War is hell. Heroes die.
Usually, a good story would make a hero’s death more meaningful, either by giving us a proper character arc for that hero before their death, or making the consequences of their death major.
You can have a story that is both realistic and cruel, while being satisfying and rewarding to the reader/ audience. One of the reasons for why Game of Thrones is so popular is because it can do both pretty well.
Eir’s death felt kinda of empty to me.
A story that is Realistic would include deaths that are not epic or grand.
Sometimes a hero dies from what would seem a simple thing (Like being caught in a trap). Sometimes they die holding off a horde of enemies from getting to others.
A story that is realistic wouldn’t have a giant plant dragon.
Fantasy story.
Though Mordremoth isn’t a plant himself. It’s more realistic to have a variant of dragons, then literally every single main character/hero having an EPIC DEATH.
It is the commander it will always be the commander he is the only one the troops will trust he is the most famous of them and to be more specific compared to the other pact leaders he did most of the work. There will be no pact without the commander in the first place.
You are the tip of the spear, NOT THE BLADE.
You did some high value work, yes. But who organized the army while you were chasing the egg? Laranthir, the three officers at the central pact encampment, and others.
We did not do “most of the work”. We did some work, but others maintained the Pact forces while we were off chasing Destiny’s Edge and the Egg (both important objectives, and I don’t deny that at all). While there is little lines about the commander in camps, the ones I note remember directly…
(This one I heard about): Something about only being allowed to leave camp for extended periods of time if with the commander.
Charr (this one I’ve heard personally): “I wish the commander would stick around more…”
As in Personal story, and GW1, we may have done some of the most important direct actions (killing targets, opening camp locations, etc), OTHERS held the ground we took. Others distracted the armies/big bad while we did our stuff. Saying/implying that we basically did everything and all other Pact leadership sat on their kitten the entire time doing nothing is simply not true in any way.
In my point of view, the Marshal must have thought that he wouldn’t survive. So he must have chosen a successor. After all, it looked like he believed that the Pact would be in good hands if he died.
Before the fleet launched? I doubt he expected to die. Going by standard military systems (as far as I know), the player character would be in command, and either they’d be promoted to Marshall, or they would hold the rank until a new one is officially appointed.
We are, after all, officially the second in command of the Pact.
War is hell. Heroes die.
Usually, a good story would make a hero’s death more meaningful, either by giving us a proper character arc for that hero before their death, or making the consequences of their death major.
You can have a story that is both realistic and cruel, while being satisfying and rewarding to the reader/ audience. One of the reasons for why Game of Thrones is so popular is because it can do both pretty well.
Eir’s death felt kinda of empty to me.
A story that is Realistic would include deaths that are not epic or grand.
Sometimes a hero dies from what would seem a simple thing (Like being caught in a trap). Sometimes they die holding off a horde of enemies from getting to others.
@Kalavier: That’s Stavemaster Aryn.
Small number of champions also come from the fact he regrows them – at least in the case of the three Commanders. Hence why we see and kill Diarmid/Aryn in Verdant Brink (one in open world, the other in instance) yet fight them again later on.
Ah, I was wondering because when I checked the wiki at one point, they were listed as being in Dragon’s stand only.
I also thought Ayrn was “slavemaster” lol.
The Heart of Thorns story is a short, brutal campaign.
Vinewrath is not part of Mordremoth. Mouth of Mordremoth is Mordremoth’s physical body – which can be regrown if killed.
We have for sure:
- Shadow of the Dragon
- Silverwaste’s Vinewrath (there are others seen in HoT on occasion which I definitely would not count as dragon champions)
- Stavemaster Aryn
- Blademaster Diarmid
- Axemaster Hareth
- Faolain
I would also count:
- Scarlet Briar
- Blademaster Cellona (in Auric Basin)
- Axemaster Gwyllion (in Verdant Brink at night)
- Mordrem Wyvern Matriarch (in Verdant Brink at night)
- Hammermaster Morthwyl (in Verdant Brink at night)
- Stavemaster Anwir (in Verdant Brink at night)
- Blademaster Cadogg (in Verdant Brink at night)
- Spellmaster Macsen (in Verdant Brink at night)
There might be one or two worth naming in Tangled Depths but I’ve not done much of that map, or in one of the storyline splits I haven’t done yet.
It might seem like he has a few number of champions, but it should be kept in mind that he hasn’t been awake as long as the other dragons who have equal amounts despite not being a story focus (and Zhaitan having easily three times as many).
Is the special mordrem guard from “defend the itzel village” choice in the one mission included in that list?
I’d say it’s a combination. Smaller area of combat (more concentrated deployments of the champions), and he’s probably making as many as he can as quickly as he can.
I think who ever will be the leader, they’d have to have been present in Maguuma, I doubt the pact would choose to follow anyone, no matter how high ranked, if they did nothing during the events of HoT. So that kind of narrows down our choices I’d imagine, no sylvari for now just because of potential dissidence. I do think some or maybe all of Destiny’s Edge have a good chance, why have 1 leader if we can have a council?
Beyond that, I can’t really think of anyone else in particular, none have shown exemplary leadership skills during these events that I’ve noticed.
I think Sylvari would still be able to be considered.
A: Those that stood by the Pact till the end did so around others. Laranthir and others would be known allies. There is that testing device in the Pact Encampment in Verdant Brink as well. Those that violently went after Sylvari were routed and driven away.
B: Everybody in the Pact Forces at the jungle would know Mordremoth is dead. Why would Sylvari turning to him be an issue after they kill the body and the commander emerges after killing the brain?
It was established Pact leader could not come from the orders. Who could lead the future pact is big question mark. Meanwhile Pale Tree help the PC organized the world leader summit. But now everyone now knows Pale Tree lies about her own nature for a long time. Trust and mistrust among the orders and nations probably play a big role in the story development.
