Guild Wars 2

and My idea of an update would be “The Cost of Isolation”

The few Tengu in the world would Vanish. Smoke and Flames would be seen rising from the Dominion of Wind.

Vigil Airships dispached to investigate would find a blasted, smouldering zone totally over run by Destroyers. No surviving Tengu to be seen.

Players would breach the gates, and attempt to find Survivors, and ascertain whether or not Primordus was making some of the surface world his own. Dominion of Winds would be a high level explorable where you fight Primordus’s Lts much like Claw of Jormag.

In the zone players would encounter a few of the Dwarves.. a small remnant still single mindedly pursuing thier “Great Destroyer” even to the surface.

The lesson of the Tengu would be that no walls, no place is safe. Withdrawing from the world means no allies when times are desperate.

A few Tengu would survive. Perhaps a couple of besieged outposts.

This would of course negate any possibility of a playable Tengu Race.. and to complaints regarding that, well. “Living World” “Consequences” and “Nothing is off the table”.

Since the player base seems to delight in destruction of game zones and “change” this would be perfect.

Berethor.6142:

“So I guess my question is, do “I” really want this? " first off fixed that for you, I love the scarlet character, if you had done the quest they put up for this event and you actually listened to the “information” that has been collected by the detective you work with you would have noticed by now they are making scarlet out to be the GW2 version of Moriarty from Sherlock, I love that show and absolutely love the idea of them putting that type of character in an MMO for me to fight.
.

Do you know how deeply you just insulted Arthur Conan Doyle?

tanf.8917:

interesting i always thought devs will always embrace all races and will have at least 1 of each race, i was dead wrong lol.

LoL! EQ2 had a Dev named Aeralik. He played a Dark Elf Assassin. He also ran a web site strictly about playing assassin, and when he redid Racial Traits, not surprisingly, Dark Elf traits were skewed horribly in favor of playing Rogue classes. When the main lead played Monks… monks were godmode. Godmode classes changed with each change of Developer lead, in fact.

In a decade of playing MMO’s the Dev whose opinion is not skewed in favor of his race/class choice is rare.

OmaiGodman.2098:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Palador.2170:

lazarus.1639:

I hope both Kiel and Evon die screaming in terror and pain.

I hope Kiel meets her doom in a horrible and terrible way. And then, at the last moment, Evon charges in, catches her foes off guard, tosses the injured Kiel over a shoulder and runs to safety.

And thus begins a long running romance/contest between the two, where they keep track of who’s saved who the most times now. Each trying to one-up the other, neither ever admitting to the growing feelings between them that everyone else can so clearly see.

No self respecting human would EVER romance a charr. For any reason. The very thought leaves a vile taste. The only time a charr is remotely pleasing is when they are rolling around on fire in their death throes.

Remember Ascalon.

I take it that you still kill Germans while shouting “Remember the second world war!”

What part of Tyria is that? Never heard of either.

The Tengu will send a commando team to rescue them.

Birds of a Feather.. you know.

it has been done, so why not. Anakin was the very definition of the Adorably Precocious trope.. and grew up to be Darth Vader.

“its been done before” could be the slogan of this writing team anyway.

Palador.2170:

lazarus.1639:

I hope both Kiel and Evon die screaming in terror and pain.

I hope Kiel meets her doom in a horrible and terrible way. And then, at the last moment, Evon charges in, catches her foes off guard, tosses the injured Kiel over a shoulder and runs to safety.

And thus begins a long running romance/contest between the two, where they keep track of who’s saved who the most times now. Each trying to one-up the other, neither ever admitting to the growing feelings between them that everyone else can so clearly see.

No self respecting human would EVER romance a charr. For any reason. The very thought leaves a vile taste. The only time a charr is remotely pleasing is when they are rolling around on fire in their death throes.

Remember Ascalon.

Becka Williams.4978:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kurodius.7463:

Flirting has little to do with my issues with this relationship. Flirting only really shows sexual attraction, but it doesn’t present the basis of their relationship. These two characters have very little to bond over, they don’t play off each other’s personality in any way.

Yes, yes they do play off each other. Kasmeer is light and a little silly when relaxed, Marjory tends to be serious at least most of the time.

(Obligatory meme: They fight crime.)

Majory’s the no-nonsense tough as nails detective that doesn’t always play by the rules. Kasmeer’s the playful, friendly Mesmer that always gets results. If you have a problem, and no one else can help, and if you have the gold, then maybe you can hire: Jory and Kas: Private Investigators

You win!

