Guild Wars 2

Two things:

A while ago, it was said that there were some regrets related to the personal story. One of these was that the professions weren’t more important/well introduced/explained in the story and that they hope to fix this with the revenant and specializations. I believe it was even said that unlocking elite specializations will be more story tied than unlocking skills, traits, etc. Something a bit on par to mastery unlocks.

The second was that so many people ended up playing the same personal story splits, so they want to avoid having additional story splits that restrict you from other storylines – instead as explained in this news post they’re making the choices more immediately impacting while making said instances replayable (like Season 2), thus while there’s no story split there’s many ways to go through each story step.

We already know that race will influence the story – with sylvari having the biggest change in the plot as they feel Mordremoth’s influence more directly – so I don’t see why professions and specializations won’t have a bigger influence. It’s just that if there is such, there won’t be a full storyline dedicated just to a profession/specialization like there was to having chosen the dead sister biography option.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The only thing you have slightly explained is that magic enters the planet through the Leylines and is then emanated out into the rest of the planet.

Which doesn’t seem to be true because all evidence points to the following:

• Magic cannot be destroyed, just change in shape and location.
• Magic is consumed – and then exuded – by the Elder Dragons – respectively to being awake (consume), and while asleep (exude).
• The ley lines are simply the “paths of least resistance” that magic flows. Given point 2, the origin of ley lines would be the Elder Dragons while they sleep.
• While there’s implication that the Mists have ley lines, this is neither confirmed nor likely related to the ley lines of Tyria (the latter, given points 1 and 2).

If magic were to be flowing into Tyria from the Mists, then there must be a means to remove it. But all evidence says that the only reason why magic may reduce in the world is because Elder Dragons (and lesser dragons) consume it. However, it is also known that they do not destroy magic but store it – and that when they sleep (or die) it returns to the world.

thunderfall.8095:

The Rift is the middle of the Mists. It says so in the wiki. It does not connect to everything, I think…

It does connect to everything:

“This place is known as the Rift, and there is nothing to which it does not connect, nothing that cannot be reached from inside it.”

From the Prophecies manual.

Obsidian, it’s typically pointless to discuss with you but I’ll say this:

Daniel was saying that all of those were canon, but that they’re canon in different universes. Parallel worlds.

However, the Tyria in GW2 is the same Tyria in GW1. No parallel universes, and no “this is canon this isn’t.” All of both games are canon – the question is which is objective truth and which is subjective truth.

Like Lindelle said, that’s pretty much the entire book. Well, the being formed part would be the first half of the book; the second half is time skips of them fighting 2 dragon champions, Kralkatorrik, and breaking up.

If you’re wanting to know the events of ~200 pages, you would be better off buying and reading the book yourself TBH.

Until/unless someone goes about making a story summary of the book. But given that such hasn’t happened yet, it’s unlikely to happen.

It’s possible that they’re as talkative as the Echo of Turai Ossa, however.

But it does seem that the legends are just spirits being channeled. Which makes Revenants full out ritualists in heavy armor and with martial arts mixed in. Which is far less interesting to me.

Chris Cleary.8017:

circuitnerd.5863:

Yes I hope a dev can update us on the situation as where it stands right now. I bought EOTN a couple weeks ago and was hoping to get the goodies, but alas “Content disabled try back later”

We’re close, seriously.

Can you explain how close utilizing the well-known ArenaNet measurement of “soon™”?

Is it one soon™, two soon™s, or half a soon™? Perhaps quarter of a soon™?

I think we need a conversion table for all these phrases.

Close, soon™, when it’s ready™, and on the table. How much of each is how much of the others? :x

They weren’t in Brisban Wildlands but further west, and the Maguuma Jungle drying up is what drove them out (along with an alliance with the Modniir – shiverpeak centaurs – which we see the earliest signs of in Prophecies – specifically The Wilds bonus mission). It’s also a well-established piece of lore from the days of Prophecies that centaurs and humans were at odds to each other for a long time (Ventari being a veteran of the human-centaur conflict which was at a low point during GW1 as the focus was on other plots, e.g., undead and White Mantle).

Okay, but why are they now so determined to take Kryta compared to other places? Why did the Harathi abandon Maguuma? Why did the Shiverpeak centaurs abandon Lornar’s and Wayfarer’s?

1. Kryta was originally theirs. Asking why theyr’e so determined to take it is like why Jews were so determined to return to Israel. Furthermore, Kryta is the only land which can support the centaur race because…
2. Because the Maguuma is now an arid wasteland and cannot support their numbers anylonger. Just go to Silverwastes – once called Silverwood, and the main land of the Harathi.
3. Because Jormag’s been pushing the Modniir south, just like he did the kodan, quaggan, and norn. And they weren’t in Lornar’s Pass before – they were in the modern equivalent of Snowden Drifts, northern Wayfarer’s, and eastern Frostgorge Forge (and further north than we can explore). When they were pushed south by Jormag, they were also pushed westward because norn took the eastern 80% of the Shiverpeaks.

Also, there is conflict between centaurs and norn – it’s just not so highlighted as the human-centaur (in fact, it’s barely brought up – originally, you could only find such mention in three locations, one of which being the personal story for norn who chose lost a fight; with Fort Salma destroyed, one of those mentions is gone, however; the third is the centaur presence in Snowden Drifts). Centaurs hate humans more than they hate norn – as only the Modniir have a problem with the norn, not the Harathi or Tamini.

It’s really hard to tell because the Flame Legion have a religious group, the remnants of the Shaman Caste, that are led by Hierophant Improaster that we kill during CoF story. We don’t know if the Shaman Caste adheres to the standard warband structure. Same with their elite units – the Godforged.

Furthermore, they enslave their women without putting them into warbands or letting them fight – which means that they have a population that don’t adhere to the same structure as the other half and legions.

