Guild Wars 2

JUN YANG.4328:

what this doing with staff weapon? this totally not relate to thief

So?

This is the same company that gave great swords to mesmers and necros. Giving thieves the staff seems totally reasonable compared to weapon choices for other classes.

arenta.2953:

i wish tybalt had lived and trahearne died……but no. i get stuck with the bad character and watch an epic character go down epicly, but not epic enough for the difference in epic between him and trahearne.

Kinda off topic, but I never really understood people’s undying love for Tybalt.

Sure, he was a likeable and funny character, but I would never really describe him as “epic”. The only notable thing he really did in the entire game to possibly deserve that status was him sacrificing himself, but that would only put him on the same level as the other mentors who did the same as well. Yet Tybalt seems to be the only mentor who stands out for most people.

Trahearne, while coming off as a slightly boring character due to his monotone voice acting, has many more possible “epic” achievements compared to most characters. He spent the majority of his life wondering an undead wasteland researching Zhaitan and Orr’s lost culture, he seems to be a very powerful necromancer and renown scholar, he was able to command the combined Pact forces to victory in the campaign against Zhaitan, and he successfully cleansed Orr with Caladbolg.

Realistically, I think I would be cautious as well if I just found out that an entire race has a chance of turning into murderers at a drop of a hat. They may seem nice now, but without any information on how to stop it, anyone of them can instantly turn into monsters because an evil dragon sitting hundreds of miles away basically flipped a mental switch.

People getting mad at the lack of future sparkle sticks when a vast majority will never actually get (or even try to get) them in the end anyway.

The internet always makes me laugh.

Belzebu.3912:

Actually skritts do get smarter in larger groups, the individuals even start to speak more fluently when in group, it is not that they do stuff by brute forcing solutions when in group.

The colony of Skritt as a whole may get smarter, but the individuals themselves do not though.

As taken from the Rat-Tastrophe PS mission...

Magister Sieran: You’ll get used to it. Skritt talk to each other so fast we can barely hear it, much less keep up. The more of them there are, the more brains they have to focus on the matter at hand.

Ftokchak: Need to build big boom that will kill rock mom. Need more skritt! More skritt, more voices, faster answers. Plan One: find missing skritt!

Mordy, given that one of his spheres of influence is Mind, would benefit from insanity whispers.

His minions should be able to understand his mental commands, hence the uncorrupted Sylvari being able to “listen in”, but everyone should suffer adverse effects when he is exerting his mental influence when it commands his minions or just being in its presence. Screen blurring around the edges and suffering from a unique debuff. That sort of thing.

I think the Skritt would be better described as “excellent problem solvers”. Their intelligence doesn’t actually increase when they gather in larger groups, but the larger group allows them to outsource the problem to quickly discuss possible ideas and solutions to it.

You can almost think of a large group of Skritt as a living embodiment of Yahoo Answers or an internet forum. A large portion of the responses to your question/problem might be stupid or jokes, but there might be a couple of people that knows what they’re talking about and responds with the answer or at least has an idea of what direction might lead to the best results.

Do we know how long Glint served as a champion under Kralkatorrik? If she served under him as his champion/alarm clock for multiple awakenings, it could give enough time and leeway for the Shiverpeaks’ possible creation.

Rebound.3409:

In a barren expansion anything is “needed” and “vital”….imagine removing even that..what’s left for this expansion?

Considering we don’t know the full content of this expansion yet, it’s a bit early to say this is a “barren” expansion and everything is “needed” and “vital”.

All new professions could technically be said to be “unneeded”. They are usually either added to give players more options or they fit into the current theme of the story/expansion.

I’m reserving all my judgments on the class until I get to play the finished version though. We’ve only be able to play a half finished version of the class, and it has been a bit subpar, but Anet has made it a point to listen to our feedback on the subject and improve the class as much as possible to meet the community’s expectations. No reason to had out a verdict on it just yet when it’s still in a state of constant flux.

