Guild Wars 2

releasing the kraken

Anything by The Heavy.

And Nyan Cat.

Oh my…

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

imaclown.1628:

flow.6043:

imaclown.1628:

if it’s a lockdown mesmer you are dead. It’s a true hardcounter to any necro.
…
No chance vs lockdown Unless they are just really bad.

Up until reading this I wasn’t even aware of any type of mesmer being considered a serious threat to necros.

Rym already said everything there is to fighting mesmers 1v1, regardless of what build they are using. (except I wouldn’t use Flesh Wurm)
If you have decent life force regeneration and Shroud timing you’re definitely holding better cards than any mesmer opponent.

I’ve messed around with a particular mesmer enough and I think the lockdown mesmer is a rarer breed everyone is either pu, standard shatter, double range shatter or my new favorite double range cele shatter. I can usually win against a traditional shatter,cele shatter and PU. Lockdown and double range shatter are much much harder if the mesmer is decent. Lockdown significantly harder.

I’m not talking about a mesmer that’s going to actually try and take a point from you or hold one.

I’m interested in what builds you are both playing or apparently everyone in the Necro community is playing that make a high dps range class with ports not a threat.

Just to add to this, lockdown mesmers are extremely rare currently and I can name the people that play it on NA (only about 3-5 that can play it well). They are a very nasty matchup for necro, as it has very easy things to interrupt (especially heal) and can be blown up out of death shroud just from 1 interrupt.

The key to beating a lockdown mes is to get your heal off somehow, whether it by foot in the grave or line of sighting (Flesh wurm can save your life with this) as well as getting as much life force as possible from staff auto or other ways . The worst thing I personally encounter is when I interrupt a necro and he has full ds in which he can kill me if I don’t kite long enough.

After I told Speed Starr/imaclown these tips, he did a lot better against me

Aand as we’ve been testing with Rylock today, at 4 am, I have two conclusions:

-Good interrupt mes is a huge pain in the bum as you have to really lockdown (sic!) interrupt mesmer to force him defensive first.
-My Power build does the job much better, fighting 1v1 and scoring with a slight advantage.

General idea about interrupting is the same – LoS, secure your heal with Fear, avoid crap with Wurm.

Interrupt Mesmer is indeed harder, but on an open field. Get them into more tight position and they fall apart.

If we’re talking about 1v1…

Secure your heal by fearing the opponent first, LoSing him, porting with Wurm. If you’re using this on an open field, with mesmer at his full capability, yes you’ll get interrupted a lot. Play smart.

The mesmer you’re talking about is a relic shatter mesmer. Couple tips from me:

If you get Immobilized, hop into Shroud straight away. If you’ve equipped Weakning Shroud trait, you should hit the mesmer and weaken him b4 the combo starts. Retaliation from either Unholy Feast (with Mesmer you will easily maintain almost 100% Retaliation boon uptime if you Feast smart) or Spiteful Spirit from entering DS will hurt him quite badly with Frenzy hits. Most Mesmers don’t shatter b4 frenzy ends, so he should eat up whoole retaliation.

Focus on dodging iZerker and Mirrored Blade (flying GS). You can predict when the shatter combo occurs, but it’s mostly deduction and you can miss. So unless you feel cozy with it, keep dodging those 2 skills, it will really hurt his damage. If you can’t attack him for some reason, focus iDuellist (pistols).

Be quite aggressive, your channeled Axe #2 with procs can hit the mesmer through stealth and eat 30-60% of hp alone.

Well build is also kind of bad for any 1v1. Corrupt Boon, Spectral Armor, Wurm -> these utilities are universal Necro choice of mine for almost any kind of PvP. And they hurt, good Corrupt Boon on a mesmer, especially one using stuff, can be a shutdown.

Ah. Locust Swarm works wonders against any Mesmer.

He will be part of the recipe for Ascended Salad food.

I didn’t know that this poor joke post will light up the fire

Justin ODell.9517:

rainbow.4695:

Is as simple as that….for solo players like myself is very frustrating to go against premade teams , why you ever though that this would be fun or fair…..