Then there’s the complete unknown of how many tribunes they have (we know of 2), and then there’s the fact that post-Gaheron’s death the Flame Legion splintered into at least three factions (each CoF explorable path) if not more (Molten Alliance group).

And finally, the Flame Legion’s primary means of expanding their numbers is recruiting from the other legions – those who are power hungry, the spellcasters tired of being shunned by others, etc. – in an attempt to both bolster their own numbers and lower their enemies’. Which results in an unstable number of troops under the leaders’ commands.

When we saw tengu in GW1, there were five known tengu clans: Sensali and Angchu from Cantha, Avacari from the Southern Shiverpeaks, Quetzal from the Tarnished Coast and Woodland Cascades, and Caromi from Kryta.

However, tengu in GW2 state that they had people all across the globe – including in Elona which we didn’t see (note: there was concept art for black and dark brown vulture-like tengu in Nightfall). When Zhaitan rose and caused the Great Tsunami, the tengu people saw that as a sign to migrate to Kryta (why? unclear).

So the tengu of Cantha were actually a small number of the tengu. Which is odd that there’s such a heavy Canthan association with them (both by players and the game).

Technically the Krytan Civil War ended in 1079 AE with the official defeat of the White Mantle, however conflicts continued until 1088 AE.

The hylek, krait, etc. collections are basic collections, while this one is a rare collection. It offers more AP, better rewards, and takes more to complete it.

So it takes more to unlock them.

Just be happy it isn’t such a rare drop and account bound – like Tequatl’s Hoard.

Originally, Mordrem Wolves gave retaliation.

But this was apparently “too tough” and it got nerfed to swiftness. Too tough to bring boon removal or heal through retaliation.

Vile Thrashers were also invulnerable if hit in front of them while they spun. But this was changed too. Guess that was “too tough”. Too tough to position yourself behind them as they spin towards you.

And now they claim to be bringing out challenging content? Right, how long until that gets nerfed because it’s “too tough”?

@Valnir: Minotaur didn’t fight Jormag. You’re thinking of Ox (aka Dolyak).

@OP: We don’t really know the origins of the Spirits of the Wild. But if we look at the kodan belief and other nature and animal based spirits (Zhu Hanuku, Urgoz, potentially Ameyalli and Zintl), it becomes possible that these all are of the same kind of being and originate from Tyria, not the Mists, but do have ties to the Mists; but age becomes unknown (the kodan would place them as the earliest things on Tyria).

Alternatively, the notion that they are from other worlds – like the Six Gods were – isn’t improbable.

Earlier today I was running through the Durmand Priory to Fort Trinity and I heard some dialogue I’ve heard several times ago, but today something clicked in my mind about it. Here is the dialogue:

Priory Novice (human): What brought you to the Priory?
Priory Novice (sylvari): In my Dream, I saw dragons, and a spire of light drove them off.
Priory Novice (human): You really think we can defeat them? Do you really believe we can reclaim our world?
Priory Novice (sylvari): Maybe, but there may be too much that even time cannot erase.

You can find these two (well, the sylvari patrols) near the ramp that leads to the refuge camp. Literally hidden by the thing. This has always been in the game, but it didn’t really trigger anything until recently. It’s the sylvari’s first line, about her Dream, that is most curious to me.

In Arah explorable, Forgotten path, the ritual to give a dragon minion free will results in pillars of light.

In Season 2’s final instance, divine fire – related to the Forgotten – causes the mordrem to flee.

Truthfully, ever since Season 2’s finale, I had been wondering about the nature of divine magic (held by the Six Gods and Forgotten – possibly what powers the Foefire and thus explaining why Foefire ghosts weren’t affected by Kralkatorrik or why Ghostfire burns risen and sylvari exceptionally well) and dragon corruption and how they seem incompatible to the point of immunity with each other (or rather, Forgotten magic is immune to dragon corruption, and divine fire causes harm to dragon minions).

If the Foefire is related to divine magic – and it resulted in a spire of light and white fire – and if the Forgotten ritual is powered by divine magic like Ascension…

Could this line be hinting at the conclusion of the Elder Dragon arc? Using the power of the gods (divine magic) to defeat the Elder Dragons for good?

What bothers me so much about lore is that there’s so much kitten inconsistency that just continues to grow, and while there was some with the personal story and open world (which Anet has recently acknowledged and regrets), the vast majority of it comes from the Living World’s “stories”.

Bathos.6341:

You clearly need to look at that lore more closely.

I can say the same to you.

Yes, the charr owned Ascalon before humans, but they conquered Ascalon and, as you put it, ethnically cleansed the entire region. No different than the humans – in fact, they were arguably worse because humans left grawl to live there, while charr enslaved them. There were also dwarves – such as Kathandrax Steelsoul – who fought the charr invasion, and an abandoned dwarven town beneath eastern Ascalon (mentioned in Edge of Destiny novel) that implies that the dwarves lived in Ascalon and the now-called Blood Legion Homelands before the charr invaded from the east.

Furthermore, the human kingdom existed for 1,100 years, whereas the charr rule didn’t even last a generation (the first Khan-Ur being the cause of the advancement of charr society, and the chaos of his death being the reason why charr were pushed back).

Bathos.6341:

The charr were a bronze age tribal society back then, you can’t just double the population in their remaining territory.

If you think that Ascalon and the Blood Legion Homelands are the only lands that they own, you don’t know jack about charr lore. The Blood Citadel (home to the Blood Legion and Blood Imperator Bangar Ruinbringer) is east of the Blazeridge Mountains – not north of Ascalon.

It would be closer to say that a quarter of the population (if that) got shoved into another quarter of their conquered lands.

And given the state of the so-called Blood Legion Homelands in GW1, that did not really affect them nearly as much as you claim.

Bathos.6341:

The charr didn’t attack ascalon out of malace, they attacked it to take back land taken from them, and to avenge an entire GENERATION of their people massacred by humans.