That’s a good point about the pact leader not coming from orders. That would eliminate us, if that rule is upheld. Laranthir looks like a good choice, but I can’t imagine it being offered to him because he is sylvari. Maybe a surviving member of Destiny’s Edge?
Again, that was during the founding of it when they were trying to find a leader at that very moment.
Laranthir is/was a high ranking vigil officer. Destiny’s Edge the only ones suitable would be Logan or Rytlock, neither of which I see taking it.
It was established Pact leader could not come from the orders. Who could lead the future pact is big question mark. Meanwhile Pale Tree help the PC organized the world leader summit. But now everyone now knows Pale Tree lies about her own nature for a long time. Trust and mistrust among the orders and nations probably play a big role in the story development.
A: It was setup that way to avoid favoritism. Now with the Pact being active for several years, I’d see any of the leadership within it being allowed to take the spot.
B: “Yes, Pale Tree, you should’ve told us all you were a dragon minion this entire time! HOW DARE YOU HIDE THAT.”
^ No. Besides the fact that ALL of the world leaders saw the Pale tree viciously attacked by the Mordrem, I don’t even see that being an issue.
Who needs paperwork that is for office dudes. The pact needs a leader on the field of battle and there is no better one then the commander. Proof well the second he came in Maguma he gave the pact a fighting chance.
Hell the commander is the reason they defeated Zaitan also. He did most of the work there also and its not fair to chose a less successful leader in leading the pact.
Logistics is a real thing. The commander could never have done what they did without the Pact or Trahearne handling that.
Also, the commander did not do “most of the work”. We did high value missions and important tasks, but more as the tip of the spear. Without the Pact (who do a lot of stuff off-screen while we are in missions), we wouldn’t have gotten as far.
Maybe they will disband the Pact and work on making the Orders more relevant again. They could use the masteries system for example to make exclusive perks for being in an order .
Then you have characters in all three orders and “exclusives” become irrelevant.
If the endgame of Guild Wars 2 is to ultimately destroy all Elder Dragons…I don’t see how the Pact could survive. The Pact surely lost a fair number of members during their assault on Orr. Then the Pact was devastated during their fight against Mordremoth. Add in that the surviving Sylvari members might never be trusted again…I just don’t think the Pact will ever be able to replenish its ranks enough to take on any more Elder Dragons. These dragons are killing way too many people and fighting them with armies just isn’t going to work anymore.
You forget that a few years actually pass between Zhaitan’s death and Mordremoth’s campaign. During the middle period the Pact was working in Orr, planning their next campaign (against Kralk), and building up forces. Hence why over Orr there was only the Glory of Tyria as a ‘dreadnaught/battleship’ airship, but in the jungle we see a LOT.
The pact’s main damage is the destruction of the Air fleet. The ground forces, while taking a hit, are still decently intact. One strength of the Pact is it’s ability to make field fortifications, and that saved a lot of people.
Sylvari may not be trusted right now, but without the influence of Mordremoth, and no more sylvari turning, that trust can and will be regained. Without those armies to keep the dragon minions at bay/busy while the vanguard/tip of the spear/commando groups strike high value targets and secure important locations, we’d be overwhelmed.
Imagine if our little merry crew (Hero, destiny’s edge, and the ‘biconics’) tried taking on Mordremoth without the Pact in play. It simply wouldn’t work. Hell, the final instance outright states such. “He’s busy with the battle outside, so we are sneaking in.”
There is a place for armies, and a place for commandos. Fighting the dragons require both.
As I’ve said in another thread not to long ago about the same topic:
I think they’re doing away with the Pact, but only as ‘the major force’. Instead, I think they’re going to be pushing the Guild Initiative as ‘the major force’ against the Elder Dragons – as it is the guild Destiny’s Edge (plus its new members – the biconics) who have proven the most effective against dragon minions, and they established a foothold of Guild Initiative with the guild halls and with Dougal Keane – a well enjoyed character – leading it.
With Ember turning to the Guild Initiative too, I suspect that our old Ghosts of Ascalon krewe will be returning in force in the future storylines, backing Destiny’s Edge and supporting other ‘NPC guilds’ in the storyline to come, with the Pact falling back as a ‘defensive and clean-up united coordination of the three Orders against the Elder Dragons’ given their losses at both Zhaitan and Mordremoth showing that their method isn’t the best after all.
I can agree with the Pact backing off for a while, not disbanded but definitely healing it’s hurt.
They simply can’t use the same tactics against every dragon, but I think that simply relying on guilds to handle the offensive won’t work, simply because the fact we can’t carry around THAT much firepower, or hold land while pushing deeper as effectively as the Pact could secure camps.
Why can’t we just resurrect Eir just like everyone else?
Resurrection spells fall into two slots as of GW2 (for some reason).
A: Impossible
B: So resource/power expensive and long it’s completely worthless to try.
You are the tip of the spear, not the blade.
Without the support of everybody else, your ‘band of misfits’ would not have gotten anywhere in personal story.
I would have gathered more intel.
I mean, was it even stated that we knew enough about Mordremoth?We went into great detail with Zaithan.
Were we just so hyped about or victory there, that we just went on and though: “Yeah, same tactic again. This one should be even weaker.”
Well, the Sylvari thing was kinda unfortunate, but how aboutat least a two wave attack?
Not everything at once.
Then you are balancing between striking while Mordremoth isn’t fully awakened and ready to fight (as they thought), or giving it time to strengthen it’s forces and prepare.
They were hoping to put it down swiftly with reduced bloodshed.
And how would you get those explosives and fire into the jungle? As far as the Pact knew up to that point, Air was an area where Mordremoth couldn’t hit them. Land convoys were at far greater risk.
Bring enough oil or similar stuff and burn everything.
