Guild Wars 2

trianglecubed.3750:

Yet doing stuff to fight off dragon minions, help the pact’s allies stay protected, or simply helping a renown adventuring guild, in this case DE, is hardly out of the purview of pact ideas

The “Pact ideas” is one thing and one thing only: Kill Elder Dragons.

Not helping the defenseless. Not supporting politics. And not killing terrorists. (Note: This was all that S1 was about, effectively).

If it has no involvement with dragons, the Pact don’t care. Because they were formed as a coalition of groups for the sole purpose of fighting dragons – the groups that make up the Pact could (and did and do) send other members not tied to the Pact to deal with other tasks.

And nowhere in Season 1 are we (knowingly) fighting dragon minions.

So we were indeed working out of the purview of the Pact. We were not, however, working out of the purview of those who make up the Pact – namely, the three Orders and the five nations. And they did send us support… namely in the form of the biconics and a few more that came and went.

And when we learned that we are, indeed, fighting the Elder Dragons (namely, Mordremoth), we get the Pact’s attention and bring them in (mid-S2).

trianglecubed.3750:

And the start of Season 2 we were alone, we weren’t traveling with DE 2.0 at that time, either. Yet once it became obvious that it was a dragon-based multi-“national” threat then it was Pact business and the Commander could have started taking some commandos or the like along.

Yes, we were traveling with the biconics.

The very first mission has us meeting up with them. We don’t just randomly find them, we’re randevousing with them.

The prelude to Season 2 – Festival of the Four Winds – even has every biconic talking about wanting to investigate the ‘roar’ heard at the end of Season 1, and what Scarlet had set in motion – that is what we’re doing when we head to Tangled Root at the very beginning of Season 2.

trianglecubed.3750:

Finally DE wasn’t really part of the pact officially, they were just an adventurer’s guild which ultimately decided to help the Pact.

They were in Season 2 and HoT. They weren’t in the personal story because they hadn’t formally reunited. But via the events of the dungeon story mode, they do reunite, just in time for the final assault in Zhaitan – it is then that they formally join the Pact.

If they were not formally part of the Pact, they would have no place in Camp Resolve during the events of Season 2.

trianglecubed.3750:

And at the end of S2 if the commander had been traveling with a squad of soldiers since the beginning it only makes sense that they’d have been assigned to the commander at that point, thus not on the fronts, crucial for defense, or on the fleet.

The Commander has been, technically, traveling with a squad of trusted fighters.

The biconics.

(Rox and Marjory both have formal military training; Canach and Braham both have informal combat training; and Kasmeer and Taimi both have first hand battle experience via fighting Scarlet).

Again, the Pact had 0 involvement at the beginning of the story, and by the time they did the Commander had the very sensitive subject of Glint’s egg to deal with. Why would the Commander 1) take forces away from the Pact when they’re needed most, 2) trust unknowns with said sensitive subjects (when said unknowns could view the egg as a threat to destroy – the entire reason the egg was kept secret in the first place), and 3) take people of unknown capabilities with them?

Plus, look at this from a narrative viewpoint: would you in the middle of a story toss out all of your cast but the main character, just to bring in brand new characters? Unless the removal was a plot central point (they all die, for example, or turncoat), you wouldn’t. In most stories where an group goes from adventuring to war, they do not disband but face the war together. Even when only one was part of the army.

Plus, you may remember the changes to the experience and drops of Labyrinthe during Halloween… for “three festivals in a row” not getting changes, two sure seemed to have.

Nothing major, sure, but not nothing.

Besides, you make it sound like last year got major changes… or the year before… or the year before… Wintersday has been the exact same since 2013 with the exception of new items and slight changes to achievements. Halloween’s the same as 2015, and 2014 was the exact same as 2013, which only included a few changes from 2012. Lunar New Year’s the same as 2016, which was the same as 2015 except for achievements, and even then Dragon Ball was the same as from 2013.

Expac2 has nothing to do with the lack of work towards it… If anything is “to blame” it’d be the Living World content.

During Season 1, the Pact Commander was not working with the Pact but instead doing freelance adventuring (effectively), which is where he met biconics. Some of Season 1 was us doing work for our Orders, while other parts was doing work for DE, while still others was doing work for the Lionguard.

It would have been fully irresponsible for the Commander to take members of the Pact with him to do stuff that was fully unrelated to Pact activities.

Season 2 started much the same – the Commander wasn’t on official Pact business, but investigating rumors fowarded to them by E (just as the biconics were).

By the end of Season 2, all of the Pact that wasn’t on other fronts (e.g., Frostgorge, Orr, Dragonbrand) or crucial for defense against Mordremoth (remained at Camp Resolve) was on the Fleet, including any A-Team of the Pact (which would, technically, be Destiny’s Edge).

Heart of Thorns was basically the Commander with his non-Pact team looking for his Pact A-Team.

trianglecubed.3750:

You mention doing what worked last time.

Why didn’t we?

You say it yourself, we did a ton of stuff before confronting Zhaitan. So why didn’t we do a ton of stuff before going after Mortie? Surely we should have actively tried to do the same things we did with Zhaitan, starve it, blind it, etc, etc. Why did we just go in cannons blazing and expect something to happen in our favor?

It doesn’t make sense. We had made virtually no preparations. I mean we had one dragon already awake and were able to do everything we did to it.. so surely having another one wake up wasn’t a huge deal if we could just go through and cripple it all over again.

The only thing we did is make a weak foothold and do our best to push in, darn the consequences, as if we were some nervous teen guy after prom.

So little sense. Why did any of the military professionals agree with this course of action considering what it took to actually take down Zhaitan?

In short: because Mordremoth just woke up.

Zhaitan had 100 years to build up an army, corrupt the land around him, and obtain magical power (aka food). Mordremoth had a few months.

The Pact’s plan against Zhaitan was to strip it of its resources, then assault it using magic-poisoning weaponry (aka “does to corruption what corruption does to others”).

The Pact’s plan against Mordremoth was to assault it before it could get resources, using magic-poisoning weaponry. Trahearne outright states this in Season 2:

Trahearne: Primordus has been awake for over two hundred years. Jormag for nearly as long. They both did great damage at first, sending out their minions. This is the stage where Mordremoth is now.
PC: The minions. I get it. You want to slow down its production of minions.
Trahearne: Yes. Slow down, or if we get lucky, stop it entirely. Now, before its corruption spreads too far and wide.