No, the charr attacked Ascalon to reconquer a land they took from others. Basically, they did the same thing twice: conquer and kill/enslave its inhabitants (and yes, charr did enslave humans – and, supposedly, ate them).

Bathos.6341:

Yeah, driven on by the flame legion. Even the charr think the flame legion were out of line there.

Explains why the person who caused the Searing, Bonfaaz Burntfur, is praised as a charr hero who fought and fell the evil human tyrant Prince Rurik.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quora_Sorrowmuzzle

Not exactly accurate to what truly happened. And proves that the Iron Legion does not condemn the actions Flame Legion led the others to do against the humans.

Malkavian.4516:

If there is one thing that annoys me the most out of this lore is Faolain herself. From what I understood in the TA story, she didn’t start out evil. Yet, in the Living Story, it seems that she was rotten from the start. Granted, she does care about the saplings that were captured by the asura at the time, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to warrant some likeability. I keep questioning myself: “What does Caithe see in Faolain that makes her girlfriend material?”

Yeah, the Living World really kittened over Faolain. In the novels and Twilight Arbor, it’s heavily implied – if not outright stated – that Faolain was a good person until she fell to Nightmare. And the thing is, she didn’t fully fall to Nightmare until well after the Nightmare Court’s establishment, nor did she relate to the Court’s rise (Caithe, however, did), however the flashbacks of Season 2 and Caithe’s dialogue at the end outright states that Faolain had a han in the Nightmare Court’s establishment.

XsWalrus.4371:

3. It’s only recently they’ve been brought to the surface, so it’s likely the idea of trying to use artificial sunlight to grow plants would be relatively new to the species. Also, becoming omnivores doesn’t happen overnight with any species.

Little known fact: the asura were on the surface centuries prior to GW1. From the Eye of the North manual:

It has been centuries since Asura were seen aboveground. In fact, until recently, many humans thought they were a myth. However, recent reports have confirmed their existence.

Blood Legion is said to be the largest Legion (which makes sense given the known size of Blood Legion lands being larger than Iron Legion lands), so I would argue 8 to 10 Tribunes. If we presume the same warband and company sizes as Iron, that places Blood Legion at having approximately 24,000 to 30,000 soldiers.

Given the stealth nature of Ash Legion, I’d argue that their average warband size is smaller – even though Maul calls his warband of 9 small, I’d say this is probably close to average for Ash; the most prominent Ash Warband in GW2, the Scorch Warband aka Kalla’s Killers, only has 7 known members and they’re an elite warband who took in a Flame Legion prisoner. As such, let’s say for simplicity in calculations, the average is 10 soldiers per warband. If we presume company size remains the same as the other two legions, this makes 110 soldiers per company/centurion. Above, I considered Korrak’s 300 to be a large company compared to the supposed number I got for other centurions which was roughly half that. Continuing that equation, then Ash Legion companies can be approximated to 100 to 200 soldiers. If a tribune’s command is double the maximum size of a primus centurion’s command, that makes 2,000 soldiers per Ash Legion Tribune. We see 2 Tribunes in the Black Citadel (standard for all legions), and 1 in the Flame Legion front lines (NOTE: I find it highly weird that two Tribunes share the same warband name and are in the same battlefront when lore states that a single tribune commands a single battlefront – I consider one of the two is a typo and should be Centurion or Legionnaire, as we have other examples of a Legionnaire in the same warband as a Tribune). It would seem weird for the Ash Legion to send out the majority or even half of their troops elsewhere; as such, I’d argue that Ash has 7-8 Tribunes.

That would place Ash at approximately 14,000 to 16,000 soldiers.

TL;DR
I estimate the following sizes for the allied High Legions:

• Ash: Approximately 15,000 Charr
• Iron: Approximately 18,000 Charr
• Blood: Approximately 27,000 Charr
• Total: Approximately 75,000 Charr

This does not include Sentinels, Renegades, Gladium, Lion’s Arch charr, or Flame Legion

Another piece of information about charr numbers:

Maul Shadowharm of the Ash Legion says his warband of 9 is small. So while warbands tend to be 5-15 per Legions of the Charr, the median is not the average but rather still considered “small”. So most warbands are likely to have 15-20 members (I recall Ghosts of Ascalon stating twenty or twenty-some as the average number of charr in a warband, actually), rather than 5-15 – and if 15 is some “absolute” for the standard high number, then most warbands are likely 12-15 solders, and not averaging in 10 soldiers (which is the median, not average).

As for warband numbers…. Murethor’s list is 100% Iron Legion, which gives us a good chance at figuring out their numbers. From said list:

• We have 4 centurions with warband numbers listed: 2, 6, 12 (with 2 pending), and 13. We also have one with just soldiers listed: 300.
• I’d say that Harrow was likely leading other warbands – it’s just that 2 were on the ship. Either way, however, he was doing a special assignment, so that 2 is likely unusually low. This will skew results unless we omit him.
• Korrak leads 300 soldiers, but wasn’t a Primus Centurion (he had Legionnaires, not centurions, reporting to him). So 300 is the only stable number we have for what a Centurion leads…

There’s something important to fix for what the OP mentioned:

The wiki states that a primus centurion controls 3-5 large companies, which is stated to be a “sizeable amount” of a tribune’s forces. I’d argue that this means that a tribune controls 15 companies, as 33% of something could generally be considered a sizeable amount.

The wiki does not state that the primus centurion controls a sizeable amount of a tribune’s forces, but rather that the primus centurion’s forces are a sizeable amount of soldiers. To quote the full line, as it becomes highly important in my further calculations:

A legion rarely has more than ten tribunes, and this office oversees an entire theatre of war or large swath of controlled territory. Beneath the tribunes are centurions. Each centurion commands a number of warbands (a “company”) and coordinates maneuvers on a broad scale within the tribune’s authority. In areas where multiple centurions are coordinating, a primus centurion might be appointed—the “first among equals” of the centurions. The primus centurion leads an active assault force of 3-5 large companies; this is smaller than the numbers encompassed by the tribune’s authority, but still sizeable.

