Guild Wars 2

When you see dialogue that has double parantheses, it means that the dialogue hasn’t been edited/proofread/finished. Basically, an accidental release. Happens quite frequently with living world stuff, though the first find of this was a bartender in Black Citadel.

John.8507:

Hopefully they could increase the limit, it’s only 4 times now per day? So not even a full stack at once, and a Dragontite one would be useful.

It’s three to five times a day, amount is rng. So you may get 150 or 200 or 250 used a day.

They are both out of the map bounds in Cursed Shore (lighting looks like cursed shore at least). Can’t tell for the other pics because they’re loading in too small for me.

Harvest.2506:

There is no sense of Justice in Dragon Hunter, Its a Matter of Survival, not a matter of fighting for Morally. You could have just called it “Witch Hunter” and be done with it.

While you’re not wrong that “it’s a matter of survival”, it is also a matter of “fighting for morally” – though that’s not the only thing that a “sense of justice” is – a sense of justice refers to prosecution of morals and laws, of defending the innocent and persecuting the unjust.

Not all senses of justice adhere to morals or laws.

However, what’s important to note that fighting the Elder Dragons is no more a “matter of survival” than fighting a war against a tyrannical invasive nation. Because, in essence, once you get past all the magic and brainwashing that is draconic corruption, that’s what the Elder Dragons and their minions are.

And fighting evil nations? That is a case of fighting for justice. And all the Elder Dragons are, are magical ancient dictators once you get past the fluff and the lies/misdirection that they’re mindless animals.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

But there’s gravity in game just like in real life… and air and the Sun and all these things you know. So yeah why is gravity not working on Tequatl? Did he buy something from Trading Post that I didn’t?

But there’s no magic in real life, and magic likes to defy laws of physics – including that of gravity.

Tyria has some things that are real, and some things that aren’t.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Very interesting theory but I think that saying “it’s magic” is much more of a cop-out than an explanation…

As something as just shouting “magic” would seem a poor argument, that actually is the case here.

I mean, Tequatl is UNDEAD. Kinda denotes that magic’s involved. But dragons – Elder Dragons, dragon champions, and minions – are all magical by nature. They consume magic, they breath magic. They use magic for their very movement and creation in the case of minions and champions.

Look at The Shatterer, Claw of Jormag, and Shadow of the Dragon. They all fly, but their wings are less existent than Tequatl’s – with the Shadow of the Dragon having bushes on its wings.

The only dragons that might fly without magic would be the Elder Dragons.

And to your argument of “it should be 4 limbs not 6” – why can’t something have six limbs? Why can’t these dragons have forelegs and wings? Just because birds and bats do doesn’t mean it’s impossible – just look at insects to see how multiple limbs can, indeed, exist.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Necroma.2379:

Isn’t Zhaitan like 10x times bigger then Teq and he still fly like a bird..

Zhaitan is ALL BONES, no flesh whatsoever Even if I jumped of a roof myself I would have a better gliding pattern… And trust me, no matter how fast I flap my arms, I have the flight pattern of a brick with fear of heights.

Disclaimer:
-do not try this at home-

Just to be on the safe side

Zhaitan has plenty of flesh, and its wings are actually fuller than Tequatl’s (and with several wings too).

Dawnbreaker.6215:

But then if Tequatl can fly anytime then why does it land at all? Couldn’t it just grab something really big with its mouth and drop it on the megalazer? Or on the crowd of players?…

Nothing ever said Tequatl’s smart.

Or maybe it just wants to bash players personally.

Or most likely, the fight is designed to be possible for players to fight against.

Dante.1763:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Earliest we’ll see the update is May 26th. But in all honesty I’d probably expect the update to come 16 weeks from the announcement, not 8 (Stein said 8+ weeks) – which would be July 21st.

Hmm…why do you say 16 weeks out of curiosity?

To expect it in the minimal of what’s said is to set oneself up for disappointment. Setting a high number results in higher chances of it occurring sooner.

Plus lately my hopes and expectation in Anet has lowered greatly. So a high number it is.

Lastly, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t put alongside the trait line (aka core specialization) changes, and likely other pre-HoT feature patch changes.

Kevin Ardinez.8906:

they already added Trahearne dialogue on Battle of fort Trinity cinematic, just finishing my other character story missions. shame we have to wait too long, I just made another character, well i’ll just have to do crafting then, never even explored the map.

Yeah, wiki editors have noticed small changes in Trahearne’s dialogue lines throughout.

