Guild Wars 2

Frioniel.7126:

Amaimon.7823:

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

OriOri.8724:

Ayrilana.1396:

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1. corn
2. charr

Not necessarily, I had different answers, which leads me to believe that the questions are randomized.

Same for me

I got Chicken; Centaur, they’re really primitive riddles, really

I think the answer varies between races. With humans, the answer is always Chicken and Centaur.

It doesn’t vary between races; I took my charr through twice and did one the first time and the other the second time. First riddle just has two answers – this threw me off my first playthrough because I was just going “there’s two answers which is the right one!?”

There’s four rooms in total, so there are two paths to Caudecus’ room, as it turns out.

You can go Chicken -> Centaur or Corn -> Charr

First riddle is an actual riddle. Second “riddle” is just a racist jab.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Rauderi.8706:

Well, it’s not really a “lake” anymore. :P
(Because ANet doesn’t want to have underwater anything as a reminder that underwater skills especially Revenant are unfinished)

…as a reminder that underwater combat, especially the 3D positioning parts, are actually pretty terrible given the vision and movement controls of MMOs available today, so it’s not really much fun for anyone.

Fixed that for you.

Speak for yourself. I – and I know many others – love underwater combat (and exploration even more so) in GW2. It has kinks, but it isn’t the 3D positioning or controls that’s the main problem.

The main problem is the skill and trait balance, the lack of switching traits between above/underwater, and the lack of skills/weapons options.

That was just the effect Filthy – it goes away when you dump water on Garm. It’s not a mist aura… it’s a stink aura, like you’d see in kid cartoons.

Let me repeat:

He despaired, seeing the true nature of the mursaat, and they noticed this immediately.

The events weren’t simultaneous but rather consecutive within moments. They killed, he regretted, then they took.

Watch the second cinematic at 1:20, and it shows the transition – from the mursaat trying to convince him kindly (when he was first taken), to torture (when he refused).

There’s nothing unclear or uncertain here.

DarcShriek.5829:

Also, it looks like Logan realizes he’s been friend zoned.

This is something I don’t like. This feels like a retcon, because in the Personal Story, there is this conversation between Jennah and the PC:

PC: Speaking of Captain Thackeray… it doesn’t bother you that he’s going to Lion’s Arch?
Jennah: I’m worried, I’ll admit. Caithe has never been trustworthy in the best of times, and lately… please, tell me you’ll watch over him?
PC: You know that you could stop him, right? One word from you, and he’d stay.
Jennah: No, Advocate. I have enough servants — I want a partner. Logan must be free to make his own decisions. I made such a mistake once before. I won’t make it again.

Jennah very clearly states that she loves Logan in the PS, and only was pushing him away because Logan was trying to show his devotion by serving her, when she wants him to become an equal for her. But it was also heavily implied that a relationship between Jennah and Logan would be used by Caudecus as propaganda against her somehow, so she avoided adding fuel to the fire.

Of course, Logan’s promotion to Pact Marshal would be exactly that – Logan stop being a servant and becoming an equal to Jennah.

So I really hope that Jennah’s words in that instance was because her servants could overhear or something.

Otherwise, they just ruined one of the few relationships in this game, and only major non-homosexual relationship too.

Shiren.9532:

It’s a running “joke” that Lord Faren is used as a sex object in the story. He was put in a speedo on Southsun Island, he was stripped down to his speedo in Scarlet’s attack on the Queen’s Jubilee, for some reason he turns up in in the jungle in a loincloth and now the female mesmer was summoning him as an illusion in a loincloth to entertain her as a sex object again.

Don’t forget the mention of a “Faren Pin-up Calendar” from Party Politics.

Shiren.9532:

What was the point of the charr presence in Lake Doric? Shouldn’t that unnerve the Krytan’s in the region and empower Caudecus’ cause? First she recognises the charr/human treaty despite being Krytan and not Ascalonian, now she has charr forces fighting Krytan citizens just outside the capital. Did I miss some greater purpose or story to the charr presence or is this a continuation of the World Summit charr characterisation (our allies’ fight is our own) and set up for something to come?

From my understanding, the Sentinels (why the Sentinels, who are usually solely on the Dragonbrand? I dunno) came to assist in a time of need as a relief effort and support. They were also tracking Separatist ties (answered in the final instance – the carnies are Separatists) at the time, and generally trying to keep their allies strong and their enemies weak.

I do not think that charr attacking people attacking Kryta would support Caudecus’ claims or frighting the Krytan citizens.

I shall continue my thoughts and responses in this thread later… so much to read. Finally a release I can truly enjoy!

Slowpokeking.8720:

If that Mursaat was not Lazarus, who or what was he?

It should be noted that it is only of Caudecus’ (potentially lied to) belief that the ritual would fail without all five artifacts. And from that, the PC believes such too.

Lazarus existed without all of his aspects before (see GW1), so there’s no reason why this couldn’t be so again.

Furthermore, Caudecus’ contact was Bauer, and in his journal he shows himself to be tricking Caudecus rather than tricking Xera. So it’s easily possible that Bauer lied – either about the nature of the ritual, or about the artifact containing an aspect of Lazarus.

However, if Lazarus is indeekittene, my money is on Bauer being the man behind the mask. Reason being is that he led Valis and others to the mines to perform the ritual that destroyed the bloodstone and let “Lazarus” absorb the magic – Xera was already dead by that point, and the relics up in Stronghold of the Faithful. So whatever ritual he was going to do was not reviving Lazarus.

I’d need to experience a completed Stronghold of the Faithful to know more…

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The first Caudecus fight was really cool, the second one was the only unfun and outright annoying part of the mission. It wasn’t hard, it just took forever, because those NPCs do no damage at all and my character was spending 90% of the fight on the floor. Why do we need Caudecus and the Jade Armors to spam knock-downs? I never want to do that again, which is sad, because I want to play the rest of the mission again.

I don’t get how people had so much problem. I just strafed fetching the shards one after another to toss at Caudecus and was fine the whole mission. Only time I had trouble was when the jade armor popped up, but that was a one-time spawn.

Only annoyance was the speed of his special skill attack.