Here’s what’s important to denote from this list:

• While a legion rarely has more than 10 Tribunes, they can. Each Tribune focuses on a single war front.
• A “company” in the context of the charr simply equates “a number of warbands” thus the 60-150 soldier number that the OP gave is null and void – completely irrelevant.
• A Primus Centurion will lead 3-5 large companies, meaning two things: 1) he will have 2-4 centurions working under him, and 2) all 3-5 centurion’s companies will be considered larger than the average.

Now to figure out Iron Legion numbers…

The average of the four centurions we have is 11 if we remove Harrow, so using this as an average for how many warbands are under a Centurion, and using 15 as an average for warband size (as 9 is “small” and warbands are known to go to 20), this becomes 165 soldiers per Centurion. This is oddly half of what Korrak leads, indicating that he led an unusually large company – likely under a Primus Centurion. Thus giving us an approximation of 150 (small) to 300 (large) as a company size – with a Primus Centurion thus leading 600-1,500 soldiers.

The big question is how many centurions serve under a Tribune – we know a single Tribune runs a battlefront, and that a Primus Centurion naturally leads less than a Tribune, but nothing more than that. However, it would make sense for at least two Primus Centurions to be able to serve under a Tribune. That means that minimally, we can expect around 3,000 soldiers per Tribune. Going with that number, and the Iron Legion’s 6 Tribunes, we’d have an estimated 18,000 soldiers in the Iron Legion.

Risen are a bit odd overall with their grunts – those that were of the sapient races (charr, human, krait, etc.) hold more average intelligence than other dragon minions seem to, but those those that were wildlife, etc. appear as smart as other dragon minions’ average grunt (read: nigh mindless).

And I just remember that some branded were tricked by an illusion in Edge of Destiny. So the friend/foe mechanism may not relate to all dragon minions but just destroyer/icebrood/possibly mordrem. Still all dragon minions have some sort of mental connection to their dragon and its champions – Kralkatorrik controlled its minions via telepathy in Edge of Destiny, and the Pale Tree states that Zhaitan knows all its minions know, at least upon the point of corruption (and this seems to extend to all other dragons and their minions).

TBH, there’s a lot of back-and-forth with the lore of GW2. This is just one of them.

This is the situation for all Elder Dragons as best we can tell:

• They all have some sort of mental link to each other (Dragon to all minions and minions to each other) which is how they differentiate friend from foe (no link = foe). Some think of this link like a hive mind, but it isn’t entirely clear.
• The standard minion are mindless – or near mindless depending on dragon – grunts. More powerful minions, the champions, have a level of autonomy to them however – this includes personality and ability to make their own choice.
• No dragon minion – champion or mindless grunt – has free will. The enslavement/removal of free will is part of dragon corruption.
• However, there is a Forgotten ritual known to return one’s free will (they forced Glint to undergo this ritual, and some players suspect that the Pale Tree and Malcyk’s Tree was put under the ritual too while seeds).

It’s less of “some bandits are White Mantle cultists” and more of “the bandits, which at first appear to be highly disorganized and separate groups of individuals raiding Kryta, are actually a highly organized and mostly-united organization that is being puppeteered and financially backed by the White Mantle and certain Ministry members (Zamon and by bandit claim, Caudecus) who may or may not be White Mantle members themselves”.

Most bandits don’t seem to realize who their leaders are truly working for – and the White Mantle’s tendrils seem to reach even into the street gangs of Divinity’s Reach poorer districts (Two-Blade Pete using a hideout that bandits use which has what appears to be a neo-White Mantle symbol).

ColinJohanson.2394:

Simply put: we haven’t announced it yet – when we’re ready to show everything about our plans for challenging content for HoT, we’ll announce it.

Though it isn’t the “challenging content” feature discussed in our announcement – I will add we want our open world content experience to be more challenging as well just in general. Though the AI was better in our CBT experience – we think we still have a lot of work to do to get our creatures and encounters even at the start of Verdant Brink up to where we want them to be. Our game has great combat, our creatures and encounters should challenge and require you to use that combat system.

More info “when it’s ready”.

What I want to know is if this “open world content experience” that’ll be more challenging gets added retroactively to core content. Because that’s in dire need of improvement.

I know you guys don’t like improving old content much and prefer focusing on making new things but… it’s kind of needed.

Just like Season 1 is needed for any player who missed that content – the number of times I’ve seen ‘new’ players (I use quotation marks because they’re not all that new anymore) wondering wtf happened between the PS and S2, who the biconics are, why they’re ‘the boss’ and so forth is staggering and the amount is only increasing.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Overgrown_Wolf

That is all.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Many of them were turned against their will. It has the power to do so.

Source please. Because I looked earlier and there was no such statement in any scenario discussed in this thread except for ONE – Honor’s Voice.

And, again, Honor’s Voice was corrupted by indirect means. And, again, Jormag prefers corrupting the willing – nothing ever said he’s incapable of corrupting the unwilling.

To put it in comparative terms: Jormag is to corrupting the willing as Zhaitan is to corrupting the dead as Primordus is to corrupting stone and lava.

They are capable of more, but 90% of their minions are of a specific make.

Slowpokeking.8720:

I post the quote from the book, it’s clear that the mental power of the Dragonspawn was gone.

Having just re-read the section and all of your posts, you did not. Allow me to quote for you:

“The shaman’s mesmeric mind, which once filled the cavern and drowned out all other minds, suddenly imploded.
The mental onslaught ceased.
Eir and the others could think again.
The Dragonspawn was cut off from every mind in the chamber— cut off even from the mind of its master.
The marching armies faltered. A thousand ice warriors halted. They had obeyed the Dragonspawn because it was the champion of their lord. Now, it was only a terrible, foreign power in their midst. They turned from Eir and her comrades and turned on the Dragonspawn.”