I think the term “scarab” is just arbitrary for insect. But there is definitely points of insects being the cause of it:

“These bones have been damaged by the passage of time, but still bear signs of the disease that killed their previous owner. There are spherical indentations and cracks on the surface; something hard and round grew against them and bent them out of shape. The skeleton is curled in a fetal position, as if the person was in significant pain.”
“Strewn across the ground near these bones are the remains of some sort of small eggs or cocoons.”

“Hmmm. Most interesting… what you have found confirms my suspicions. The few written records I have are so crazed that most thought them to be wholly inaccurate, but it seems now that the stories of bugs bursting from within people’s skin may actually be true. If you are still willing, you may be able to assist me further in my research…”

Furthermore, you gather Scarab Spores from the various insects in Fahrahnur.

Everything points to it being bug related – though more than a simple ingestion of eggs (eggs wouldn’t be along the bones if merely ingested, indicating that bugs within the body then laid eggs – the position of the skeleton implying this being done while the person was alive).

Per the dialogue lines, it didn’t suddenly vanished – as Aaron said, the island was quarantined for several decades. Heck, with the re-opening of Fahranur, the Scarab Plague may easily have re-ignited after GW1.

But either way, nothing indicates anything in relation to the DSD. In all honesty, the zero-evidence claim of Kanaxai and/or Kuunavang being a dragon champion of the DSD has far stronger roots.

Kyban.4031:

they don’t really seem like the type to interact with spirits that much.

It’s in the name.

Kyban.4031:

Maybe they can teach the necromancer or elementalist. The only race that I can think of that deals with anything related to time would be the Seers, since seeing is kind of time related. Still not sure why they’re called Seers though, they didn’t do much seeing, the Flameseeker prophet was Glint…

Necromancers will be learning from Marjory. Seers, despite their names, are not soothsayers – or at least, have never been seen doing such.

The Scarab Plague is more likely to deal with Abaddon than the Elder Dragons. As Aaron said, an event chain suggests that grain was infested with scarab eggs that were ingested – an issue that comes from that and being non-magical is that… well, the eggs would be cooked and digested, thus should pose no problem let alone any “insects burrowing out of the body from within” that was the Scarab Plague.

Furthermore, the Scarab Plague left an infestation of undead, suggesting necromancy was afoot. And there’s the presence of the Apocrypha which did spread some of Abaddon’s influence into the room it was sealed within (the Nightfall tendrils sprouting throughout it).

The DSD’s minions are stated to be tentacled monstrosities and this is a far cry from the insects and undead corpses that we saw even in Nightfall.

Fomivee.3065:

Well, Divinity’s Reach was once a Divinity Coast.
So this stone might be related to Janthir. (Tablets of Janthir, Fountain of Truth)

But it might also be related to nothing and be just a stone.

Fun fact: where the Fountain of Truth was is the Shaemoor Cemetery. We can see a fountain there.

Technically, Divinity’s Reach was in an unexplorable piece north of Divine Coast.

Kyban.4031:

Check out my earlier post, most people seem to think it’s a flat stone standing on its side but it’s not. I’d like to hear what the devs said about it if anyone can find the interview they mentioned it in, I think we’re looking the wrong places for it.

I’m not convinced that the cut is recent, personally, so if not in GW1 it’d be a stone with a 90 degree corner cut into it.

Mursaat don’t affect time. Going off of stated and implied lore, their “phasing out of reality” was them going part-way into the Mists (aka Spirit Realm) much like spirits can (hence why Ascended and Weh no Su, effectively the same thing, allowed one to see mursaat and spirits respectively even when they didn’t want to be seen) – the part of the Mists experienced in the norn storyline, which overlaps with reality. This has nothing to do with time like the Chronomancer – and if any profession deals with them for their specialization, it’ll probably be revenant.

There’s been enough pointless retcons reducing the game’s continuity stability to swiss cheese and less, I don’t think we need more pointless retcons to the game’s continuity.

Earliest we’ll see the update is May 26th. But in all honesty I’d probably expect the update to come 16 weeks from the announcement, not 8 (Stein said 8+ weeks) – which would be July 21st.

Noktus.8506:

Regardless, having something over not having it is always a positive. If it’s not your thing, don’t do it. If it’s your thing, well, its there, have fun.

Tell that to the champion farmers from Queensdale.

Some people didn’t like the zerg train, but they wanted to fight the champions. They killed champions out of order and were harassed beyond belief. Same thing happens in ALL other farm spots.

So no, just having something is not always a positive. It can be, but not always.

In in the case of mounts and dueling, etc. etc. it all depends on how it is implemented. If it is implemented in a good way then even those who are constantly arguing against it won’t mind – in some cases – but if it is implemented poorly then there will be negatives.

The fact of the matter is that the purpose of mounts is null and void unless ArenaNet goes and removes half of the waypoints in the game. Mounts tend to exist in games in which travel to and fro is not instantaneous (even if it’s at a cost) but that isn’t the case for GW2.

As for dueling – personally, I so long as it requires both players to accept then I can see it being neat to have, however it is neither necessary (you can easily create custom arena maps for just two folks – in fact, people do this) and it can lead to trolling and harassment, directly or indirectly.

Everything has both its pros and its cons, so don’t make it out that the things you’re wanting is only pros.

To close: I would find it surprising if ArenaNet has not considered adding mounts or open world dueling. The fact that it isn’t in the game is proof that ArenaNet has decided it isn’t worth adding, whatever the reason may be (resource distribution, playerbase desire for/against, fitting/not fitting their idea of the game, etc.).

Yoroiookami.3485:

segman.3560:

So it’s a great way to train your gaming skills and anet made a great design choice. They’re not deadly so you won’t loose your progress and in the same time you are learning how to dodge. It’s a win/win for me. Too bad you’re disappointed. Maybe run at shiverpeaks, I don’t remember meeting any hyenas there.

It’s a level 80 map. Everyone at this point knows how to dodge. Of course you can master timing these particular mobs but what’s the point if they’re just for ‘training’, right?
I like this map. I hate these mobs. See my problem?

“I’m done training – I know how to do it – so I should never do it again”

^ How I’m reading your responses on dodging hyenas.

That’s not the point of training/learning to do stuff.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I don’t recall seeing a warning for green items, but I don’t mind a bit getting the message in relation to golds. But then, I’m not massively wealthy, either.

When the game was released until I believe the first feature patch, greens had the warning. It was the introduction of luck that removed that warning for masterwork (green) gear.

I don’t think it’s crystal clear Miyani is a sunspear, though her outfit does imply paragon.

To the questions:

• Zomorros supposedly joined the refugees fleeing Palawa Joko.
• Unclear.
• Zomorros is said to be imprisoned and Miyani seems to be related to that – as well as being Zomorros’ friend?
• Why couldn’kitten The Mystic Forge is literally just the “home of Zomorros”. Tossing stuff into it is no different than handing them to an NPC – where Zomorros goes, the mystic forge (which isn’t a forge at all) goes.
• Also unclear, but as said there are hints that Zomorros is a prisoner – likely in the gem-like thing at the top – and Miyani can move him about.

There’s actually very little in relation between Prophecies and Factions – mainly comments from Mhenlo, Cynn, Devona, Eve, and Aidan which are few.

If you want to learn up on lore before playing through the game, I’d restrict myself to these links:

• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/History_of_Tyria
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/An_Empire_Divided
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/History_of_Elona
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Stories (the various links there)
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/GW:EN_and_Now (after Prophecies but before Eye of the North)

Anything else is likely to give you spoilers – for what GW2 doesn’t already spoil at least. After playing through the main plot, and done all side quests you care to do, I’d go through these links:

• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lore
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Storyline (the links here; mainly covers the main plot, but does cover some side-plots or adds information that could be missed)
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Timeline
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Category:History_of_Tyria
• Dialogue of the links of the following:
  • http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Prophecies_quests
  • http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Factions_quests
  • http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Nightfall_quests
  • http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Eye_of_the_North_quests
  • http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Beyond_quests

Again, these will spoil the main plot and even side-plot lore reveals, but once you read through those, you’d have pretty much 90-95% of all GW1 lore read.

Then for GW2 lore (which can spoil GW1 plot):

• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Books
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Tales
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_1
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_2
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_All

And once you’ve read all the links in those, you’d pretty much know most of the in-game lore. Unfortunately, there’s no summary for the Personal Story up anywhere, so for any that you don’t intend to do in-game, you’d have to read the dialogue of the individual steps (I’d suggest the same for season 1, reading up dialogue of events etc. rather than the summary, but that stuff is currently scattered amongst dozens of location or event articles – only The Lost Shores has compiled dialogue articles).

Technically, I said the same thing there as I said here. And it’s the same topic, so why should my opinion change? Especially when the audience is different – that’s like going to a motivational speaker multiple times in different cities and expecting the speech to be different when the topic’s stated to be the same.

Also, I did say a bit more over there, particularly regarding how the cycles weren’t originally called dawn/noon/dusk/night.

Current best:
Score: 237
Time: 37.48s
Coins: 18/24

Edit: New best, slower time:
Score: 246
Time: 41.68s
Coins: 21/24

Fun game. First “level” is definitely harder.

Was cleaning my screenshot folder and I noticed this screenshot, so I just had to edit it. Figure I’d post it to share any potential amusement, and think this is the best place for it. Enjoy.