Scotty uses the replicator and beams all of that down from the Enterprise.

Shrug. It’s as good an excuse as Krall made.

Well, I hope the reality of what is coming doesn’t marr the rose lenses.

My opinion

LA will be destroyed. It will be permanent. This is their big chance to “prove” how committed to a “living world” they are, and the course is set. They want to read “the permanent destruction of a popular player hub proves that Anet’s commitment to a Living World truly means nothing is off the table” in game reviews.

Sad that they are using such a poor vehicle, Scarlet, to prove a point.

edited, never mind, move along

Well, this “event” should have a ripple effect that shakes ALL of Tyria.

What I expect is more of what I have seen. The lionguard will continue to protect trade routes to a city that no longer exists. Travel will still flow to a city that no longer exists. NPCs will still reference a city that no longer exists. The multicultural glue of the sole multicultural commerce city in game will no longer exist, but won’t effect anything at all.

LA will be destroyed and the bulk of the game will be blissfully unaware of the fact.

goldenwing.8473:

I don’t plan to step foot into LA during the entire next LS.

I will probably go through LA to see what they’ve done after the LS has cleared out.

I have gone back through Kessex a few times on my alts, only to do the personal story for exp. Skipped the entire zone because it’s ugly now, I hate the LS and what it has done to the game and Kessex is a glaring reminder of that.

So probably LA will be a zone I will also forfeit in this game.

Like I’ve said elsewhere, I am obviously not one of ANet’s intended customers for this game anymore.

ANet has made it abundantly clear, that unlike other developers who understand that customers help shape the game after release, ANet has retained full ownership of this game, and will do whatever they want, however they see fit.

Including nothing lasts forever.

Let’s hope that phrase does not come back to haunt them regarding customer income.

In the meantime, there will be customers who enjoy destruction. And those that are hoping something better replaces what is currently in LA.

I wish enjoyment for all who are looking forward to this next patch.

Exactly my sentiment.

Charr Wars and Sylvari mesmers and thiefs.

While there may always be a Lions Arch, I feel they intend for it to be historical and as meaningful as the ruins of the Temple of Ages. By removing it as a player center they remove a lot of GW1 baggage connected to the site.

Then they can do whatever they wish to create “new” untroubled by connections to that “other” game.

I always remember what one of the early leads for Everquest 2 stated.. “the worst thing we ever did was name this Everquest 2”. 2 implies continuity for many, and some feel the label hampers creativity in new games. I honestly feel they may be distancing themselves even more from GW1 to allow for content unhampered by GW1 lore and connections.

Time will tell.

Do people not read the Dev Interview? Services are being relocated. Personal Story will be accessed by “time travel” portal. It will be an explorable but they stated “not safe”.

How are you reading “not much will change” into all of that.

They wont change because of Wintersday? Rofl.

They crafted a game featuring LA as a multicultural commerce center with a ton of infrastructure relating to that fact, the trade routes, the Havens, the very function of the Lion Guard as commerce and trade route protectors… a ton of work.. and they are happily tossing all of that out along with any NPC references to LA becoming moot as well.

I doubt that “what about wintersday” was a factor at all.

Scoundrel.2139:

Scoundrel.2139:

Just wandering around LA. This speech made by Honestcrest made me wonder whether we will get Tengu allies against Scarlet. Or, not being great with remembering lore at all, is this in relation to something I’ve missed?

“What’s this place?”

" This is our dwelling, the Dominion of Winds. We keep watch from this perch as power shifts and the world is transformed. We must soon determine with whom we will fight and with whom we will ally."

Edit: just added quotation marks

You heard it here first kids :P

What are the Tengu going to see? Humans, charr, Sylvari, Asura fighting Humans, charr, sylvari and Asura allied with a couple mongrel races led by a Sylvari.

Why would they involve themselves in this?

Admire the sentiment, but “retaking” LA isn’t scripted. Nothing any of us do matters.

You can either accept the role written for you, or step away. This “event” will roll out to the same conclusion regardless.

The people that do participate will get a nice shiny award/Title for failing and being defeated. Shrug.. I have better things to do.

So they gathered all of the worlds Tengu in the dominion.

One tribe that could co-exist, barely, with humanity, and all of the others that would gut a human on sight. The huge majority being the KOS variety.

Even the small faction not overtly hostile to humanity was mistreated by the Ministry of Purity and many Canthan.. and supposedly purged from Cantha later.