~ A tale as old as time, Beauty and the Beast….~

The only group that seems to have manage to create a working jetpack is the Molten Alliance and Scarlet. We might have been able to reserve engineer them, but I’m not sure just how easy it would have been to gather the materials and work the magic needed to make them actually work.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Yeah, they kinda retconed her size in GW2. In GW1 she was not that big. When I’m on my PC next, I’ll grab the pic I’ve got of her.

I wouldn’t really call it a retcon. With how Ogden and the Brotherhood of the Dragon were describing her as basically some sort of proto-Elder Dragon, any growth in size could be explained by her absorbing an ever increasing amount of magic.

You can get somewhat of a size comparison between her and DE from SE story mode. She looks about the same size or slightly smaller than Teq or Shatterer judging by those pictures. It’s hard to get a good read since the PoV is all from an angle with the rest of her body out of frame though.

Compared to Kralk, she’s was basically the size of a fly.

Still no confirmation on when hard copies will be available for prepurchase in the US? I guess I’ll go back to sitting on my money and twiddling my thumbs until then…

DarkSpirit.7046:

I finally completed it with the help of a friend, which kind of defeats the purpose of the living stories being solo-able.

Elementalist’s best friend, especially against stationary targets, is Ice Bow #4. Between that and Meteor Shower you should be able to always take out a good chuck of hp in a short amount of time.

Shiren.9532:

How does the story (moving forward) reconcile the roles of the three Order mentors at Claw Island? As you experience it, it’s portrayed as if each one played a unique role, but obviously there is only one canon in the story. Are they just one of several order members that died holding the line so others could escape?

Unless they say otherwise, I’d imagine it gets filed under Multiverse Theory. Your character’s playthrough of the PS and LS is cannon to your character. All the other possible decisions you character could have made either didn’t happen or were simply done by a random NPC.

As for the other mentors, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they also died on Claw Island off screen. Your mentor just got the huge death scene because he/she was able to survive long enough with your help to get to that point.

I would be more excited about this information if it weren’t for the fact that I STILL can’t prepurchase a hard copy yet. The only supposed retail partner they list for hard copies in the US is Gamestop, but it’s only listed for digital download on their website.

I really hope they fix that soon.

adormtil.1605:

Kalavier.1097:

Zhaitan’s corruption comes from holding onto/using a corrupted artifact, having corrupted essence directly infused/entering, or being brought back from the dead.

We really lucked out because we never got hit by any of those ;P.

Jormag lures you in and has you willingly join him for the most part, and branded are… weird.

When I made this post I was thinking the branded actually made by that elder dragon with a very long and hard name. Why could no one give archvillans easy names like Josh, or Alex. Elder Dragon Josh its easier to remember.

“I shall bathe the fields in your blood. I will burn your homes and desecrate your holy places, and history for forever remember my name… For I am Bobbi (with and ‘I’), and I shall make this world weep in despair!”

Anyway, I don’t like to spell out Kralkatorrik either. I usually just shorten it to “Kralk”.

Yo mama is so fat, when she stood up she got achievement points.
Yo mama is so fat, you’re still missing 2 PoI and a Vista for completion.

Yo mama is so stupid, she thought that Scarlet was a wonderfully complex and deep character.
Yo mama is so stupid, the Asura decided to start studying her instead of the Skritt.

Yo mama is so ugly, she applies Fear every 5secs in a 600 range.
Yo mama is so ugly, even Zhaitan turned her down.

Red Queen.7915:

Which pretty much makes them the arrogant Bond villain, though.

Bond villains are still humans thinking human thoughts, feeling human emotions, and reasoning and planning with human rationale. Elder Dragons are closer to eldritch abominations than they are to anything else.

And when old, powerful and alien don’t help you, wouldn’t you try out something different? I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn’t just roll over and wait my turn to be killed if I realised that all my millenia and all my hoarded magic won’t help me if the ants show up on my doorstep intent on destroying me…

Elder Dragons will use different means when it suits them (as seen by Mordremoth using Scarlet and her technology to awaken itself early). I think you’re underestimating the Elder Dragons’ power though. The Pact flew into Maguuma with the intent to destroy Mordy, and Mordy ripped the very ships that slew Zhaitan out of the sky and destroyed them in a matter of moments.

