Guild Wars 2

I think dragon champions are not corrupted dragons – rather they are created specifically by Elder Dragons to be their most powerful lieutenants. The fact that there is an endless supply of those tells you something… would be inconvenient if every time we killed one, their elder dragon had to go and hunt down a member of a race which is not known for being numerous and corrupt it.

Elder dragons seem almost like elemental beings, and their champions probably follow suit. So basically they are like big elementals.

Of course it is, that’s all we can do, speculate. Doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

I think that Sylvari are just being corrupted a little bit differently than others. Plus, what we do know is that each dragon has his own brand of corruption. Primordus, for example, can create his minions from the rock and lava directly… not interested in corrupting sentient races, he just kills them. Perhaps Bubbles is similar.

So there could be an elder dragon which assaults the mind. It is a fact that once a Sylvari turns to Nightmare, they are forever lost. Sounds like corruption to me, since anyone getting corrupted stays that way until destroyed.

Though WvW would have been much more interesting if it was races against each other instead of these abstract servers.
Anyone remembers the days when open world PvP was alive in WoW and everyone would start yelling “HOOORDE!” or “ALLIANCE!” and players would just drop what they were doing, even if severely underleveled, and joined in the fray?

That kind of thing really keeps a community going. PvE… not so much. But yeah, it would have been very difficult for them to tell the story as they did if each race was on its own.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Gaudrath.6725:

Battle bears for Norn (cause we’re so awesome and just be glad I’m not suggesting battle bears with lasers attached to their heads)

Oh attaching lasers to a bear is cool, but attaching one to a blimp is not?

Also: Underwater mounts (= sharks and Quaggan)

It would be cool only if you could straddle said blimp and drive it straight down Zhaitan’s gullet yelling “YEEEEEEEHHHAAAAWWWWW!” the whole time.

Lukhas.1962:

The problem would be to design the mounts for each race.

Well, not really.

Golems for Asura.
Plant horses for Sylvari.
Battle bears for Norn (cause we’re so awesome and just be glad I’m not suggesting battle bears with lasers attached to their heads)
Charrcycles for Charr.

Humans can walk.

Fox.3469:

I dislike mounts personally because i think they take away from customisation. The mount becomes the only outlet, that’s a bit sad.

[img]http://images.mmosite.com/news/2009/06/12/wow/big/wlk_mount_500_09.jpg[/img] Here’s an example, it’s a very cool mount no doubt, but when i see this the character is 80% mount and 20% character, wich actually takes away from the entire visual customisation thing, cause it makes the mount super important and it makes 1 item tell people who you are, i’m not ok with that.

And before you go “then don’t use it”, how the hell will that matter, if i don’t use it i’ll stand out even less for being me. I want character customisation, no mounts, because for me personally they aren’t a part of this, they take away from it.

Before reacting think about it, in GW2 your character look is probally much more important to you then in a game like Wow (mounts excluded), i don’t want that to go away.

Sorry, never felt that way. A cool character can only look cooler if riding a cool mount. It doesn’t have to be an elephant. A simple horse, or just an armor plated battle bear for my Norn would suffice. :p

And please, enough with the “mounts decrease travel time” argument – what travel time! You literally can’t beat instant teleportation with anything! Travel time is as minimal as it can be already, mounts can’t even factor in it.

Maybe people think that if they ever put in mounts, for some reason they would take out teleportation, like you can’t have both…

GW had always a one sided setting. GW2 even more so. Which is too bad, would have been awesome if they pitted races against each other, or at least allowed racial factions to be joinable/playable then you could be whatever you liked (Flame Legion, Nightmare Court, Inquest, Svanir or a Filthy Pirate).

But that would interfere with the dragon slaying story they got going.

The real reason that there are no horses in GW is because ANet sucks at making good mounts. :p

LordByron.8369:

Gaudrath.6725:

LordByron.8369:

actually you run ele in AC path 3 because somehow for no apparent reason,, ice bow destroys borrows in 2 hits…..

Not because ice bow is strong……

Ice bow is a utility spell. Its utility happens to be demolition. And the non apparent reason is that ice bow’s area of effect is narrower than Meteor Shower but with similar number of faster projectiles, resulting in a much greater number of hits and thus quicker destruction of the target.

is what i though until i tried it on other burrows or other dungeons…

Only ac path 3 suffers so much dmg….