I hate that they overnerfed the fights.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Anyway, I liked that we got to finish Caudecus, he was a good (not great) villain. Much better than Scarlet, because he had character and was not a Mary-Sue. He was a brilliant schemer, his letters reveal as much, but he also was a coward and not the best at changing his plans on the fly. This is how you do it, strengths and flaws. And I think he was killed of at the right time. He had his moment in the spotlight, but his 5 year long run (wow it has been so long already?) is over now.

Agreed, I kind of wish there wasn’t such a huge gap in the plots focusing on him, but Caudecus was a “villain done right”. One of the few in the series, especially in GW2.

Jokubas.4265:

I just watched through a majority of the episode and it turned out roughly how I expected. Fairly straightforward, but nothing really new this time, only a tease for next time.

What I didn’t like was how moustache-twirling Caudecus was.

Do the episode. Read the letters in his manor.

This was the best part of me. Those letters answeres a HUGE amount of questions from the human PS. So many loose ends tied up so nicely, with a bow on top too.

Caudecus isn’t a mustache-twirling villain. He isn’t even a Palpatine. He was a puppetmaster that was manipulating every piece on the chess board, and played every characters – even his supposed allies – both ways.

Jokubas.4265:

It’s kinda scary that Jennah has the power to just instantly kill people, and her doing it one by one while taunting came across as pretty creepy.

This was a show of power. She was showing what she could do, after over a decade of not doing it. She showed that she not only had power, but the restraint to not use it.

Jokubas.4265:

The whole “I will detain you against your will for your own safety” thing was disturbing too. The fact that there were infiltrators isn’t even the point. Jennah and Anise continue to openly defy the rule of law and suspend people’s rights whenever they want, which seems to be any time the topic comes up.

But Jennah never actually detained them. The entire purpose was to flush out the traitors to the crown, to make her enemies show their true colors. She was cleaning the slate of all corruption, and took a ploy of acting as her enemies portray her in order to draw them out.

Jennah never actually restrained anyone.

Jokubas.4265:

Jennah and Anise really don’t seem to like people having free will, and I don’t like that.

Anise seems to have a personal grudge against the White Mantle, but nothing Jennah really did shows what you claim.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I don’t get why there’s a Ministry to begin with, Kryta already has a Monarch.
Having two seperate governing bodies with their own armies leading a single nation is a recipe for disaster.

Logan answers this question in the Dead Sister storyline.

Basically, the Ministry existed for a while but never had much power – they were, it seems, a method for the royal family to know the problems of the whole nation easily. The Ministry gained power with Jennah’s father’s death, because it happened when Jennah was too young to take the throne without supervision. Ever since Jennah was officially crowned and was able to rule alone, the Ministry has simply refused to give up their power – no doubt in large due to Caudecus’ power hunger.

Similarly, it was this refusal to give up power, combined with the rising centaur threat (causing the Seraph to be thinned out), that gave birth to the Ministry Guard, who began as simply mercenaries hired independently by the Ministry – they united to form the Ministry Guard. No doubt the first mercenaries having been White Mantle agents hired by Caudecus and those loyal to him.

Thief augmented by bloodstone-mesmer abilities makes sense for him. Especially since Demmi was a thief in the instance.

Nothing actually says Caudecus was going there. Canach suspected he was. It was either a feint by Caudecus, Canach was wrong and the sentence added as a red herring, Caudecus did go there but came back for the siege (maybe that’s where he kept his army and bloodstones stashed – he had to had them hidden somewhere accessible by ship as shown by Stronghold of the Faithful, and somewhere not Bloodstone Fen or Forsaken Thicket, as shown by Salvation Pass), or Caudecus had to retreat back to the manor.

It’s pretty clear given the “personal dungeon” that we kill Caudecus in was there since release that it was planned for us to go there, and the team who made Ep4 had begun working on it four months before Ep3 was finished so it wasn’t some changed plan midway.

You never did the bonus mission pack in GW1, did you?

He was a loyal servant to them… until he killed dozens of humans – White Mantle humans – right before his eyes. He despaired, seeing the true nature of the mursaat, and they noticed this immediately.

To quote:

The Unseen Ones had made a promise, and they demanded their due. Kryta was safe, and Saul’s most devoted servants could continue to worship and serve their new gods. The rest of the witnesses would have to die, however, for they had seen the true power and glory of the Unseen Ones. As Saul watched his followers struck down, he realized his gods were neither good nor wise.

The Unseen Ones had promised to protect him, but not in the way he had hoped. To keep him from telling others what he had seen, the Unseen Ones took Saul with them. As he faded from mortal view, Saul realized he had not saved his people. He had betrayed them to new, harsher masters.

And he wept, knowing he, a traitor who had unwittingly deceived his own people, would forever be considered a hero of Kryta

It’s pretty clear in GW1 that Saul immediately regretted his actions and would have betrayed the mursaat had they not taken him. In the prison, they tried to “reconvert” him, so to speak, through the methods they apparently know best: torment and pain.

This was actually a pretty good closure to Saul’s plot, with no real contradictions to things.

Rather than dragged out, it – like a lot of plot lines – was just left untouched.

However, the mystery has a lot of answers to it in this instance.

So far from what I’ve found this release:

• E has a ton of Seraph contacts.
• E has some Whispers contacts and knows the location of the Chantry of Secrets (obvious to players but it’s a closely held secret in lore), and knows Whispers protocols and codes.
• E was the reason why Exemplars Mehid and Salid knew of the assassination attempt on the PC in the Orphaned storyline, as well as knew where to find Esthel (turns out Caudecus let E know via anonymous letter as his ploy to be promoted from Justiciar and second-in-command to Confessor).
• E has a lot of invested interest in Kasmeer, Jennah, and Logan’s survival.

From this, we know that E is a member of the Order of Whispers, and likely a member of the Shining Blade. This means he’s human for sure. In addition, he’s kept aware of Kasmeer’s abilities – which as far as I know only the biconics, Anise, and possibly the Mesmer Collective knows about.

Still no clear indication on who E is, but now we know more.

Daniel Handler.4816:

4. The Searing
-snip quote-

• its possible the searring was powered by kralkatorrik.
• he is believed to be a dragon of crystal and possibly air, and crystals falling from the sky seems like him.
• you have also implied corruption should affect more than preferences, but the people weren’t changed by the searing.
• so was dragon magic used in the searing if only specific things were changed?
• i see this as further proof. Something the devs imply to be dragon magic not corrupting according to our expectations.