Later on, going for pages, it explains that the Dragonspawn fought back, overpowered the thousand icebrood, and became a blizzard using Jormag’s power. It retained its power, but was merely cut off from entering the minds of others – including its ties to Jormag – as I’ve been saying.

Adelbern was still descended from King Doric, however. It’s just that he wasn’t next in line. I’m sure that if Barradin – and probably quite a few others – died he would have been crowned regardless.

sarahgogo.1347:

It was to be expected when Modremoth dies and if he dies, the whole sylvari race will as well.

Why would this be so? The risen continue even though Zhaitan’s dead, and they also continue spreading corruption (see Arah explorable and Tequatl Rising) though it’s a losing battle for them, mostly.

sarahgogo.1347:

I would probably say they scatter after the fall of the Pact. Eir would be alone while Logan and Zojja would be somewhere together. Trahearne would be far from them since he was on a different ship.

Trahearne, Logan, Eir, and Zojja were all on the same ship – The Glory of Tyria, the Pact’s flagship – actually. In the cinematic end of Season 2/the preview for HoT, we see all four falling from said ship. In the first beta we also found dialogue stating that all four had been captured by Mordrem for unclear reasons (given the corpse-like state of mordrem wolves and trolls, it may be that preparations are needed to corrupt non-plant beings for Mordremoth).

sarahgogo.1347:

At the end of scene after Killing the shadow of Modremoth, we saw Sylvari turning against the Pact, throwing bombs like Bandits and all fighting the other races, they went mad but a sylvari was not affected by it. Faolain seems okay. So I’m guessing that only the Firstborn has no affect towards the Modremoth hypnotism or control, OR because the opposing forces, Nightmare Court did not fight Elder dragon, instead are already following Modremoth orders from the start.

How do you gather that Faolain was okay? She was amongst the fighting between sylvari, mordrem, and the races. And killing a human at that.

I’m doubtful that the Nightmare Court are under Mordremoth’s influence – why? During pre-release lore, we were told that the Nightmare Courtiers also fight the Elder Dragons. Unfortunately this wasn’t shown in-game, but that makes them like standard sylvari – the only dragon minions known to fight other dragon minions. Furthermore, a few weeks ago it was said that Mordremoth sends his influence to sylvari via the Dream’s Wyld Hunts and the Nightmare’s equivilant: Dark Hunts. If he has to send influence via the loophole in the protection made by Wyld Hunts and do the same for Dark Hunts, that implies Nightmare is not Mordremoth’s influence.

@lordkrall and Dark Saviour: Actually, very little of the ruins are gone compared to the start of GW2. People only thought they were destroyed because they were hidden beneath the wreckage of the Breachmaker.

Slowpokeking.8720:

It can corrupt people forcefully.

Define what you refer to by “it”. Do you mean Jormag? Yes. It can. But it does not seem to prefer to – most icebrood show acts of either corrupting corpses or making one vocally want corruption (this could be, as I said, either forced desire (what Dragonspawn did to Zojja), trickery and promises (what Drakkar did to Svanir), or simply the individual’s own will (most Sons of Svanir)).

It can but it doesn’t usually corrupt forcefully. Just like Zhaitan can but doesn’t usually corrupt living beings; or Primordus can but doesn’t usually corrupt lifeforms.

Slowpokeking.8720:

The Dragonspawn lost its strongest ability: mental corruption.

Nope. You need to read/re-read Edge of Destiny. The only thing that happened was that its mental connection to Jormag and the icebrood horde was blocked, causing the icebrood to see it as a stranger and turn on it. As seen in the novel, the Dragonspawn kept all its power and was winning over the hundreds upon hundreds of icebrood that was attacking it – it would have won, in fact, if Snaff and Eir had not stepped in to hinder it (which in turn caused the cave they were in to collapse, and begin a small blizzard).

Slowpokeking.8720:

lordkrall.7241:

Are there any actual proof that it could corrupt people forcefully though? As far as I recall we never had any point of view character that got corrupted therefore we have no real confirmation about if it can force the corruption or not.

Dragonspawn’s minions

The Quaggans in the Bad Ice storyline

The Voice in HoW dungeon

Only the Voice was known to be corrupted against their will. And as I’ve said before, the Sons of Svanir bypass Jormag’s preference – Kodan’s Bane was a Son of Svanir, not an icebrood (until the very end that is) and as such does not act to Jormag’s actual will – just his own interpretation of Jormag’s will.

We’ve never saw the Dragonspawn’s minions during or pre corruption. And the quaggans in the Bad Ice storyline – only one of them showed not wanting to be corrupted, and it was sick not corrupted.

lordkrall.7241:

None of those gives any sort of proof whatsoever that they did not willingly submit to the corruption as far as I am aware.

Honor’s Voice does deny Jormag up until she’s turned, however as I’ve been saying the Sons of Svanir – such as Kodan’s Bane, Hunstman of Jormag which corrupted the Honor’s Voice – does not adhere to the Elder Dragon’s will and preference, just their interpretation of Jormag’s will and preference. This is why Sons of Svanir will kill any female norn who were corrupted into icebrood – Jormag will corrupt all who seek his power, but the Sons of Svanir will forcefully corrupt or kill some of the corrupted, and Jormag just doesn’t care what the Sons do.

This is a relevant interview

• Prefering to corrupt willing subjects is not a mental power, it’s a personal preference.
• No, it relates to the hive mind nature of dragon minions and champions. The Dragonspawn had all of its power still after the mental connection to Jormag was severed.
• Power, no. Connection, yes.

What a net did was basically block WiFi connection between a server (Jormag) and a desktop (Dragonspawn). Not the best comparisons but close enough to hopefully get my point across. The Dragonspawn lost 0 power and capabilities, it merely couldn’t communicate with the rest and was thus mistaken as a stranger by the other icebrood – this is why the Dragonsoawn was nearly winning against that horde of icebrood.