I doubt that 200 plus years of isolationism has somehow moderated the views of the majority of Tengu. The vast bulk of them hated humanity and there is nothing remotely hinted that would have changed that.

Thinking at this point that they will throw their doors open to human refugees is very unrealistic to me.

But a few lines in some obscure fansite interview by a single Anet writer could undo all of that. Retcon trumps lore now. Anything is possible and probable.

Steel Fenrir.2791:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

According to this timeline , the Tengu’s exodus began long before Zhaitan rose Orr from the depths. So it might be true that the Tengu in the Dominion of winds are actually from Cantha, or mixed in with the Krytan tengu.

Oh, So, 1225 is “long Before” 1219, got it. But who cares, lore means nothing here

1225 AE The tengu from around the world migrate to Tyria and establish the Dominion of Winds, erecting a great wall encircling it. (approx.)
1220 AE Divinity’s Reach is founded in the Krytan province of Shaemoor.
1219 AE Zhaitan, the Elder Undead Dragon, awakens. Orr rises from the sea. Lion’s Arch floods. Contact with Cantha severed.

nm. I just read the retcon. Apparently Tengu were capable of what humanity could not do.

For GW1 players LA was a special place. It took us from concern only about Ascalon to the big world. It was the port to New Lands. We got involved with its politics, its very survival. It was a special place.

And now it will be destroyed. To me, it seems like a final nail in the coffin of GW1 and its relationship to this game and story.

It is a sad ending to a great city that survived so much, only to be finally undone by a second rate villian with a contrived plotline unrelated to former Tyrian lore.

The last vestige of the old game. This is more of an exorcism than a living story.

why should old world Tengu do anything but remain xenophobic towards humanity? Particularly since they seem not to be involved in the us vs dragon thing that somehow united Tyria.

These are not Canthan Tengu. There was never an accord, never any softening of the emnity of them. I’m shocked they have any contact with outsiders at all.

And seriously.. never make them a playable race. Not until the Canthan tribes are available.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Primordus

First Sentence.

Where is everyone getting the “Slowly awakening” idea from.

It was the first Dragon that awoke.

I liked the construct of LA as a merchant city. Apolitical. Trade.

Ok, so it will be destroyed.

What happens to the Lion Guard. They exist solely to protect the merchant and trade interests of LA. The vast number of Lion Guard you see in game are not even in LA. They are out in the vast network of Havens and protecting trade routes. That is all they do, they take no interest in anything that is not affecting trade.

In Kessex the Seraph fight centaur, the LionGuard have a truce with them. In other areas they take no interest or intervene in anything not affecting the roads or their own havens.

So.. when LA is destroyed who will pay them. Who will care about trade routes to a city that no longer exists. What will be their motivation, and who will burden the cost of this trade route network. They are a private security force after all.

Why will havens in Bloodtide Coast even exist, cut off as they will be? Other Havens will also have no reason to be. Actually, with the source of their funding cut off, why would the bulk of the network not be abandoned totally?

This is not just a zone event. It should affect the entire LA based merchant system throughout Tyria. It should create a huge vacuum, and loss of infrastructure paid for and maintained by LA, unless some established entity steps in..

You can’t tell me that the economic muscle of LA is just going to relocate.. open in 2 weeks, sorry for the inconvenience. The interests that made LA should fragment.. No more captains council, Liongard.. Evon should move to BC.. Ellen to Divinity, so on. The thing that held disparate groups together for commerce is destroyed. No money… No coalition of merchants.

Not to mention, on a practical note, how much NPC dialog outside of LA should actually be re written now.

Is this going to be addressed, or are we going to get LA Destroyed, but business as usual for the Lionguard and Havens?

This is a world changing event. Not a single zone. If you fail to rewrite and redo the world to reflect it, it will be a failure. Loss of LA cannot be contained to LA.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Good time to me to return to Norrath. I’ll return to evaluate the damage, but see no reason to be in game to witness it.

Say hello to the people on Luclin for me. Oh, wait, can’t do that. They blew it up.

Nice try. Everquest2, it has always been blown up. Please note that Freeport and Qeynos have “not” been blown up.

I know that, but they did “destroy” Freeport as I knew it by turning it over to Sir Lucan (who we killed dozens of times for Fiery Avengers but hey, what’s a little detail like that?). And there’s a lot of other stuff which was fundamentally changed between games which made me look at EverQuest 2 and go “seriously? You should have just made a new game”.

Want to know what else? Lord Nagafen continues, despite it being canonically in game he was killed (Zordak Ragefire’s squatting in his den, for instance). Then there’s what the heck they did with Mayong Mistmoore . . . people complain about Scarlet but man, Sony beat ANet to the punch with “super NPC who can only win and not lose”. They also beat them to making skritt playable (chetari).

I don’t expect EQN to be anything worth it lore-wise. They’ve already shredded everything I had enjoyed in Norrath for the sake of just changing it because reasons.

It could be a great game in game methods, but really . . . it’s only comparable to the cranial rectal reassignment which happened to Toril (Forgotten Realms) to make it fit fourth edition D&D.

Shrug. They did the “paramount” routine of “alternate timeline”. Not defending anything about EQ2 lore, just stated that for me, Norrath will be a better place for me to be while Anet destroys a pretty integral component of their existing lore for THIS game, not GW1.

It is a done deal. It will happen regardless of player input. I don’t need to be here to experience or participate in what I feel is a major mistake. I’ll return after to see the damage and decide if there is a point to continuing in a game that seems to reject “permanent content” in favor of short term destruction pandering to bored end level players.

TBH, Sony did this, when they kicked every player out of the racial suburbs and made them “one time” quest zones. End result.. players were booted out of places they had lived for years in favor of “new” content that was done.. oh.. 3 months maybe, and now largely abandoned. Wrecked zones, removal of options for what.. temp content. Sounds familiar.. Bad decision when Sony made it, bad decision now.

Destroying existing content to overlay “new” content over it has never flown with a pretty large part of the MMO demographic.

Alukah.2063:

@Teofa Tsavo There’s no fragmentation, everything will be moved to the Vigil Keep.

And why would the dialog of every NPC in game have to make reference to this? Were they talking about LA before? Why would someone in a completely different region randomly start talking about LA when it has nothing to do with them?

And why are you so afraid of big changes? How about wait and see how it turns out?

You haven’t spent much time in the Lionguard Havens. Yes, they do reference LA. Their only reason to exist is LA. Lionguard reference protecting routes to LA frequently. LA exists as a separate trade entity to the point of having separate truce agreements in place.. notably with the Centuar in Kessix. Perhaps you missed that.

Yeah, its a Big Change.. and one that should effect the entire game and the fact that LA is established as the central trade hub for that whole game.. NPC wise. Over land trade routes go to LA. Guess you missed that.

Me being “afraid” of change has nothing to do with anything. I’m not a fan of change for change sake or to further try to Amplify the Scarlet Saga into something it is not begun to live up to.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Good time to me to return to Norrath. I’ll return to evaluate the damage, but see no reason to be in game to witness it.

Say hello to the people on Luclin for me. Oh, wait, can’t do that. They blew it up.

Nice try. Everquest2, it has always been blown up. Please note that Freeport and Qeynos have “not” been blown up.

Well it is a done deal. The only thing that remains to be seen is how players react to the removal of the central hub of the game and the scattering of core functions to other areas. I had thought they didn’t wish to further segregate and scatter the game population.

The sole multicultural city of Tyria gone, and the lore surrounding it made “history”, except for the poor souls going “back in time” for personal stories.

Also remaining will be what they do with elements connected to LA.. why would the Havens remain? Their function is to protect trade routes to LA. Why would the Lionguard remain, since the bulk of them are out protecting the trade routes to LA? Why, with the destruction and subsequent fragmentation would any of this remain? Will they change the dialog of every NPC in game that references LA in it’s current state?

Finally, I wonder “why?”. Nothing in this Living Story merits the destruction of LA. Nothing about the living story is worth it. Not the premise, not the characters, not the antagonist, not the motives. All I see is using a pretty poor excuse to do something that someone deems “kewl”.

LA survived 200 years or so of Zhaitan on its front porch. But Scarlet.. well..guess not.

But, its all scripted now, no going back. Good idea or bad.. the ramifications will be seen.

Good time to me to return to Norrath. I’ll return to evaluate the damage, but see no reason to be in game to witness it.

Shrug. I find the character excruciating, but I’ve never been a fan of the Adorably Precocious/Mouthy kid trope.

kitten is free/shareware and usable, however with interface that is “less than intuitive”

I use corel 5

wow. Kitten. the software name is G and I and M and P.