Not all magic within the Elder Dragons corrupt. We know this by the fact that they release magic while hibernating or dead.

As I said in my first post, “dragon magic” by every other individual is a reference to the corrupting magic actively exuded by the Elder Dragons.

It does not refer to the non-corrupting magic passively exuded by the Elder Dragons.

Given that Kralkatorrik was asleep in 870 AE, when the Cauldron was given to the Flame Legion and when the Flame Legion later enchanted the other Searing Cauldrons, it would be obvious that while the cauldrons were empowered by the crystal domain that is Kralkatorrik’s domain, it was not empowered by the actively exuded “dragon magic” (aka the corrupting magic) of Kralkatorrik.

In short: this is not further proof of your argument, which is “all magic is dragon magic” followed by “all cases of heavy magic that are not mists magic results in corruption” but rather is direct proof against the latter claim – as we have a case of heavy magic tied to an Elder Dragon (ergo, not mists magic) which does not corrupt.

Seems like you’re forgetting your own argument…

Daniel Handler.4816:

5. What do you think Taimi meant?

I literally stated what she meant. Magic is divided into spectrums – or domains, spheres, w/e you want to call them – in a similar way that light is divided into spectrums (or colors even). This is something we’ve known since forever.

She did not mean that light and magic are divided the same way, or that they function the same way (which you claimed).

Daniel Handler.4816:

1. Grumby
-snip quotes-

• was the ring of fire bloodstone ever unstable to the point of magical vortex?
• Grumby tells us the souls of the RoF stone are also bound yet as you say he is sane. He doesn’t appear to crave its magic like those of the Fen stone.
• perhaps we are witnessing two phenomena
• ghosts are bound to bloodstones they are slain on
• leaking magic corrupts the mind

I don’t think that the “magical vortex” is a literal thing, but more metaphorical to the fact that the Bloodstones grow with more magic, are effectively absorbing magic, and souls are magic.

In other words, this “magical vortext” isn’t because of any instability. Which would mean that yes, the Ring of Fire Bloodstone would have such as well.

Nowhere does Grumby tell us about other sacrifices on the RoF Bloodstone (he says “for” not “on” the bloodstone), and he never once mentions bound souls.

If leaking magic corrupted the minds of those nearby, then the White Mantle would have been corrupted for hundreds of years. Our GW1 characters would have become addicted.

Daniel Handler.4816:

2. “Primordus can affect the living.”
-snip quotes-

• what I take from this is that physical transformation is variable
• perhaps ley magic has the easiest time with pure elements
• either way proximity and exposure is important
• Primordius and Mordremoth encase things first when corrupting non preferential substances
• jumping into zommoros house will turn you temporarily into an anomaly
• perhaps the skin is being covered in ley energy for the same procedure

“physical transformation is variable” is obvious. Every Elder Dragon’s corruption happens and appears differently. But what is pointblank said there is that even Primordus can corrupt the living.

Basically, every Elder Dragon can corrupt the same materials, but they corrupt those same materials in different ways, and they become different things.

Mordremoth doesn’t encase things when corrupting. He tosses corpses and living beings into Blighting Trees to preserve them, not to corrupt them, so that he can then make copies of their non-degraded form.

As for ley magic: It doesn’t corrupt “pure elements” and we have a hell of a lot of proximity and exposure with failed ley anomalies.

What happens in the Mystic Forge is still an unknown, but it is very clearly different from the permanent and irreversible effects of dragon corruption – we know this because the anomaly form is only while within the Mystic Forge.

Daniel Handler.4816:

3. Cataclysm
-snip quote-

• orr was lost beneath the sea when Abbadon was still overseeing water.
• either way elementals are no less intelligent than destroyers

What does Abaddon’s title and supposed domain over water have to do with the Cataclysm? The Cataclysm had nothing related to water. Yes, it sunk beneath the waves… but it sunk in general. If anything, that’s earth related.

But if you watch the cinematic featuring the Cataclysm during Victory or Death, what we see is a light blue light (er… bright blue light?) appearing as buildings literally sink straight down. This bright blue light is very much the same as the bright blue light seen in the center of Thaumanova – the same shade as the magic traveling along ley lines at the end of Season 1 and at the end of Heart of Thorns.

Which gives a very heavy hint that the Cataclysm was affecting ley energy.

-5000 body length-

Close? Unless I missed something about the end cinematic, my second line of thought was correct The prisoner is...Saul D'Alessio.

Though the exact circumstances behind the prison are still unknown to me, though. I just got into a cleared instance before the final (?) boss.

The letters definitely prove he is a Whispers agent. One of them mentions whisper protocols and secret codes used by the Whispers. How high ranked and his actual identity seems to still be unknown but he has an oddly high amount of Seraph contacts and underlings.

This implies he is human, even more than Marjory never mentioning oddities of his physical stature from being in physical contact with E.

I only use arenanet’s words. This was their explanation for why they can get rid of resurrection in the world, which they did because they felt it cheapened character deaths.

Visit him after doing the story. He’s a vendor that sells guild decorations. Very expensive ones. Might have dialogue explaining it for lore viewpoint – haven’t beaten it yet (surprisingly, not enough time last night) but a guildie did and said that he was a vendor.

First off, we know that the Pale Tree is a purified dragon minion, effectively since we know sylvari are minions but not under the irrevocable (by normal means) will-enslavement that all dragon minions are (note: by normal means I mean there has been a single method t o freeing a dragon minion’s mind as we have observed which was a highly resource-consuming ancient ritual unknown to modern society until after Zhaitan’s death).

Given that it’s heavily suggested Malyck’s tree comes from the same cave as the Pale Tree was in as a seed that Ronan found, and given that it’s known that Malyck is younger than any other sylvari and heavily implied there are no other sylvari of his tree at the time of his birth (weeks before the PC meets him), it seems highly unlikely that Malyck’s Tree is older than let alone the origin of the Pale Tree.

As for “But then why would he need to corrupt them before they’ll make blighted Mordrem?”