I couldn’t find any game data for you in the last week. Do you play on another account?

Another whiner #rekt. GG, WP.

MLG JUSTIN

Heavy Armor, Spears/Javelins/X, Weapon Enchants from the first game, Four Ghosts (damage, healing/support, debuff, sacrafice for Y) as a mechanic, Tengu, Mix of Aztec/Vodoo/feudal Japanese theme.

Here, the recipe for success without any mechanic overwriting.

Yasha.5963:

Recently I have been playing around with necro, which I haven’t played that much before, and I noticed that with a power build Lich form auto attack does about 5-6,000 damage from long range that can be traited to pierce. If you time your transformation right you can take out the whole enemy team in a large team fight.

Deathshroud is no slouch either – with a short cd fear and auto attack doing 2-5,000 ranged damage. If you aren’t getting focused it also seems to last for ages.

Has it always been like that? When I last played necro (about 18 months ago) deathshroud seemed to be consumed really quickly and I don’t recall Lich doing that much damage.

No, it wasn’t like that. I don’t exactly remember when, but they buffed the overall damage of Life Blast some time ago and made Vital Persistance to be 50% not 25%.

Power Necromancer is a strong tool, but has many flaws. Yes, Lich is a major teamfight cooldown and when used right, can completly shut down the enemy, but that’s said, it’s 180 second cooldown and it won’t occur every team fight. It also eats your Wurm. And as mentioned, can be countered pretty easily.

Speaking of Auto Attack damage – Life Blast hits quite decently, but it isn’t so great. It’s cast time is 1,5 second, so the overall DPS is lower than many of other professions’ autos with zerk amulet. Because it’s so slow and requires facing it’s very, very, very vulnerable to any blinds, blocks and is easy to evade. Heck, you can run through the Necro and it won’t fire off.
Besides, I see many Necromancers trying to use it as the main source of damage. They just sit and spam it over and over on one target. It’s a filler, people. Filler when there’s a lot of AoE in melee range, filler when you’re kiting, filler when you wait for your skills to come up, filler when you soak damage in Shroud.

Main source of Power Necro’s damage are, sadly, procs and burst rotation including Dagger+Axe for example followed after by Shroud and LB maybe.

Also, to point out – Life Blast requires Unyielding trait to pierce, but Lich’s auto has it by default.

Zaxares.5419:

Saint.5647:

Zaxares.5419:

There is also one other thing to keep in mind. Caithe warned that “Sylvari have already started losing their minds. Mordremoth won’t stop there.” Could that mean that Mordremoth can eventually dominate non-Sylvari too? We didn’t see any signs of non-Sylvari getting corrupted by Mordrem yet, but what if that changes once he awakens? Sylvari may be more vulnerable due to their heritage, but maybe all Mordremoth needs is to infect animals with his spores and he can then mentally command them too. Truly nobody in Tyria could be trusted if that happened.

Mordremoth absolutely can corrupt non-Sylvari as well. Mordrem Wolves and Mordrem Trolls were both once non-plant based life.

If we assume that Tyrian cell structure is similar to that of life on Earth, we can assume that Mordremoth’s corruption can and does extend beyond plant corruption. If you look closely at Mordrem Wolves and Trolls, you can notice that his corruption is seemingly parasitic in nature when it comes to non-plant life.

I am not sure about Teragriffs and Healers. I have a hunch that Teragriffs were once Colocal but this could just be my assumption based on their appearance. Since we have never seen a non-Mordrem Terragriff, we don’t know if they exist un-corrupted or if they have been created by Mordremoth as a minion.

In short, Mordremoth can and does corrupt non-plant life.

Oh yes, of course. What I meant was Mordremoth’s ability to mentally corrupt other races, the same way he does with the Sylvari, without necessarily physically transforming them. Such dominated thralls could be perfect saboteurs and infiltrators, completely normal looking on the outside but secretly doing Mordremoth’s bidding. As I originally theorised, this might be done by way of infesting a creature with invisible spores, lurking inside their lungs or brains, but with no outward signs of infestation.