First off, Jormag doesn’t do mind corruption. What he does is corrupt the willing – but with the loopholes of forcefully making others willing (what the Dragonspawn tried to do to Destiny’s Edge) or Sons of Svanir not obeying this order of Jormag (what Koda’s Bane does to the Honor’s Voice). The theme for Jormag is to trick/convince/force beings into serving him willingly, then corrupting – but the corruption isn’t necessarily mental.

Destiny’s Edge severing the Dragonspawn’s link to Jormag is unrelated to Jormag’s corruptive abilities or the Dragonspawn’s mental abilities. They were greatly outnumbered and tossing the gray powerstone dust onto the Dragonspawn was a means to make enemy fight enemy to improve their position (and a bit of a dues ex machina like how Destiny’s Edge killed all dragon champions).

The Sons of Svanir – and Koda’s Bane – don’t use any mental influence but directly channel Jormag’s corruptive energies into the victims (which is why the shamans become icebrood over time as well – they’re acting as conduits for bypassing Jormag’s methodology). How they make icebrood is similarly different from the methods of Jormag’s champions.

I don’t recall any corrupted quaggans in the quaggan storyline; but it’s been a while since I did that while paying attention. But why wouldn’t it be able to corrupt many quaggans – it’d be no different than a powerful Branded corrupting others, etc.

Pyrial, that family tree is fan-made and created based on player knowledge. We don’t know where Wade ties into the family tree, in all honesty, so it’s possible that he comes from Barradin (though not Adelbern unless it was kept secret for some unknown-to-us-reason).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vekk%27s_Thesis – though due to a lore discrepancy oversight, it either was or will be renamed to be named after a different asura (said discrepancy being that he wouldn’t have known about what the book talks about)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Old_Pillar – mentions Vekk

Anothing thing to keep in mind is that there’s more to the charr’s population than the military. While “all” charr serve the legions, not all are militant – you have the traders and questors and primuses, etc. to consider, and it’s possible that they might not have been included in the figures Anet presented.

Furthermore, taking rl numbers of companies for what’s under a centurion is hard to argue because the charr have a different structure beneath platoons (warbands) which throws a wrench into the equation as how the chain of command functions becomes questionable.

On the closeness of the three kingdoms’ royalty:

GuildMag (Thalador): That makes sense. Although Queen Jennah has a rightful claim to the throne through the bloodline of King Doric. So what about that?

ArenaNet (Ree) : I think that when the prince who left Orr to establish Kryta, when he went to do that, by doing that he – I want to say he completely left the claim to the Orrian throne, and he certainly has a bloodline to it. But I think that the distance between the two thrones is going to be too disparate for her to just step up and say ‘I own that.’

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : And I think Kryta has their hands full.

ArenaNet (Ree Soesbee) : Well that’s certainly true. She could say it but couldn’t necessarily back it.

ArenaNet (Jeff) : Basically, they could claim Orr if they wanted but it’s not going to happen. They have just been emerging from fighting over Ebonhawke forever. And basically this is a long, long-distant claim operation that it’ll just create havoc. Do they really want another venture like that?

ArenaNet (Scott McGough) : And I think the distance is a key factor in that. I think it’s far more immediate for the government of Kryta to sort things out with the charr – with the Black Citadel. With Ebonhawke, with the Claw of the Khan-Ur, there’s peace treaties, there’s negotiations in motion. I think this is the first and most important and most achievable step to peace they could take, that Orr is secondary on their doorstep.

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : And even though you have asura gates as being an instantaneous means to go from Divinity’s Reach to Ebonhawke very easily, they can basically set up something to get to Orr without going to Lion’s Arch. It’s still that, there’s the immediacy of problems right outside your gate versus of on the other side of the continent.

ArenaNet (Scott McGough) : And we’ve seen in the novel and the game that the peace process between the charr and the humans is making progress. I think their first priority is to finish that as best they can before getting into Orr.

ArenaNet (Ree Soesbee) : And there are also some implications in Guild Wars one when you get into the stuff with Vizier Khilbron and so forth, there are survivors of Orr. There are people who got away when the continent sunk. You’d need to look into those to see if any of those were move closely related to the throne because they might have a better claim. Not necessarily that they can pull it off-

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : A secret heir lost off-end.

ArenaNet (Ree Soesbee) : Yeah a secret heir, a lord of Orr, because like I said, the queen’s descendency dates back to the first king of Kryta. But that is not necessarily as close to the throne as someone who’s great-grandfather was king.

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : And Salma was a revealed ruler as well. They had lost the entire Krytan house. And then they found her, and therefore that’s a step as well.

http://guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm

Also to note: Jennah is not only Queen of Kryta, but Regent of Ascalon (source: Edge of Destiny, various letters to Logan she signed as Queen of Kryta, Regent of Ascalon).

Slowpokeking.8720:

I don’t see how could such a massive army follow its order if they couldn’t even feel Zhaitan’s existence through the connection. At least the champions much have a connection with it to spread the will.

Technically, the “massive army” doesn’t follow its order.

Most minions are mindless wanderers who just act how they act and will kill anything that isn’t a minion that it sees.

The champions are said, however, to interpret Zhaitan’s will and then organize the lesser minions (the term “bully” was used). So it isn’t that the “massive army” is following Zhaitan’s orders, but the champions are and the massive army are merely following the champions’ orders.

As to the original question, I would argue that it’s likely that the way that dragon corruption brainwashing works is that rather than instilling a continuous connection between dragon and minion, it creates an imprint of the dragon’s desires and will into the minions. Thus the minions know what Zhaitan wants and demands, but only those which have thought, e.g., the champions, are able to act upon such (whereas the rest is just a general ‘serve Zhaitan, feed Zhaitan, provide Zhaitan’ mentality without actually actively doing such).