The Blighting Trees are not corrupted Pale Trees, but rather the Pale Tree is a purified Blighting Tree. The Blighting Trees would be most likely corrupted normal trees.

Sylvari need to be “recorrupted” in non-standard ways because they’ve been purified and, the implication is, they are protected from standard corruption by the Dream – so Mordremoth has to attack via the Dream to “convert” rather than “corrupt” by bombarding the sylvari with thoughts until they cannot differentiate between their own and Mordremoth’s thoughts.

@Amaimon: Malyk is 100% still canon. Net has stated they still plan to further his plot, and intended to do so in HoT but ran out of time. They’ve not retconned him out of existence – any loose plots are never given such treatment, they’re just left alone until ArenaNet is “ready” to tackle them.

Also, blighting trees cannot be a native state, since they are dragon minions and no dragon minion is a natural state due to the nature of dragon corruption (which makes minions) changing the physical attributes of whatever it makes into minions. In other words, the “timeline” for their state would be “Unknown Native State” → Blighting Tree → Pale Tree.

Sounds like the same statue that’s in DR.

Never really explained but I took the waves as being waves of power/ether/magic, and the “cat ears” seems to be akin to her helm in GW1 which was a diadem depicting wings.

PCs do not “die” – this is why the states are called downed and defeated, not downed and dead.

Only NPCs can die in GW2. Those that can be revived aren’t dead, just “defeated”. Defeated state is basically being unconscious – equivalently to tabletop RPGs would be the bleeding out state. Similarly, “reviving” is not the same as resurrection, but closer to resuscitation.

Resurrection existed in GW1, but something happened in the past 250 years and it no longer works anymore, so no one can be resurrected. Gaheron Baelfire tried a round about method of resurrection via powerful magic granted by the Eternal Flame, but this is the only near-successful case of resurrection in GW2.

It’s very clearly this guy

We’ll finally learn the importance of that guild emblem.

Daniel Handler.4816:

1. Can Primordius enslave individuals? Can Mordremoth (for non plants)?

• each dragons has limitations as to what they can corrupt.
• what if ley and thaumanova corruption is limited to elementals and anomalies?

Yes, Primordus can. We also see Mordremoth corrupt non plants. Twice.

Despite common belief, all Elder Dragons can corrupt the same things, however they have a specific “preference” on what and how they corrupt. Whether this “preference” is because it is easier for them given their sphere of power, or because of their personalities and personal goals/beliefs, remains unknown. But we do know that Zhaitan, Jormag, Kralkatorrik, Primordus, and Mordremoth can all corrupt living animals, dead animals, plants, land, air, and water.

Both the Ley Anomaly’s and Thaumanova’s explosion are pretty much beyond the amount of damage and magic as the simpler dragon corruption. To say they are “limited to” elementals and anomalies is to argue that corruption can occur without altering the physical shape or the mind, which is 100% not true in the case of dragon corruption as both is exactly and solely what dragon corruption is.

Simply put, elementals and anomalies are not corruption, because it does not change the material nor alter the mentality (or create a mentality in the case of corrupting inanimate objects into animate minions for dragon corruption). All elementals are, are animated, mindless elements. No different than an undead – which despite Tyrians (falsely) calling risen undead is not corruption.

Daniel Handler.4816:

2. Cosmic power

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cosmic_Power
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Energy_of_the_Mists
• if the Jade Wind is classed as mist energy, and it was a release of divine power, then the cataclysm/searing probably were too.

Unlike the Jade Wind’s magical origins, which is outright stated to be energies granted by Dwayna that got twisted, The Searing is – as stated in previous posts – heavily implied to be of Elder Dragon origin, and the Cataclysm’s origins are unknown. There is no reason to believe either is a result of divine power.

Furthermore, “all magic” would include divine magic. So by saying divine magic is exempt from this rule, then the rule is false.

Daniel Handler.4816:

3. Ghosts and the bloodstone

• the analogy to a drug is not dissimilar to corruption
• the Mordrem Vines die when the magic of Mordremoth leaves them
• the bloodstone crazed will die without consuming magic
• perhaps this is why the sylvari cannot completely sever their connection to the Dream.
• more research is required. Especially concerning Stephen point which I will replay to confirm.

Actually, it is dissimilar, because unlike a drug, corruption changes the physical matter to another form. Flesh gets turned to ice, crystal, fire, rock, or plant; plant gets turned to flesh or crystal. Etc.

The analogy to a drug is just done in relation to how junkie needs the drug to survive else they risk withdrawal that could potentially kill them if the addiction is too strong.

The “magic of Mordremoth” never left the vines. Mordremoth’s mind left them. Elder Dragon corruption of landscape – which is what those large vines are – are without sentience let alone sapience; their “living” state was caused solely by Mordremoth’s widespread telepathy allowing him to communicate, control, or even inhabit (as we see with Trahearne) his corruption and minions.

The Dream has no connection to dragon corruption as best as we can tell, beyond being what protects the sylvari from dragon corruption.

I notice you completely ignore, once more, the existence of Captain Grumby, who was killed atop of and by extension was within the Ring of Fire Bloodstone but remains fully sane, and the journals which state those killed and by extension were within the Maguuma Bloodstone are now crazed and drawn to the bloodstone.

Daniel Handler.4816:

4. If magic is like light

• rather than magnetism let’s use the analogy Taimi herself made.
• magic is almost like light.
• a extremely intense beam of light will not melt your flesh like a mild intensity of microwaves.
• all light is radiation
• it’s possible for all magic to be corruptive, but dragon energy is so corruptive it’s much more noticeable.

People take the “magic is like light” analogy Taimi made too seriously.

She only made that correlation regarding being divided into spectrums – something that, in all honesty, we knew for a long, long time. We just don’t know the exact details of the division.

The leaked screenshot provided by one of the raid testers (moron that person was for not removing a guild tag…) showed a jade construct in similar naming to GW1 jade construct bosses (“Cairn the <Something>”), and said jade boss had the description beneath “Guardian of the Penitent”.

So at the very least, it is mursaat related. It’s questionable whether it’s mursaat directly related, or White Mantle directly related and mursaat indirectly related (via WM using the jade construct).