It’s known that the asura don’t know the origins of the ruins and have adapted some of their designs to their modern designs, but it’s also clear that their ancient structures use the same designs – not just in GW1, but in GW2 as well (see Rata Pten). When it’s done twice, I think it’s a bit more than mere laziness or oversights and shouldn’t be overlooked.

That’s all I was trying to say on that point.

Fomivee.3065:

(If you visit this page, read the trivia – “Howland may be named after the wizard Howl from the book Howl’s Moving Castle.”)

This was added by an IP for unstated reasons. In all honesty, it’s pure speculation because his name is Howland, and the other dude’s name is Howl, and both are magicians. There’s doesn’t seem to be any similarity beyond that.

Fomivee.3065:

—> In Pre-Searing, Verata bows to him. Although this could be ironic (like the bow to Ciglo), we know that elemenetalists (Aziure) were accepted in the Order too.

And why wouldn’t the mysterious “the Order” accept elementalists? People presume because all but one named member is a necromancer that it is a group for necromancers, but we honestly can’t say that is so.

Fomivee.3065:

It’s worth mentioning that Ice and Stone Elementals can be found there.

Just as they’re found throughout the area. I’m not exactly sure I’d call that a coincidence, since it’s a stated known fact that wild elementals form in locations of great magic and are attracted to such. That’s why the ice elementals attack Azuire as she practices her spell.

Fomivee.3065:

Aidan suspects that this tower could be a reason behind aloe husks (that can be found in Kessex too, among many other places) plaguing the land.

That’s a huge leap. Firstly, Aidan’s claiming that Azuire’s magic specifically is the cause of the husks. Secondly, aloe husks are seen EVERYWHERE in Tyria. Throughout Ascalon, throughout the Shiverpeaks, throughout Kryta. They’re just in abundance near the river which flows from the river. They are NOT unique to the towers – nor was Aidan claiming such; he was claiming that Azuire was causing an uncommon increase of them.

Fomivee.3065:

Wiki takes it as proof that they’re not related but imo it’s not a clear clarification. I don’t think that they’re the same towers but the Pre-Searing one might be a part of the great one. (or ArenaNet planned it to be the same tower but scrapped the idea at some point. We know that Villainy of Galrath is one of the first quests made. It means that Pre-Searing tower was most likely added later, although Aziure’s quest happens 2 years before Galrath tried to enter the Kessex tower.)

Eh, wrong.

The wiki doesn’t claim they’re different because of the interview – they claim they’re different because they look nothing alike. The Wizard’s Folly Tower is two long spires that combine into a “cabin” like strcture and is chained down to bark-like stone (a copy of the Talmark Wilderness pillars, though any lore relations is unclear and probably unintended as most of the Old Krytan writing is, seemingly intentionally, hidden by other stone); the Wizard’s Tower is more like a castle (though less so back in GW1 than in GW2 – dunno why it’s called Wizard’s Tower, it should be Wizard’s Castle, IMHO). Completely different, and the Wizard’s Folly tower is definitely not part of the Wizard’s Tower – we’d be able to clearly identify such if it were.

Also, pre-Searing was one of the last things created for Prophecies.

Fomivee.3065:

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Could Howland and Heart of Ice be related to Wizard’s Tower?

It’s interesting speculation, but it doesn’t really hold any water. Everything used to link the two are either common place elsewhere or seemingly irrelevant.

Their modern structure resembles their subterranean structures. Which happened to use the same models and textures as the ruins the asura inhabited.

The Silverwaste ruins don’t seem to match the Tarnished Coast ruins.

The lore about west of the Maguuma came from Fort Koga. Fort Koga was a fort along a trade route from Kryta to the west coast – nothing was ever mentioned about what was there, except for the west coast.

There were actually several “classes that never were” of GW1. Chronomancer is simply the most well-known.

Factions had the Bard – concept showing them using flutes. Utopia also had the Summoner. And, I believe, there were others that were scrapped.

Don’t buy legendaries. Buy the mats for them, then do the precursor achievements.

However, IMO, few legendaries are worth it. They’re actually a bit cluttering, I find. I only like the aquatic ones – I crafted Frostfang looking forward to it greatly but found myself annoyed by the mass amounts of animations and how the weapon replaces some cool projectile animations (like Death Shroud 1 skill – a ball of black and green energy should not turn into a flying axe! Ice trail or no!).

I’d look at the exotics and see if there’s some you like, and get those. If you don’t like them, wait for HoT.

Endless Soul.5178:

Just remember, we don’t get older, we level up.

+1 for this, as it made me chuckle.

Shame, though, that you start getting weaker as you hit the highest levels.

STOP PUTTING ALL YOUR STATS INTO WISDOM, HIGH LEVELS!

Alga.6498:

I actually like older players than younger players.

More or less the same. I find that the older someone gets, the less angst they have – especially if they have the time for playing video games.

When they don’t, they’re full of angst.

Video games, makes you more mellow.

Or maybe they’re all just potheads. shrug

It is what it is. The community doesn’t decide it and it works as it is.

Also, it is stated that there is “leeway” in what cycle one counts towards. You can still count as night if born at 11:54 PM, for example, or even dusk if born at 12:11 AM.

It isn’t meant to be picture perfect. It isn’t super strict either. More of a ‘general guide to describe the division of sylvari personalities’ and could be labeled stuff like Cycle of the Leaf/Trunk/Flower/Branch or even something silly like Cycle of the Oompa/Fliperdaple/Loompa/Neverland.

What’s a sky?
What’s a snake?
What’s a horse?

Being a fictional world their true etymology is ours.

Well, I would argue that it technically would be both. Because a perfect place (or “good place”) simply doesn’t exist.

However, “no place” still doesn’t refer to ‘unseen’ but rather ‘non-existent.’ A very fine difference, thus my statement that there’s nothing unseen about it remains true.

Second however, the little lore we got on GW:Utopia mentioned a bit of a paradise location that becomes assaulted by the earliest versions of the destroyers: tanneks, which were demonic pig-like creatures.

Divinity’s Reach would effectively mean “reach of the divine/gods” so it isn’t that off in comparison, really.

Thanathos.2063:

Well, this may seem a bit like an artifical connection, but “Utopia” can be interpreted as “unseen” – possibly leading to mursaat? Kinda weak argument, of course.

Utopia refers to a paradise of some sort. Nothing ‘unseen’ about it.

Thanathos.2063:

d) From some ingame hints, Utopia may have taken place at the west coast of Tyria – around the Heart of Maguuma?

I don’t think it came from anything in-game, however the common speculation was that it was off of the west coast of Tyria – basically, where the modern world map places Sunrise Crest. Given the ship route lines to The Battle Isles from Sunrise Crest in the Durmand Priory’s map, this old speculation has even more merit now.

Thanathos.2063:

I have to admit I’m definitely no lore expert, but as far as I know, Rata Sum and other similar places (like Rata Pten) weren’t built by Asuras, but rather “found and taken”. Is there any explanation / hint regarding this in official lore? Was there an ancient race that vanished, leaving their ruins behind?

Rata Pten is epxlicitly stated to be asuran architecture that predates the Cataclysm (1071 AE), and even houses asuran relics.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Early_Asura_Relief_Rubbing#Fine

Also, an often forgotten piece of asuran lore:

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.

From the Eye of the North manual.

So we know for a fact that the asura were on the surface before 1078 AE – before 978, even (likely before 878). We see Rata Pten as ruins of such a time. Rata Sum’s ruins – all Tarnished Coast ruins, actually, match both Rata Pten and the Central Transfer Chamber (which was one of the six great cathedral-cities of the Depths, another one being Quora Sum).

Fun fact: these same ruins can also be found at the vista within Lightfoot Passage. Underground, but near the surface.

Thanathos.2063:

The anagram Rata Sum – Mursaat could be something like an inside joke – IF they planned to put the mursaat in Utopia.

Or the more likely scenario: Rata Sum is latin for “I have calculated” and “I am certain.” It being an anagram for mursaat is 100% coincidence.

If it was intended, then it was most likely just a joke because of the players’ love of the mursaat and that Eye of the North brought them back from extinction.

Thanathos.2063:

Interesting enough, the mursaat seem to have an outpost/city west of Rata Sum (that gets accessible with HoT) – could it be possible that they left their former city for some reason? (Mordremoth… Leylines… Bloodstone?)

Presuming that…

1) The Exalted Ones are mursaat.
2) Those are mursaat structures and not just innovated.
3) The Ring of Fire structures are not of mursaat origin.

Thanathos.2063:

Or the anagram could be a coincidence and it was some other race. Maybe Anet has plans on using this secret race at a later time, or it was just an “any race” placeholder that explained the existence of ruins – making it possible for Anet to re-use their Utopia locations.

Other race = asura, most likely, given Rata Pten and the Central Transfer Chamber.

TBH, I’m a bit disappointed this ended up being nothing more than the same old theory for the Tarnished Coast ruins with nothing new to add

But as a final note… Fun fact: asura also existed in Utopia concept art, though more primitive.

They use the Forgotten Tome texture (first majorly used in Forgotten path of Arah explorable) several times over, including for all ascended backpieces.