The Elder Dragons don’t need to lower themselves to something like bargaining to try and ensure their survival. They just need to strategize on how to weaken, kill, and/or corrupt their enemies before their enemies can get to them first. Zhaitan was easy because we were able to weaken him first. Otherwise, an Elder Dragon would have an easy time killing us all.

And somehow, the Elder Dragons just hiding out somewhere and not doing anything but sending minions out into the world sort of makes me think they are not that powerful to begin with. Otherwise, Tyria as we know it wouldn’t exist anymore. I mean, if I’m one of the most powerful beings in existence, what’s stopping me from steamrolling over anyone who stands in my way?

The fact that Anet actually need to make a playable game to make money. As you said, if the Elder Dragon used the full extent of their powers constantly, Tyria wouldn’t really exist anymore. So Anet has to limit their active physical involvement in the game because they’re so powerful lore-wise they’d kinda break the story.

Makes me wonder if we do indeed have something the dragons need that would be lost if we all just suddenly died. Do we generate the magic that they feed on? Are they trying to figure out how to keep the magic in the world without us? Is that what the corrupted minions are, temporary “magic generators” that the dragons need to stay alive until they found another food source? It would make sense, seeing as Zhaitan tried to get his claws on powerful magical relics. And it would explain the dragons’ reluctance to launch a final attack.

From what’s been discussed on the lore forums, general consensus has the Elder Dragons being mostly intelligent apex predators that balance Tyria’s magical levels on the extremes. They don’t do it because it’s their job, but instead that’s just their nature. They eat, kill, and corrupt until there is nothing left (low global magical levels), then begin to starve, and they then go into a state of hibernation. During their hibernation, they slowly start to leak magic back into the world. Once the magical levels get high enough again, the process starts over again.

As for where the mortal beings are in all of this, we’re part of the magical environment. We contain magic, our souls are possibly magic as well, we gather concentrated amount of magic into artifacts, and we make excellent cannon fodder and minions to battle and gather magic.

Red Queen.7915:

Either way, Kralkatorrik treating us as “ants” would be the equivalent of the Bond villain watching 007 mow through his henchmen like nobody’s business and then still insisting on arrogant monologuing because psh, Bond, a threat? Nah. That’s just stupid. And stupid villains are boring.

You’re misreading the situation a bit when you try and apply human qualities to them. They treat us like ants because we ARE ants to them. Dangerous ants, but still ants none the less. They are literally a hundred times our size, extremely ancient, and have enough magical power to raise an entire region out of the sea or permanently scar and corrupt the land and its people simply by breathing on it.

Bond villains may think Bond is an “ant”, but said villain can still be easily killed by anyone with something simple as a tiny bullet to the head. For us to kill a single Elder Dragon, it took the collective power of five major races and numerous lesser ones working together to cleave a path into its domains and cut off its food supply to starve it into a weakened state before we could gun it down.

And that collective army that was able to kill an Elder Dragon was taken down and destroyed by another in a matter of minutes…

The Elder Dragons may fear our collective power after awhile, but they’ll never do something as human as bargaining though. They’re too old, to powerful, and to alien for that.

Farzo.8410:

Mortifer.2946:

Dragon demands audience? really?

Revealing that the dragons are far more than just a force of nature, and actually very intelligent beings with an evil personality.

Evil is debatable, but we kinda already knew that they were intelligent and manipulative from what little information we got on Zhaitan through the PS, Jormag from different lore tidbits, and Mordy’s corruption of Scarlet.

The difference being is the order of magnitude between us and them and how they view us. Them demanding an audience from us is like us demanding an audience from that pesky anthill out in the yard.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Erukk.1408:

So, I’m guessing we’re writing off all the additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

The Living Story is meant to be free. We are not supposed to be paying for that.

That doesn’t really change my question though. Are we writing off all the free additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

So, I’m guessing we’re writing off all the additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

As you already described, they killed off all the mentors for the emotional impact it would have on the players and to try and show us the Elder Dragons are actually a threat.

