army that size just by being a normal necromancer. I feel you’re underplaying the fact he’s a very ancient lich with centuries of knowledge under his belt. There are very few beings alive today that are even close to his level of expertise in his field. We also know that the act of even temporarily becoming a lich is an elite skill among necromancers, so it’s fair to assume becoming one also enhances your necromancy.

Granted we don’t know what the process of becoming a lich is, but even if it’s a form accessible to any sufficiently skilled necromancer and not a result of a freak accident or use of some artifact it’s clear that the vast majority of necromancers never achieve this level of power.

As for necromancers having the numerical advantage, I’d tend to agree. However it’s also worth noting that there is the matter of availability to consider. A necromancer needs only corpses to raise an army where as an elementalist needs to either pull an elemental creature from another world or to take control of an existing elemental. The resources to create an elemental army is much harder to come by than an army of undead.

Elementals also seem to be more powerful on average as they have their own magical attributes. They launch elemental spells all their own, many of which are area of effect attacks, are resistant to certain elemental attacks, and some of them can fly and teleport around.

This is all just army to army though. Necromancers more or less specialize in raising an army. That is the thing they do better than any other caster. But they don’t have the sheer devastation that an elementalist can unleash. The three core magic users all have very high end feats in their respective specialties. Necromancers create large forces of undead, elementalists perform feats of destruction on the scale of wiping out whole squads and taking down walls, and mesmers create massive and intricate illusions that can fool anyone.

Going with your centaur example. The elemental Ulgoth summoned wasn’t just an elemental, it was also a storm. There was a whirlwind surrounding those massive stone fists that were hurling cattle and debris around as well. And during the Battle of Shaemoor Ulgoth was summoning additional lesser earth elementals while channeling the spell to maintain the giant one. With it he was able to take on whole squads of Seraph and was only stopped by the guy who runs around fighting Dragon Champions these days.

And yes, Draithor made a small army of undead to protect his little cave where he did his experiments. By all accounts he was an exceptionally gifted necromancer by centaur standards. But in the end he was an exile. Ulgoth however was so powerful he was able to instill fear in the Harathi tribe, which was much larger than the Modniir tribe Ulgoth lead.

Ultimately Ulgoth’s raw power as an elementalist had a substantially greater influence on centaur society than Draithor did as a necromancer.

Is there seriously still no quaggan plush toys? At this point Anet is practically refusing our money!

I’d also enjoy more lore novels. There’s some things you just can’t translate through the game and I like to learn more about the world through stories.

I’d totally read a book about Mad King Thorn or the experiences of the Sylvari Firstborn when they first awakened.

That’s actually kind of my point. We know it took a huge amount of time for Palawa Joko to amass that army, and even once he had it he had to use underhanded tactics and exploit the environment of Elona to conquer it.

Just because a Necromancer with an immense amount of time to prepare and the perfect environmental factors (Vabbi being a desert and humans not being able to survive in the Desolation) was able to do something outstanding doesn’t necessarily mean necromancy is the most powerful school of magic. An elementalist could conceivably do something similar with the same advantages.

Daniel Handler.4816:

How do you make the difference between ability and perseverance?

A man who graduates college at 18 is not the same as one who takes 30 years to graduate.

By what probability range should we restrain potential?

I don’t understand what you’re asking. It took Joko 60 years to amass the forces needed to take Elona, and that was after having failed a previous time and learning from his mistakes.

I’m saying an elementalist who also has 60 years of time to prepare and similar environmental advantages could conceivably do the same.

draxynnic.3719:

@Ehecatl: Yes, it’s entirely possible that an ascended Baelfire would be an elementalist equivalent of Joko. What we saw was certainly impressive… but still (at that point) restricted to the local area. It’s possible that if Baelfire hadn’t been stopped then, though, he might well have had the ability to conjure an army of elementals, invoke Searing-level effects at will, and generally behave like an angry god of flame.

Still, from what we’ve seen, elementalists aren’t capable of raising elemental armies at the level that necromancers (or at least liches) are capable of raising undead armies, though, so when push comes to shove, I’d be inclined to go with what’s been observed rather than hypotheticals. It’s entirely possible that the other professions are capable of reaching the same level in their own way, but at the moment, I think Joko is the one that’s got the furthest based on his own power derived from being a necromancer.

It’s also worth mentioning that Joko failed on his first attempt at conquest. He only succeeded the second time by damming up a river and letting the natural climate of Elona do most of his work for him. He also had a base of operations in an area his enemies couldn’t easily invade because of how dangerous the Desolation was to non-undead.