What the Pact didn’t seem to realize or know, was that Mordremoth already got those resources they were hoping to prevent it from obtaining.

Thanks to Scarlet, he got a magical power boost – but no one in universe knew this (players, of course, did). And unknown to all until the point it happened, Mordremoth had already created Blighting Trees to spawn armies and had the sylvari ready to turn against the Pact.

TL;DR

The Pact made a false conclusion based on incomplete information that they didn’t know was incomplete.

EDIT: As for the “fire randomly” bit – the Pact didn’t know Mordremoth (or his minions’) exact location, so they assaulted the general vicinity where they knew the mordrem were at, in hopes of drawing out the exact locations – or so my understanding is.

Before getting the ‘cure’ you appear like the Thaumanova/Chaos/Ley-Line Anomalies.

On an aside, I hope this isn’t some sort of ‘faction determination’ unless it’s specifically Priory vs Consortium.

The way they set up that instance, just like how they set up the Rata Novus instance (used for both times we go there in S3 and accessible from Ember Bay) makes it seem like they intend to use that instance again in the future.

If so, having a singular account bound item you don’t have to rebuy every other release would be greatly beneficial.

It was at the end of Eye of the North, she mentions planning to go to Arah. But as said, it’s not explicit for where Livia found the Scepter of Orr (nor is it explicit that said trip ever panned out). We just know she spent some time in Orr (where in Orr is unknown), had found the Scepter of Orr (where she found it is unknown), and didn’t have it for a long time, but while she did have it she studied it intensely.

Currently the Exalted Portal Stone you get at the end of S3E3’s first quest or can buy from the Exalted vendors are soulbound. I’d like this to be made account bound so accounts only need to carry one instead of multiples for taking any character to that instance, to help save individual characters’ inventory space.

This will be especially helpful should that instance be used again.

Arden.7480:

Guys, you didn’t understand me. I didn’t mean, that the Commander is not important, is not useful, but the Commander cannot say to Queen Jennah- ‘Because I am the protector of Aurene, I deprive you the throne!’ We are not almighty. We are observators and we have to lead Tyria’s army to destroy Dragons, we are representatives of Charrs, Norns, Asuras, Sylvaries, Humans we are not leaders.

World Summit:
“During the procession of world leaders ", As I said, we were mediators. We can do nothing without the army of Races.

You can see even now, how Braham behaved towards us. Perhaps we had respect in LS2, but we have not respect in LS3 and this is our problem.

I will change my mind if the Commander will stand towards every Races and will say what thinks. We are not united and I hope that the Commander will show, that every Race has to respect him as the one of leaders.

We killed 2 Dragons and still nobody doesn’t respect us and Races run their ways and they even don’t know about Aurene, did we say to every Race, that we have the new dragon??? Nope.

We told to Braham about Primordus, but why didn’t we say about Aurene? This is weird and suspicious. The most important thing in the whole situation in Tyria, even above the Dragons and Lazarus and the Commander didn’t say about it.

Why??? I really don’t know.

The Pact Commander is keeping Aurene on tight lips. Other topics were of importance with Braham so Aurene didn’t get mentioned, but there’d be no way the Pact Commander would talk about Aurene to the national leaders yet.

While we couldn’t go and say “I deprive you of your right to rule” (well, except to Flaxx if there’s enough asuran backing given that’s a psuedo-elected position), we can very easily go to them and say “it would be a good idea to do this” / “it would be a bad idea to do that” and they’d at the very least give it a weighted consideration.

While I think Windu is exaggerating our importance and capabilities by including the achievements and world completion (open world seems to treat us more as random adventurers rather than the Pact Commander – only HoT zones have treated us as the Pact Commander in the open world, excluding open world story steps), the Pact Commander is of importance and can influence the leaders a fair deal.

In the case of the norn, we’re legendary figures – they may not all listen to the Pact Commander when speaking in front of them all, but many would. If the PC just goes up to the shattered tooth and says “We can defeat Jormag, but we must not rush into battle. I have a plan and I will need all of your help with it.” many would follow the Pact Commander over Braham who so far sis just going “I cracked the tooth, let’s rush Jormag!”

The Bloodstones stopped being important. Devs confirmed this. Their separation of magic was thinned even by GW1’s time (explanation for secondary professions) and have only furthered since due to the increase of magic in the world (namely by the Elder Dragons).

And, tbh, you’re the one too focused on names if you feel the necessity to rename them.

And there is a contradiction:

Necromancy doesn’t cancel out ranger magic. Just as it doesn’t cancel out monk magic (“life”). Just as an elementalist’s fire magic (or guardian’s fire, or berserker’s fire) cancel out an elementalist’s ice magic (or a necromancer’s ice).

No magic ever cancels each other out… except when used by the Elder Dragons, and even then, the only case we see is a pair of two very unique, very rare, and very weak creatures that can barely be called dragon minions (for all we know, it isn’t the explosion of plant/death magic, but rather the explosion of magic that damaged the Unstable Icebrood Abomination).

So there is a contradiction. It cannot logically be that both “all magic is dragon magic” and that “dragon magic is divided into a spectrum where different types of magic cancel each other out”. Otherwise we would have seen this canceling out.

Regardless of the labels you want to put on the divisions of magic.

Arden.7480:

“It would be very weird for Rytlock to just show up despite being sent to jail”

Hmm? What do you mean? The killer of the dragons is in a jail? :o

I don’t think so. He said: Sorry I’ll miss out on all the fun, Commander. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I’m able.

If he would be send to the jail, the Commander would not agree with this. I expect, that he will come back to story.

This is really interesting, that Rytlock was in Personal Story, LS 1,2, HoT and LS3. And in every episode of LS3. I think, that he is one of the most important character in LS3, but I still don’t know why. Perhaps I and we will find an answer in the next episode.

He was arrested. Those arrested tend to go to jail.

Veteran Adamant Team Lead: Rytlock Brimstone.
Rytlock Brimstone: That’s “Tribune” to you, soldier.
Veteran Adamant Team Lead: Not any more, it’s not.
Veteran Adamant Team Lead: You’ve ignored numerous requests from the Black Citadel to account for your time in the Mists and explain this new…magic.
Veteran Adamant Team Lead: Thus, you’ve been stripped of your rank and are hereby charged with dereliction of duty.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taimi's_Game

Dereliction of duty means being sent to jail and trialed before the High Legions’ tribunes/imperator(s). We see this (indirectly) with the Honorless Gladium’s charr personal storyline.