You can have the air strike, but at the same time the land forces has to carry on as well.
Scorched Earth tactics work when you know where the enemy is, or don’t care at all about the landscape. I somehow don’t see the Pact literally burning down the entire maguuma jungle.
Still, the point remains, Before that moment, the Mordrem showed a serious lack of any air power. Nobody expected the vines to rip the ships apart. From dialogue in the Pale Reaver event chain, it seems the one heli unit didn’t even expect or know about Wyverns until said Wyverns demolished their aircraft.
Would the pact have won the first time. Commander I mean the player character instead of Traherne.
I am saying this because the Commander is as strong as a elder dragon champion well stronger actually since he killed one 1 vs 1 so could he have managed?
The commander is not as strong as an elder dragon.
You do NOT have to be an equal to defeat somebody. And Dragon champion strength varies greatly. I would never say the legendary Eye of Zhaitan is equal to Tequatl.
Also the fact that the Entire fleet has an insane amount of firepower.
However, fighting Mordrem and Mordremoth is not the same as risen and Zhaitan.
Actually, we don’t see those huge thorns coming off from the ground to wipe our land troops during the assault in DS, so it’s just plot device.
Haven’t done Dragon’s Stand, but maybe ground forces just are harder to smash aside then completely open and exposed airships? Still, nobody saw the sudden attack coming (Oh, and since Mordremoth shows an obvious interest in corpses, I doubt he’d use vines to completely mush up the force and leave no bodies), so having the commander in charge wouldn’t have magically saved the Pact Fleet.
They shouldn’t try air assault at all, bring enough explosives and fire to burn down of the jungle, no doubt Mordremoth would be greatly weakened.
And how would you get those explosives and fire into the jungle? As far as the Pact knew up to that point, Air was an area where Mordremoth couldn’t hit them. Land convoys were at far greater risk.
The pace is deliberate for this expansion, so some of the other things you mentioned (lack of awe, shorter dialogs) are tied to that. We wanted to set the tone to be one of utmost urgency…a race against time to get your friends back before the worst can happen. That informed a lot of our decisions, and while I too appreciate a more languidly paced story and more dialog (provided it’s interesting), I can tell you we had a lot of discussions on this back and forth on the team to find what we felt confident was the “sweet spot” between too little exposition and not enough.
- This was definitely not motivated by the decision to have an appropriate backstory for the guardian elite specialization. In fact to my recollection, I think Jon Peters took this plot point which we knew early on as inspiration and ran with it so if anything story helped give rise to the Dragon Hunter and not the other way around. Eir’s death is also hampered somewhat here by our Teen rating, because we really wanted to show just how badly Faolain’s attack had left Eir, but we’re just unable to show copious amounts of blood and gore. The idea though is that there was no time for anyone to help her in this situation…she was dying, and she knew it. Eir had but a moment to choose between a slow, painful death as her lungs filled with blood, or a legend’s death facing her end defiantly and head on.
Question from my end. How could a spellcaster sylvari like Faolin, who was in the same starved conditions, do THAT much damage to Eir, THROUGH the leather armor?
That’s what really bugs me about this. It detracts from the Norn durability and feats of the past, if somebody like Faolin can simply jab a thorn out and land a fatal blow :/. Or maybe more accurately, it partially pulls at my suspension of disbelief, and sadly makes that leather armor appear worthless.
While I’m not a fan of eir’s death, I understand it and accept it (would’ve prefered her not to go down instantly to the vinetooth however aka, have some final words before death), I feel that the description you put forth kinda ignores stuff like rox’s established field medicine/healing magic knowledge that she used to literally save Marjory from a “She’s dead!” status (With Eir having either a slow death vs facing the foe)
Course, Eir wouldn’t know that about Rox, so that point is more of an out of universe viewpoint one. :P
Also the fact that the Entire fleet has an insane amount of firepower.
However, fighting Mordrem and Mordremoth is not the same as risen and Zhaitan.
There’s also no Elder Dragon who’s minions are fleshy. The closest we got was Mordremoth with plants. Unless the DSD turns out to be an Elder Dragon of Animals, no flesh and blood creature will be Elder Dragon minions.
What about Risen though? Super gross rotting flesh, sure, but still flesh.
I think he means a natural/normal race being revealed as a dragon minion race. I agree, we won’t see a flesh and blood race shown as being a dragon minion race all along :P.
First of all, Eir did go down with a fight. Since attacks in cutscene are realistic, Faolain’kitten(censored “hit”) was probably deadly, and yet she still “killed” Faolain.
Second, I do want an “extra chapter” where we get to visit Eir’s house for her funeral, maybe with Braham deciding to build a statue in her honor (like she did for the past heroes); i also want to FINALLY show Zojja that Eir had built a statue to honor Snaff, because if she knew of the statue from the very beginning, she probably wouldn’t have hated Eir that much at the beginning of the personal story.
And, even if dead, we can still find her somewhere in the Mists, o the spirit world, right? So if they put a fitting plot, we can still see her again.
Honestly, I doubt eir’s stab was fatal. The thorn didn’t penetrate that deep (it also hit leather armor), and Eir is a norn. It came across explicitly as a more of a “OH crap, ow!” Like one does when you stub your toe.(well, it could be fatal from talking with a friend in military/medical areas. But we know Rox knows field medicine and a tiny bit of possibly healing magic).
The other thing is with Eir and her death, is Anet has said with the rating they have, they couldn’t come out and show it, but Eir was stabbed in her lungs. She was set with the task of either A.) Drowning to death attempting to run and scramble away from the Vinetooth or B.) Face her death stoically, as a norn should. I mean, no matter what, the story is set to be a very fast pace, no time to breath story line. There’s no resting for a night and enjoying a campfire. From start to finish DE 2.0 is moving, there would be little time for Eir to heal up somewhere. While it does suck that Eir died for Brahams motivations, it was still the best death in the storyline.