They only have like 5 interactive book appearances made, so there’s like 50 books that have the New Krytan text “History of Tyria Vol 1” on it.

Magic always existed in Tyria, but before the century-or-so before the Exodus of the Gods, it was exceedingly rare due to the Elder Dragons consuming so much of it and the Seers putting the rest into the original Bloodstone.

When Abaddon “gifted magic”, what he did was give access to the bloodstone to various groups. Because magic was so rare beforehand, humans mistook the gods granting magic over the century-or-so with Abaddon’s big gift of magic as them making magic.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Angel-McCoy-Interview/page/3#post2821776
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quiz_Terminal#Terminal_5
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstones_%28book%29

Early on, might have been during the revenant blog posts, Anet said that they regretted not adding a lore and story to the other 8 professions and intend to fix that with how we unlock the specializations and with the revenant.

By the sound of it, we have to do stuff that gives lore in order to learn these elite specializations.

Kaz.5430:

Would you prefer to have all your skills and traits wiped, and then spend the hero points that you have earned, possibly ending up with less skills and traits than you previously had, but giving you the ability to start working towards the new elite specializations immediately?

Or would you prefer to retain all the skills and traits you’ve unlocked, but possibly be placed into negative hero points, preventing you from unlocking the new specializations until you’d done enough skill challenges to pay off the hero point deficit?

I would like the option to reset hero challenges and re-lock my skills, traits, etc. so that I do not have to make a brand new character to experience the new unlocking experience.

If it is enforced on all characters, I won’t complain – it’d give me goals to go after, after all – but I’d rather not see the massive whining that’ll happen without a doubt.

Of course, if there’s nothing special and lore-based needing to be done for unlocking the core specializations like they’ve implied will exist for elite specializations, then that desire to redo goes down a lot.

The ideal situation, as I see it, however, would be to relock and have everything carry over so that one can experience the unlocking system but not have to actually do the actions to be able to unlock stuff.

Sylv.5324:

They will not devote a bunch of money to build a class design so difficult that you want to play the pre-existing class designs more.

If they want to maintain the ideal of balance then they have to make the elite specialization no more powerful than the base profession.

Otherwise every game format will be imbalanced. Those with HoT will have an advantage over non-HoT owning (or level 80) characters in PvP and WvW; those with HoT elite specializations will be overpowered in core locations like Orr, thus facerolling all old content, and dungeons, even fractals.

The idea of elite specializations should be “more options” not “more power” – something that the change for the trait lines into the core specializations doesn’t seem to adhere to.

Otherwise it isn’t the balance they’re so proud of trying to maintain and claim to maintain, and we enter the feel of Blizzard games where players are massively overpowered.

Donari.5237:

One reason Chronomancer seems so much “cooler” is that it’s new. If it’s still more represented than vanilla mesmers once the shine’s worn off, then some more design effort might be needed to reinvigorate the base class’ attractiveness to players.

While the newness has a hold on the “cool factor”, going off of the blog posts the Chronomancer certainly does sound overpowered compared to your base professions.

If they’re spawning right under you… wiki is a friend:

The sand attacks are circle attacks that appear in the ground when an earth elemental dies or sometimes directly below Togonn, and the wind attacks are the large lines that move from one side of the stage to the other. Simply dodge through the latter and avoid stepping into the circles to complete this achievement.

Basically, if you want to get the achievement as Caithe, you need to continuously strafe and only use her ranged skills. As such, it’s best to party up.

There are bosses that have a challenge mote to reset the fight afterwards, just not during (likely to prevent accidental resetting during a good run). Not sure if No Refuge is amongst them, however, but that’s worth suggesting and not when your being hostile about stuff when clearly you don’t know the mechanics of things.

Step 1: Make all racial skills do the same thing, more or less, with different animations and flairs. Add more racial skills where necessary.
Step 2: Make said racial skills, now equal or closely equal to across all races, on par to profession skills.
Step 3: Add in a racial specialization tier. Have said specialiazation traits affect racial skills, Antitoxin Spray, and Mistfire Wolf.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Watch and rebalance as needed.

Racial skills should be useful. But they shouldn’t create a desire for certain race/profession combos. To achieve both, the answer is to have racial skills do more or less the same thing across all races – e.g., if one race’s skill bleeds, the other may torment, poison, or burn; if one race’s skill dazes, the other races should get knock down, launch, or stun skill; if one race’s skill transforms the player into a damaging powerhouse, the other races should also get such (even if the powerhousing is via different means).