Strange, works on everything for me. One #4 is usually enough to kill a static structure of any kind, or at least strip 90% of it’s HP.

Aim it better. :p

It’s funny, but reading this thread, especially those who seem to suffer from mountophobia, totally reminds me when people discuss chat bubbles. There are some who are absolutely terrified of the very idea… some people just don’t like options it seems.

And the funniest thing is, this game already forces invisible mounts on everyone. Try catching someone running swiftness without your own perma-swiftness on, which requires a specific build and traits/signets selected. There’s your mount, you just can’t see it. XD

Well, you could always argue some ultra-scarce fuel, but for the Pride, distance is NOT and cannot be the problem. Why? Because it’s kitten big and can carry massive cargo. So we know it can fly medium distances with a truly massive load (just those guns, nevermind the heavy decking and armor).

So you strip the guns, strip the heavy armor, replace the decking with something lighter, add much bigger fuel tanks and off you go. So arguing technical problems isn’t going to cut it.

However, it could be that, being the only flagship the Pact has, they are simply unwilling to commit it to an uncertain venture.

Speaking of ships, how come we aren’t using regular ones now that Zhaitan isn’t around to maintain his blockade?

SoPP.7034:

Gaudrath.6725:

Dunno. People must be really traumatized by WoW or something, to actually hate the idea of mounts so much. What, seeing someone riding sends cold shivers down your back and you get flashbacks of your raid leader yelling at you for being late again?

I think you’re confused. It’s the pointlessness of mounts that makes people groan. Are you that caught up in WoW that you can’t see that we have waypoints which means you dont need mounts and wont be late.

By that logic, we only need one type of weapon, with only one skill. If it does the job of killing stuff, why have anything else, right.

It is called variety. Generally this is considered a good thing since players can choose what suits them best. Some like teleportation. Others might like riding. And some might like running. Some might even like walking. Which may be pointless to you, but not to everyone.

And I’m not caught up in WoW. People actually equate mounts with that game for some reason.

SpeedFiend.4521:

Gaudrath.6725:

Considering the Flame legion used Kralk’s power to fuel their Searing

Where is this mentioned?

Not sure anymore, just remember some NPC discussing how the Searing crystals look awfully like the ones Kralkatorrik creates. I might be mistaken, but the fact that using any kind of magic won’t do anything against elder dragons but feed them, remains. Flame Legion has nothing to rain on Jormag. Iron Legion could. Cannonballs. Might tickle.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Gaudrath: You mean that it being constantly and repeatedly stated that sylvari die before corruption can take place isn’t evidence that sylvari cannot be corrupted? Stated both in game and by developers since nearly a year before release? The reason why the Pale Reavers (a group of all sylvari scouts in the Pact) exist?

We’re outright told that all Elder Dragons cannot corrupt sylvari. And have been for a while. This isn’t a questionable matter, buddy boy. The sixth and DSD may be an exception given their lack of influence on the world and lore about them, but icebrood, branded, and destroyers are not.

Sources. Quotes. You are known to extrapolate quite a bit. All the above you mentioned is in the context of Zhaitan. Not Jormag. Not Kralk. Not Primordus. Nightmare certainly isn’t explained. So please, quit pretending you have the final answer to everything, because you don’t, you are guessing just like the rest of us.

My guess is that Sylvari are already being corrupted en masse. It’s called the Nightmare Court and the turning is just as permanent as dragon corruption. It fits all the patterns. The only thing we don’t know is which Elder Dragon is behind it. We know it isn’t Zhaitan, but it might as well be Mordremoth for all we can tell.

Nuka Cola.8520:

i seriously hope they never EVER add mounts to gw2. Not in a year, 2 years or 7 years. Keep this to that nerdy mmo called wow and the other billion korean mmo’s.

All MMOs are nerdy.

Toxyn.9608:

No combat and speed advantages because mounts then become mandatory instead of cosmetic.

No WvW use because I view PvP type modes as very “fragile”, it should remain purely about the players…hard to explain and moreso opinion.

No use in cities because it gets obnoxious seeing large mounts crowding hotspots/npcs.

No flying mounts because we’ll see less people out in the world, they would instead all be hovering 50 feet up.