I question how Faolin managed to pierce both of Eir’s lungs with that thorn, especially through armor. A friend commented on the stab by the vinetooth that those wounds tend to not be instantly fatal either (as was shown). The vinetooth stab was fatal, but should it have killed Eir instantly? I don’t think so.
Not even armor, but probably a section of the thickest leather too, watching the cutscene again.
I’m a bit surprised the spike hurt Eir that bad when you consider how strong Norn are, and how weak Sylvari are for that matter.
A dev in the other thread explained her lung was supposed to fill with blood but they can’t show it graphically because of the TEEN rating.
Link? A collasped/pierced lung isn’t always fatal. And, I might be wrong, but it almost looks like Faolin stabs too low to hit the lung?
(edited by Kalavier.1097)
I think he got the ogre bit from the statement that jotun and ogres are cousin races, and jotun are said to be related – or at least heavily implied – to norn in two cases.
And kodan call their ships sanctuaries.
I find a relation to jotun to be far more likely than to kodan. If Thrulnn’s claims of norn being around when magic was wild holds true (as supported by Ogden’s implication in S2E1’s final instance).
I’d have to look it up again(honestly haven’t read Thrulnn’s dialogue in a while), but I just remember Thrulnn’s line being more of a “Both our races ruled as giant-kings back then. Yours faired better then mine in the long run” Then a same/similar race origin.
He HATED Eir until Season 2, and all it took to get over all that hate which built up for 17-or-so years was… fighting alongside her once, and talking once. Yeah, that doesn’t happen in reality.
In fairness, I think fighting alongside someone even once would go a pretty long way for me repairing some bridges with people I hate. Now whether that’d work in a high fantasy game like this? I agree that it’s a little rushed.
Typically it’s used as a bonding moment across stories and settings.
Two opposing forces put into a situation where they MUST work together to overcome a shared, more powerful enemy, and from that they see similarities or better things of each other.
IIRC, Braham hated Eir more of the fact she was NEVER in his life, and was this legendary figure (I forget it part of it was her legend overshadowing him). It wouldn’t heal instantly, but actually interacting with each other against common enemies, doing norn things (aka, hunting said enemies) would start the process.
Why would she need to go home to heal?
She was only slightly wounded and was left starving. A good meal, a weapon, and one night’s sleep and she’d be up and ready to go. She’s a norn, after all.
Honestly, I picture her was being more wounded then “slightly”. You have A: the fighting on the Glory of Tyria. B: The FALL from the glory of tyria. and C: fighting the Mordrem before being captured. I don’t particularly see her coming out of that mostly unscathed.
Could have saved her, had her spend one mission or two recuperating, bringing her back to fight fully alongside us, to be killed later on against a powerful foe.
Honestly, I’d accept that mostly if we explicitly had healing magic mentioned (Like a GW1 monk style healer).
Imagine this: Eir and Faolain don’t die in that story instance but move on, joining the Pact Commander in the fight against Mordremoth (Faolain joining because kitten shackles and Mordremoth’s the greatest shackle). There’s tension there, as they find Caithe and she’s assaulted by one of the Mordrem Guard commanders (let’s go with the axe dude cuz he’s a bulldozer). Like currently in Prized Possessions the Pact Commander gets separated, and heads to Tarir; when rejoined, Caithe and Faolain “went ahead to scout and be alone” while the rest of the group heads to the Blighting Tree south of Tarir to rescue Logan and Zojja. After rescue, those two – being weak human and asura – are sent north to Tarir and we keep them safe while fighting, and killing (for the time being) the Mordrem Commander again. We then head east, and discover about Rata Novus. Cue Act 3:
Sounds okay from my view. Especially if it resolves the prisoner arc faster and spends more focus on the actual PACT which the PC is in charge of :P.
In Tangled Depths we run into Caithe and Faolain who have discovered Malyck’s tree. However it’s under assault. Distracted by argument while fighting (over the existence of Malyck’s tree being not-corrupted), Faolain is killed by the assault’s commander and her body taken away. After saving the tree the party splits – part go to Rata Novus, the rest track Trahearne southward, though Caithe leaves to track Faolain’s taker. After the Rata Novus fun-time where Rata Novan’s research point to Mordremoth’s greatest strength and cue Eir talking about the fight with Kralkatorrik and how Snaff battled the Elder Dragon leading to the revelation of Mordremoth’s potential weakness (much better than a dues ex machina that we got), we head south. In Dragon’s Stand we get our first instance showing the organization of the Pact camp with leaders from all our allies (Laranthir, Tizlak, Ibli, Ruka, Malyck), and we lead an in-instance push south but are assaulted by Mordrem Faolain, who overpowers the group and corners the Pact Commander, but Eir jumps in front of the way to save us, taking a hazardous blow from Faolain; seeing the rest of DE recooperating (or rather, Rytlock+Caithe+biconics), Faolain takes the injured Eir and flees. We give chase, we pin Faolain down at a Blighting Tower but she escapes and Eir is found dead. Next instance we go to track down Faolain and push deeper into enemy territory, leading us to the Heart of Thorns tree which allows a direct assault on Mordremoth.
Sounds okay as well, besides the fact Eir is injured, dragged off, and then we just “find her dead” That part makes me bleh as much as Eir dying instantly to the gut stab from the vine.
Would that not suffice Eir’s death properly? Would that not suffice Faolain’s death properly? Would that not reveal Mordremoth’s weakness properly?
If I was given the parameters of “Eir must die, Faolain must turn Mordrem, egg must go to Tarir, Logan/Zojja must be freed, Trahearne must be at Mordremoth’s domain, Rata Novus must be visited and tell of Elder Dragons’ weaknesses without giving it directly” then that’s how I would have done it. Greatly summarized, of course.