I really hope we’ll get more information soon, because the only way I’m prepurchasing it is if it’s a hard copy. I can’t buy the digital version to download because I’m on a data plan, and I’d rather not have to pay an extra $15-$30+ in overage fees that month on top of what I’m already paying for the game itself.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Zommoros the djinn = Isgarren the wizard?

Sure, why not. Can’t be worse than Scarlet.

And then the Wizard turns out to be a time travelling Scarlet Hologram…

Maybe he’s going to go out adventuring with us in HoT.

Blazing Liger.1236:

We don’t know that the gods brought the humans to Tyria; it could have been some other powerful being(s) or a fluke of the Mists.

Possible, but unless it is suggested or proven otherwise, we have to rely on the information provided to us on the matter (the stories, myths, and legends) that say the Six did bring the humans to Tyria.

Regardless, I only have theorized a connection between the gods and the dragons as a possible explanation for the gods’ absence. It’s not a central point of my theory, and I’m open to other ideas as to why the gods have been so distant.

The common census is that the gods, like most parents, decided it was time to allow their children, the humans, to grow on their own outside of their influence. Especially after seeing just how destructive their actions (Abaddon’s rebellion) and influence (the unrestricted Gift of Magic) is on the world. That’s why they left in their Exodus in year 0ae. The only thing keeping them semi-tied to the world was the huge loose end that was Abaddon, but after Kormir filled his seat in the pantheon, they decided to cut their remaining ties by and large.

Other popular theory include: them dealing with whatever happened in their home world, possibly large conflicts or destabilization in their realms, or they simply don’t want the EDs to eat them thus giving them a HUGE boost in power.

Blazing Liger.1236:

If you think of the dragons’ spheres as some corrupted opposite of the gods, you could tie Dwayna with Zhaitan (life vs. unlife) and that leaves Grenth with Jormag (both ice).

It’s also entirely possible that any connection is more indirect.

If you’re using corrupted spheres for Dwayna, you still have to use the corrupted spheres idea with the others gods as well. It still breaks down again. While the gods usually have a sphere of influence of a certain type of elemental magic (Grenth: Ice, Balthazar: Fire, Melandru: Earth) those are only their preferred styles of magic.

Grenth’s predecessor, Dhuum, had no associated elemental sphere. Abaddon had water while he was still alive, but that got moved to Lyssa after his death, and his replacement on the pantheon, Kormir, has no associated elemental sphere now either.

Blazing Liger.1236:

That doesn’t mean that the gods made the humans nor does it answer any questions about the gods’ own origins, though.

I never implied that the god made the humans. I just said that the gods would have had to shepherd them to Tyria after their original home world went caput because beings with very limited magical ability would have had an extremely difficult, near impossible, time travelling through the Mists, much less interplanetary navigation.

Your theory though states that the Six were once mortal (implied humans), and they someone tapped into the leyline network spanning Tyria to absorb enough magic to ascend into higher beings/gods. For that to work, the original Six would have either needed to…

• A) Travelled to Tyria beforehand as a group of magically limited humans, ascended into godhood in a short amount of time, travelled back to their home world, and then shepherded the rest of the race here.
• B) Travelled with the rest of the humans to Tyria, survived all the corrupted landscape and hostile species of the land, somehow were able to find the resting spots of the EDs or leyline clusters in short order (something that even evaded the Asura for the longest time), and gain enough magical ability to somehow be able to draw off and absorb all that power.
• C) The Six weren’t previously humans at all, and are simply native Tyria beings that drew magic from the sleeping EDs, went exploring in the Mists, found the humans, shape shifted into their general likeness, and took pity on them and shepherded them to Tyria for their safety.
• D) None of the above.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Mmm, Grenth is Death & Ice, so that’s a tough one right there.

Hence why the theory breaks down so fast. Another nail in the coffin was the reveal that the Elder Dragons have two spheres of influence as well. (The noted examples being, Zhaitan: Undeath and Shadow, and Mordremoth: Plant and Mind.)