No matter how you look at it, those two charr were sent to arrest Rytlock, and bring him to trial.

And he wasn’t in LW3E3.

Randulf.7614:

Also, I agree entirely about the ending of E3 being underwhelming. This was a key moment in Norn Legend and Lore, which got quickly glossed over. That was one of many things that really let E3 down compared to how well S3 was doing so far. Hopefully E4 will expand on this to counter the damage done.

The bold is exactly why it was underwhelming.

There was no proper build up, no proper background music, no proper response. There were no norn cheering for Braham before or after the breaking of the tooth. It only showed the breaking of the tooth and nothing more. It could have been done a thousand times better with minor, re-used assets.

When the cinematic ends, you’re even still in the same instance that Braham was in seconds ago, adding further to the dissension of belief.

Arden.7480:

I don’t wanna see a chapter with these norns.

It won’t be an entire chapter. Season 3 has shown one very consistent theme.

One instance starting the episode in an old area, dealing with one thing (Eir’s memorial, Taimi’s Game, and Aurene’s training), the rest of the episode dealing with a second plot that deals with the new map.

So we’ll start somewhere old, then go somewhere new. My bet is start in Hoelbrak, then go deal with the White Mantle in a new (northern) Kryta map.

Arden.7480:

The Commander cannot say what the race can or cannot do. We are not Queen Jennah, Zojja, Phlunt, Rytlock, Knut, Eir, Caithe, Logan or Pale Tree. We are just a small character, we only kill dragons and we are not meant to rule over the Races.

The killer of an Elder Dragon is by no means a small character. We personally know every character you just mentioned and more. We’re the individual who knows every major figure in Central Tyria, and we have the merits to be a major figure ourselves (former second in command and co-founder of the Pact, slayer of two Elder Dragons).

We may not be national leaders, but those leaders will lend their ears to us. They already did.

Arden.7480:

Norns are just stupid and just want to be drunk. I read Ghosts of Ascalon and the norn- Gullik wanted only drink alcohol. This is the fact. I don’t trust Norns.

Eir is closer to the (ideal) standard of norn beliefs than Gullik is.

Or better yet, the Svaard brothers from Sea of Sorrows novel.

Yes, they enjoy their ale – but no more than charr do. There are the undisciplined among the norn, and are probably a larger percentage of such than in other races, but they’re still majorly disciplined and reasonable. They just don’t like working in large groups unless they’re followers of Wolf (which, ironically, Braham is – which makes his actions even more anti-norn).

Ventari’s tablet has no magical properties, unlike the Forgotten’s ritual which is explicitly stated to have given Glint free will.

While Dragon champions do have some level of independence, they have no free will – their will is still the Elder Dragon’s will. They are still slaves. It’s just that they can go about choosing how to serve the will – but they must still serve it.

Ventari’s tablet’s actions toward the Pale Tree is closer to Glint hearing the thoughts of her victims. Those thoughts allowed Glint to sympathize with the races and led to her betraying Kralkatorrik. By the implication, she had regained her free will (underwent the ritual) already at that point.

Basically meaning that the ritual did not change Glint’s loyalties, but rather it gave her the chance to change her loyalties.

So if Ventari never lived near the Pale Tree, then it would be less likely that she would be a Blighting Tree, and more that she just wouldn’t have the morals she does. This could lead her to being evil, but it would be an independent evil or a willing following of Mordremoth – too little is really known about the Pale Tree’s motivations, or how she knew about Glint’s egg, to really be certain.

Ogden makes mention that he is part of a group that pays attention to things like the PC’s vision of the egg – he somehow knew about it despite no one mentioning anything. This implies that Ogden and the Pale Tree – either directly or through intermediaries were in communication and agreed to give the PC the vision of the egg. If so, then there may have been influences other than Ventari that drove the Pale Tree to act the way she has been acting. Meaning that even without Ventari’s teachings, the Pale Tree may still be on the path of good.

However, the most likely situation would be that the Pale Tree would be like Malyck’s tree – though we don’t know much about said tree, we know that it’s not a Blighting Tree.

draxynnic.3719:

From what I recall of the Nightfall history and prerelease information, 5 and 8 actually happened before 3: the Margonites started attacking the holy sites of the other gods, including the Temple of the Six, in retaliation for the other gods weakening Abaddon’s gift.

What’s not clear from what I recall is whether this was in response to Abaddon being angry that the decision was made without consulting him (and the Margonites became aware that he was angry and started attacking holy sites thinking it would please him), or whether the Margonites were just throwing a tantrum about having their magic taken away.

Here’s the two links of fan-translations for that pre-release information:

http://guildwiki.gamepedia.com/Talk:Abaddon/Archive_1#Background_story_on_Abbadon

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/76125-why-abaddon-turned-evil/page-2?&#entry2100579

The latter has more details. While it does talk about the Margonites’ actions after talking about the Bloodstone, there’s no direct correlation created between the two events. It’s kind of a ‘fade to black, meanwhile elsewhere…’ situation. So they could be happening in any order, but they happened in roughly the same time period.

Though you’d be right, most likely the acts with the Bloodstone came before the Margonites pulled their stunts.

Amaimon.7823:

My bad. By normal humans I meant not yet having magic. And wasn’t the demonic transformation a result of being locked into the realm of madness (foundry of failed creations at the time)

Firstly, realm of torment – and it contained the foundry of failed creations during gw1’s time, but the place may not have existed during the time of the Exodus (the realm of torment also has far more than just the foundry of failed creations).

And the demonic transformation was during that war before the Exodus – Abaddon even created the Horde of Darkness out of some of those transformed humans.