Honestly, my true issues with HoT is how we start it as leader of the Pact (because Trahearne is MIA), then promptly go “kitten ya’ll, I’m doing my own thing” Like we were able to do in living story, personal story, hell, even in gw1. Which we were able to do because there was somebody else over us (Like Nightfall and personal story. We are highly trusted and decently ranked in the group, but we aren’t LEADERS of the faction. somebody else handles that job). We take the mantle of leadership, bear it for a day, then promptly ditch it because “OMG CAITHE WENT THROUGH HERE? I MUST FIND THAT kitten RAGE!”. That’s how I felt it was with my human necromancer. She just dropped whatever kittening event or task was on hand when she heard “caithe went through here”.
TBH, I would’ve changed the ENTIRE Egg arc to begin with. Caithe is supposed to be one of the STEALTHIEST people around. Yet not only do some Pact scouts/members spot her without issue heading into the jungle, but also several itzel scouts as well. That just made me shake my head thinking about it because of how effortlessly she had been seen when we went through hell in living story season 2 trying to track her. I would have removed ALL references to her at all. Maybe have the commander mention it, and having the scouts of Itzel and Pact nature go “Sorry, the way things are right now, I wouldn’t be able to tell you if I saw a specific sylvari. They are either helping or wounded, or charging and fighting.” I’d have the trail pick up only with the Exalted, who detect the egg/glint’s magic(or legacy, whichever you want to use), and we tag along not to hunt down caithe as some filthy freaking traitor, but to make sure the egg (and Caithe, being a destiny’s edge member and possibly a great source of strength for Sylvari pact members due to her hero status) are okay and safe.
Hell, if Faolin dies and turns into Mordrem early, have the scouts mention seeing a powerful, weird mordrem stalking the jungle relentlessly, searching for something specific and ignoring everything else.
I would have also had the named Mordrem Guards (including the commanders) have names we recognize. After all, who is Aryn? Who is Diarmid? Who is Hareth? Who is Gwyllion? Who are Cadogg, Morthwyl, Anwir, and Macsen? We are given only 8 named Mordrem Guard (as far as I’ve seen at least) and not one of them is of an NPC we knew before.
Agreed. I was wondering if the commanders from Verdant brink showed up in dragon’s stand. I know there is the one in the Itzel village story instance (If you defend the place), but I don’t recall seeing him ever again. Does that weird oldman staff guy show up there?
diarmid is supposedly instantly recognizable to the Ordance Corps crew…
I think something to note. Even if Eir had lived (vinetooth not stabbing her, or surviving the stab), she’d have been removed from the campaign either way.
Weakened, starved, and wounded as she was, she wouldn’t be able to continue fighting. She’d have to be evacuated to heal.
And that would make sense and would not kitten off Eir fans. Just letting her stay alive even if not doing anything for story would be fair enough. Story writters just crossed the line they shouldn’t even approach to. And as a big fan of norns and Eir I must say that over 2 years of passionate playing GW2 wkittentered in 2 minutes. And no….Im not anjoying GW2 anymore. I want…but simply cant.
Yes, the dragonhunter Eir Stegalkin, pulled from a vine cell and carried out of the jungle to heal, literally sitting aside as her companions fight on because she’s unable to fight.
That’s a great chapter for a legendary hero. I’m not a fan of Eir dying, but as others said, dying versus literally being pulled out and sent home to heal is much different to a Norn of Eir’s status compared to humans or Asura.
War is hell. Heroes die.
Exactly why I think Eir died. It simply wouldn’t have felt the same if we saved everybody of note and they all lived happily afterward. Like the Personal story, people died because it’s a war, not everybody gets to come home sadly.
War is hell. Heroes die.
Its a game. Heroes die. Players leave.
And Eir dying is considered a worse option then literally saving her and her becoming a non-entity for the rest of the story for now?
The whole theme of the Pact fleet being brought out of the sky in one fell blow is that the Pact is crippled and disrupted. That feeling is (IMO) nullified or reduced if you literally turn around and go “Oh, by the way, every hero/major figure/leadership person is alive and fine.” I would’ve liked Eir to live, but I can see why she died.
I’ll agree with friends and say exactly how the death was done was blah (her dying instantly to the stab for one major point).
Norn interbreeding with Ogre, Jotun or even Kodan sounds more likely, since lorewise some in-game characters say the races are related, but A.net stated no interbreeding.
A: No stated relations with the Ogres as far as I know.
B: Jotun I don’t think have stated being related to Norn, just something along the lines that both races were among the great giants of the past.
C: Kodan theory about norn being an off-shoot of a lost tribe/haven/whatevertheycalltheirships is… a theory.
Really, there is no true evidence to point toward Norn being physically related to Kodan or Jotun (As in shared origins).
Agreed on a flaw in the story about the Pact. the PC is the leader of the pact now, yet besides the first one or two missions, basically does NOTHING to lead.
I wish they’d at least say month wise… because as it stands people are trying to fit end of LS2 to HoT… using the real life gap in there as well (Like, the Pact fleet spent all this time gathering forces before deploying). I find a dev statement on things works the best.
This came about from me and a friend talking about timeline stuff, Like a survivor from the zephyrite crash being ready and able to adventure and active combat (guessing around a week or so between crash and HoT)
I’m wondering if there are indications of how long the HoT missions are story-wise, and hopeful Anet will actually produce more of a timeline then merely the year of events…
Because it’s very vague. Verdant Brink/the mission after torn from sky takes place the day after the crash from everything I can gather, but how about the rest? And the living story season 2 events as well.
For example, how long has Caithe had the egg overall? Or Zephyrite crash to HoT start?
I feel this is the one area which Anet had trouble in it’s story-telling, it’s hard to guess/tell how much time has passed between events sometimes.