Alternatively, it could be that Zhaitan’s ‘essence’ left the body upon its death and went elsewhere – e.g., Tequatl – and thus while Zhaitan was killed it still lives (e.g., the archedmons of Dragon Age and how their spirits just go into a new darkspawn body upon death if not killed by a Gray Warden).

Slowpokeking.8720:

At least the grand direction obviously was given by the dragon. If it’s a massive hivemind, then it should have collapsed when its core was gone, I don’t see why are they still so organized.

Not necessarily. There are two types of “massive hiveminds” in literature:

• Those which have a core, which you speak of. In such cases, there’s really only one mind, and the original body (in this case, Zhaitan) houses the mind itself – the other bodies are just extensions. Here, the core functions like a server connecting to other devices and controlling said other devices. In this situation, destroy the core and the rest becomes inopt – this is the most common form of hiveminds used in literature just because that provides a direct way to end the threat in the plot.
• The other is where the mind is in all bodies; there is no core, no ‘server.’ If you kill what appears to be the main body, the rest still function and all you really did was kill the strongest body.

The only collapsing we see happening is when champions are killed, making them “subservers” so to speak. But here’s a question: What if the Elder Dragon is just a more powerful subserver for the hivemind that is the dragon’s corruption? Alternatively, what if the Elder Dragon can transfer its essence into a subserver?

But as Aaron said, it’s all speculation at this point due to the sheer lack of information – what Anet passes as “mystery” nowadays (well, okay, this piece is done well for a mystery).

When going into more depth on the revenant, Anet said that they regretted not going into the lore of the professions and intend to make up for that with the revenant and the specializations.

And they’ve been going over the designer’s outlook – at least a bit – with each reveal during the Hidden Arcana segments that accompany each reveal. (Edit: except the Dragonhunter, it seems)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hidden-arcana-creating-the-chronomancer/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hidden-arcana-developer-spotlight-on-lee-bledsoe/

For lore, the druid specialization is stated to be coming from the original druid group of GW1 – humans hailing from Kryta who left civilization for the Maguuma Jungle to safeguard nature. Rumored to be followers of Melandru, about a century prior to GW1 they disappeared – revealed to be that they shed their human form to take on treant appearances with the ability to have their soul leave their ‘husk’ bodies so that they could be closer to nature.

Dott.5672:

Ash is likely the smallest. They have four known tribunes in Ascalon, and I’d assume they kept at least one back at home, so let’s say they have five tribunes in total, netting them 11,250 soldiers.

I can’t imagine that Ash would have all but one tribune in Ascalon, tbh, and none in the Blood Legion Homelands. I’d imagine 1 in Blood lands and 2-3 in Ash lands. I just can’t imagine Ash or Blood sending in half – or more than half – of their forces to Ascalon. Even if that’s the main area of conflict (Flame, Branded, Ogres, Ghosts, and formerly, Humans), and even though two of the Ash tribunes (if their names aren’t mistakes – it seems weird for two tribunes to be in the same warband, operating in the same location with the same task of taking down the Flame Legion) aren’t really sent to assist Ascalon so much as on the assignment of fighting the Flame Legion.

However, to me, those numbers seem a bit slim. I’d imagine that – in total – the number of the three legions would be in the 100,000s.

Dott.5672:

but because they churn out so many cubs and because they grow up so fast

Charr actually have the same maturation rates as humans – give or take.

Nike.2631:

Those numbers are comparable to some larger clans/alliances in feudal Japan, so they don’t seem too out of whack to me.

You’re talking about Japan – a relatively tiny series of islands – and comparing it to the great unknown to the east on top of Ascalon and what’s marked as the “Blood Legion Homelands” on the in-game map.

I think charr lands are bigger than Japan, tbh.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Hm… not really comfortable with that Ash figure, honestly. I don’t know if it’s stated anywhere, but I’d always assumed the other two legions sent a minority of their forces to serve under Iron’s command. 80% seems very high. This figure is also working off the assumption that we’ve seen all the tribunes Iron has. Between the two, I’d say the estimate probably falls somewhat short, but it’s still a very interesting result. Good work!

For how many forces are in Ascalon, all we have to go off of is this:

Although the three legions bicker and occasionally squabble, they have managed to maintain the general state of accord. Each legion is independent, but all three send troops and support to Ascalon to eradicate the human threat. Smodur knows full well that Malice’s troops are there not only to aid, but also to spy for their imperator; however, the two leaders respect one another. Bangar is the true wild card, distrustful and prone to rage. Still, his hatred for humans overcomes his suspicions about the other imperators, and he has committed a great number of troops to the Black Citadel’s command.

As far as I know at least. Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Legions_of_the_Charr

And technically, only two Ash tribunes were sent to Ascalon – the other two we meet are sent to fight the Flame Legion on their front doors specifically, not be part of Ascalon’s forces.

As for the Iron tribunes – we’ve actually only met 4 of the 6.

Next Tuesday is the minimum 8 week mark. That’s when the waiting truly begins.

Rurik’s stated to have no heir; it’s stated that Adelbern’s line died with Rurik several times over throughout Ghosts of Ascalon and various Ascalon ghost-related dialogues.

I do believe that it was said that Barradin’s only child was Althea, but also that Barradin had a brother – I’d imagine Wade comes from said brother, unless I’m mistaken (it’s been a while so entirely possible). Though it’s further possible that Wade comes from a line further back than Barradin.

@prism: There’s a bit discrepency about whether or not Rurik was Adelbern’s only child – the Prophecies manual states that Rurik is the eldest son, implying a younger sibling (most likely a younger brother), but at the same time Rurik is repeatedly said throughout GW2 to be the last heir of Adelbern. Most likely scenario: Rurik had a younger sibling who died before he did.

Plagiarised.2865:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t think it was the weapon being tested, but the defenses, much as Konig’s piece of dialogue implies.