They had magic at the time, as the war happened after Abaddon’s gift of magic. Basically, the timeline as best we know is:

1. Multiple gods are granting magic in small doses over a long period of time (implication/personal interpretation is that the scripture events include these small doses).
2. Abaddon grants magic in a huge dose.
3. Margonites, already having Abaddon as their patron god, go a bit overzealous and deface Temple of the Six.
4. Forgotten enact retribution and wage war with the Margonites.
5. Around this time (may be before, during, or slightly after the above two points), wars occur elsewhere, a city called Jumah is under siege with King Doric as witness during his trek to Arah, where he pleads to three of the Six Gods in Arah.
6. Abaddon hears Jadoth’s plea, and destroys a nearby Forgotten fleet and turns Jadoth into the demonic entity most Margonites would become.
7. Abaddon begins turning more Margonites into demonic entities.
8. Around this time (may be before, during, or slightly after the above two points), the Five Gods restrict magic again and sunder the Bloodstone (this final part may occur later on, we’re not sure).
9. The other Five Gods see Abaddon’s interactions and reacts violently.
10. Abaddon lays siege to the Gates of Heaven with the Horde of Darkness.
11. Abaddon is bested by the Five Gods and sent to the Realm of Torment, along with the Margonites transformed already. There are still some Margonites remaining as humans, and they move to the Crystal Desert to build towers out of their ships at Thirsty River, led by King Khimaar.

On an aside, we know that there was a small amount of magic in the world even before the Six Gods began gifting it in small doses, because the Elder Dragons naturally leaked magic out while hibernating and they had been hibernating for a few thousand years already. It just was not a commonplace thing – rare enough for magic to be considered a creation from the gods.

draxynnic.3719:

Second, Caudecus is effectively in charge of Kryta again.

There are a variety of ways this could play out.

Something missed is that, in either situation it’s unlikely humans would contribute to the Pact. This means little to no human advice in the Pact’s technologies, which includes the airships.

No airships – or slower development of them – means the crucial weaponry against Zhaitan is never made/not made in time.

Kryta falling to Caudecus prior to 1325 AE could spell the defeat of the Pact in its first campaign.

Amaimon.7823:

It started with the Margonites attacking the holy sites of other gods in retaliation for magic being weakened, and then the Forgotten retaliated with extreme force against the Margonites… and then Abaddon weighed in to rescue the Margonites. It’s not particularly clear what exactly happened after that, but it probably became a case of Abaddon feeling that he was committed and might as well try…

Is this order right? I thought the margonites were normal humans UNTIL the forgotten hunted them down and abaddon gave them the magic. The order you describe makes it sound like the margonites already had magic before abaddon broke the seal on the bloodstones.

They were called Margonites before they were turned into the demonic entities. Margonites were a human nationality at the time they defaced the Temple of the Six and the Forgotten retaliated with war.

Abaddon “weighing in to rescue” the Margonites is when he turned them into demonic entities.

<hr>

Here’s a scenario not thought up:

What if Doric was never crowned king?

In the immediate, this means:

• Kryta is never established by Doric’s son, Mazdak. Thus, in turn, could never be colonized by Elona in 300 AE who wouldn’t have, in turn, spread north into centaur lands. The Centaur War would not exist, Thorn would never have ruled. But at the same time, with charr’s victory in Ascalon (if it still happened) and Zhaitan’s eventual rise, there’d be no human lands in Central Tyria.
• The wars sparked by Abaddon’s gift of magic is never pleaded to end. The Five may not have rescinded the ‘gift’ and Abaddon may never have rebelled. If the gift was never rescinded, humanity might have either destroyed itself or proved capable of repelling against things like the Searing, especially if the Six never had infighting or civil war (they may still have, due to the Margonites defacing the statues of the other gods being the sparking situation). But with magic more free in the world, the Elder Dragons may have woken sooner too.

It would be very weird for Rytlock to just show up despite being sent to jail. I’m hopeful we’d be taking part in his ‘trial’ so that we see what High Legion Juryduty is like, effectively (even in the PS when we bring in prisoners, we only deal with the aftermath, despite an NPC talking about being a lawyer of sorts in the Black Citadel).

I am hopeful that at the very least, Episode 4 deals with this about Rytlock.

I suspect/hope we’ll start in Hoelbrak, though, just to see the ramifications of Braham’s over-eagerness (that E3 finale was too boring for such a momentous occasion, we need more…).

Besides those two, we’ll either be getting a zone in northern Kryta for Krytan/White Mantleness (Lake Doric? That Brisban Bridge finally being repaired?), or we take our first steps in the Crystal Desert in search of a branded that has experienced plant/death magic alterations for further experimentations.

That ‘damaging the self’ is just a case of bloodletting. Literally, shedding your blood to fuel your spells. Hence why it’s called “Blood Magic”.

If Taimi’s right, then it’s definitely not necro ice because there’s no dragon that has that. Zhaitan was death magic and had no relation to ice; Jormag is ice but has no relation to necromancy.

Plus, it’s all ice magic, not “ele ice magic” or “necro ice magic”.

Which is where the whole ‘all magic is dragon magic’ thing Taimi presented messes up because if all magic is the same as dragon magic and certain kinds of magic cancel each other out then it should have been a long known fact that they would. Ergo, by logic, Taimi must be wrong on one side or the other.

As for using plant magic in the past… maybe, maybe not. Rangers have always been a bit questionable about their magic. Plus, with gw2 rangers using all elements (fire, lightning, ice, and earth/plant), seems to me that they’re using the same kinds of magic as elementalists and dervishes but focused more on plants than the raw elements. One could call the entire sphere of all elemental magic as ‘nature magic’ really.

Which, again, makes the Season 3 “revelations” to be weird as hell.

They sleep. Normal sleep. Whatever you want to call that.

No, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the Dream and dreaming, based on the dialogue there is throughout the Grove.

It was mentioned a while back that sylvari tend to veer towards necromancy more than any other race – followed by humans and asura – because unlike the other races, sylvari do not view death as a ‘bad’ thing but just another part of life.

As for the first point about plant and death negating each other, this seems to be solely within the realm of draconic energy otherwise, as mentioned, it’d be a long known fact that plant magic (such as used by rangers) and death magic (such as used by necromancers) negate each other and wouldn’t be a recently discovered notion. Same with elementalists using fire and ice magic at the same (or subsequent) time.

About “no undead sylvari” and “Caladbolg neutralized Orr” – this is, again, all about draconic energies. Even then, the latter isn’t a case of plant and death magic neutralizing each other, given that the magic that utilized Caladbolg as a focal point was neither sylvari/Pale Tree magic, nor negated by Zhaitan’s corruption but overwhelming it. For no undead sylvari, we just know there are no risen sylvari and that’s a huge difference since risen are not traditional undead – we do not know if sylvari could be turned into traditional undead because we, simply, do not see traditional Tyrian undead in GW2. Though I’m doubtful we’ll ever see undead sylvari simply because of how fast sylvari corpses wither and rot – in Ghosts of Ascalon, mere minutes after her death, Killeen is withering and drying up.