Ive always thought it could be possible that quaggan could be deep sea dragonspawn in tadpole form yet to be “activated” but there are risen and icebrood quaggan which kind of contradicts that theory
However, i dont think it has been specifically stated by anet that dragon minions cant be corrupted by other dragons, thats just something people assumed because if the risen/sylvari thing but it is possible that was only a specific case, like perhaps each dragon has a corresponding dragon who is their weakness and counters the other
Why would they have a widespread kingdom both to the north and south seas, and be driven to land BY the deep sea dragon’s awakening and pushing other races out of their natural environments? (Jormag for the north).
It’s like the Norn being jormag minions… who Jormag forced to relocate south instead of just “activating” them. Obviously you aren’t say this (more a reference to the crazy tinfoil hat NPC in LA now), but the theme is the same.
Puts on tinfoil hat You’ve been listening to the crazy man in the southern part of LA haven’t you? :P
Joking aside, no, because there are Risen quaggan as well. The theme is dragon minions can’t be affected/converted by another dragon.
The thing I like to note, Mordremoth’s death caused a huge outflow/release of magic, spreading along the ley-lines, one went to Tahir and the egg, and two flows went elsewhere (One to rata novus maybe?). However, zhaitan’s “Death” did not do the same. So I think Zhaitan may have simply been forced back into dormancy, while Mordremoth is dead dead.
well one can argue that Zhaitan didn’t do the same because he wasn’t fed this amount of leyline magic. Scarlet overcharged mordremoth with this magic, and it seems to be that magic that gets released after death.
It would make sense if Orr was above one heavy section of ley-lines as well, but even if it wasn’t as much of a charge, something probably should’ve happened IMO.
Another theory is that the same thing did happen with Zhaitan, it just wasn’t shown. One theory for why Tequatl became stronger (for which there was a lore reason as Anet stated) is that he absorbed (part of) the energy of Zhaitan after Zhaitan’s death.
Though that theory can easily be applied to Zhaitan going Dormant and the energy flowing from his body again, as opposed to consuming/absorbing it. Like how Primordus was basically a huge fountain of magic for the Asura gate hub while he was sleeping.
All the buggy bits aside – Sticking players in the penalty box for the duration of the fight is a really, really counterproductive idea in a MMO. How is this a good idea? Especially with a confusing, buggy set-piece attack like with the gliding bit.
Spoiled both the fun and the whole moment.
This is pretty much how I reacted to it. My first post here was made during the fight, when I was extremely disappointed and kittened at it.
The fight, atmosphere, and everything else seemed pretty good, but when my character (being instance host) shouted “Get shielded or airborne!” I dove under Braham who had a bubble up (Maybe he was doing generic guardian shield ability, maybe he was supposed to actually shield you). I died, then spent the rest of the fight spectating from the side, hearing my character shout orders/comments, doing absolutely nothing until Mordremoth went down, which took a good while.
Afterwards, for a bit of my gameplay for that night before I called it a day, I was just incredibly “meh” toward everything. And if they simply didn’t have that penalty box, or as I said earlier, made it so “opening a rift returns players to the fight”, it would’ve been better and I would’ve had fun with it. I wager replaying it on different races (I would like to do HoT on each race, since each race seems to have different dialogue/reactions to stuff) will have that epicness again. I hope.
I think they should’ve included some sort of “post mission” instance like after Victory or Death, where we meet up with the rest of the Pact.
Which begs one question though.
Why are they called Dragons if they dont have to look like dragons.
One theory I’ve had for a while about Zhaitan’s appearance. He USED to look like the giant dragon we see in the trailers about Orr (with the standard look and all), but over time and many battles with his fellows, he was damaged enough that he had to use his own champions/lesser dragons to heal his body. So somewhere under Orr is the other half of his body. Mordremoth may have a ‘core’ body that looks very similar to a normal dragon, but with tendrils and vines growing from it and spreading everywhere.
We’ve seen primordus’s head, so we know what he looks like.
The one thing I do not understand, we kill Mordremoth’s mind, and yet, it doesn’t die because it still exists within Trahearne… but we accessed him mind through Trahearne? So how is it still there? And only Trahearne’s death releases all of the magic Mordremoth has absorbed back to the world…
Maybe in some weird fashion, the fight took place within Trahearnes head, and before being destroyed in the ‘dream’, Mordremoth planted the seed?
The thing I like to note, Mordremoth’s death caused a huge outflow/release of magic, spreading along the ley-lines, one went to Tahir and the egg, and two flows went elsewhere (One to rata novus maybe?). However, zhaitan’s “Death” did not do the same. So I think Zhaitan may have simply been forced back into dormancy, while Mordremoth is dead dead.
I don’t think this will ever be addressed again by Arena Net, the whole Zhaitan campaign clearly seems to be a mistake, because they’ve completely scrapped that form of design. Arah was originally supposed to feature his corpse that covered a very large portion of the map, the dragon was supposed to be vastly larger than it was. It’s tail is shown in the priory headquarters, to me it seemed a little bigger than when you actually fight him, it could just be an illusion… but I think it could just be an attempt to blow his scale back up.
To add to this, we got the Mouth of Mordremoth, which seems to be a lot bigger than Zhaitan, but it’s basically a long snake and has a relatively generic design, Zhaitan’s design was at least complex, even though size was sacrificed.
Do note, for scale, we don’t get a good shot of him. He’s almost always moving, and his ingame model literally scales out to 500 some meters. That’s still pretty dang huge, even if his original model’s head, neck and shoulders were basically the same size. The one time he’s staying still, he’s pretty big and again, we don’t know the actual size of that tower.
Well, the skritt you mentioned were, I believe, the skritt from the PS (just as the ogres were). I think that’s where Kalavier was going with his statement.