If he had attempted the same in say, Kryta, he would have failed miserably. It wasn’t just his own power, it was a combination of his power, his experiences from his last defeat, his army’s unique ability to thrive in an inhospitable area (which is more the nature of undeath than a matter of power), access to a vital river, and the land weakening and killing most of his opposition. And of course it took him 60 years to build up his forces to the point he could do this.

I’m not saying it wasn’t impressive because it certainly was, but it wasn’t purely the power of his necromancy.

As for elemental armies, we actually see a decent amount of that. The Flame Legion can summon and bind flame elementals to their control that are persistent in the world. They also create flame effigies which are giant, walking engines of destruction. Coupled with Isgarren’s elemental army in Garenhoff it seems pretty reasonable that an elementalist can make an army of elementals given enough time that won’t dissipate after a set time limit.

In the case of Isgarren I believe it was said that the elementals were at one point wild, and he merely bound them to his control. Even then it seems probable than an elementalist with access to a lot of wild elementals, which aren’t that uncommon in the game at least, and a time comparable to 60 years could be a similarly dangerous threat under the same environmental circumstances.

The forum ate my first post. Annoying.

Anyway, I am curious why you’d take Glyph of Alignment over Flame Trap. With the trait Flame Trap is on nearly half the cooldown and I believe puts out more damage. It even cripples for only 2 seconds less thanks to the trait. So would you be taking Glyph of Alignment for the weakness application?

I’m also curious if you’d consider sword/torch with Quick Draw to be better than sword/dagger. It again seems to be a higher damage option, and Quick Draw has good synergy with staff as well by letting you cast Astral Grace more frequently for escapes.

All in all Trapper Druid seems like it will be very effective. Even if it might not be meta for tournament play it will at the very least be extremely fun and engaging with a lot of escapes, good damage, and good sustain with great burst healing from Celestial Avatar for team support. The Druid line and Runes of the Trapper really answer all the main weaknesses that trapper ranger had aside from the need of a stunbreak. Even then, as you said, all the stealth and healing might compensate for that.

To be perfectly honest I rarely notice the evade on greatsword’s auto attack. I think it’s made a major difference in about one match that I can remember where I was in a 1v2 against a guardian and a thief. I almost had the guardian down and the thief popped out but had their burst evaded by the auto chain, allowing me to down the guardian then turn and defeat the thief.

It was a really great moment, no doubt. But it was also a matter of pure chance and the fault of the thief for not watching my animations more carefully.

Now if I had been using the sword I would’ve went down on the spot because while the greatsword’s auto chain provides a little extra protection without taking anything away the sword removes your ability to defend yourself for brief moments in time that an intelligent opponent can easily exploit.

To be perfectly honest I’d be willing to lose the evade on greatsword in exchange for a damage buff on the auto chain. The evade isn’t needed as I’d rather rely on my own ability to survive rather than chance. The sword auto however needs that evade far more because it takes away the user’s ability to defend themselves re-actively during the leap.

A better solution would be to make dodging and evade skills break the leap animation, but as that doesn’t seem to be an option making the leap an evade is the best choice.

No one takes the greatsword just for the evade on auto. They use it for the block/knock back, the stun/daze, the mobility on Swoop, and the heavy spike damage from Maul. The evade on auto attack is just gravy on the utility cake.

Both weapons are sufficiently different with sword being an evasion heavy sustained DPS weapon and greatsword being a defensive burst weapon. Completely different roles.

If you won’t let Anet fix this glaring design flaw will you AT LEAST agree to having an evade put on the leap so the auto attack chain doesn’t make you vulnerable every third auto attack?

mistsim.2748:

well it looks like we’re getting trapper runes in spvp on HoT’s release. it will make things a little more interesting, but what bothers me is that it wont solve the massive underlying problems with traps. everyone is gonna be hyped about trapper runes, and we’ll soon forget that traps every had probs.

that being said, trapper druid will be kinda cool.

Might be really strong in Stronghold where stealth isn’t punished. Trap stealth+Celestial Shadow+leaps/blasts in Shadowscale smoke field… Ranger will actually have a lot of access to stealth for a change. It will be interesting to say the least.

Runes of the Trapper would make Trapper Ranger/Druid amazing in Stronghold. It’d give staying power and escape options to a build that has none and suffers for it.

You guys should test them on the running golem. There is a reason the running golem exists.

As rangers though we have some of the best soft control in the game if you build for it. Which you should if you intend to use your pet as your main damage source. I’m pretty interested to see how much harder my cats will hit now that they have condition damage.