As for the final bullet point, necromancy does not corrupt the self while using it. You’re mistaking a mere line of skills, purely mechanical at least, into a notion of the entire profession which is by far false.

There’s quite a few around the grove. One sylvari even mentions having bad dreams ever since she escaped imprisonment from the Nightmare Court. Indicating not only do sylvari sleep and dream, but that they can suffer from PTSD.

If they have dreams, and if they have nightmares, which there are dozens of dialogues throughout The Grove alone mentioning such, they must sleep… so yes.

The toys are not meant to be dangerous – that’s why they’re “malfunctioning”. Toxx, the golem, is messing things up by attempting a “toy liberation” as she puts it, IIRC, and has both bribed the skritt to attack as well as alters the toy manufacturing AI coding (if you can call it that, magitech and all).

The toys are basically miniature golems made of stuffing, etc. And like any other golem, or robot in other settings, can be reprogrammed to be hostile.

Separatists don’t really care about Kryta. They’re all about Ascalon. Only reason they popped up in Caudecus Manor story is because that was a party celebrating the peace treaty which they wanted to mess up.

As for the rest, some kind of unrest is clear, but now that Caudecus has made himself an open book for being White Mantle, and there’s been years of WM distaste, I doubt there will be as huge of a civil unrest/war as originally theorized when Out of the Shadows was first teased to us.

If Caudecus is to be believed, Lazarus are throwing his believers after the Elder Dragons, so we’re likely to see a White Mantle + Pact unsteady alliance going on, rather than them dealing with Krytan affairs.

Amaimon.7823:

Sylvari, like all other mordrem, get a blueprint from the blighting tree (or in this case the pale tree).

Not all mordrem. See Mordrem Thrashers, Vinetooths, Octovines, possibly Breachers/Maws (we see no wurms being afflicted), and bombers (looks like nothing in all of Tyria).

This said, the Pale Tree definitely modeled sylvari in an abstract way after humans – confirmed by devs. The question is more whether she intentionally chose humans, or that choice was forced on her due to xyz reasons and what her choice was was “how human” to make sylvari.

We already know that the Elder Dragons have influenced outside of Central Tyria. Both Jormag and the DSD awoke outside of Central Tyria, after all, and the DSD remains outside of it. In addition, Zhaitan had armies on Elona’s northern borders (though that played a plot relevance of zilch).

Amaimon.7823:

And yes, the infiniarium is an airspace made by Tixx. Where the minigames are functionally i dont know, inside the snowglobe is a good possibility.

Unfortunately the snow globe is gone now but in 2012 it was downright obvious that it took place in there if you looked. You could see the areas in the snowglobe and all the NPCs that took you to those three places were next to it, plus the “region” that the three areas are in is called Enchanted Snow Globe.

Amaimon.7823:

As for the mechanical location, it is the pvp realm. We know that as a fact because its whats causing all the bugs they cant fix. Because they forced a pve style game into a pvp engine. Why they ever did that is beyond me, but seperating it now as much effort as completely remaking everything, so anet is kinda like sucking up the bugs because they dont have the time to fix it

By that reckoning, WvW should be up in the “pvp realm” because they share same maps and the like.

But I’m fairly certain that mechanical region has nothing to do with whether it’s considered PvP. After all, aren’t activities considered PvP but are in Shiverpeaks, Maguuma, and Kryta on the map?

It’s part of the Current Events that ambient magic is on the rise all over the place. It’s shown in old maps via the ley lines events, but they seem to be showing it in new maps by degrees of unbound magic (and, sometimes, ley line events).

Originally, the Mystic Forge in LA was replaced with a snowglobe, which had miniaturized models of the jumping puzzle and snowball mayhem and bell choir. The maps in lore were literally inside that snowglobe. Toypocalypse and Tixx’s Infinitarium take place in… Tixx’s airship called ‘Infinitarium’.

These maps have nothing to do with the GW1 snowball arena which Amaimon talks about.

Mechanically, these maps are part of the Kryta region, I believe.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

This is only in regards to the Sylvari issue, it has been stated in game and by Anet that Sylvari are Mordremoth’s Minions.

Holy kitten man look at the age of a post before you respond to it. I know full well of every line you quoted. But you quoted a post of mine from before all that promotion.

electricwater.1572:

True that. I was just pointing out that not all plants = Mordremoth. They’re just a part of Tyrian nature.

And nowhere in the post of mine you quoted did I ever even imply that “all plants = Mordremmoth”.

Yeash, what a cluster this thread necro immediately turned into.

Amaimon.7823:

as BF said, one dragon minion cannot corrupt another dragon’s minions.

Says nothing ever.

Amaimon.7823:

This was already true because even before mordremoth awoke we knew that sylvari were immune to Zhaitan’s ressurections.

Which is outright stated during HoT promotions to be the Pale Tree’s doing, not because of the sylvari’s origins.

What was said, iirc, was that “norn can still be physically fit” at 120 years old.

macon.4065:

Having payed the original GW I don’t remember ever coming across any reference of a linage between Jora and Eir. As a matter of fact their really isn’t a resemblance to them and Jora was a remarkable individual in her own right.

There is no link between Eir and Jora. In fact, Jora’s descendant in GW2 is outright known: Jhavi Jorasdottir

Though she doesn’t play a role in the game, there’s speculation that she – along with Laranthir, Almorra, Efut, and Rodrigo, were to be the main characters of the original third book titled Crucible of Eternity that got scrapped in favor of Sea of Sorrows.

The reasoning behind this theory is that they’re all the big wigs of the Vigil, Laranthir mentions Almorra having gone through a dark time that she was helped with by Laranthir and friends, and the five match the same set up from Ghosts of Ascalon’s main group (and Destiny’s Edge) – one individual per player race.

In addition to being a leader within the Vigil, her name is brought up by the Vigil recruiters in Hoelbrak making her to sound like someone of great importance beyond just being a descendant of Jora.

Either way, Jhavi seems to be someone favored by the spirits as well, given her dialogue. And interestingly, her name makes it seem like she’s Jora’s daughter, rather than generations inbetween (which wouldn’t be surprising given that norn are known to be able to live over a century and Jora was often called young in GW1, IIRC).