And @Kalavier: I agree that the Pact seems mostly in-tact, which really diminishes the “devastation” part. They hit a set-back, but with so many survivors I would hardly consider the Pact “all but gone” in either its literal or metaphorical meaning.
Yeah. It was one disappointment I had with the plot. We are taking over as leader (as shown in the first mission), then shortly after the first prison camp, we just go “Lol, screw them” and basically run solo and ignore the pact in the story missions for the most part.
I think the pact should have been far more heavily involved with the story missions, to show that we are the leader and actually doing our job.
In the past, the GW1 and GW2 ‘hero’ hasn’t been the LEADER, but instead highly trusted and doing the special/important tasks. Somebody else was the leader. It worked all the way until right now in HoT, where our hero IS the leader of the Pact now instead of second in command.
I hope Caithe doesn’t die. Merely because killing off a character to retire them/get rid of an unpopular one is almost ALWAYS a bad choice.
However, minor spoilers for me, I’m glad at least Logan and Zojja survived the events. That was one question I had.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if they’re killed after the fact(the second one rescued succumbing to their wounds, the first one rescued dying in battle somehow). Eir was possibly them beginning to “prune” Destiny’s Edge, since they want it to be all about the biconics and DE overshadows them.
How? Honestly, it felt more like the two groups joining forces toward the end of the HoT story, not DE overshadowing them. Rytlock even states the new guys are pretty good. The “biconics” happen to be the heros group at the moment, where before we really didn’t have one.
In the final instance, the PC tells Trahearne that the Pact is “all but gone.” The Pact. Not the fleet. The Pact.
At same time, Canach mentions that Mordremoth is busy with the battle outside of the tree/structure.
But that battle is being waged by a combination of remaining pact, itzel, nuhoch, exalted, nightmare court (well, at least 1 courtier), skritt and so on. It is not just the pact.
Technically, the Pact includes more then just the orders. They had allies in the Ogres, grawl, quaggan, skritt, and others :P.
Either way, despite how badly the story showed it, it seemed like a decent chunk of the pact forces deployed to maguuma survived, even if the air fleet was almost entirely destroyed.
Not everybody, but at least enough to stand a chance. It’s one thing I wish the story did better. Since we are the leader of the pack with Trahearne being MIA for the bulk of the story.
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I finally got to this fight and was very disappointed. I fell prey to all the above mentioned bugs and my husband quit after 2 hours of this insanity. Is this story chapter meant to be done by a full 5 person group?
Well, apparently what I (and others) got stuck on was the “penalty box”, which opens up after a boss is defeated.
Which means it opens ONLY when party fully wipes or Mordremoth is defeated. (If you die to mordremoth)
IMO, they should’ve had it so when you open a rift, the dead players get brought back.
(edited by Kalavier.1097)
In the final instance, the PC tells Trahearne that the Pact is “all but gone.” The Pact. Not the fleet. The Pact.
At same time, Canach mentions that Mordremoth is busy with the battle outside of the tree/structure.
I’m in it co-op, I died, I’m stuck above the fight and literally cannot do anything.
This fight started okay, interseting/epic. and now it’s a complete kittening disappointment because I had to sit here doing kittening NOTHING besides watch my friend fight him. Anybody know how to fix this/get off this god kitten platform?
edit: And I’m the one that started the mission.
edit2: submitted a bug report on it. This is just BS.
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I hope we get a size chart for Mordremoth soon. I would like to know how he stacks up against old Snakeface McRotguzzler.
I’ve not seen anything from that guy who did the scaling in a while. Was hoping for a scale of the normal airships.
I feel that so far, the HoT story (I’ve just gotten to the story about heading into Rata Novus with Braham and Taimi) is flawed because of one major reason revolving around the Pact.
In the Personal story dealing with Zhaitan, Trahearne was the Marshall, the leader. We were second in command, and often given specialized, high value missions to complete in the field. This worked out well because Trahearne handled leading the pact while we didn’t have to do a lot of that.
In HoT, WE are the leader now, and Laranthir is second in command to us. However, so far, I’ve done NOTHING to really ‘lead’ the pact. I’ve been doing things similar to the PS, high value important objectives, but the Pact is left to falter. Laranthir has yet to even appear again after the first mission (besides a random reference “FIND LARANTHIR in this confusing, deadly jungle with no directions given!”). This really makes me feel disconnected since the Commander is obviously taking charge in a few scenes, hell random dialogue in the pact encampment in Verdant Brink has a charr going “I wish the commander would stick around more…”
Another thing I find annoying, is how they’ve split the pact. The Pact as a theme is the best parts of the three orders combined into one unified, effective fighting force. Yet Verdant Brink is filled with Vigil soldiers. Auric Basin is filled with Priory, and Tangled depths with Order of Whispers. (Sure, you can find SOME order of whispers or priory people in verdant, but it’s single npcs who don’t really do anything).
I wish there was more of a mix across the jungle (Like Orr), because it kinda looks like the priory and vigil had their own ships (not mixed crews), who went down in the two regions, and whispers are just there.
edit: Another minor thing that annoys me. Seeing the ‘battleship’ type airships EVERYWHERE (The Glory of Tyria style). almost every airship wreck I notice is one of those, when before we’ve seen at most… two? It looks like the normal airships simply were a minority according to the wreckage.
Maybe there really were huge numbers of the normal airships for each of the ‘battleships’ as I call them, but their hulls got torn apart more?
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I hope Caithe doesn’t die. Merely because killing off a character to retire them/get rid of an unpopular one is almost ALWAYS a bad choice.
However, minor spoilers for me, I’m glad at least Logan and Zojja survived the events. That was one question I had.
I think something to note. Even if Eir had lived (vinetooth not stabbing her, or surviving the stab), she’d have been removed from the campaign either way.