Blazing Liger.1236:

The gods claimed to come from elsewhere and to have created humans, but we don’t have any outside confirmation of either. Even in-game sources are highly skeptical of those claims, so we shouldn’t take anything the gods say at face value.

We do have outside confirmation that humans are not native to Tyria and that they came without much magic of their own though. So unless the humans of old were borderline scifi on the technological level, they would have had to relied on the Six, already godly beings, to guide and shepherd them to Tyria.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Angel-McCoy-Interview/page/3#post2821776

> Humans (including Canthan humans) were brought to Tyria (from…no spoilers!). They are not native to Tyria and did not come with much magic of their own.

Plagiarised.2865:

The Six most likely have SOME relation, like they met them, or knew them, or studied them, but are them? Not likely.

I’ve always enjoyed one of the theories that floated around the forums that the Six’s god like powers actually came of their home world’s Elder Dragons. Them probably facing the same type of situation as us, and not thinking of the possible future ramifications on the matter, they killed their EDs and took their power into themselves. Since their world’s magic had no beings to balance it any longer, the entire place went to hell in a hand basket, and they and the humans fled into the Mists to find a new home.

Such a commonly asked question on the forums they made an in-game book poking fun at it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragons_and_Gods

A scholarly argument for the symmetry between Elder Dragons and the human gods. Unfortunately, by the end, it is clear that no proof exists to support this theory.

Short answer is no though. A couple of the EDs and gods share common elements, but the rest of the possible relations quickly break down once you move past the surface similarities.

It also gets a bit more impossible when you learn that the Six aren’t native to Tyria like the EDs are, and they and the humans actually migrated here from some other world out in the Mists.

Even if it was just name replacement, I can just imagine the save import bugs in that would have happened.

It was horribly vague, but I got something a bit different from that RP article.

The Mists remember what came before, and echoes of those who left an especially powerful imprint on the world of Tyria can still be found there. A revenant calls upon these legendary historical figures, bringing them back into action to enhance the revenant’s own abilities and power.

Reaching back to the original Guild Wars® for the revenant’s Mist-borne battle companions not only allowed ArenaNet to give a nod to players who remember their roles in the previous game, but also to continue the stories of the legends by making them active and aware.

A revenant’s legends are not merely echoes of the past but are fully sentient, with opinions and personalities of their own.

To me, they seem to always be described as some fuzzy thing between “merely a copy” and the real thing. I’m guessing that while they are beings/echoes born from the Mists (aka: Mist-borne, it seems) the legendary figures that inspired their creation made such a large impact in the Mists that they were fleshed out and given much more detail than the average echo/copy.

Until we get more information on the matter, I think I’m going to be sticking to my “Legends are just the Mistborn cliff notes version of the actual being” theory. They have the general knowledge, personality, and power of their subject, but they still aren’t the subject themselves.

Edit: “The Mists remember what came before, and echoes of those who left an especially powerful imprint on the world of Tyria can still be found there. A revenant calls upon these legendary historical figures,…”

“A revenant’s legends are not merely echoes of the past but are fully sentient, with opinions and personalities of their own.”

Ya, I think i’ll stick with my Legendary Cliff Notes theory.

castlemanic.3198:

You know what would be awesome for a halloween event?

A revenant accidentally channeling dhuum. and then suddenly he breaks loose into the world and all heroes have to try to stop him from turning the world into a living wasteland.

It would kinda depend on whether or not we’re actually summoning the spirit itself or just some Mistborn legend version of the being, because if he could be released just by “summoning” him from the Mists, I’m sure his numerous remaining servants probably already tried that.

Though, I’ll pray that Anet keeps their word on Abaddon’s storyline being done, on that other idea. I can almost see the possibility of him, not so much Zhaitan really, overwhelming a revenant to control him or her, but I think that’s just a bit of a cringe worthy storyline. Because what’s stopping any number of other powerful beings from doing the same thing at the end of the day?

They are all apart of the hive mind, and they all work in Zhaitan’s best interests, but the more powerful ones all have varying degrees of independence.