I believe that the Teragriffs are corrupted Colocals (more likely, given their presence in nearby Dry Top) or Griffons.

So the Mordremoth was the cause of all that fungus drama in “The Last of Us”. Dum dum dum duumm.

But being serious, that would be very, very similar to the early stages of Shiro Tagachi’s curse back on Shing Jea, like in Minister Cho’s Estate mission.

Of course.

SWAG = Secretly We Are Geniuses

They just were lazy 250 years ago.

Who rides tanks and builds air fleet now, huh?

One tip for Necro hunters here:

If it’s Nilfhel and first engagement, keep in mind that well placed Wurm port back will completly stop all your pressure (ports up the ledge, before stairs) so don’t throw everything at once or at least lure the Necro a little bit further, so wurm won’t teleport him vertically.

Similar on Legacy, look for Wurm. Good Necro will be able go negate your first burst almost entirely.

I might add that tunnelvisioning the Necro without the Thief to support may not always be a great idea. With Thief however, tunnelvision all the way.

We’re not a minion profession. We can get them, but we don’t have to.

Far better situation than Rangers with their dumb AI pets.

Freedom.4653:

how about a bonus round rap battle? lol

Epic Rap Battles of…

Esportz?
Guild Wars?
Grouch Wars?
Colin Johanson?

If the Pact is no more, what stops new races from gaining totally new Personal Story, shared with rest of the players from some point, focusing on Mordremoth?

I mean, up to level 20 you could easily not even go out of Dominium, maybe new territory. After that, you just deal with Mordremoth.

Join an Order and you don’t give a single kitten about Zhaitan, because he’s dead for 3 in-game years now.

Pummel could also cripple on interrupt.

ze peachez.4786:

I have no pride so I would so be down to do this, pick me and I will rap Lifestyle with the best Young Thug voice i can do.

Thug Life, Thug Esportz

Is this a real life, or is it just fantasy….

Hey, what’s the better player bait for a new expansion than new race or profession?

I would assume that after 2,5 year they will pull at least one of those out of their sleeve.

Rym.1469:

I’d like the concept of heavily armored combat ritualist with spears/x/javelins, four ghosts as mechanics, enchanting their weapons like in the first game. And them being Tengu with possibly some Aztec/Feudal Japan feeling on top of it.

If Mordy destroys waypoints or something, you know who will dominate lucrative taxi buisness in Kryta.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I think Evon’s angle would be riding a popular hate movement to power- something that’s had frequent success in real-world politics. Kiel, meanwhile, would essentially be in a position of turning on a chunk of her constituency- not to mention she’s a painful enough do-gooder to give Logan a run for his money.

Realpolitik?

Charrpolitik?

As for idea of anti-sylvari fraction, that could be a good idea.

I fear however, that ArenaNet might simply not have balls to make fraction like this, because in today’s world they could’ve been easily accused of similarities with 1939-1944 German propaganda. Despite obvious major differences, but hey, who would go deeper?

Michael.9517:

imaclown.1628:

Burning already has high base damage nerfing might isn’t going to do kitten to IP. But I didn’t mean to target engineers with my comment simply saying if we ate going to nerf necromancers passives because they don’t have counters then there are a lot of other broken skills that you neglected to mention.

Also ever since dhuumfire necro has been repeatedly nerfed while calling them bugfixes. The only reason they are viable right now is because they counter (sort of) the two strongest classes. If that changes necros are going to need a serious buff.

Dhumfire necro is really good… but it has a high skill cap. I think its more than viable, I’ve seen people play it well, as in top tier necros, and it works… but the skill cap is very high and you have much less room for error than other classes/builds….

it truly is high risk high reward build.

Warriors, Eles, Engis – these professions supply with far better burning.

Condi Necro’s sole reason for existence in cele meta is the boon flip from PoC.

If people stop running boons, we will see Dhuumfire condi Necros, maybe.