Smooticus.2854:

I still think its kinda silly that they cant just go in the order: gauntlets -> pauldrons -> helmet -> boots -> legs -> chest then repeat. by them time very many people would reach that many achievement points there will probably be another more prestigious armor skin.

I’d rather they offered all 12 skins at each 3k, so if you don’t care for the helm of one, you’re not forced to get both helms until you reached 36k AP.

And I’d also prefer that you could get the Pinnacle skin the next 1k after getting the Zenith skin of the same weapon type – so if you want the Pinnacle Daggers, for example, you only need 2k AP not 40k-or-whatever-it-is.

There really isn’t much need for prestige in these weapon skins, IMO, especially given how few people actually use them – as I see it, they’re often use more as a free non-standard weapon skin charge rather than “hey, I’ve got prestige!”

In GW1, it was titles and miniatures and guild capes that spoke of prestige, not skins – with rare exceptions like Envoy weapons or the Bone Dragon Staff. Why can’t the same be for GW2? I know GW2 is more skin-focused but all the same I don’t see a point in prestige, let alone one that’s locked behind a ton of lesser prestige.

TBH, only prestige in skins I see worthwhile would be the PvP tournament Glorious Hero armor. That’s something I consider proper prestige. And the new legendaries coming out with HoT is a proper “lesser prestige” to me (“lesser” in that everyone can get it, but it still takes time and cannot be traded – shame the original legendaries weren’t like that).

Aye.8392:

I’d love to see some of the answers that people gave to their fondest memory. Copy paste them here!

I got two that rather tie for the best memories of GW1. One was of fighting the titans; they had an awesome look to them, and a neat mechanic of splitting down into smaller creatures upon death. The other was venturing in the Realm of Torment – as a fan of psychological horror and all around dark stuff, the Realm of Torment calls to my very soul. And the lore found there! And when I went digging for all things related to the elusive Arachnia! My first true lore project. <3

Gaile Gray.6029:

Today’s project: Come up with Guild Wars trivia for the ArenaNet staff. This is going to be extra challenging!

Oooo, can I present some? Or partake even? I’ve always wanted to test my knowledge of GW lore against the devs.

DeanBB.4268:

Wow! The forum allows “poopy heads”! :O

TIL

In concept it’s an awesome idea, but it can’t ever join PVP imo.

It would have to be a careful balance, though I see no reason not to do something like this so long as it doesn’t make any particular race+profession combo more op than the better half of profession+stat combos are.

But this is something I’d definitely look forward to seeing and would return the idea of sacrificing something to gain something that I feel is being taken out with these changes.

The Orrian Mirror was regular Orrian magic – which Zhaitan had corrupted in large quantities.

The Foefire was anything but normal magic – Orrian or no.

CureForLiving.5360:

Although this seems to be an indirect benefit of having Norn as minions more than an actual ability of Jormag himself, so I still think that in the case of the Mursaat and the previous rising that the dragons might not have had the ability or particularly cared to enter the mists. Oddly enough since the mists are magical, and they eat magic.

The Mists are made of protomatter. That might be a clear enough indication for the Elder Dragons to not care so much.

It could also be that until the Forgotten and Six Gods arrived, they might not have known about the Mists.

CureForLiving.5360:

Well he did have the corpse, so maybe Zhaitan can pull spirit from the mists as long as he has something to physically link to the spirit? Or maybe not.

I’m sure it’s because he had the corpse. Main point was that Zhaitan took a spirit from the Underworld by force.

Most of my builds utilize four trait lines. For example, my necromancer is 0/2/4/6/4 in trait point attribution. Usually this is because I find an adept trait more useful than grandmaster.

That makes half of my builds inopt with this change, and the restriction to three trait lines (or “core specializations”).

LucosTheDutch.4819:

dietzero.3514:

It cannot be anything BUT a loss to build flecibility.

False.

The fact that Anet merges a lot of traits means that certain builds that required multiple very specific traits will now only need 1 grandmaster trait that has it all, meaning you have 2 extra traits up for grabs.

For example the meditation guardian: being a useful meditation guardian means you have to use up the entire Valor tree just to make your meditations shine. As a mediguard you are stuck to picking Meditation Mastery, Focused Mind and Monk’s focus to get the best out of your meditations, leaving you with little else to choose.
With the new system, I only have to pick the Meditation Mastery grandmaster trait at the end of the Valor tree and still have 2 other traits in the Valor tree up for grabs. So in this case and probably many other cases the new system adds flexibility.

This design does not add flexibility by any standard.

In fact, the design choice can be dumbed down to this:

1. Players want better balance.
2. Players want more customization.
3. ArenaNet responds with “less customization, more power”.