Well actually I do agree with those points, the same issues cropped up in WoW. Even though you do see the same amount of people in the world, you just have to be 50 feet up.

But fluff mounts, don’t see why not. Broom is like that, they should add more for variety.

WoW is a great game, with lots of great design solutions, so those who want to spew WoW hate at something just because it reminds them of it, are irrelevant. People like that will find something to hate, its pointless to try and please them.

And why would adding mounts automatically mean removing waypoints? Nothing is faster than teleportation. People would still be using them if they wanted to get somewhere in a hurry.

If they ever add mounts in this game, they will be more of a fluff item than a real necessity. Something you take out for a ride, excuse the pun. Not something you HAVE to use.
Simply don’t see anything bad about the idea.

Humposaurus.5764:

Join a guild, don’t run with pugs. Problem solved, if people really think we are useless they don’t understand the game and you are better off not running with them.

But then again I can understand why pugs don’t want random ele’s in their parties. Most ele’s we pick up if we can’t find a guildie, will only use one weapon set during a dungeon/fotm. Which is IMO just bad and makes me wanna cry.

I always use staff in dungeons, even though I prefer S/F for PvE. But staff is a better support weapon and force multiplier, and that is what I use. So which is better, just spamming damage spells at bosses or augmenting the damage potential of the entire group while still doing comparable damage yourself because you actually know how to use the kitten skills?
I only switch to S/F if the encounter will require a greater degree of survivability from me than what I can get with staff. But in dungeons, staff is king.

VOLKON.1290:

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Hello, I’m here to crush your dreams.

There will be no mounts coming with the Flame and Frost story arc.

Also, to address further speculation we’ve seen about the concept art for Flame and Frost (and what it may portend): there will be no Cantha and no dragons coming with the Flame and Frost story arc, either.

Thank you.

Comets? Comets would cause that kind of Fire and Ice destruction…

Or… Aw crap. The Flame Legion is joining forces with the Sons of Svanir. A little Foe Ice to go with your Foe Fire?

Just because no Elder Dragons are going to come up doesn’t mean we aren’t going to have a lot of Icebrood/Destroyers to slaughter. I seriously doubt we’re going to see another Elder Dragon fight outside of a paid expansion. But their minions… oh yes.

Toxyn.9608:

Gaudrath.6725:

But seriously, mounts aside, I am very curious as to why some people seem to hate the very idea. Not looking to argue tastes, I just would like someone to say why are they so much opposed to mounts.

I don’t want mounts, but if they were added I would want them to:

Not provide combat advantages.
Not provide a speed increase.
Not be useable in WvW.
Not be useable in racial cities and LA.
And no flying mounts. Ever.

Ok, but I have to ask… are the above tied to what is going on in WoW with the mounts and all? Just trying to understand where you’re coming from (basically the “why” of what you don’t want).

DaedalusDragon.3754:

He is almost certainly not riding on the horse. Look closely, he is standing to the side of it. Plus, that horse doesn’t look big enough to carry a norn very safely.

I really hope mounts are not added into the game. We don’t need them and they impact the game world a lot more than a lot of people in favor ever seem to realize. They destroy the waypoint dynamic entirely (which I don’t think they want to get rid of only 5ish months after release), it takes quite a few devs and artists away from fixing issues and making new events (cough this one cough), and it destroys any semblance of adventure as everyone will be rushing from point A to point B with no consideration to what will be going on around them.

Wait… you just described the current state of the game perfectly. I mean… with waypoints everyone just ports from point A to nearest waypoint of point B and then speeds like mad to their destinations. That’s the waypoint dynamic. Waypoints were added in order to minimize travel time, not to encourage it.

If you wanted people to actually travel in the game, then waypoints should have to be much more expensive, require a rather long “charging” animation before porting and maybe even have a cooldown. Then, and only then would you see people travelling through the actual landscape – because they’d have to.

With mounts at least you might get people to ride across the landscape just because it’s cooler than running, and allows you to show off a bit.
So definitely not getting your argument.

But seriously, mounts aside, I am very curious as to why some people seem to hate the very idea. Not looking to argue tastes, I just would like someone to say why are they so much opposed to mounts.

Hebee.8460:

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Hello, I’m here to crush your dreams.

There will be no mounts coming with the Flame and Frost story arc.