Haven’t seen any Necro other than me playing with DF time to time for about half a year now.

Tengu armored ritualists bringing awesomness back to Tyria.

I’d like the concept of heavily armored combat ritualist with spears/x/javelins, four ghosts as mechanics, enchanting their weapons like in the first game. And them being Tengu with possibly some Aztec feeling on top of it.

Feels warm down there!

It would’ve been way better if they had erased aftercast on Locust Swarm. But idk, just sayin

Patchi.9061:

Shadelang.3012:

Patchi speaking as a necro I kinda cant help but laugh at what you said about greater marks. I cant think of a single build that takes this trait ever since the original marks got buffed in size to what was at the time the greater marks effect.

The only place I believe it was taken before that buff was for WvW and in certain early attempts at a heavy staff build for pvp. I havent seen anyone run that build in an extremely long time though.

I…honestly doubt your running into necros traited with greater marks as often as your claiming to.

Dude, you must be from EU or out of the NA scene for a while. EVERY good necro in this game uses Greater marks, and it counter the kitten out of engineers. If you look up to necros, you should look up to the best of them – Noscoc. He uses Greater marks, and he laughs at every engineer for playing that class against him. General counter to staff marks was to block and walk through them, now you can’t. Jokes on us. Reaper’s Protection is so easy to counter with little patience, while greater marks — well it’s obvious.. you’re screwed. If you’re not using greater marks as a condi necro against engineers, then i would suggest you reconsider that.

I will surely get Greater Marks over Reaper’s Protection because I like 1v1ing Blocking Engineers.

Not like I can’t Dark Path them instead during that block and fear right after.

Greater Marks was mandatory pick as Adept in 2012.

Patchi.9061:

Necromancer;

- Change the animaton of Dark Path making it different from the animation of staff auto attacks.

• Reasoning:
  Dark path , when traited, is already a really powerful boon converting to condition gap closer with 1200 range that is very hard to Line of sight due to the nature of the skill. Dodging that skill is essential for a lot of classes that have a lot of boons and low condi clear (mesmer, thief, engineer) and unfortunatley it is a very hard tell in a 2v2+ team fight because it looks exactly the same as staff auto attacks. Combined with the passive and active fears the necro has it is extremley hard to dodge, adding an extra animation to the skill would make counter play possible to classes such as thief, elementalists, and Engineers.

- Add more animation to Staff mark 4 and 5, and Corrupt boon.

1. Dark Path can only be used in Death Shroud. Necrotic Grasp cannot be used in Death Shroud. I guess it’s pretty obvious, but well…

2. Corrupt Boon already misses 1/3 of the times because of random dodge, random evade, random blind and is being nerfed over and over and over again. Oh, and it also has funny terrain/structure issues. And sometimes doesn’t feel like hitting anything, being in bad mood. Yet people still have problems with it.

Look. Here, better counterplay than for 70% of skills in this game. If you are being focused by Necromancer and you pop 5 juicy boons, including Stability, you should expect CB, because CB-able Stability is best necro meal. Blind or dodge.

If you want to swim in boons without caution, sometimes you’ll find that one net and drown.

As for Putrid Mark and Reaper’s Mark. That’s just neverending loop. They’ll extend it’s cast time, I’ll fear you into those like I always do, you’ll come back and tell them to “fix” it again. First thing first, put 1 AoE ally-only condi cleanse back on Putrid Mark. Then we talk.

As for Spinal Shivers: It does decent damage to zerk clothies only if they have 3 boons up. And not more than one Thief’s Auto. And it’s already been nerfed. Besides, where are you having problems with Zerk Necromancers running it?

Narkodx.1472:

They don’t care about your solo dungeon runs taking 15 seconds longer

^qft

As long as you can play it, it isn’t any bad.

It just isn’t what was described as in profession’s descreption.

If anything, change Combustive Shot not to proc Cleansing Ire if the intial explosion doesn’t hit any non-minion/pet.

Then we can dive into Warrior buffing, totally.