Underdark.3726:

What’s all? That is not an answer to any of my questions. Was that overgrown wolf once a sylvan hound that Mordremoth corrupted? Or was it born that way and have nothing to do with the sylvan hounds? Or was it first transformed to Nightmare Hound?

The term “Overgrown” was a placeholder name for the Mordrem in S2E1. The name of Mordremoth’s minions “Mordrem” only got inexplicable revealed by Kasmeer during the next episode, S2E2.

I think the big hint that the OP missed is that those Hylek were red Hylek. The red Hylek are always the aggressive, territorial, and generally up to no good bunch of that race.

If they were the blue, green, or even the yellow or orange Hylek it might have been a different matter, but the “Red=Dead” methodology definitely applies in these sorts of situations.

My thoughts exactly.

Anet really needs to put in something like a lively jazz number to break up the monotony of the reality of war. No one wants to get stuck on the thought that hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers just died in the story in a mass slaughter, and that they were really our only true active defense against a colossal dragon that is out to devour the world.

That’s just a total bummer if we actually sit and think about it, and who wants to be sad or actively involved in the story at the end of the day?

The thing to remember is that the players, and history a bit too in this regard concerning the Pact and the fight against Mordy, is kinda in a “time stop” at the moment.

HoT’s storyline picks up right after the loss of the Pact Fleet that we saw in the ingame cinematic. Everything we’re experiencing right now with the rebuilding of LA is in an iffy grey area timeline wise. Additionally, everything that the players know, the stuff show in the cinematics, is metaknowledge that isn’t actually canon, since our characters didn’t actually see any of that. It was just promotional fluff that Anet added for us players.

So it’s entirely possible that no one in LA knows about the Pact getting curb stomped by Mordremoth yet.

OP posts a single complain post based on totally unknown information then leaves without commenting further?

A bit too trolly for my taste.

CureForLiving.5360:

As for their money… well they are the primary trading port in Tyria. All the other capitals seems to be land locked, except for the Grove and Rata Sum. Granted Asura invented teleportation technology so I never actually understood how LA could ever hope to compete.

Not just naval shipping either. LA seems to control and monitor all the major roads leading too and from the capitals. For all those merchants either too cheap or too poor to afford shipping their good by Asura Gate or by boat I guess. Which is probably the majority of them.

I wouldn’t be all that surprised if some merchant guilds invested in LA restoration. They need LA as their central marketplace, but they also need them to help maintain order in their trade routes (whether they be land or sea). As long as LA is out of order, the more dangerous their routes become from bandit/pirate/ettin/wildlife/whatever attacks.

I’m not sure how far that support would go afterwards however. It seems that some merchants hold no love for Evon and his ever growing monopoly in the city…

Layout: I prefer the newer spread out layout, and I hope they build onto that with the rebuilt version.

Aesthetic: I personally hope that the new look will draw upon gw1 LA’s theme and stone work. They can keep the dashes of pirate theme, and maybe add some other cultural touches from the other races, but the new LA is getting further away from pirates with every new crisis. It’s a metropolitan open to everyone, and it should be looking as such.

Size: I like the touches of the rural areas in between the bases. They can better interconnect the main gathering points with roads and bridges, but I do hope they will keep the farms and housing areas in-between them all.

Future Events: I hope Mad King Thorn christens the newly rebuilt LA by breaking the lion statue again in the upcoming Halloween.

If Evon really wanted an honorary statue of himself regarding his deeds during the attack on LA, he could happily pay for it himself. Then it could be put into a supremely prized position of overlooking LA’s outhouses. It would be the first and last thing people see before entering and exiting the outhouse to do their business.

Ascimator.6735:

Besides, gay pairings are a minority and I see no reason for them to not be a minority in Tyria.

You mean other than the fact that Tyria is a fictional fantasy universe who’s culture and history is completely different than our own?

Earth =/= Tyria. The ratio of straight to gay relationships is whatever the writers decide is appropriate.

Spikes help control the pet population.

Spay or neuter your pet everyone!