That’s what the new design is. Less customiation – you cannot spec in more than three trait lines, unlike before, and you cannot use more than one adept or one master per line, unlike before.

However, you’re right in that they merged traits or added traits to the base use of skills. Thus the individual traits you use become more powerful. Players become more powerful at less expense. But on top of that, they give the players two additional trait points – which are restricted to your third trait line and can only be used for a minor trait and a major grandmaster trait – thus making players more powerful.

Less customization. More power.

Now tell me, is the open world being buffed to being able to combat this more power by the playerbase, or will things become even more rofleasy than it already is?

This is, through and through, a power creep by Anet’s move. One that costs customization for the sake of easier balance (supposedly for the sake of easier balance).

lordkrall.7241:

Well to be fair people have been raging about balance since the game was released.

Many choices and good balance usually don’t go well together.

Well to be fair, people having been raging more about the lack of build customization.

And to be honest, I’d rather have more options than more equality. For the record, my main builds are often those considered not top gear (afaik). And I think half of them become impossible with the new design.

Jersey.2147:

I read this on the Guild Wars 2 wiki page:

If your character has not completed Setting the Stage (chapter 4) will allow you to see every map (primarily Lion’s Arch and Concordia) as it originally was.

It says “(primarily Lion’s Arch and Concordia)”, but all maps will be restored to how they were when the game released?

Also does this mean that Southsun Cove will be removed until you make Living Story season 1 replayable?

The maps only change during the personal story. Basically, you travel through destroyed (and later on, renewed) Lion’s Arch, and once you enter the instance you witness the original Lion’s Arch.

This does not talk about the open world. I’m sorry if my wording was confusing, but there was an implied “during story instances” at the end of that sentence – seeing how the article which that’s on is about the Personal Story.

shadow.6174:

What page was it? Also no, I think you must have misunderstood. What’s going to be restored are the map inside story instances, it will look as it was while you are doing Personal Story. Very possibly it will stay as it is on open world.

I’m not sure about this though as I don’t what wiki page are you referencing to.

wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personal_story#Future_changes

I wrote that up based on Bobby Stein’s OP here, and the PoI afterwards in which he mentioned that story instances will use original maps if they’ve been changed in the Living World.

I’ve updated the line to be more clear.

UlanX.2143:

Found out my sister, Deborah, was white today. Came as quite a shock when investigating Falcon company, given that I am a proud black guardian. Then I remembered that she must be adopted because it would be totally wrong to assume that everyone wants to play a white human and not put any effort into making sure there was diversity. I mean it’s not like Dragon Age 2 could manage it.

You do realize that Deborah has four possible appearances, right?

If she was right, then you clearly picked Ascalonian descent. Ascalonians are white – basically your northern Europeans. Krytans are tanned – basically your southern/eastern Europeans. Elonians are black – basically your Africans. And Canthans are asians.

You picked Ascalon, but if you wanted a black sister, you should have picked Elonian. Though going off of the poor wiki picture, Elonian Deborah is one of lighter hues of being black skinned.

This option was presented to you in the first story step of the storyline. Logan asks you your heritage because the records of Falcon Company – particularly your sister’s heritage – is lost/ruined/some such.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Deborah_Elonian.jpg

Garambola.2461:

I believe all the girls have fair skin, but their hair color changes according to where you say your character comes from when Logan asks it.

No, there are four different skin tones, while two different hair colors, and four different hair styles.

Ascalonian Deborah is the only non-black haired Deborah (she’s blond).

UlanX.2143:

Thank you for the info still it seems awfully restrictive to force me to choose a single area to get the correct skin colour. I can’t see why this can’t be adaptive.

It’s called ethnicity. This is how things work in real life. If you’re of African heritage, you’re going to be black unless you have non-African heritage in you.

You’re not going to look black but be of German descent.

You’re not going to look Japanese but be of African descent.

How is this not adaptive? This is a nigh perfect mirror image of real life. You had the chance to have a non-white heritage, but you either did not know (who’s fault is this? Depends, really; if you didn’t even bother to find out then it’s yours, but if you did but didn’t know then it’d be Anet’s for poor presentation), or you didn’t pay attention (in which your fault).

If you hate the game for not being adaptive here, then you must hate reality for the fact that ethnicities exist.

BrettM.9062:

It hardly matters, because you will never, ever see or hear of her again after the PS is over. Or even during most of the PS. IIRC, after the first arc you don’t encounter her again until the party after you kill Zhaitan, and it’s easy to miss her in the crowd. Her existence is irrelevant to your life.

If you take the Vigil’s plan during Further into Orr, you fight alongside her for three missions.

I don’t think she’s in the party after Zhaitan’s defeat, actually.