Also, to address further speculation we’ve seen about the concept art for Flame and Frost (and what it may portend): there will be no Cantha and no dragons coming with the Flame and Frost story arc, either.

Thank you.

Thank you Regina for taking the time to respond to this situation that could of snowballed into much worse “false hopes”. I fully support no mounts! Thanks again!

Of course, she didn’t say they won’t add mounts later on. Dreams resurrected! Hah!

Tiger Ashante.1792:

marianitten.1247:

Tiger Ashante.1792:

MithranArkanere.8957:

That’s just artwork.

Everyone one knows humans brought horses and had them for some time, but then charr ate all horses, and the rest died because… eh…. uh… some made up illness that affects horses in Tyria or something… let’s call it “Tyrian colic”.
So when people say “Centaurs are half man/half horse” it’s as if you said “half dinosaur” on Earth.

Lol
I asked for confirmation in the main post if the horse picture means we’re getting mounts but so far no reply.

Why you need an official response? You WON’T Get Mounts in this game. Get over it….

You sound angry to me.
I’ve never asked for mounts, nor I’m I asking now, having them or not in gw2 is fine by me so nothing to get over, I’m just being curious.
Ultimately, as far as I’m concerned, having them in the game wouldn’t hurt the lore 1 bit. If we can have flying airships, choppers and submarines, I don’t see why we can’t have mounts.
I’m all for “give people what they want” especially fluff stuff. After all it’s just a game made to entertain and riding mounts is a form of entertainment that would make many people happy and isn’t that what games should be all about?

Some people think games should only be entertaining for them…
I too don’t think mounts of detract from the game experience, no more than people suddenly popping in and out of existence via waypoints. If anything you might see more people actually, you know, moving through the zones, instead of just porting to the nearest waypoint.

Dunno. People must be really traumatized by WoW or something, to actually hate the idea of mounts so much. What, seeing someone riding sends cold shivers down your back and you get flashbacks of your raid leader yelling at you for being late again?

LordByron.8369:

actually you run ele in AC path 3 because somehow for no apparent reason,, ice bow destroys borrows in 2 hits…..

Not because ice bow is strong……

Ice bow is a utility spell. Its utility happens to be demolition. And the non apparent reason is that ice bow’s area of effect is narrower than Meteor Shower but with similar number of faster projectiles, resulting in a much greater number of hits and thus quicker destruction of the target.

It’s cosmetic mount. As in, you “fly” a few feet off the ground, but no extra speed or anything.

Still cool. Wish they had a wider choice of them though.

Considering the Flame legion used Kralk’s power to fuel their Searing, I doubt they’ll be raining anything down on Jormag unless they submit to another Elder Dragon.

I think it is more than likely that the destroyers are going to erupt in Diesa Plateau and Icebrood is going to come down from Frostgorge to wreak more havoc.

BroScientist.9875:

Doesn’t it say a new riding broom will be available? Didn’t we already have a riding broom for Halloween? Maybe it’s a revamped one that can actually fly at high altitudes and over things.

Nope, it’s a riding broom we know and love. No flight in this game because, like vanilla WoW, the terrain is not designed for it.

However, the riding broom is a cosmetic mount for all intents and purposes. They should add more of that sort of stuff for flavor. Not that you can go faster, just for fun…

Why, yes it is. I guess there are horses around… but probably the Charr ate them all so still no mounts for us.

This game needs rideable battle bears…

1. Dungeons are pushover in this game. Minmaxing group composition is totally useless. Not to mention that even with the abundance of warriors in the game, limiting yourself to only one or two classes usually means you are going to waste much more time gathering up a party… time you could have spent clearing that dungeon. Smart, eh?
Same as speedrunners who bail at the first hiccup, and then spend the next half an hour waiting for another group.

2. The only reason why you would want a warrior only group is because warriors are forgiving as a class, as in you can mess it up and you still come out ok. So that means you’re planning on having a group of bad players. With good players it simply doesn’t matter which class they are, 5 elementalists could clear dungeons just as well.

And finally, for people who do not want to get kicked out of parties for their class, do state which class you are before joining. I always do and maybe I sometimes don’t get a reply, but I have never been kicked out of a party for being an elementalist.

They are not airplanes. The only reason early airships couldn’t circumvent the globe was that they were too small and frail and their engines couldn’t keep them on course in severe weather.
I think we can all agree that is not the case with the Pride. And since it is an airship, as in a zeppelin, it doesn’t actually need fuel to stay airborne, just for maneuvering and keeping course, much like an ordinary ship.

In other words, you slap some sails on that bad boy and off you go!

This. I want to see a big Norn hero leaping at Jormag’s maw with a huge hammer in his hand, Thor style, to perform some additional dental work!

I do not want to see yet another Asura gimmick.

Jormag for sure. Flame is either the Flame Legion doing something awful, like you know, worshipping Primordus and letting loose a destroyer army, or Primordus stirs stuff up himself.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Gaudrath.6725:

Because they were too small, their engines were too weak and they couldn’t carry enough fuel. Now, are you telling me that any of the above is an issue with the big airship?

And it doesn’t matter if we can’t build more. One is enough for establishing contact.

It’s been a while since I played the story, but wasn’t the Pride of Tyria very heavily damaged in the last battle? And why would you send it away on a quest with unclear outcome, if you have still 3 active dragons on the continent and 2 others waiting to make their turn? And how do you know the Pride of Tyria has enough fuel to cross the ocean? It’s bigger yes, but it was build for a rather short range flights, to combat Zhaitan,

If it was built for such a short flight, they might as well scrap it now because unless they plan on bunnyhopping it across Tyria, it is useless.

And yes, it was damaged, but nothing beyond repair. Some stuff knocked off, obviously nothing important for actual travel or it would have crashed.

No, the real reason why they won’t use the Pride to cross oceans is because it needs to be at its dock, ready for the next party of heroes doing Arah story mode. :p

Sure, but “time is standing still” doesn’t cut it as a lore reason. Although I suppose the same can be said for my “Zhaitan story is a mess” ™ explanation.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Gaudrath.6725:

Airships we have are tough enough to take a direct hit from an elder dragon and still remain airborne. I doubt that severe winds and an occasional lightning strike would be a problem.

That was the flagship, the one that was so expensive they can’t reproduce it right now. Besides, being combat ready != being able to cross an ocean. Airships were used for combat in WW1, but they weren’t able to fly across the sea yet.

Because they were too small, their engines were too weak and they couldn’t carry enough fuel. Now, are you telling me that any of the above is an issue with the big airship?

And it doesn’t matter if we can’t build more. One is enough for establishing contact.

I find that people who think warrior/guardian groups are “perfect” usually end up wiping half a dozen times per run and take twice as long to finish them simply because they are noobs who don’t know what they’re talking about.

Personally, the best group combo I was in was 2 staff eles, 1 warrior, 1 guardian and a mesmer. Not only we didn’t wipe, we didn’t have a single down during the whole run.

Some people just suck at this game. Don’t let those people make you think that you suck instead.

There is no evidence that Sylvari cannot be corrupted at all. Just because we do not see Sylvari corrupted by, for example, Jormag means nothing – we don’t see any Icebrood Asura either. Or humans or Charr, for that matter.

All we know, is that Zhaitan cannot corrupt the Sylvari. Maybe because Zhaitan corrupts through undeath, which essentially captures the soul in a dead body and twists it to the elder dragon’s will. Since Sylvari do not inhabit their bodies in the same way as other races do (they are always connected to the Dream and thus are only partially present in the world as far as souls go), this could be the reason Zhaitan can’t do anything with them… their bodies die but their souls cannot be trapped in them.

Other elder dragons have different means of corruption. It is highly likely that Nightmare is just another form of dragon corruption… the pattern fits. So there you have it.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Well the range might still be a problem. Having airships doesn’t mean they are advanced enough yet to fly across an ocean. In real life the first test flight with an airship was in 1900, the first time on flew from Europe over to Amerika was in 1928. Quite a difference.

Airships we have are tough enough to take a direct hit from an elder dragon and still remain airborne. I doubt that severe winds and an occasional lightning strike would be a problem.

Because the fuel, tortured souls of small children, is too expensive. The fight against Zhaitan consumed over 10 000 toddlers, and until the Asura can fully establish their breeding programs for the inferior races, this resource is definitely going to remain scarce.

For people complaining about being oneshotted.

Obsidian Flesh → oneshot survived. Mist Form → oneshot survived. It doesn’t matter if Primordus himself sneezes on you, you survive.

Top that with a fat HP buffer and tons of armor. Warriors have it because they’re meant to take the hits. Elementalists are meant to evade and negate damage. Complaining that we have less HP than warrior simply doesn’t make sense. It would be like warriors complaining they don’t have invulnerability skills.

Eh? Warrior has better heals? You’re joking, right? Better buffs/conditions? Eles can stack might, area heals, area regen, frost armor, speed, area vulnerability, area bleeds, burns, chills, cripple… when I unload my rotation on a mob it is lucky if it can move at all, plus I just healed the tanks and stacked some might on them, all in a few seconds.

Plus, eles are a great force multiplier class. There are so many group combos you can throw down, it buffs the party damage/conditions output a lot.

If you want survivability/damage, use scepter/FOCUS. Not scepter/dagger or dagger/dagger. For PvE survivability, nothing beats S/F for defense AND single target damage if you know how to use your skills. Plus, might stacking is insane with that combo. When I use S/F in dungeons, I am usually the last to go down, simply because I can just negate/reflect so much damage when it counts. You can only soak up so much, total immunity beats HP buffering any day.

A bit confused, where is the information that elder dragons can corrupt each other’s minions? Because Alpha can exist?

If that’s the case, well, it only proves that corruptions can coexist in a single being but do not “overwrite” one another. Which means that it would be impossible for one elder dragon to take over another’s minions… he could corrupt them and possibly render them totally insane as the two elder dragons now battle for domination within that creature’s mind, but not take them over.

Actually, those dragons you can see in the sky in Orr are animated 3D models, just like the airships – so if you go below the ground plane you shouldn’t see any.

However, when building maps in a map editor, it is common to place assets temporarily on the map so you can do various stuff with it (from easy size reference and adjustment to simple copy/pasting). These assets of course are cleaned up before you push the map out. That dragon is very likely just a leftover, probably intentionally left in as a sort of an easter egg.

John Widdin.9618:

Probably the load model for the ones flying around fighting the ships.

There’s a similar object in the water under ratasum, containing all weapons and players you load.

Eh? That doesn’t make sense, you don’t have to actually place an object on the map to load it. Assets are loaded in memory, then called up whenever needed.

Probably a leftover from map development they just didn’t bother to remove (or left intentionally as an easter egg, or maybe even a “players-found-another-glitch-in-the-map” gimmick )

So do you stand in five meteor showers?

darkace.8925:

Calae.1738:

Arenanet pretty much saw the mistake they made with all those AoE abilities. Guild Wars 2 is literally an AoE fest. Nothing screams “skilless noob” more than AoE does.

Single target combo that require precision, timing and setup are fun to execute and requires skill. Targeting the ground from a distance is not only boring but deals more damage than single target; which is completely kitten

What the heck are you talking about? You say all of the above like Elementalists have a choice on whether or not to roll with single-target or aoe weapon skills. Some of you guys…

/smh

To be honest, if they nerfed our AoE to hell but gave us decent single target burst damage skills with multiple build options, I’d be fine with that. Sniper elementalist? Hell yeah.

Still hoping they will do just that… we will see. Should be entertaining in either case.

MarzAttakz.9608:

I would adapt that statement to say that the problem is AoE + stupid players. What the hell is wrong with using a time-proven tactic of creating killing fields and using choke points?

The problem is when you have designed the game so that those chokepoints become unavoidable. If you want to rez a downed player = suicide with AoE stacking. If you want to bust down a gate = suicide with AoE stacking. Terrain chokepoint = impassable with dedicated AoE team.

So yes, there are other ways. As you mentioned, if we had effective defensive skills that would work against AoE attacks, that would be great, and also a great way to neuter AoE skills without actually punishing classes that use them… they would just have to be more creative and skilled with them. Unfortunately, in this game defensive skills are rather lacking, and very few protect against AoE type attacks.
And of course, then you have the issue of defense stacking.

I think it was a mistake to create so many AoE skills in the first place. I remember my days in WoW back a few years, and AoE damage skills were both quite rare and difficult to pull off. And nobody had a problem with that. What is it with modern MMOs and the need to blast a gazillion mobs/players at the same time…