I wouldn’t get caught up on “ancient” though. Tarir is only 200 years old and is proclaimed ancient by the Durmand Priory for being “over 100 years old for sure”. Tyrians have a very, very loose meaning of the word “ancient” – if we acted the same way they did, World War 2 would be ancient history.

A place being guarded by the White Mantle for the past 200 years would definitely count as both ancient and could easily still be guarded now, using ArenaNet’s usage of the word “ancient”, especially if whoever “the Penitent” is, is a threat they’d want to monitor.

Another idea: what if the Penitent is a seer? Maybe not the one met in GW1 (esp if that was the one on the table in Zinn’s lab), but perhaps a survivor of ancient times in a mursaat prison? Or even a Forgotten, since we know they can live for thousands of years based on dialogue from Nightfall.

Regardless, I think Saul or Livia are the most likely cases. Saul would definitely be interesting, especially if it leads into Saul appearing in the main story like Lazarus did.

Narcemus.1348:

I don’t know, with all of his a jungle experience, Lord Faren might be a better dueling ????

Given his “jungle experience”, I think Faren would become better at skirmishing, but not dueling.

By dueling, I at least am referring to the formal 1 on 1 fight on flat ground with fairplay. The stuff of nobility in medieval times – something that just would never work in a real battle – either wartime or against bandits, criminals, etc.

Then again, Faren’s title of being the best student of Bongo the once-not-One-Eyed was bought by his parents because Faren was just that bad at dueling so it’s a given Caudecus would be better than Faren – any noble would be.

• Not all individuals are trained to fight or use magic, though all can innately use magic.
• NPCs are not bound by mechanics of armor and weapon restrictions. NPCs can use whatever they want.

As such, I would argue Caudecus simply doesn’t have a profession. He isn’t the kind of person to fight himself, but to use others to fight his battle. He doesn’t seem to be trained in magic – if he was, he would have used it against us in Episode 1 rather than just ordering others around. And he more than likely isn’t trained in any but the most basic of swordplay (the kind of swordplay you’d see in official noble dueling – in other words, a mockery of actual combat; kids play).

So his profession? IMO: “None.”

OnizukaBR.8537:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

There is not a new fractal coming so soon I am afraid! We are working on the new fractal but still have a lot of work to do. It will ship when it is ready

Please consider adding a CM like 100 CM to this new fractal, its the best 5 man content in the game by far.

Nightmare 100 CM works because it’s a boss fractal. So I hope rather than just slapping such a thing onto this new fractal, which may or may not be a boss fractal (I hope they keep a good amount of both!), they should add such to Mai Trin, Molten Duo, Swampland, and Solid Ocean fractals.

I bet they could make a good, fun challenging mote for non-boss fractals but I’m not sure folks would enjoy, for example, Chaos Isle challenge mote as much as they’ve enjoyed Nightmare challenge mote.

We’ll see.

That is a large theory, yes. The fact they’re purple in GW2 (were blue in GW1), the Searing Effigy especially being of purple flame and purple crystal, and in Blast from the Past it’s stated that the Flame Shamans enchanted the cauldrons. That line you refer to, though, comes from The Ecology of the Charr.

Larynx.2453:

@Konig

“Because we’ve seen huge amounts of magic used that doesn’t physically transform or mentally enslave individuals.”

I mean, just to play devil’s advocate, but you’re really going to ignore Bloodstone Fen? Massive concentration of magic, twisting individuals into beings that voraciously seek out and consume magic? They’re basically identical to Dragon minions in their behavior. And they’re corrupted by something decidedly not dragon magic.

I didn’t ignore Bloodstone Fen. My first post explicitly talks about Bloodstone Fen and, more importantly, the fact that the Ring of Fire Bloodstone doesn’t have the same result on souls as proven by Captain Grumby.

Besides, one case of massive magic causing a change in mentality (but not physical form) does not mean all cases of massive magic causes corruption, which is a change in both mentality and physical form.

I’d say the fact that several cases of massive magic results in neither is more evidence the one or two cases of massive magic resulting in one or both.

Daniel Handler.4816:

@konig “Because we’ve seen huge amounts of magic used that doesn’t physically transform or mentally enslave individuals.”

• You are confusing concentration and size.
• Not all dragons can even enslave individuals

• Not all dragon corruption is concentrated.
• Yes, every Elder Dragon can enslave individuals.

Daniel Handler.4816:

1. The Searing, The Cataclysm, Jade Wind, the battle of the gods that made the Crystal Desert,

• all of which are mist energy, Taimi linked Tyrian magic to Dragon magic.
• let’s go back to the magnetism analogy, concentration is important but so is composition. All matter is diamagnetic, only some is ferromagnetic.
• it doesn’t matter how concentrated or large mist energy is, it isn’t strongly corruptive, though I assume it can be induced into being so. That doesn’t stop it from being slightly corruption.

• Source? Because nothing ever describes a “Mist energy” – let alone says those are such.

And what, exactly, is “Mist energy” for that matter? And how can you so easily say every major event that doesn’t match your explanation be this excluded, different form of energy?

And the Thaumanova explosion most certainly isn’t Mists related, but is a concentration of magic just like ley anomalies, and neither result in corruption.

Daniel Handler.4816:

2. the ley anomalies, Thaumanova explosion.

• how do we know that elementals don’t consume magic?
• do they not require magic to exist? Why else would they stay around sources of power?

Funny how your two points have nothing in relation to either ley anomalies or Thaumanova explosion.

Elementals require magic to form, but nothing indicates that they need magic to be sustained (exception being summoned elementals, probably because they’re given enough magic to be formed and not enough to be sustained as natural ones would be). If they needed to consume magic, then they couldn’t wander from sources of magic as we sometimes see happen.

Daniel Handler.4816:

3. Captain grumpy

• he became a ghost though right?
• aren’t only the living becoming crazed? And permanently. All the crazy ghosts I remember in bloodstone fen did not crave bloodstone and would act sane after being defeated.

Yes, The Ghost of Captain Grumby had become a ghost…

And no, as proven by the ghosts in Bloodstone Fen and Forsaken Thicket, the souls are also affected -if not even more affected – as the living are.

The crazy ghosts in Bloodstone Fen were drawn to the Bloodstone, as proven by the journals:

As anticipated, that brownnoser Phill was quick to take credit for my discovery regarding the spirits that are attracted to it, who can’t seem to leave it behind and pass on. Hard to imagine that anyone killed on the bloodstone could still be nearby, tethered for eternity to the bloodstone’s magic. The Chosen must’ve returned when they were freed at the Door of Komalie. What confusion or purpose would compel them to return to the place of their sacrifice? What binds them here? Bloodstone must be as much a drug for them as it is for the living. Their energy adds to the vortex of magic surrounding the bloodstone. Their deaths are a necessary sacrifice for the glory of the Unseen Ones, but a shame nevertheless.

The spirits of those killed on the stone are held within its energy field, unable to depart. In history, these souls were forced into auxiliary storage devices by our ancestors. But it was for the bloodstone’s magic that generations fought wars to determine who would control it. Even the Chosen could not stay away. once freed from their prison at the Door of Komalie, many seem to have returned. They’ve been seen haunting near the bloodstone.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conspiracy_of_Dunces

A post in the other thread about Anise/Livia theory, saying that Livia is bound to show up next week due to the major events happening, made me wonder…

What if Livia is the Penitent?

What if she was captured by the White Mantle in between Sea of Sorrows and GW2, imprisoned and locked behind ancient mursaat defenses? If it turns out Livia did become a lich as one of the two rumors presented in Sea of Sorrows suggests (though I would not tie such an event to the Scepter of Orr as many would), it could be that they imprisoned her because they could not kill her but could overpower her utilizing the Bloodstone.

We weren’t told the Forgotten went extinct, exactly. We were told they are no longer on Tyria (world). “A Study in Gold” tablets do give the indication of extinction, but all that’s said is that it is the “sunset of [their] race” and that they will “be no more” but that could easily just be referring to the Forgotten who remained on Tyria – who were near extinction in GW1 – but not all Forgotten everywhere, as there were many, many more in the Realm of Torment (too many to so easily go extinct when they live for multiple millennia).

I don’t think DR will get destroyed. For three reasons:

1. Anet reworked LA because they didn’t like the design from a gameplay (hard to navigate) and aesthetic (too vulnerable looking) perspective. DR lacks both of these problems. So did The Grove, which didn’t get destroyed when attacked in Season 2. Which kind of goes into point 2…
2. It’s a newbie area. Ever since Tower of Nightmares ended, Anet has stopped touching newbie areas (home cities and 1-15 zones) with LW events. They even removed the Toxic Spore events from Caledon and Queensdale, despite leaving them in Brisban, Gendarran, and Kessex. For the same reason, they would have to use “Old DR” for a ton of personal story steps – far more than LA ever did – and that’d be just confusing to new players (hell, showing up in a wooden, better looking LA is already confusing to players who enter chapter 4 storylines); and if they didn’t use “Old DR” then they’d end up having kids playing in burning rubble – again!
3. It’s not the finale of the season. Doing something as major as destroying a major settlement is something usually saved for climaxes – not always the finale, but the major turning part of a storyline. And I don’t think we’ve hit that point with Episode 4. Hopefully we’re only at the halfway point. And as such, even if they had plans to destroy DR even partially, I doubt we’d see this happening until Episode 7 (the likely next time we get WM if we continue on the prediction of “each team deals with its own plot” split between WM, Primo, and Jormag).

Daniel Handler.4816:

@konig

How do you know all magic isn’t corruptive?

Because we’ve seen huge amounts of magic used that doesn’t physically transform or mentally enslave individuals.

The Searing, The Cataclysm, Jade Wind, the battle of the gods that made the Crystal Desert, the ley anomalies, Thaumanova explosion.

None of those corrupt in anything even relatively close to the Elder Dragon’s corruption.

Daniel Handler.4816:

What if all magic is corruptive but in different concentrations?

The list above is a wide enough variety with high enough concentrations as to prove that such isn’t the case.

Unless you want to argue that a single case of an individual being turned into a dragon minion deals with more magic than the Searing itself, which is just ridiculous.

Daniel Handler.4816:

What if Sylvari are not inconsistent lore-wise? What if they are not corrupted?

They’re purified corruption – like Glint.

This is canon fact.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think we both know that regardless of what we decide in this thread. Taimi will be right because the writers say so.

It is up to the lore community to find out how.

Doesn’t make things consistent. And no, it isn’t up to the lore community to “find out how” – it’s up to the writers to show us how. That’s a writer’s job, to create a believable world and story.

Stephen.6312:

As far as I’m aware, no one has ever demonstrated that spellcasters – whether dragon minions or not – don’t consume magic. Professor Gorr’s tests, after all, required him to approach Risen Abominations before he could obtain viable readings, suggesting that the magical signature of normal risen was little or no different to that of everyday spellcasters.

Gorr actually points out that there is a decrease in magic around regular risen. But it wasn’t a big enough decrease to be able to say “the risen is the cause of it” without further evidence. In addition, there was a larger and, more importantly, undeniable decrease around larger/stronger risen (namely, the abomination).

Dragon corruption is presented as an active action done by the Elder Dragons, not a passive innate ability. Similarly, dragons themselves innately release magic (they have to be awake + alive to be absorbing magic innately).

If anything, the tooth should be making Hoelbrak a magical hotspot.

The only example of pieces of an Elder Dragon/dragon minion corrupting is the Sanguinary Blade. Everything else, like the spear made of one of Kralkatorrik’s spines, do not corrupt.

And that spear should be an especially notable thing in this discussion – did nothing to Rytlock when he used it in Kralkatorrik’s presence.

Teleporting is a very, very common mechanic and is barely any way to tie two groups together.

Beam attacks as well – might as well claim every mesmer is tied to the Exalted as well, since they both teleport and use beam attacks. Beam attacks seem to be just general “firing pure magical energy”, really.

As for the similarities to the mursaat – honestly, it’s just the gold armor of the Bastions. Nothing more. Literally. Nothing more. People took the redesign of many creatures such as oakhearts, drakes, centaurs, imps, etc. and thought “this is the way they’re showing mursaat in GW2!” and then Anet just took that massive bandwagoning and made joke references to it.

