Guild Wars 2

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.

I will probably still continue to use Sigil of Battle on my Ele. It’s the only character where I swap attunements/weapons often enough to benefit from it.

I understand why the nerf was necessary, although I wish ANet had split it so that the nerf only affects PvP.

Thief. No question about it. He will be a dual Dagger/dual Pistol wielding ninja that would make John Woo shed a tear of pride.

I like the Vinewrath fight a lot. It took all of the good bits from the Marionette fight, but left out the annoying parts (how people in your lane could not help weaker platforms, meaning that you could have 4 platforms absolutely crush their Champion, but then watch helplessly as the 5th platform screws up and the entire lane fails). This new system means that EVERYBODY in the lane had to screw up for the fight to fail, so it’s not just down to a few individuals.

The one thing Marionette did better though? The music. It felt SO much more epic fighting the Marionette thanks to the music, as well as the Marionette’s attacks. In contrast, the Vinewrath’s attacks aren’t very well telegraphed (outside of its special attacks) and gives the impression that it’s a largely passive participant in the entire fight, rather than the primary objective we are trying to destroy.

Pandaman.4758:

zaced.7948:

i don’t think there’s a problem in experimenting on plants whatsoever. them being dragon minions or not. next thing you’ll tell me i shall stop eating meat because humans/asura/norn have feelings and stuff.

Generally people would tell you to stop eating humans and norns. Don’t know why you’d eat an asura though, they don’t have much meat on them.

But their ears are so tasty when deep fried!

So, is anybody else getting constant errors when trying to post on the forums? The error message reads something like, “Sorry, this area isn’t available yet. Please check back later. Try going home?” The link then takes you back to the main forum page.

You know, that would actually be quite fitting. Destiny’s Edge is saved from certain death at the Battle of the Silverwastes by Rytlock opening up another portal and sucking Eir, Zojja, Logan (and Trahearne too, I suppose) into the Mists. They then undergo a series of adventures (which we learn as part of a bridging LS release) before making their way back to Tyria.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay in Hotjoin. It’s the mode I normally stick to as well. I’ve tried out Unranked a few times, but I know from that experience that I’m not quite good enough to make it at that level of PvP. (My reflexes aren’t as good as they used to be, and coupled with my ping from Australia means that I’m usually operating at a 200+ ms lag compared to my US opponents.)

At the same time, recognise that Hotjoin is not really the place for “fair and balanced competition”. Hotjoin is just as its official name suggests, for “Practice”. It is a place where people go to try out new professions, new builds, or to farm their Dailies. Players are free to join and leave at any time, so if you see that the opposing team is obviously stacking (and if you haven’t already gotten your Autobalance win buff), nobody will blame you for leaving a sinking ship either.

Now, if you want to change it so that people don’t just stack on the winning team in Hotjoin all the time, here’s my suggestion:

If you pick “Random Team” when you join a match, you get a special buff that DOUBLES the rewards at the end of the match (capped at the winner’s normal reward). This means that if you picked a random team, and your team ended up losing, you’d still get the same rewards as if you’d lucked out onto the winning team anyway. This has the following benefits:

1. There is no incentive to hop teams. You’d get the same reward staying on your random original team as you would switching to the winning team. This discourages “Autobalance Wars”.

2. Because rewards are calculated based on the length of time someone is in the match, it encourages people to join the match at once instead of watching until it becomes clear which team is superior. This discourages waiting in Spectate and should thus help solve the issue of 4v5.

These changes means it’s most profitable to instantly hit “Random Team” the moment a match starts, and then see it out to the end, win or lose.

Note that the Random Team buff only applies to Hotjoin; it does not appear in Unranked or Ranked.

So, what IS the reflect rotation for shield phase? This is the first time I’ve heard of that.

Not to mention that Wynne’s statement is still a bit open to interpretation. After all, if the Pale Tree’s seed was stolen away from a cave guarded by Mordrem, technically they do “come from the jungle dragon” even though originally they were an independent living race that was conquered by him and turned into a slave race.

A bit like the various Horde races in WoW, for example. (Note: I’m not that familiar with WoW lore, as I’ve only played up to Warcraft 3.) The Blood Elves and Tauren are not native to the same world as the Orcs, for example, yet everyone you meet would immediately classify them as “belonging to the Horde”, despite the Horde having its roots in Draenor, not Azeroth.

@Bobby: I hope your big reveal at PAX South can answer some of our burning questions.

Yes, you must purchase the Verata’s Insignia from the Bandit Crest collector. You will also then need to acquire the specific armor/weapon recipe from Bandit chests. (These can be purchased on the TP however, at fairly reasonable prices now.)

Perhaps it’s only a specific kind of divine magic, the type that’s linked to Ascension.

… You know, maybe that’s it. That’s how the player base is going to protect their characters from Mordremoth’s corruption. We’re all going to become Ascended!

There are “Daily” servers where you should be able to get the dailies done without a fuss, Ohoni, if that’s what you’re after.

To Lotus: At the same time, I wouldn’t get too upset if people pull off these kinds of shenanigans in Hotjoin (which I assume Ohoni is). Hotjoin is basically for practice, dailies and for players to muck around, as evidenced by the fact that people can join and leave at any time without consequences. (This is especially the case if the server is a private/guild server. They paid their gold/tokens for it, so they can do whatever they like in there as long as it doesn’t involve hacks or exploits.) If you absolutely want a proper Conquest PvP match, play in Unranked/Ranked.

And that’s why I always hang back and observe the players first before joining a team in Hotjoin.

But back on topic, it doesn’t really matter to me what finishers the enemy uses on me. If anything, the whole “flag spike” finisher annoys me more than anything else, because either the player doesn’t care enough to at least customise their finisher, or they’ve gotten hit by the finisher reset bug.

Banner of Strength or Banner of Discipline seem to be the most valued by PUGs, in my experience. Banner of Defense after that if you have 3 Warriors in your party.

Cheers for the heads up.

Nefejrangh.2584:

You can stomp with the Shortbow:
-press “stomp key”
-use istantly infiltrator’s arrow at max range.
-then you should return before the descending phase of the animation with steal or infiltrator signet.
It’s a bit hard to do in combat but in some situations it’s a good option.

Is that how those Thieves are able to start the stomp animation, shadow step away, and then shadow step back right as the stomp lands?

Has Jeremy Soule left DirectSong? I always thought the company was owned by him.

I personally run with an Ice Drake and a Carrion Devourer. Both were chosen for aesthetics as well as usefulness.

Drakes in general are tanky, do cleave damage, and have a handy blast (they use it as their opener, so you can generally get a blast on it if you swap to them right after you put down the field). The Ice Drake’s F2 skill is useless, but it’s my favourite skin out of all the Drakes.

Devourers are also quite tanky and what I switch to when a melee pet would be useless/get slaughtered. The Carrion Devourer is my favourite skin out of the available options, and the F2 poison field is handy sometimes since I run LB/GS and don’t have any means of applying poison on my own.

Vaguely related. One time in WvW I was chasing an enemy near a cliff. I used Swoop to try and close in, but I’d somehow de-selected him and ended up Swooping right off the cliff and fell to my death.

I’m sure that enemy had a good laugh at my expense. XD

We can hope that the upcoming balance changes will finally fix the minion AI (and the lingering bug with FotM where all minions die when you get downed), but don’t hold your breath.

I still use good old Ether Feast in PvE, just because sometimes I’ve been in situations where I’m dying to crazily stacked conditions while out of combat, and I don’t have any more condi cleanse or enemies to spawn clones on so I’m dying bit by bit. Ether Feast’s heal on demand is a literal lifesaver in those situations.

My Staff Ele will miss his old Sigils of Battle, but I’ll probably adapt.

Guardian of Angels.9867:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

you will have trash talking and bad mouthing as a part of it. You have to be able to accept it and live on with your life without being affected by it.

Actually, trash talking and bad mouthing are reactions of players who aren’t able to control their own temper. That players get irritated by playing a game is on their side, not on the player who causes the irritating (assuming we’re talking about players who just play for fun, not to be irritating on purpose.

You don’t have to accept anything, and it’s rather annoying that it causes bad impressions at players who play for fun.

You’re basicly saying: Because there’s a game, this behavior is to be expected and you should just say: Thank you and move on.

How about NO.

Well said. I disagree with the notion that trash talking and bad mouthing is an “acceptable” part of competitive activity. There’s such a thing as being a good sportsman, after all. If the most skilled PvP player in the world constantly insulted and belittled his opponents (or even his own teammates), I would have zero respect for him and interest in his accomplishments, no matter how good he was. It shows to me that he does not respect other people, and that usually does not speak well of him as a person.

As to the original question, I enjoy PvP on occasion, and I do the dailies every day for the reward tracks, but Unranked/Ranked arenas are far too serious for my liking. People get SO upset when they lose, and they usually start pointing fingers immediately.

While I was pretty fortunate to get all 3 Coat boxes I needed fairly early (got 2 during my first attempt, then the third on attempt #6. Got a 4th box on attempt #7), I do not approve of having the Coat boxes locked purely behind RNG. I grudgingly accept that RNG does need to be there to be provide some longevity, but I still would have preferred that the Coat boxes be available for Bandit Crests + gold, for the players who just have terrible luck.

Likewise, I’ve also been fairly lucky in obtaining the body parts I need (just need the Thrasher Kidney and Eye now), but I would have liked to see the guaranteed extractors being made available immediately after release. I can accept them being released 2 weeks after release, I guess.

Story-wise? I’m almost certain it will be #2. Writing completely separate storylines is a lot of work, and while I wouldn’t rule it out for HoT, I also wouldn’t get my hopes up. But more importantly, ANet will never do anything that takes away player agency over their own character. That always, ALWAYS results in major backlash from players.

Of course, roleplayers are free to make up their own story of how their Sylvari react to Mordremoth’s corruption.

“BAAAAWSS!”

Yes, yes, I heard you the first time, Braham. :P

I’d like the Biconics to call me “Great Lord and Master”, but I guess I can settle for “Boss”.

This thread is full of awesome, despite the Sylvari haters.

The fight is tricky until you learn the mechanics. Then it becomes extremely easy.

Tuning is basically just a restriction to stop the players that did the following:

1. Use 1 Extractor
2. Go into one Breach boss, tag it.
3. Leave and go to the next Breach boss, tag it.
4. Repeat for all the Breach bosses.

Because you get an extracted part regardless of whether or not the boss is successfully killed, this meant that the player could leech off all four boss kills without really doing anything to contribute to the fight at all.

You can still get multiple parts per Breach if your group kills its boss early, and then you use a second extractor before going to help at another boss. The extractor will now only give you one Part at a time, no matter how many bosses you tag.

It would be nice to have Kessex Hills cleaned up eventually, from a purely aesthetic sense.

Yeah. I kept one as a souvenir, but I just sold all the others.

I would like to call attention to something Caithe says at the end of the latest chapter:

“Already Sylvari have begun to lose their minds. Mordremoth won’t stop there.”

Who’s to say that Mordremoth can’t mentally dominate ALL humanoids? He’s the Elder Dragon of Mind, after all. Sylvari may only be the first victims due to their legacy and plant-based nature. It may be wiser to research a cure/antidote for the domination first, before it affects everyone.

LOL, it DOES sound a lot like most meetings I’ve been to. XD

Interesting… I hadn’t noticed that. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out next time I kill the Vinewrath.

Also in Trahearne’s defense, he probably didn’t expect Mordremoth to be capable of retaliating in such a dramatic fashion. All previous experience has shown that the giant vines were not capable of attacking airships cruising at combat altitude (they needed to come down low in order to be below the cloud cover and coordinate fire properly). Even so, the battle would probably not have been a complete disaster had the Sylvari complement of the Pact not gone insane like they had and attacked from within.

Zojja told my Asura Ele that he was a “special cog in her life”. D’awwww…

Basically, feel free to assume whatever relationship you want in your own personal head-canon or fanfiction. Just don’t expect it to be reflected in the open world.

Actually, now that the Sylvari will likely be under suspicion, and a fair number of them killed/arrested/under guard for fear of going all “HEIL MORDREMOTH!”, the stage is set for a new race to come on the scene to bolster the faltering manpower and morale of the Pact races. Enter the Tengu, who up till now have largely conserved their strength behind the walls of the Dominion of Winds.

Heart of Thorns could start with us deciding that Tyria needs a new strong ally, and maybe, just MAYBE this time, the Tengu will heed the call. (After all, a Wall’s not gonna do them much good if Mordremoth vines start punching up through the ground beneath them.)

My Ele is mourning the change to Sigil of Battle. He wasn’t even using the meta!

Opc.4718:

I’ve even started a guild just for this – Salt Merchant [NaCl]. Comes with a nice little happy customer message too.

Sir, your post deserves far more than the +1 I can give it for the hilarious guild name. XD

My Staff Ele will mourn the nerf to Sigil of Battle. (Still gonna keep using it though.)

Ascended gear do not get automatically sorted into the Exotic bags, no. They will go into “Equipment” bags crafted by Armorsmiths.

I still think that Sylvari (and potentially other types of Mordrem such as the Thrashers) are Dragon minions only in the sense that their race has a long history intertwined with Mordremoth. The race of the Pale Tree may have been an ancient species on Tyria, similar to the Giganticus Lupicus, that were conquered long ago by Mordremoth and assimilated into his armies. This makes them especially susceptible to his corruption due to his tinkering with their “DNA”, but they are still a distinct living species in their own right, different from corrupted minions such as Mordrem Trolls, Teragriffs, and other standard Dragon minions like Destroyers, Risen and Icebrood.

In essence, the Sylvari are a bit like a livestock race for Mordremoth; a domesticated species that Mordremoth uses as a springboard to create dedicated corrupted minions from.

I have a suspicion that the Egg will be used as part of a ritual to free the Sylvari from Mordremoth’s influence. Perhaps something in their physiology compels them to serve a Dragon, but it doesn’t say WHICH Dragon. If Glint’s child is born free-willed and free from Kralkatorrik’s corruption, then the Sylvari (and the Pale Tree) may be able to pledge their allegiance to it via a magical ritual which subverts the hold Mordremoth has over their race.

Wasn’t Trahearne awakened a good deal earlier than the rest of the Firstborn though? I can’t remember where I read it, but I seem to recall that he was alone for a good half day or more before the second Firstborn awoke.

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.

If I recall correctly, some years back a bunch of players tried to crack the cipher to see what the messages said, but I didn’t hear back about their progress.

Please refer to this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Please-Take-Care-with-In-Game-Mails/first#post4687568

But basically, your guildies are right. It is a phishing mail, and can be safely ignored.

Yes, I also do not have Ogden’s Ankh or the Aspect Amulet available at the Laurel Vendor. I’ve been collaborating with others on the Wiki trying to track down why some players have it and some don’t, but we’ve been unable to find a cause so far.

Yeah, it’s RNG (and I agree that it’s a pretty bad system). I got 2 on my first try (very lucky), then nothing until try #6, and another one on try #7.

However, it’s entirely possible that when the guaranteed extractors for Kidneys/Eyes come out, the Coat boxes also become purchasable for Bandit Crests.