Exactly. It was the Breachmaker she was testing, not the Marionette. The Breachmaker was her defense.

How exactly can she test the Breachmaker when we didn’t even think of acting in regards to it.

The defenses Tobias means is the good guy’s defenses. Though this would be inaccurate; what she was doing, per the dialogue, was killing would-be heroes so they couldn’t fight her when it mattered (to her).

Pyro.4765:

Jorvych.3064:

Isn’t that what happened?

Isn’t it likely that if Kiel won they’d just give her that dialogue? I highly doubt that the massive “Invasion of Lion’s Arch” plotline hinged on Kiel being the elected candidate.

Either during or shortly after the Battle for LA stuff, someone from Anet said that if Evon had won the election, Lion’s Arch would have been better defended and thus suffered less in the attacks.

This said, however, Evon would be mucking about in the Mists if he won with stuff unrelated to Scarlet or other modern events (Abaddon fractal), and the Lionguard would still be about in Caledon Forest chasing after Scarlet. Going off of the datamined dialogue for Evon’s victory (yes, there is such a thing), Ellen would have gone rogue/full pirate rather than going back to the Lionguard – so she might have been going after things her way if not just go and not bother with anything (aka be put on the bus), rather than trying to butt heads with the council like she was having won the election.

If you witnessed an event success:

Braham: “That was fun. I actually thought we might not win against that thing.”
Rox: “I’m starting to think Scarlet doesn’t care if she wins or loses against us.”
Marjory: “What does that mean?”
Rox: “She doesn’t fight like she wants to win. She sacrifices her weapons to take some of us out. It’s like she’s culling the herd.”
Kasmeer: “Our herd.”
Rox: “Yeah. Tyria’s defenders.”

prism.4982:

Umm… I always thought that Eternity is THE legendary made out of TWO OTHER legendary Gswords…

Am I missing something?

Basically if you have post processing on during The World Summit, when the mordrem attack the places goes dark and purple-y, and the Eternity/Twilight skin changes because of this change in lighting – as shown by the OP image, rather than white/yellow/red galaxies it shows white/blue galaxies.

The OP is asking for the white/blue appearance to be the norm.

Fleshreavers by lore are undead-looking demons (as were stygian demons from Nightfall) and not necromancer constructs despite the similar appearance (this is why the sigil is “demon summoning” and not “minion summoning” or the like).

I do agree such would be an awesome appearance though, but if it could spawn up to 5 fleshreavers that would be a bit overpowered for a non-elite skill.

I do like Arewn’s idea, but since the skill is about summoning necromancer minions it should be a minion from one of the pre-existing skills.

The thing about the human PS is that it has a lot more subtleties to it. Chances are you won’t see these unless you do all six storylines and try to figure how they relate. Whereas the charr stories are fairly straitforward and doesn’t link to each other (much).

Plus, for all races you pretty much have a joke/non-serious story mixed into each set (Norn blacked out, sylvari All Things Have A Right, asura VAL-A golem, human circus) which don’t feel so dramatic or important lorewise, but mostly made to be more relaxing by their feel.

Doggie.3184:

And the non-hunched ones were Majestic as ****. My Charr was inspired by them and seeks their powarz.

I disagree, but that’s subjective.

What isn’t subjective is the lore. Those that were standing upright weren’t your average charr – they were the then-leaders of the charr High Legions, and those who followed said then-leaders (aka Shaman caste)’s teachings.

The Shaman caste is no more – all that remains of it are the Flame Legion shamans, whom we don’t play as. Ever.

And in all honesty, the fully upright models look like Leomon from Digimon dressed in shamanistic garbs. Thus I say no thank you.

Doggie.3184:

They walked around normally standing tall with no hunch at any moment and it was majestic as ****. They were 2 completely different modelz.

I presume you respond to the mesmer model standing upright always or not. Even if they did, that’s still the majority of charr in GW1 standing hunched over – either a little (rangers and necromancers) or a lot (warriors of multiple models); only the Shaman caste stood upright, and there were a grand total of 4 non-unique upright models if including the mesmer’s model; whereas there’s 2 slightly hunched and 4 highly hunched non-unique models.

In GW2, nearly every charr is of the slightly-hunched varient, with a couple such as igniters amongst the Flame Legion being more upright in the style of the GW1 mesmers.

The only thing that needs fixing is the kitten proportions of the armor.

And it’s not just the tail, but the fact that most armor leaves the neck completely void of protection, and my god those boots are so freaking squished.

The stance doesn’t need to be changed. I like my hunched over charr – it’s how any non-Shaman (read: Monk, Elementalist, and Ritualist professions’ models) was in GW1.

Extreme.8350:

This is what charr is like in gw1, 99% of them. Pyre fierceshot is worst example.
They also move like humans.

• 3 non-unique models and 2 unique model stood upright.
• 3 non-unique models and 1 unique model were slightly hunched but stood upright to attack ranged.
• 4 non-unique models and 3 unique models were highly hunched over.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Wiki:Projects/NPC_models/Charr

The monks, elementalists, and ritualists – which consists of the two always-upright models, alongside the unique model of Hierophant Burntsoul – were not 99% of the charr.

GW2 charr fall in the realm of the middle group – slightly hunched over but goes upright to attack.

Dante.1763:

-snip-
Standing:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Charr_Chaot
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Charr_Mind_Lord

Unless my memory fails me, while the wiki uses the standing straight up posture for mesmer models, they and necromancers were hunched over most of the time, stand upright only for a few spellcasting (much like GW2 charr).

Presuming no other specialization gets shouts, you’d be correct in your conclusion.

However, that does not prevent the Reaper from getting, say, 3 shouts and another elite specialization from getting 6 shouts.

Bleh. The whole “go to the past to protect the future” has been done, tyvm and no thank you for GW – and it’s even been done in the GW franchise as an April’s Fools joke that has kept running since 2011. Leave it to the fractals.