Besides, if you really want to land a Dark Path on an evasive opponent, secure it with Fear.
100% accuracy, confirmed.

GMO ftw

/15Charrsmasterrace

It’s cool that they’re trying to give us more possible options with CPC.

Sadly, they could buff whatever utility they like and yet none would affect tpvp meta in any way.

SA+Wurm+CB is here to stay. Mandatory surv and role utilities. Fix that first, ArenaNet.

And Nightmare runes should get 50s CD instead of 60s.

Concerned a bit about no nerf to IPowder and adding of Torment sigil.

I feel like P/S Spamgineer will be back in meta, with big bang, along with current position of Celengi.

Bonus damaging condition proc giving even more condition cover? No problem.

5 conditions application proc off proc with a single skill? No problem.

P/S engi is probably the least skill requiring engineer build, just after turret and yet it recives a buff. Now just add Perplex runes and there you go ANet, 50% of T1 WvW roaming radamer into PvP!

GG, WP.

As for Necromancer – I see that Power issues are here to stay.
And if you nerf Nightmare runes like that, either make fear proc in someSoE radius of affected attacker or further reduce cooldown to 50 seconds.

One last thing. Bonfire. I think that after the radius buff it might get a little crazy. It’s cool that the base radius will be bigger for non-trait users.

But honestly, every condi ranger picks that trait in Master Major. And the small point coverage with over 2 sec tick could be brutal. But not sure here.

Joanna d’Arc wasn’t fighting in bikini, neither should Charr.

I’d gladly welcome Cashblade on the place of Kiel.

Technically, I could agree.

Those two professions have always dominated “zerk” place because of their inherit “tricks” I’d say.

They’re quite possibly the only professions which don’t really get much goodie by switching zerk to other power amulet, but it really hurts the damage.

And since their defensives are based on evasion and general prevention of damage, defensive stats have much less value. In opposite, example, for Necromancer.

Is it a bad thing? Yea. But it’s been in this game for so long that I doubt we’ll see any shift in here. If you want to play other zerk build, you have to have tools to deal with thieves and mesmers. All.

As for the article – while the author starts by accusing both professions, only the Thief is being described in latter parts. Dunno…

tl;dr? /15necrocharrs

They will know when a shop assistant in their greengrocer’s starts to slice not only watermelons with his knife.

Camarell.5648:

its not gonna be a civil war for the same reason it wasnt any hate for everyone but sylvari that turned into Zhaitan minion when dead, or sometimes not even dead. Or the branded for that matter. Noone says hey, its a branded charr lets kill all charrs.

Yes sylvari is a dragon creation, doesnt mean that all sylvaris is minions.

This time it’s not so obvious.

You see, risen, branded, icebrood – They’re all different in their physic form and none of them has been friendly to the Player in the past, just pre-transformation. They’re straight bad.

“Goodie” Sylvari however are not different from “Baddie” Sylvari in their physique. It seems that they are firendly and then can just turn their terminator mode on, suddenly kill your minipets and be the bad one.

People affected by HIV are not different visually from those who are not, aren’t they? And you’d be still afraid in central Africa. What would you do then, to feel safe? Refuse to take anyone on date.

Except in Tyrian Sylvari’s case, you’d like to just obliterate the Plants and hang their salad head on pikes.

First, let them confirm that it’ll be an acutal expansion and not spin-off MOBA.

There are no cookies.

Okay, so the whole thingy with Sylvari turning out to be Mordy’s minions and all that burst of imagination concluded in two cutscenes where we see our Flora hippies ripping off human livers with polearms, pitchforks and doing leaps of faith in plate armor in general, quite possibly usual things in murica.

So, do we get a Civil war now?

Tendrils, roots, plants, sylvaris and other hentai stuff against proud defenders, chopping through wee..wood like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”, lured by an expansion. I guess it would be logical, eh?

Now I’d like to see your opinions on one subject: When Planty goes into nerdrage?

Is it just caused by getting too close to fungal lizard?