Realm of Torment was the first feeling I got, too. If this is so, then the name doesn’t refer to the individual within’s current state, so much as the purpose of the structure itself – to make those imprisoned penitent. The description certainly sounds like some kind of prison.

However, if this raid relates to the White Mantle in some form again, the other thought is that this raid may reveal the fate of Saul D’Alessio, who would certainly count as Penitent.

Daniel Handler.4816:

1. What is the contradiction?

• draconic magic is the corruptive form of magic
• all magic is dragon magic
• therefore all magic is corruptive

Not all magic is corruptive, though.

While the logic seems sound, the solution is, in the end, false. Therefore, one of the two must be false.

We know A is true, and we know C is false, therefore B must also be false.

Daniel Handler.4816:

In testing the DEC theory it was shown that the degrees of power and sentience are related to the amount of energy imbued in a minion.

Not really. The testing of Gorr’s theory only pointed out that dragon minions naturally absorb ambient magic, and that they can grow/become stronger when they absorb a significant amount of magic.

The intelligence and power part was tested later, separate of that initial theory. It proved to be accurate, but this is only true in relation to dragon minions – other entities need not apply.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I consider elementals to be corruptions produced by non-sentient forces. The Djinn, having received much more energy, behave like higher level minions/player races. Neither consumes magic because they aren’t commanded to.

Your considerations are unfounded. This is your error: you’re making an assumption with no backing for it.

We’ve even been told in the past that elementals are simply, well, animated elements.

On the other hand, corruption is an irreversible transforming agent. It takes Material A and makes it Material B (the dragon’s first domain). Whether that Material A is flesh, plant, earth, water, air, or even fire.

However, elementals remain the same element that they were made from – fire elementals are made of fire, always; ice elementals are made from ice, always; air elementals are made from lightning/air, always. No exceptions.

But dragon minions can literally be made from anything, whether the subject of corruption is corpse, living, plant, land – any can be turned into risen, any can be turned into icebrood, etc. etc. Only souls have been shown to be naturally immune to dragon corruption, and even then that’s questionable (Eir mentions Jormag’s corruption alters the soul – Risen Wraiths could very well be corrupted souls, even though he only imprisoned or outright ignored many other; and only Foefire ghosts are outright stated to be immune to corruption – and only Kralkatorrik’s at that).

While djinn are compared to elementals, they are not the same thing. Djinn – unlike elementals – have souls. These souls are made of elemental energies, but they are souls all the same. And mindless constructs like elementals, necromancer minions, and dragon minions do not have souls.

Dragon minions are not necessarily commanded to consume magic either – Gorr’s testing proves that they absorb magic innately. This is one of the lore inconsistencies around sylvari – they do not absorb magic innately.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Masterless corruptions by high doses of magic:

• The bloodstone crazed individuals.
• The foefire.
• Demons (in this case high doses of ether)

• Only individuals interacted with the Maguuma Bloodstone are crazed. Captain Grumby was slain atop of the Ring of Fire Bloodstone and is perfectly sane, despite being in the same situation as the Chosen.
• The Foefire was a magical spell specifically designed to alter the mentality of the victims it turned to ghosts – and only humans, in fact. Non-human ghosts that were made by the Foefire (and not everything hit by the Foefire was turned to ghosts) do not act the same, maddened way. Furthermore, we see other spells that alter mentality on both large (Rite of the Great Dwarf) and small (various GW1 mesmer and necromancer hexes/enchantments) scales.
• Demons are not corrupted. Few are known to interact with mediocre let alone high doses of magic.

All three cases are false evidences.

• In all honesty, probably not. Anet’s not really delivered on civil warring before so…
• That was just a statue. Many of which are seen all around Crown Pavilion.
• Less emphasis and more a reminder.
• Siege on a settlement just outside of DR, actually. The cannonballs only strike a dam (you can even see water rushing out of the ruble before the shot changes), and panning/short clips trick viewers into thinking they’re going further than they are (the looking up shots are of said settlement outside of DR, more obvious in some shots than others). Rather than a siege on DR’s walls, it looks more like this is a siege on a northern equivalent of Shaemoor.

Looks epic, best trailer so far for sure, but I think people are instantly setting themselves for disappointment if they’re wanting a battle in/against DR itself.

It’s also a complete shame that they seem to be fully draining the Giant’s Basin with this new map – it already shrunk to hell between the games, now the inland sea turned two lakes will be further reduced to seemingly nothing. Just like the inland sea of the Far Shiverpeaks being completely blocked off and replaced by a giant forest (how the hell did those sanctuaries get there, Anet!?).

Nothing really implies the Elder Dragons made Tyria at all. In fact, there’s pretty good indication that the Elder Dragons are younger than Tyria, given that they can be replaced and there are hints that there were once an entire superspecies of dragons.

The Elder Dragons do not control the temperature or dictate the existence of all of their element – if this was so, then there would have stopped being night time with Zhaitan’s death, and all vegetation would have withered and died with Mordremoth’s.

You’ve asked these before, and the answers are unchanged. You come to conclusions that have no basis and plenty of counter evidence.

My thought is that Taimi doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Because not only what you mention, but that it contradicts established lore in the personal story/dungeons.

She isn’t a know it all, despite her attitude (and the Commander’s).

Based on what we’re told in the personal story and dungeons, “dragon magic” or “draconic energy” is literally the corruptive form of magic. What the Inquest, Snaff, Zojja, Gorr, and many others call ‘dragon magic’ solely refers to the magic which corrupts anything it touches. Despite knowing that dragons release magic naturally when sleeping/dead.

You seem to be implying that elementals, sapient plants, and djinn are basically dragon magic. But they do not corrupt nor imbue their magic in others. They seem to be closer related to the ley-line anomalies – which similarly do not corrupt or imbue magic – which form from even higher concentrations of magic.

And there is nothing relating djinn to “the draconic-enchanto consumption theory” of Gorr’s. Djinn do not eat magic. You might be thinking of imps there – or rather, demons in general whom are known to eat magic or souls depending on the type of demon (imps eat elemental magic; torment demons eat souls).

We actually can’t be certain how anomalies are “created”. They do appear where ley lines are overflowing with magic, but aside from the Thaumanova Anomaly none are said to actually be created at that spot.