Weakened, starved, and wounded as she was, she wouldn’t be able to continue fighting. She’d have to be evacuated to heal.
250 years doesn’t allow enough time for genetics to change. The norn talking about having Elonian blood said so because she was cold.
I doubt that a race native to Tyria could breed with one not native to Tyria.
In a fantasy realm? maybe.
Though the very nature of Norn make it hard for them to be cold typically :P.
However, that was a more of a point of a fan theory which makes both the “half breeds don’t exist” and that quest canon and sensible. And half of it is that said children would be sterile which would effectively stop it :P.
Well then you’ve got a bug because Destiny’s Edge all disappear from their home instance when you finish chapter 3 (when you join an order).
ArenaNet at some time in the past confirmed this as what happens and said that it’d be too much work to try to add in more alternatives for the other storylines which function parallel mechanically to the personal story.
Hm. I’ve noticed that Logan is in seraph HQ regardless of progress of story.
Though to OP, that is because older instances are often ‘time locked’. Honestly, I’m rather okay with Eir being left in that instance because It keeps her ingame in a manner.
“Magic”.
Also, as Konig said, it was discovered that Zhaitan is lengthwise a little bit shorter then the Enterprise D from star trek, some 500 meters long or so (for Zhaitan).
He may have been rather scrawny, but he’s not small.
It is established canon lore that the player races cannot have halfbreeds with other player races (yes, even norn and human despite their similar look) and the same is true for most player races with non-player races.
Olaf and his daughter are simply wrong. That’s all. Jeff Grubb confirmed that humans and norn cannot breed years ago.
Unfortunately the interview with said statement was taken down years ago too. It’s hard to preserve those things.
Or, as a friend had the theory of, back then (because another Norn mentions how she must have Elonian blood :P), it was possible, but the children were all sterile. So it simply stopped happening. Because the interview really didn’t cover the past, simply put the foot down that GW2 era on there are no halfbreeds.
Of course, same interview also went and said “Hey, if you want to roleplay one, go for it. Just understand that it may not be accepted by everybody and isn’t officially canon.” :P
edit: Besides, I feel like this poster would go for the angst/drama of “Oh woe is me, I’m a half-breed and thus not accepted by either culture!”… Tyria is pretty laid back about a lot of things, so that might not happen even if officially their are no half-breeds.
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I would say that Necromancer could make bat wings out of a corpse and Mesmer can cast any illusion they want to make them look everything.
Yep, friend has that her necromancer grafted the wings from a bat/another creature onto her back.
I’d say it’s not common, but it’s feasible. They would not be able to fly however, but could glide/jump higher.
That dust tattoo stuff also may not being known to everybody.
The Backstabbing Ally trope would have been lame. But a mixture of Faolain & the Nightmare Court, The Pact, Malyck & what’s left of his Tree’s Sylvari, AWOL Caithe and an anti-Sylvari faction all operating for the same goal (killing the dragon) would have made things incredibly interesting.
By reducing Faolain to a character who’s first impulse is to betray the first hero she can, goes against the sort of pragmatic thinking that made her such a mastermind. By killing Eir when there are witnesses just signs her own death warrant. Not to mention that Faolain has the same goals as the rest of the group, co-operating is in her best interest until the big threat is neutralised.
You could say that she was clever in trying to use a weakened Eir to escape. But it really didn’t help things did it? If Eir was willing to save Faolain at risk of her own life, then Faolain should have exploited it. Eir being the altruistic soul probably would have died fighting to protect the injured Faolain. Faolain’s death was an example of “stupid evil”.
Faolain did exploit it. By weakening Eir to make Eir a more tempting prey.
She simply didn’t expect Eir to respond by throwing the spike into her spine.
Faolain, I’d say, likely didn’t want to work alongside the heroes anyway, and was planning on getting as far away as she could (maybe to rally the nightmare court) from that place.
And frankly, more and more factions with conflicting interests outside of “LET’S KILL A DRAGON” turns the story more confusing. And frankly, after the dragon is defeated, they’d all turn on each other.
edit: If Faolain assumed the vinetooth would behave like a typical beast, she knew it’d target the weaker person. She may not have had much dealings with Norn and thus made the mistake she did.
In my opinion the background for a great story was there, but they didn’t bring it all together in the right way. For me i found that there were 7 major things that could have been changed to make the story better.
Eir’s death was a little bit too meaningless. This was a good opportunity to teach us that mordremoth was taking the best warriors to duplicate them. If we had encountered a really strong version of a mordrem Eir or a mordrem Garm right when we reached this part, it would have given us some incentive to go and quickly save destiny’s edge before an army of them was made. They did do this a bit with Faolain’s death, but it could have been played into more.
I felt that Eir’s death was decent. Not what I wanted, but it’s showing that not everybody walked from the fleet crash. Hero and common man alike.
The nightmare court and Faolain were too quickly introduced and then taken out of the story. They should have devoted more time to them, explaining why they are there and what they hoped to achieve in the jungle. They also could have played a part in the final fight. The nightmare court has specialized in attacking the dream for a while now, and it would have made sense that they would be able to apply that knowledge to attacking Mordremoth’s mind.
Eh, it came across more like Mordremoth kidnapped a group of Nightmare court who strayed too far in. Unless there is more involving them beyond that one prison camp Eir was at.
We had no good reason for wanting to go and save destiny’s edge. If early on in the story they had given us the fact that Mordremoth can copy a person and make minions of them it would have been more understandable. I believe that Eir and Logan are particularly powerful warriors in lore, and if Mordremoth managed to duplicate them it would have been a serious problem later. Also if Mordremoth could learn what its minions knew, then saving Zojja would also have been really important, and worth doing before going straight for the dragon.
Besides the fact of morale boost? These are HEROES after all. Powerful individuals who could inspire their allies. That by itself is a very good reason.