VOLKON.1290:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

VOLKON.1290:

Here’s a crazy thought OP… you could, you know… complete the events and push them back the other way? I know, I know, it sounds way WAY out there, but that option does actually exist.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to post a series of videos showing how a solo player, at appropriate zone level, can solo group Dynamic content, particularly those involving champions, to illustrate how simple what you are suggesting is, while remembering this often happens in new player and sub 50 zones.

Some events require multiple people, not all do. There are some champions you can solo, others you can’t. Do what you can, ask in map chat for help with what you can’t. You’d be surprised how many people seem to show up out of nowhere when they see someone involved in an event.

And yet, on FA, some time frames we have to go beg in LA to get enough people for Jormag.. and fail anyway. Jormag.. not some obscure Jotun champ terrorizing an outpost in Dredgehaunt. For most of the zones, the option is “walk away”. It is a staggering amount of un-utilized content when you add it all up.

VOLKON.1290:

Here’s a crazy thought OP… you could, you know… complete the events and push them back the other way? I know, I know, it sounds way WAY out there, but that option does actually exist.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to post a series of videos showing how a solo player, at appropriate zone level, can solo group Dynamic content, particularly those involving champions, to illustrate how simple what you are suggesting is, while remembering this often happens in new player and sub 50 zones.

I feel bad for new players. A lot of undoable content is compelling, and you want to do it. As a former GW1 player I had a hard time walking away from Nebo Terrace but a snowballs chance of killing champions at that level, solo. I started the game in November after launch.. and even then most “group” dynamic events were solo most of the time.. or at best 2-3 people.

I feel bad that the advice given them is callous, jaded, or downright rude, or at best unaware of zone populations on many servers. A new player may not want to level in the Queens zerg, or by cooking.. or by wvw, or the usual suggestions. A new player may actually want to level by map.. maps supposedly geared to players of that level.
A new player could be reasonably assumed to want to play the game.. and not be “sick” of maps and DEs and all the things long term players are “sick” of.

A new player, having read the hype of the game, may assume that it’s not a guild only game, an LFG game, or a beg for help in chat game, and yet those are what the game is becoming for a large chunk of the content.

It does not help that for some reason, new player zones are overlaid with events and LS that are in no way tailored for new players. I felt bad for level 8 players getting blown apart by periscopes, I feel bad for new players poking toxics in Queens and Kessex and getting torn apart by those. In many ways I feel the development team is just as callous towards new players as the veteran population is.

I don’t have all the answers. Perhaps NPC help could scale up as player participation scales back. In too many situations, the NPC help is a non factor. Events like ressing 12 hylek in Timberline go on forever, because they don’t live 5 seconds. NPC incompetence like the Lionguard fort in wayfarer, where 2 Ice Elementals can, and do, kill every allied npc in the fort even though supposedly the same level.

A new player should feel like “wow, if I rez these guards I might have a better shot at this” instead of finding out it’s best to just let dead npcs stay dead till you have soloed something.

Skill points in zones 1-30ish need adjusted too for soloing. Hard content should be something to consider and take a shot at.. Like open world champs. Wolfmaster, for example, isn’t needed for anything. He should eat a level 11 solo. You should have to get help. That said, Skill points like Vilnia in Snowden, why should a skill point be that level of difficulty for a player of zone level, when population and participation are declining in a zones of that level?

lordkrall.7241:

Inimicus.7162:

well they did sit on this one and basically ignore gw1 for about 4 years before the betas fired up iirc

Yeah… except for War in Kryta, Hearts of the North, Winds of Change, Embark Beach, z-quests (mission, pvp, vanquish, bounty), Langmar quests, profession overhauls and so on.

Which is basically more than they released between Prophecies – Factions – Nightfall – Eye of the North put together.

Statements like this leave me speechless. And probably infracted for stating so.

Hate to point out that the things you claim were greater than the sum of the original campaigns and expansion took place in those zones for the most part, and in the case of Z missions.. used the original content. Without the 3 campaigns and expansion, none of what you listed would have been possible at all.

Really hard to make an argument that add ons to existing content were somehow greater than all prior content combined.

lordkrall.7241:

The Holy Advenger.1758:

now theyre going to be reworking armors, runes, and sigils. This is something that shouldve happened before launch.

If they were going to hold off a game until it was at perfect balance they would never release anything at all.

Balancing takes time, and it changes with every release, so either they will have to spend years for balance and never add anything at all after the game is released, or they would have to use the current system.