Primordus never uses seismic activity though. There was the Great Destroyer causing some earthquakes, but that was all there was. No more earthquake causing than Kralkatorrik’s, Zhaitan’s, Jormag’s, or even Mordremoth’s awakening.

• Zhaitan was deprived of magic while he slept (done by the Six Gods), and the campaign against him was not exactly short. So even before we fought Zhaitan, he was already weaker than most Elder Dragons.
• While Mordremoth died about a month or so after taking out the Pact Fleet (and about a year after waking), this was by individuals used to fighting dragon minions, and we discovered (granted by dues ex machina means) Mordremoth’s weakness.
• Unlike previous cycles, magic isn’t hoarded by a select few races (per kodan in Bitterfrost Frontier, the only races to have magic in the last waking cycle were the very few who developed well, such as the five survivors – by the sound of it, though the kodan lived then, they had no magic).
• Similarly unlike the previous cycles, there was no(t a lot of) conventional technology which works without magic – meaning that the Elder Dragons could just eat up and the previous cycles’ races would be left with sticks and slingshots, effectively.
• Lastly, with the previous dragonrise, the races couldn’t cooperate. Yes, they had an alliance, but apparently they all had their own desires for how to go about it – much like the originally presented situation between the three Orders. But unlike the Orders who gave up their personal desires to follow Trahearne and the Pact Commander, the races of the previous cycle didn’t.

What Glint says is:

“Three hundred years ago, I welcomed heroes such as yourselves, hailing them as the Chosen who would destroy the titans and save the world. But did they remember? Did not the very heroes that I sent return to battle me again?”

There is no indication that they died, just that they returned.

Later she also says:

“But three hundred years ago, the dragons’ bellies were empty, and their minds were awakening. Three hundred years ago, the sons of men fought me before they understood that I was their ally.”

To me, this sounds like the never-made Elona arc for Beyond was going to bring us back to meet Glint, and introduce the Elder Dragon threat to the Order of Whispers (they knew, somehow, before all others did), rather than a nod to The Dragon’s Lair bonus objective.

Either way, no hint or mention of the GW1 heroes’ death.

I recall that Anet didn’t want to bring Beyond to cover the Foefire specifically because they wanted to leave the fate of the GW1 hero open ended, for players to decide for themselves what happens to their character, and covering the Foefire in GW1 would prevent such. So long as Anet keeps that viewpoint, we won’t learn what happened to the PCs from GW1 (I stand to believe that there were three, not one – one per campaign – as that makes the most sense given the starter missions and Young Heroes of Tyria ).

The DDR – or diaphanous diffraction randomizer – that Arkk created seems to be a tool specifically designed to “destabilize the fractals” based on his journals. I doubt it’s related to the rifts.

Given those journals, it seems that Mordremoth’s death may be what allowed Arkk to enter the Mists (he mentions an “inexplicable surge of potent magic”). He has Aetherblade shoulders, IIRC, so ties to the Aetherblades may not be exempted though I doubt that has to do with the debt since there are no Aetherblade asura beyond the one in TA Aetherpath and the elite crewmate in Mai Trin’s fractal (all others were Inquest).

There’s been no real (or rather, obvious) hints to what his goals are, just that he believes them to be of the utmost importance, but that’s fairly typical for asura.

Original depiction we were told:

This cavern was protected by terrible plant creatures, so he fled

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Movement_of_the_World#Sylvari

Not “monsters”. Just “terrible plant creatures”. Whether “terrible” refers to personality or appearance is, obviously, unknown.

There are things in lore that are unclear, but then there are things that are not clear.

Like how Zhaitan does not need to kill to corrupt. We see him corrupt living, multiple times. I’ve pointed this out to you in the past. You deny this, what we see, and say “he kills them then corrupts them” because “they’re called undead” (except they aren’t – they’re called risen and there’s a difference; the “undead” name is a misnomer).

Mordremoth does not solely – or even primarily – “generates” his corruption. Like Primordus, he primarlily – but not solely – corrupt the non-animals (in Primordus’ case, land and fire; in Mordremoth’s case, plants). We see this happen in Dry Top. And we know Mordremoth is capable of corrupting living beings, per the cited commented by Scott McGough.

In the end, we’ve seen cases where, effectively, every Elder Dragon corrupts the same things. But they chose to focus on one thing over another.

There are things that are unclear.

But you treat everything as if it’s unclear. And when the defined, clear things are presented to you, you deny them. You did this in your other threads, you’ve done it in this thread already.

My theory?

It’s either going to be that Primordus’ counter is, infact, Kralktorrik. I’d not guess on the reason (plant being the opposite of death is odd enough – let alone shadow being the opposite of mind), but leaks that are proving all too accurate as time goes pointed to expansion 2 dealing with Primordus and Kralkatorrik, rather than Primordus and Jormag, oddly enough.

Plus, with proximity being mentioned, that would likely mean Kralkatorrik ate the lion’s share of death and shadow magic when Zhaitan died.

Or, what I would prefer: Taimi’s theory is proven false. Because this would counteract HoT’s dues ex machina of “every Elder Dragon has a unique weakness” (opposite of the spectrum isn’t unique) and “Mordremoth’s unique weakness is fighting his mind directly”. The theory would have been devised purely to have us head to the new map, meet up with Braham, and show that Jormag too has gained new minions.

Given the heavy presence on the spirit of fire, I figured that the scroll effectively made the weapon enchanted akin to the braziers – imbued with sacred fire left by the spirit of fire when it left Tyria.

I doubt it has much – if anything – to do with Primordus. After all, what Taimi is theorizing is more that energy from the sphere of fire would be Jormag’s counter.

Of course, the idea that every Elder Dragon can counter another goes against HoT’s statement that “Every Elder Dragon has a specific weakness unique to them” in that its not so unique and Mordremoth’s was “killing the mind” since his power was that killing his physical body was pointless so long as any of his corruption existed due to his sphere of mind. So I’m suspecting (read: hopeful but not expecting) Taimi’s theory will be proven false, and the purpose of trying to prove it is just a plot convenience to get us into the north to meet up with Braham and show off that, yes, Jormag’s consumed some of that magic too but not as much due to proximity.

I also expect that Taimi’s theory will be flawed because otherwise it’d just be Anet catering to popular fan theories and wants (no different than killing Trahearne was).