Or is it like a switch, turning Terminator mode on and hatching Aliens out of vegan, gluten-free belly? And just few Mordvakhins, the chosen ones, the saviors don’t give a crap about that corruption?

Myself, I’d like to see some kind of deeper ethinic-civil war. Like Sylvari not suddenly waving lumberaxes at us, but joining the dark side with a free will, under propaganda.

How would Civil War in GW2 look like? Like this?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

lordkrall.7241:

Unfounded?
The fact that people have been discussing it since beta would suggest that there were indeed things pointing towards it, ergo not unfounded.

The supporters have been arguing it despite continuous evidence against the theory. All evidential support they had was debunked upon release.

But ArenaNet goes and make the most illogical, asinine, and ridiculous but “common” theory canon lore.

It’s pretty kitten clear this wasn’t the fate of the sylvari upon their creation or during release.

What’s next? The gods are the Elder Dragons after all?

CureForLiving.5360:

I don’t know, just because player were able to guess it doesn’t mean its bad. Remember the series Lost? You know where the writers were so determined to be smarter than the audience that they purposefully took the series into the most stupidest directs? Yeah, I’d rather ANet not do that.

Too late, they’re going in the most stupidest directions.

It’s just that they’re giving the vocal fans what they think they want.

The NPE was this as well.

It’s become clear to me: ArenaNet has someone or someones who’s too kitten sensative to their feelings over their work that they intentionally kitten it up in a way to make it into what the players claim to want.

What’s next, Anet? Kormir no longer is a god, it is the PC from GW1?

I think this “revelation” is utterly bullkitten because 1) the “theory” has been debunked time and time again by the game itself and 2) sylvari being dragon minions (purified or otherwise) has always come off to me as a terrible story decision to try and take, as not only are they nothing like the pre-established dragon minions, but I feel that this would destroy the uniqueness and the entire concept of the sylvari being “a brand new race born in a time of turmoil”. We have many stories that feature races, nations, and other groups struggling to survive a time of great turmoil in various degrees, but just about every single one of these races/nations/groups are well established, or are a rebirth, but never – or very, very rarely – the beginning of the race who do not know why they were born into a world on the brink of the end. To reveal that “why” as “you are descendants of the world-enders!” is just plain silly and unimaginative to me.

Malkavian.4516:

How exactly was that theory unfounded. When it all came down to it, it does justify how Sylvari can be consumed by nightmare and how it’s virtually impossible to bring them back to the light as they are originally made to be Mordremoth’s minions and that all Ventari did was to show them the path to the light.

The theory that Nightmare was Mordremoth’s corruption was an entirely different – and actually supported – theory that made some semblance of sense, unlike the “sylvari are dragon minions” ‘theory’ (and I use that word very loosely).
————————————————————————————————-
Dear ArenaNet, I don’t kittening care about your story anymore. Congratulations. You just managed to ruin one of your biggest fans since 2006, one of the biggest contributors to the wikis until last year, and someone who was eager to be part of your company until that same point last year. You had a chance to bring me back. I’ve been patient with you, hoping that despite the constant continuity errors that the Living World (especially Season 2) adds in, that you’d fix your path. Well, it’s obvious you didn’t. You decide, once more, to go with the “rule of cool” and ignore this fascinating thing called logic and continuity.

Congratulations, ArenaNet, and goodbye.

If you see me in-game, it isn’t for the story anymore. It’s for the mindless acts of killing pixels. Though Quake does a better job at that.

I haven’t even played Episode 8, but this single spoiler makes me not want to. To think I was actually looking forward to the update today. But no more. If I do play it, it’ll be to complete the Carapace and Luminescent armor, or to satiate a potentially inevitable curiosity about how, exactly, they decided the kitten up.

It’s been good knowing you lore community, but this is my last straw. If you see me on this forum again, it’d be habit and no more.

Edit: Oh, and it’s been said in an interview/by Caithe in TA story (I can never recall which and wiki doesn’t have all TA story dialogue up) that Faolain was, indeed, the first to encounter Nightmare – however, she didn’t fully fall into it until much alter, when Cadeyrn, already fallen to Nightmare, pulled her into it, where she then replaced him as leader of the Nightmare Court.

Hey, we do get a hint about Mursaat after all…

Three major letdowns for meh:

1. No Rytlock yet ;///// I had hoped that we would be duo bad*ss Charr obliterating everything to the rock music.

2. No Cantha, no eastern Tyria, No Elona. Just Maguuma. If it’s as monotonous as Silverwastes, I’m not that hyped.

3. No Tengu? ;///// x2

But hey, better any boxed expansion than crappy Living Story for another year. I just hope that we won’t have to wait half a year after PAX for them to launch it. Since it seems like they’ve been working on this for 2 years already. I’m right, I should be right, ye, ye?

Who am I kidding. I just hope that they will launch it before Christmas ^^.

World of Warcraft, at least when I was very active in PvP (Wotlk, Cata) had some inherent flaws (for example, so said “season rush” when most dedicated PvPers would reach certain level of MMR within the first days of the season to get the specific MMR rewards <<2k-2,2k+>> and then sit at it, barely playing, which was devastating for teams aspiring for higher rankings later, as at some point we were constantly put against top gladiator teams of 2,7k MMR for example, with the slight elite weapon advantage).

But I’d welcome very similar system in GW2. Team rating, self MMR.

Like with Churchill’s opinion on democracy. It’s bad, but we don’t have anything better for MMO.

Rangelost.4857:

It could be interesting to display the MMR, even without numeric values, in a way that players can understand it. For example:

My RPM is over 9000!

Shift already!

Unless it’s Japanese engine.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Trevor Bennett.3691:

Well, since I’ve already done 3 Asura master-race.

That isn’t how you spell Charr. Silly.

Exactly.

Besides, it will be probably another Charr. Overlord race.

Unless they add Tengu. Oh, I would love to play Tengu. Saved one character slot for Tengu Thief, but if they add new profession, dunno….

He will be back…

As a new kitten plush mascott ready to pick up from store.

Gibson.4036:

IMO, it’s deeper than the cliffhangers. The Living Story is patterning itself off of linear media, like television and single-player RPGs. Problem is, this is an MMO, which really asks for a non-linear story development.

ArenaNet was on to something when they originally designed the game with web-structured, holistic stories across regions of Tyria by means of dynamic events. This is the kind of non-linear storytelling makes so much sense in a game where thousands of people are playing in persistent world. It allows a player to immerse herself into an ongoing story and explore in a non-linear fashion, putting the pieces together across a zone or zones until the big picture emerges.

Yes, the DE system has its issues. Many of them break down immersion because they cycle too often and don’t have quite enough links and branches to feel like complex interactions among the different factions in a zone. That isn’t, however, an inherent flaw in the DE concept. It’s just a sign of it’s immaturity. Early on ArenaNet talked about having the structure to keep adding more DEs to zones and change them as things developed. It would have been amazing to see that happen, watching the stories in the various regions of the world gain complexity and depth over time, rather than episodic, limited time additions that further a linear story.

Unfortunately, it feels like ArenaNet decided too quickly that holistic storytelling was a mistake, and fell back on the tried and true.

I think of it like the early days of most media. When a new technology enables a new form of expression, the natural habit is to mimic a similar medium that went before. You see it in very early film, which tried to imitate theatrical storytelling, until filmmakers understood more about how film could uniquely tell story.

The Living World/Story tries to function like a medium with a single, primary protagonist even though this game has thousands of players adventuring, often together, as well as trying to follow a linear cause-effect even though we have a wide open, persistent world.

Yes, most MMOs that aren’t completely sandbox go that way. At the beginning, however, GW2 looked like it was going to find a way to tell stories that really fit a themepark MMORPG, rather than shoe-horning in a single-player kind of story. I expect as MMORPGs continue to evolve eventually someone will find a way to tell a story that is uniquely suited to the media.

This is a very accurate, good post with conclusion I can agree with. +1.