The mechanics. A “rework” in GW1 meant swapping a few runes out, rethinking your skills set, perhaps a new weapons set. Often a pvp “rework” meant nothing in terms of PvE. Armors, weapons, runes were, for the most part, cheap and basic in GW1, and expensive was skin only. Once you purchased a set of max level armor in GW1 you were set, stat wise, for the life of the game.

Not like here.. where swapping a set of ascended armor is a major expense and time issue. Not like here, where expense is tied up in stats instead of appearance unless you want to argue that blue is an acceptable substitute for rare/exotic/ascended.

Add in the fact that for many people, along with replacement costs of the armors there will be associated transmutation costs and possible costs of removing higher priced sigil and rune sets.

They are balance passing as if this were GW1.. and taking no consideration of the fact that gear grind wise.. it is not.

“Events” are dead in Frostgorge and Queens as well, unless they happen to be in the path of the blob. Some will be up, undone, for hours.

We have hard bosses and “events” only done on a few servers as well, and ignored every place else.

Leftover content is undone all over. Scarlets minions? rofl. Toxic junk still in Kessex, why?

I guess I was lucky in that my first experience in the Queensdale “starting” zone was not a horde of mostly max level players screaming at each other about “proper order” while I struggled doing things they could care less about. (as a new player)

Leveling today means doing events designed for groups.. solo. Get used to it.

The Hero/Hench design of GW1 made up for the fact that in all games low level zones become less populated. Here..do what you can, and skip what you can’t till you get a lot higher leveled.

I would spend Gems to see Braham killed.

It will be Godzilla. With a Scarlet do. Scarzilla.

khani.4786:

Well at this point we are part of the group, friends if you will, with Braham and the others. So asking about his mother would be logical given that we’re friends.

Speak for yourself. I pick my friends. Those people are not my friends.

“Running around aimlessly killing stuff”
plus Oh, look, Scarlet stuff.

perilisk.1874:

Vorpp suggested it might be an aspect of the Sylvari dream, not a god or dragon. If we have to go with one of those, I’m going with possessed by the DSD, or possibly Lyssa (less likely), both of which have a twinned thing going on, like Scarlet’s symbol of the red vine and the pale tree (and a water aspect, not that it matters for scarlet). And it would explain the illusions, the charisma, and how she got the Krait obelisks, plus the obsession with duality (alliances, magic/tech) and subversion (watchwork).

If I was going to make a totally off-the-wall, baseless prediction: we will learn that the magic in the leylines is the source of power for the dragons and for the gods (six different forces of magic). We’ll find that Scarlet wants to intercept the leylines at LA to cut the dragons off and ascend to godhood, to regain her independence. We’ll intervene, and Destiny’s Edge 2.0 will have to sacrifice themselves to absorb the energy and become the new gods:

Braham: neo-Balthazar (sort of similar names)

Rox: neo-Melandru (she’s a miner and her name is Rox, of course’s she’s getting the Earth element)

Marjory/Kasmeer: neo-Lyssa. Yes, Lyssa takes two female vessels. It’s her thing. They’re a pair, linked by fate. One does Illusion, very well. One is named “Del Aqua” (of water, get it?).

Canach: neo-Grenth. Because Trahearne is busy. Anyway, poison sort of fits the sphere. And his misunderstood anti-heroism sort of fits the profile of a good death god.

Taimi: neo-Dwayna. Because what else is left? And crystals and sparks and whatnot fit the air magic profile; maybe she doesn’t do healing (unless it plays a role in the LS regarding her medical issues), but that’s because it got kicked out of the trinity.

Of course, that doesn’t leave any LS character to be Kormir. Unless… oh dear gods… nevermind, forget I said anything, this was a terrible idea.

If this actually did happen, it would suggest that the dragons would be getting very hungry, very soon, and might start to go on the offensive.

Why would they use old gods?
Braham: God of Brooding and Emotional Issues.
Rox: Goddess of Sole Survivor Guilt.
Kasmeer/Marjory: Goddesses of Rule 34 art.
Tiami: Goddess of Adorable Precocious Urchin Prodigies
Canach: God of Misunderstood Motives

And of course Scarlet:.. the new Goddess of Godmodding.

The epic ship has sailed.

BobbyStein.2315:

Becka Williams.4978:

The problem with the Scarlet Story is that Anet thinks they’ve made this grand mystery that’s gotten the players talking. Then they come in and say “I love this theory crafting! You’re all wrong, but I love it!” And they fail to realize that we’re wrong because they’ve held the ENTIRE story for the end. What we’ve got is a 2 chapter book. Frost and fire through whatever the next update after edge of the mists is called is chapter one. Then everything’s explained to us in chapter 2. And then the story’s over. This is boring. They waited 6 weeks to release the living story to make sure they got it right, and nothing is revealed. We just have to wait till the end. If ALL the story’s at the end, we should’ve just gone to the end from the start. You don’t need to have played the living story for the past year, because nothing important has been told to us. I can only hope they’ve learned for season 2. They said they have, but only time will tell.

Why don’t you hold your criticisms until you’ve played the content? At this point you’re all speculating on how it fits together and what you’ll be doing in the next release. We haven’t discussed the details, so most of the assumptions in this thread aren’t correct.

Don’t assume that all of us bother to play it, at this point.

lol reskin. and it took this long?

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Just because some games have even worse designers doesn’t make the rng and grind in gw2 acceptable…. It just means it’s not the worst contender. Also GW2 is aimed for a us/eu audience, the audiences who least enjoy long terrible grinds.

Name one MMORPG that has better RNG and grind?

Everquest 2. Vanguard.

Neither are considered “playing it right” but I enjoy sword/dagger on my ranger even tho the sword autoattack makes dodging hard. With 2 evades and skill 2 I don’t run into terrible trouble though. The Ranger autoattack animation is just fun to watch as well.

I use sword/sword on my wars a lot, torment is decent damage particularly as a pull with offhand sword to get the movement damage bonus, and I like the looks. I use the short Lionguard swords or Honor of Humanity.

I am sick of GS and refuse to use them on war or ranger, its enough my mes and guard have them. (and this is why I solo)

Majic.4801:

Suddenflame.2601:

At this point I question your knowledge on your classes along with your combat ability. I have never died to her even once.

For whatever it’s worth, this thread is the first thing that pops up when searching for “gw2 vilnia shadowsong”, and this particular skill challenge is considered one of the toughest at any level by many players. Thus the fact that this is the top search result on google makes this comment one of the more infamous examples of kitten wagging in the game.

It’s also not very helpful, aside from the tip about taking out Noxia first, because the ravens spam AoE confusion and the condition-stacking autoattack Vilnia and her phantasms use against you cannot be side-stepped. Try it: they home in on you. I just tested it.

Thankfully, the wiki page for this fight (Slay the evil Raven shaman, Vilnia Shadowsong, and her helper) does offer some useful tips, the most important being the safe area behind the column to the left of the gate at the north end of the chamber.

Whenever a player gets get condition stacked, the column offers a safe place to heal up before stepping back in. While it’s also possible to hop up the rocks on the south end (where you enter the encounter), doing so takes time and exposes you to attacks. The column is usually a better choice.

The second most important thing to be prepared for is to immediately stop attacking when the ravens stack confusion with their barrage attacks. The amount of confusion they stack can down any player in seconds if they don’t back off and either clear them with a skill or allow them to time out while evading or hiding behind the column.

Third is to be prepared to take a lot of damage, because there is no profession in the game that has enough endurance to dodge everything that’s going to be thrown at you, condition damage isn’t mitigated by armor, and circle-strafing won’t protect you from homing ranged attacks. I strongly recommend using some sort of regeneration food before the battle.

Fourth is to focus on one enemy at a time, because they all have ranged attacks, and the more enemies shooting at you at once, the less likely you can dodge them all. A Guardian with a lot of condition removal and AoE spam may be able to burn everything down quickly, but for most professions, a conservative, methodical approach is most likely to succeed.

This is NOT an easy fight, especially for a level 25 encounter, and great care and patience are needed to solo it. If simply completing it is the goal, it’s much better to bring friends for this one if at all possible.

To anyone who may be reading this as a result of googling for it, I hope this post may help, and I urge anyone attempting this not to be discouraged by some of the less helpful comments this thread contains.

It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

Good luck!

This is your best advice and answer. Disregard wiggling your hitbox.
And don’t feel bad, I would concur this is the toughest skill point solo outside of Orr.

mango pie

18 char

This is an mmo, not an economic sim. Don’t expect real world economy.

Particularly in that items have value simply as leveling fodder.. with no relationship to value of goods crafted from them. People accept net loss crafting to gain levels. When a leveling boom is over.. price will adjust if demand falls.