Sock.2785:

@Konig Des Todes

It wasn’t my intention to mix threads here, nor was this intended in any way to be a continuation of anything – don’t make this personal, because I wasn’t.

Not going to respond to the rest of your post because you missed the main purpose of my short response in the first place – which is also why I’ve just stopped responding to you in other threads.

Even if I provide explicit evidence, even if that evidence is the developers themselves, you deny it, say it is wrong, and go about your own theories.

You completely took my citing Scott completely wrong, you took that as me citing the source for sylvari being dragon minions? Read my post again, and stop twisting words, and stop denying evidence that disagrees with you. I cited Scott about Mordremoth “only growing” – Scott explicitly states an example of when Mordremoth corrupts the living, rather than growing minions.

I wasn’t mixing threads, but you decided to anyways.

Harper.4173:

Bio Flame.4276:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Building off of old lore without retconing it.

I just had to login to say: auuuuch!

(I do agree 100% with you though)

Exactly that.
I would be honestly surprised if they could add old lore elements without ruining it somehow.

I would be INCREDIBLY surprised if they could capture the spirit and atmosphere of GW1 with their next expansion – at least lore-wise.

The irony is that, where kodan are involved, the new update did exactly that. It built off of Eye of the North (Egil Fireteller’s mention of the spirit of fire) and pre-release lore without counteracting it.

So yeah… I was surprised. And was thinking it to be the best release… then I did the second half of the story after getting into the zone.

Zhaitan’s magic doesn’t kill. But you wouldn’t listen to me in the other thread about this so I don’t see why you will here.

Mordremoth’s magic also replaces flesh. See this post by Scott McGough. We also see it corrupting plants in Dry Top (vine bridge area, when the mordrem event begins the vine bridges become mordrem-ified before going away). But hey, if you won’t listen to a developer stating sylvari are Mordremoth’s minions I don’t see you listening here either.

Nothing relates Kralkatorrik to chaos. Despite common argument for such. Everything that is “chaotic” about it is no different than the sky magic Zephyrites got from Glint, just hostile.

The skull in the OP can also be found in the SW pylon in AB and a few other places.

It reminded me of the GW1 giant skulls, but they’re all much smaller than those.

Griffon is also mentioned by Wintersday NPCs, particularly the “Festive Griffon Shaman” that appears in Hoelbrak (near where Tixx appeared in 2012), and iirc is mentioned to have liked the festivities of Wintersday.

As for “what a Spirit of the Wild is” – the kodan and norn seem to hold similar beliefs around them (and the kodan attest this to the story that norn are devolved kodan of the tribe that lost their Voice). And the kodan talk about the origin of all spirits, in a way. Presumably all Spirits of the Wild originate similarly.

I’ve always seen Urgoz and the “forest spirits” as well as Zhu Hanuku and the “sea spirits” that the Kurzick and Luxon talk about to be distant Spirits of the Wild. Seems likely to me.

I thought it was bloodstone during the trailer but given the story and whatnot I think it is firestones. Would explain why it’s not frozen in that cave like elsewhere.

As for why they worship the statue of Jora – I figured it was because grawl like worshiping statues. It’s nothing really new. Didn’t see anything about it though.

Personally, I think that’s more of Anet putting Caudecus and Canach on the bus (again). But I find it interesting he’d go there… why? It’s never really been presented as White Mantle friendly – we don’t know if Saul went there in peace or not, or if there was anything there beyond ruins. We had gotten so little information, and with the barren desolate look on the world map that matches the ring of fire minus volcanoes, it gets one wonder what is even there.

And why would Caudecus, when interested in the throne and finally making his move, retreat so far away?

And on another note: I noticed not a single person has carried on about Caudecus going to Janthir…

Now to respond to others…

Valmir.4590:

What I can’t understand is how did he learnt of the parchment used by Aesgir and why no other Norn ever tried to get it, to our knowledge ?

BuddhaKeks.4857:

It’s cool to finally get to know how Asgeir managed to knock that tooth out. I however wondered where that scroll came from and why have we never heard of it before? (or did we?)

The scroll is probably the best part of Braham. It’s a nod back to a rather obscure Priory-only dialogue in Hoelbrak:

Our superiors in the Priory have gotten it into their heads that the Grakk paintings hold a clue about the location of an ancient jotun scroll that talks about the Elder Dragons.

The Durmand Priory believes the scroll may have been in the possession of Asgeir when he came down from the mountains to this valley. It’s just a theory, though.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Talon_Bladedancer

Which matches where we found this scroll too. Right next to the cave is the hot springs with a ton of jotun monuments.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The boss figth… I don’t even know what was going on. I just saw another invincible boss and Braham asked me to get the scroll. Problem, there was no scroll. So I ran around looking for it. After a few minutes I climbed up the cliff trying to get a better view. Still no scroll. Waited another 1 or 2 minutes, suddenly all the ice elementals died and the scroll was there. I have no idea if I did anything, or if I was supposed to wait (but there is an achievement for doing it in under 5 minutes…). Maybe it was bugged, I have no idea. All I can say is, please no more invincible bosses, atleast not 3 in a row. 1 per episode is more than enough!

Boss’s charge attack kills minions. You kill minions around each pillar to remove it, scroll is in the last pillar you remove.

Terribly prepared for the fight. There’s really no way to tell until you see it happen by chance.

Slowpokeking.8720:

So it’s true. We are going to let the 2 dragons destroy each other? Why didn’t they think about it before?

If Taimi’s theory is right. We’ll see in E4. But there’s always the chance that fire doesn’t cancel out ice (which, tbh, would make sense because then every elementalist would lose their magic or explode when going from fire to water/ice).

Zephic.3075:

Technically, there is no Destiny’s Edge left to join. As pointed out in Episode 1 by Rytlock, Eir was the guild leader, Logan and Zojja are both out for the foreseeable future, which leaves… him and Caithe, who has wandered off to do her own thing.

Caithe isn’t off doing her own thing and never was – no more than Rytlock was. She remained around Tarir, only leaving to see the Grove, and what’s around Tarir?

• Best method to fight the Elder Dragons.
• Two injured members of DE.

If anything, Caithe is more a member of DE than Rytlock is.

I find it interesting, I don’t think we brought up the new guild to Caithe… I wonder what her reaction would be.