The Exalted, if you read this instead, as it goes into more detail, are humans who forsook their body to take on a magical entity – less of a sacrifice and more of a transcendence. They’re also killed by tearing off their mask – but what the OP is suggesting is that maybe the anomalies are Exalted who never got put into the armor. That they are “wild” magical entities.

We simply do not know what would be of an Exalted who was failed to be put into an armor casing – who does not have a mask. The Tarnished Traitor that the OP brings up lacks a mask, curiously, which I believe is what sparked the idea.

An interesting conception, but one I’d say is unlikely. Firstly, Exalted are not humanoid in appearance anymore – but are closer to serpentine, as they lack legs. More importantly, the anomalies appear closer in line with the djinn – which are effectively described as “sapient elementals” (which may explain why hopping in the Mystic Forge turns you into an anomaly). The real question in this, however, is about the ‘Shadowstone Anomaly’ that we have going.

(Also, Arden, Glint didn’t die 300 years ago. The Exalted came to be closer to 200 years ago – it happened with the formation of the Zephyrites – and Glint died in 1320, now 9/10 years ago depending on if Anet counts us in 1330 yet or still in 1329).

One fact Aaron missed, which leads to why Anise knows that obscure ancient Krytan law, is that Anise is said to be ‘a history buff’ and that ‘Ancient Kryta is her subject of expertise’. Which explains how she knew said law without any odd need of her having lived in a time it was used.

As an aside, I got the indication from Sea of Sorrows that Livia did not have the Scepter of Orr anymore at that time – that the period in which she had it had already come and gone by that point.

I’m not even sure she walked in her last appearance.

Based on Tiachren, the poison seems to cause immense pain, paralyzing the victim (perhaps through said pain – Tiachren was unable to move but still conscious as he responded upon recovering), until death. Given how it’s used by the Nightmare Court, it’s likely meant to be a torture poison.

Time for death to occur seems to be relatively short given Tiachren was supposedly near death when he was given an antidote, but general medicine was able to cure the poison so it’s nothing terribly horrid either.

If name is indication, it likely does an equivalent of killing their blood cells – as sap is a sylvari’s blood. What it would do to a non-sylvari? Hard to say, could range from no effect (completely different biology) to minor illness to near instant death.

It didn’t.

In GW1, copper and silver existed in the lore (several trophy coins dropped were in copper/silver/gold, such as the Zaishen Coins) but were not used mechanically because Anet wanted to avoid the traditional copper/silver/gold currencies that were a staple among fantasy games (IIRC).

In GW2, there are multiple remarks to platinum being used by richer NPCs – most notably the ransom letter for Demmi Beetlestone during the Order of Whispers’ C4 storyline.

Basically the only thing that changed was the mechanical system, which truthfully should have platinum when you hit 1,000 gold if it were to reflect the lore, but for some reason (you’d have to ask Anet) it doesn’t.

You’re directly claiming that not only what Taimi says, but also what we see happen in-game, is false.

We see when fighting the Unstable Abomination in S3E3 that death and plant magic cancel each other out in equal quantities, not that plant overrides death (which, again would be noticed with necromancy vs ranger magic), but that both plant cancels out death and death cancels out plant.

I would disagree that spellcasters still largely stick to divisions – we see a lot more magic that would be considered preservation magic throughout all professions (professions being more capable of healing on a broad spectrum), as well as, potentially, destruction and aggression.

And I think that a necromancer using a spell and the spell being fully negated with harmful aftereffects if a ranger use a nature spell next to them would indeed be “having the technology to recognize that”. Or an elementalist using fire and ice magic adjacent/at the same time resulting in their magic going kaboom in a very literal sense, for that matter.

Death and plant magic being in the air next to each other in E3 causes physical harm to the creatures tied to the other magic. So at the very least, risen would have a natural weakness to sylvari/rangers, and mordrem would have a natural and very physical weakness to necromancy, if not the professions themselves, but this was never ever noted.

Also, it should be noted that Jennah has been seen without Anise anywhere nearby, such as Caudecus’ Manor story mode.

Probably no note because most editors have gotten the achievements…

So add the note yourself instead… It’s a fan-maintained wiki after all.

You probably thought that because, originally, the cycles were named after the seasons rather than the time of day, but the cycle you fell into (by lore) was still determined by time of day (as all Firstborn were born in the same few days).

This was changed mid-development, as part of the sylvari redesign.

If they were kept around for Season 1, sure, though the story method ArenaNet was aiming for – that Season 1 and Personal Story were both happening “now” – kind of prevented such. They only firmly established that Season 1 was post-Zhaitan with Season 2.

Though all of those choices probably wouldn’t have worked since you don’t meet them all in any singular playthrough… unless you’re a sylvari Vigil who did Act with Wisdom or Vigil who did Apatia fear.

Which I think was part of the problem: the NPCs from the Personal Story were too varied in who you ended up meeting. You’re only guaranteed to meet DE, Trahaerne, Snarl, Galina, Vivian, and Gorr no matter your choice. And they couldn’t bring in DE’s voice actors on a regular basis, while it wouldn’t make sense for Trahearne to triapsying about doing random things.

I think it would have been nice if we met up with early PS characters such as Quinn or the warband, but again: too varied, ergo too many voice actors to bring in regularly or resulting in the same effect as just bringing in brand new characters for most players.

From a developer’s standpoint, the best ideal for the situation was to find a small group of voice actors who could show up regularly, and either bring back or make up characters for such – they chose to make characters. Of course, such isn’t so important now since it’s bimonthly rather than biweekly updates.

Hesacon.8735:

A lot of season 1 has been rolled out in the form of fractals, which is a nice compromise.

A lot?

You have half of two different dungeons turned directly into fractals, and a third fractal made of another theme.

You don’t even have a quarter of Season 1 in fractals.

Even if you add the rest of it in fractals (you cannot), you still skip out of the story. There is nothing relating the Nightmare Fractal to the Tower of Nightmares arc except for looks. Even the Toxic Hybrid aka Ensolyss has nearly no similarity in speech to the original (sounds more guttural while talking a lot more) let alone story.

At best, the five fractals are just “a taste” of what Season 1 was, and a poor one at that – like the recap.