Squee.7829:

Koda are very obviously making comparisons between fire (or the spirit of fire, or whatever) and Aurene (for those who unlocked all the dialogue with the flame tender Koda)

Kodan*

But I didn’t see this at all. They relate it more to themselves – they see their own race dying just as the spirit of fire left the world so they want to ensure that some remnants of their culture and teachings remain, just as the spirit of fire left some sacred flames in the world.

I don’t see that relation to Aurene at all.

draxynnic.3719:

Slowpokeking.8720:

So it’s true. We are going to let the 2 dragons destroy each other? Why didn’t they think about it before?

You missed the part where Taimi clarified that she wasn’t thinking about actually getting the dragons to fight one another, and instead thinking about using their magics against one another, right?

Someone should tell the Pact Commander because getting them to fight directly is what the PC said to Braham.

• Returning to the Claw and Varonos was funny. The comment about the Svanir being annoyed over someone stealing them of elixer was great. Why? Because it goes back to the original writing and story style of Guild Wars, and part (not all) of what made it great. There are consequences for actions. And this needs to be shown more.
• Braham feels off. Like Caithe did in HoT. He feels too over the top. He hated his mother for years and it was bad enough that he got over that hatred when fighting alongside her one time. It feels like the entire reunion and Eir’s death was done just to make Braham even more irresponsible and hostile than before. The entire build up for Eir’s death was bad, but Braham now acting like this is worse.
  • That said, I fully agree with Braham about the guild situation. And i hope that Logan and Zojja come out of their comas and they, with Braham, Rox, and Caithe, continue Destiny’s Edge – and I hope that those three reel Braham in. This Dragon’s Watch thing was silly from the start and felt wrong.
    • That also said, Braham is wrong: we were a member of Destiny’s Edge, with Eir alive, and she welcomed us in. We not only reunited them, we killed an Elder Dragon with them. The ending of the personal story, where DE and the Commander walk through the gates of Fort Trinity, spelled out “we are Destiny’s Edge” not “we are Destiny’s Edge and the Pact Commander”. And in Season 2, the Pale Tree said we were part of DE too, IIRC.
  • The boss fight was chaotic. There was no prelude to any mechanic except for rocks falling from the sky (the one mechanic that was unnecessary) which is a first since Aetherpath. Until you figure out what you’re looking for, it’s nearly impossible to figure out all the tells. The fight wasn’t bad, the preparation for it was.
  • The final cimeatic was the most “meh” moment ever. It felt like the beginning of the third Hobbit where Smaug is killed within ten minutes. Where was the epic music? The cheer and roar of norn? Plus, it happened way too soon. Braham was just in the Bitterfrost Frontier, why and how did he get to Hoelbrak so soon. This should have been saved for the first instance of E4, where we show up in Hoelbrak to try to convince him that it’s not time yet.
  • And about convincing him… I wanted to slap both Braham and my character for that argument of “acting without thinking” versus “thinking costs too many lives” – rushing in without a plan would just result in more cases like Braham. He should take a note from Eir, who lost her father to icebrood, but never rushed off to her death against Jormag’s minions.
    I don’t think that he’s really caring about avenging his mother against a foe who didn’t kill her (seriously what is with that kind of argument that Braham ‘must kill Jormag, for Eir’), rather I think he’s looking for a way to die. That is what his actions and personalty change tells me. But the thing is there’s no kitten good reason for him to seek death gloriously, norn or not, in this form – that is, bringing hundreds to die with you.

Overall, I’d say open world content was the best so far of S3, but the main story was the worst. Bandwagon theory expo, here we come!

• First instance felt less like we were teaching a powerful but young dragon the ethics and moralities of civilization, and more like we were playing with/training a pet.
  • Edit: Also, seeing visions of Aurene now? Yup, we’re corrupted.
  • End of first instance: Really, send Primordus to fight Jormag because fire magic and ice magic will cancel? If this was the case, then shouldn’t every elementalist’s magic ever just go “poof” or “kaboom” given that they can – sometimes near simultaneously – use both fire magic and ice magic?
• New map felt great. I loved all the nods to old kodan lore and expanding on them. Even brought nods to the EotN mentioned spirit of fire. When I was going through the map, before I realized the below, I was having a blast. I was convinced at this point that this was the best release of S3, despite the first instance not being for me or the whole “Primordus versus Jormag” thing.
  • However, the layout of the map feels bad. Previously, where the forest is was water. Now that it isn’t, and the zone is landlocked by mountains, I have to ask: HOW THE HELL DID THE ICEBERG SHIPS GET TO FROSTGORGE!? Anet, you removed their sea access…. and made it a forest… and added another iceberg ship (full on land at that) in a similarly landlocked location…
  • I’m also confused as heck as to why we’re now calling the icebrood norn “Svanir” instead of, y’know, Icebrood.
• Svanir disguise was a too obvious rehash of the mursaat disguise and was horrid to lore. Icebrood have a hive mind, how the hell do we trick that, exactly?
• Dialogue after getting the elixer makes it seem like the leaks were real. Proximity affects how much magic a dragon can get – well, who was close to Zhaitan? Kralkatorrik. They both got more magic than Jormag did, it seems. Leak was going after Primordus + Kralkatorrik, not Jormag.
• Second instance, I loved the mechanics and the aesthetics, but there’s one problem..
  • Apparently, the opposite of “Death Magic” is not “Life Magic” but… plant.

Gonna stop the bullet points because this is pretty major…

First, last episode, we got Taimi “confirming” a bandwagon theory that Mordremoth ate Zhaitan’s powers.

Second, Taimi made the suggestion of doing the bandwagon outcry from players of how to deal with Primordus/Jormag – send them after each other. Not really a sound idea given the whole ‘they eat each others’ magic’ set up.

Third, we got confirmation of the old bandwagon theory that the great storm (no longer called such) was during the previous dragonrise.

And now, we got proof of another – illogical – bandwagon theory being confirmed, that death and plant magic cancel each other out.

Okay. So… That tells me one thing:

ArenaNet is not writing their own lore anymore. They’re just taking old popular theories and tossing them all in… even if they don’t make sense either alone or with each other.

I mean,why the hell would Mordremoth eat Zhaitan’s magic (and never show this) when Zhaitan’s magic cancels out Mordremoth’s magic and vise versa (which makes no sense – why would plant cancel out death?)?

Okay, rant interlude over, back to bullet points from going over the story: