draxynnic.3719

I'm glad someone noticed that Seal Area is closest to Sanctuary rather than guardian hammer 5.

Comparing the two:

Seal Area Advantages:

Longer duration and shorter recharge, leading to longer uptime (even if Sanctuary is traited, it has a shorter duration (7 seconds versus 8) and longer recharge (48s versus 35).

Potential to use back-to-back.

Sanctuary Advantages:

Can be used at range.

Does not have a preparation delay.

Heals allies within.

Other Differences:

Sanctuary is a light field while Seal Area is a dark field

Sanctuary knocks enemies out when activated, while Seal Area does not. This is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage, but it means the two skills do offer different tactical possibilities.

In practice, neither see a lot of use. Guardian has a lot of better options for projectile hate (Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Tome of Courage skill 3, Shield of Absorption if using that offhand) and healing (Bow of Truth) so it takes pretty specific circumstances for Sanctuary to actually be worthwhile. I've seen it work as a gimmick for area denial in sPvP, either to keep the enemy team away from a body or to decap a point, but generally speaking it works because people are surprised by it and will only work a couple of times in the match - I don't think it's ever been meta.

Seal Area I've seen used to trap an opponent attempting to take a point in order to kill them with a pile of AoE, but I haven't seen that done in a while and like the above use of Sanctuary, it's a bit gimmicky. In PvE, I've made use of it a few times when I knew I really wanted a lot of projectile hate. Smoke Screen is the first port of call for projectile hate with a thief, but that will buy time for Seal Area to activate for about fifteen seconds of continuous projectile blocking.

Of the two, I think Seal Area is currently more useful than Sanctuary, due to the higher uptime percentage and having less competition. Mind you, being more useful than Sanctuary isn't exactly a high bar, but it does mean I'd be hesitant to just go ahead and give it healing.

What I'd probably be inclined to do to buff preparations is to shorten the arming time - but I think the arming time being present is an important distinction. Preparations do appear more powerful than traps once they go off (with each having some means of keeping the enemy in the affected area once they trigger, apart from the portal), so opponents in PvP should have some opportunity to get out if they realise that an enemy thief has just dropped a preparation at their feet.

It takes more map awareness than most people have to judge if the thief is doing a good job or not.

The typical thief build requires specific circumstances to shine - namely, that the rest of the team is putting up _enough_ of a fight that there are open points to decap and/or ongoing fights to +1. If the team is getting hammered so hard that the enemy team can afford to have someone sitting on each point at all times, or even in a position where they can watch two points and intervene as soon as they see the thief show up, there's really not much a thief can do.

It doesn't help that enemy team members that the thief sees don't necessarily show up on the team's minimap, so if a thief checks far, finds a bunker sitting on it (or even sees an enemy player near enough to stop them from decapping on a build that counters them) and chooses not to engage and to try to find a softer target somewhere else, that often leads to people accusing the thief of running around doing nothing, when the real problem is often that the rest of the team is so ineffective at putting up a fight that the thief just isn't getting any opportunities to exploit.

This isn't just a problem with thief, too - anyone acting in a similar role in lieu of a thief is often opening themselves up for the same abuse if the game isn't going well, when often the real problem is... well, it's hard to decap if the rest of the team is putting up such a weak fight that any point you try to decap has someone on it (or even two enemies on it) before you're done, and any fight you try to +1 is over before you get to it.

Run into the juggernaut scrapper build in sPvP lately? I have, and it can be difficult to deal with. More tanky than spiky, but the noodlethrower does enough to wear down condi builds while laughing at CC.

Doesn't help core engi, sure, since it's based around synergies between Firearms, Alchemy and Scrapper, but Firearms and Flamethrower aren't as trashy as you imply.

> @"Aeolus.3615" said:

> I would love quickness removed from FB, maybe some cleanse burn towards non stack able barrier(IMO barrier needs to stop stacking from all classes).

> give the quickness to chrono instead(anything that helps reduce or increase timers/cd/atkspeed on alies or target should come from that spec ).

>

> @otto.5684

> IMO it doesnt make any sense core guardian be a condi burster, condi burst should not even exist and Firebrand should be the stronger burn spamming guardian had access to.

>

> DH is poor class cause was designed initially to carry very bad players with daze on traps and mass damage on some traps(2 traps could kill 5 players in 2-3 seconds and they would be perma dazed for that time with the elite being a cc there was no escape if one would not pre dodge trap activation, stiull daze coul even it after the dodge), DH is a lost design/concept in this game., kinda feel dev's thrrow random stuff when designing classes rather than be objective towards the gameplay and their effect in the game.

I came straight from a thread in the revenant forum where you proposed 'fixing' renegade by removing alacrity.

ArenaNet broke the chrono monopoly deliberately. They don't want any single profession to be indispensable for high-end PvE.

Regardless of what you might think from shortbow, Kalla is a power or support legend more than condi. Razorclaw's just isn't worth taking - the way it's balanced seems like ArenaNet were afraid of what it might be able to do in an optimal situation (dropped on top of a group by a renegede with full Viper's against a stationary target) and made something that was questionable even in the ideal scenario and pretty much not worth using anywhere else. Everything else is either power or heals.

Shortbow also actually tends to work better with power - the power coefficients on the skills that you actually have a decent chance of landing on a moving target are fairly good.

In power builds (especially power builds that make use of Devastation lifestealing) and support builds, the summons do fairly well. Just pretend Razorclaw isn't on the bar.

> @"Taril.8619" said:

> For example, Explosives and Alchemy don't go well together because Explosives wants you to take utilities that provide Explosions while Alchemy wants you to take utilities that are Elixirs. What other class in the game has specializations that revolves around taking specific utilities? Only Revenant and that's because their thing is not being able to pick utilities because of the Legend system.

Revenants aren't even as bad. Obviously, each traitline except Invocation is designed to go best with a particular legend, but outside of Salvation, there aren't that many traits that _require_ you to be using a particular legend to get full benefit from the trait. Corruption is rarely seen without using Mallyx because it's a condition-oriented line and Mallyx is the only core legend that is really oriented towards condition damage, but if for whatever reason you had a condi revenant who didn't use Mallyx, you could probably still find a good purpose for it.

Explosives... _really_ wants you to be using grenades and/or bombs. You can make it work without those kits, but it really is a matter of making it work rather than fully utilising it, and you're probably pretty much locked to 3-3-1 unless you're reasonably confident you can keep the enemy at enough of a distance to get your explosions out of Aim-Assisted Rocket.

Alchemy I don't think is as bad - I think the only trait in Alchemy that _really_ pushes you into having a lot of elixirs is HGH, and even that arguably pushes you to elixir gun as much as it does to actual elixirs.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> >The general majority view at the time was that Kiel was the preferred candidate for the Council, but Abaddon was the preferred fractal, and the first consideration won out.

> I recall seeing numerous people pleading, BEGGING, for anything BUT more human god related stuff during the election. I remember seeing a lot more support for the reactor fractal then the Abbadon one.

There's a reason why I said 'majority view' and not 'consensus'. There were people on both sides, but the majority seemed to want the Abaddon fractal.

The point is, though, that in retrospect it feels like a bait-and-switch. At the time, it felt like the choice of Captain's Council seat would be the thing that would matter more. It turned out that _that_ particular choice hasn't had much effect on the story at all (ArenaNet pretty much said that the main effect would have been that LA's defences would have been a bit better with Gnashblade due to him investing some of his personal wealth into them, but not enough to make a real difference), while it's the fractal choice that stuck with us.

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > Seems like a typical, war-minded Charr to me. There has never been tolerance for defectors or enemy spies, so why show mercy to them now?

> >

> > Because if you kill anyone who might otherwise defect to you, the defections will only ever flow one way. And if you kill all your prisoners, the enemy will fight to the death because they have nothing to lose.

> >

> > This is a 'hearts and minds' campaign as much as a military one, and Smodur's policy hands that advantage entirely to the Dominion.

>

> This is a cultural thing first and foremost. Blame the Charr, not him.

From the reactions of other charr in the episode, it's pretty clear that Smodur's choices are his own personal policy, not a universal charr cultural trait.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> Somewhere in all that we will have visits by Bear and Snow Leopard spirits where they will teach us some sort of lesson like Raven and Wolf did. Anet has also commented that, after episode 4, they plan to do something like the player engaging Season 1 content, except, this time it will stick around. Given the current plot, there may be some sort of Khan-Ur election thing held. And we are probably going to get another "Visions of the Past" update as well. their whole wording around the first one, and the subtitled nature of the first one, implies more.

If there is such a vote, I hope they don't link unrelated things together. The general majority view at the time was that Kiel was the preferred candidate for the Council, but Abaddon was the preferred fractal, and the first consideration won out. By the end of Season 1, Gnashblade was practically a Captain himself as well, so the only thing that's really mattered is that ArenaNet has stuck their heels in about not doing the Abaddon fractal.

> @"Taril.8619" said:

> > @"Tulki.1458" said:

> > - Engineer has support options but is suspiciously not allowed to have the same level of boon output as anyone else. Elixirs, healing kit, alchemy and inventions all have antiquated designs. Meanwhile, renegades can deal damage while pumping out massive amounts of boons. Druids can heal while providing tons of might. Firebrands are utterly insane at support. Engineers are allowed to heal or provide might (but not both) while dealing zero damage. Slotting inventions and alchemy should make you an excellent support class, but it doesn't even come close.

>

> My favourite comparison:

>

> Engineer with FULL Diviners for 100% boon uptime and HGH for 20% extra (Base) duration and 20% less CD:

> - **Elixir B:** 75% uptime on Fury, 3 Might, Retaliation and Swiftness for **SELF ONLY.**

> - **Elixir U:** 45% uptime on Quickness and Vigor for **SELF ONLY.**

>

> Herald with full Zerker 0 Concentration:

> - **Facet of Light:** 100% uptime on Regeneration for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

> - **Facet of Darkness:** 100% uptime on Fury for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

> - **Facet of Elements:** 100% uptime on Swiftness for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

> - **Facet of Strength:** 100% uptime on Might for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

> - **Facet of Chaos:** 100% uptime on Protection for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

> - **Shared Empowerment:** 100% uptime on 25 Might stacks for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

>

> All the while, having actual utility skills they can use that do things (While Elixirs only provide self boons as their singular effect)

That's... really not a fair comparison.

First, the herald obviously can't maintain _all_ of those 100% of the time. At best, if they're willing to do little else but autoattack, they can maintain 5 pips worth.

Second... 100% uptime on 25 Might stacks through Shared Empowerment? With no boon duration, it's around 9 stacks in optimal circumstances (8 base, but Herald has some concentration built in so it's always going to be a little higher than base). More typically, it's about 3, since facets only tick every three seconds. Facet of Strength, meanwhile, will maintain about 4 stacks without extra boon duration. You might be able to get to 25 if you add extra boon duration and/or add more traits and skills into the rotation, but it isn't coming from Facet of Might and Shared Empowerment at base boon duration alone.

Third... you are underselling Engineer there. At the most obvious, you're not taking into account throwing the elixirs you've already counted. Going a bit deeper... the support engineer builds, which do exist in WvW and high-end PvE, usually use kits and gyros rather than elixirs. Elixirs obviously aren't what you use for party buffing... and depending on your build, self-buffing (especially Might) will usually come from traits, with elixirs being more a matter of covering the gaps rather than being the primary source.

> @"Ghos.1326" said:

> > @"Neodogstar.8592" said:

> > I had the thought in passing that the next engineer elite would be the Golemancer.

> >

> > Weapon : Mace

> > The made would focus in doing heavy single target damge hit,stun and confuse conditions. It's meant to represent a wrench whacking a person or a golem. The basic would be called percussive maintenance

> >

> >

> > The toolbelt would be replaced with pet command skills/golem combat skills for you to be able to order around your golem when outside of it

> >

> > The utility skills would be like a minion Necro with a bunch of tiny mini golems focused for different utilities and damage

> >

> > And the Ult would be to get inside your golem and switch to a golem skillset

> >

> > I'd love the idea for either a personal questline or a gear set to customize the golem to the person's tastes but I don't think Anet would do that but I can dream.

> >

> > But that's just the rough sketch if my idea nothing big. If you guys think you can make it better or you think it's a poor idea and that they could do better let me know in the comments I'm 100% willing to discuss better ideas, improvements to this rough draft, and criticisms to the idea of golemancers whether due to lore or just simple dislike of the idea.

>

> I personally would want some type of medicine man theme for the Engineer's next espec, since it would fit the whole Asian theme very well. it would be a support focused espec.

Could combine well with a poison/acid theme for more aggressive options. Most of the elite specialisations intended for a support role are designed so they can also support a DPS-oriented approach with different gear, traits, weapon(s) and skills, after all.

That's really not true. Most professions now have competitive core-only builds. This comes about through a combination of tradeoffs and, as the OP states, having three (or more!) traitlines which cross-synergise with each other such that giving any of them up for an elite traitline is a nontrivial decision. A lot of the elite specialisations are therefore now at the point where if you're not actively using what the elite specialisation brings, you're probably better off taking a third core traitline.

A lot of people still do, because the elite specialisations are flashy and impressive, but for most professions the days where slotting in an elite specialisation without thinking about how it fits with your build automatically makes you stronger are long gone.

Elementalist, however, just isn't there yet. Probably because tempest hasn't really been overperforming, so it's been a lower priority than trimming back the elite specialisations that were dominating.

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> Seems like a typical, war-minded Charr to me. There has never been tolerance for defectors or enemy spies, so why show mercy to them now?

Because if you kill anyone who might otherwise defect to you, the defections will only ever flow one way. And if you kill all your prisoners, the enemy will fight to the death because they have nothing to lose.

This is a 'hearts and minds' campaign as much as a military one, and Smodur's policy hands that advantage entirely to the Dominion.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > Third, ArenaNet themselves have acknowledged that they regret how much some of the stuff you mention was rushed, and that they'd like to do things better in the future.

> The only thing I recall them ever saying this on was HoT. When it came to Joko, explicitly remember them saying they maybe could have extended his story into the first part of chapter 4, but that would have been about it.

I distinctly remember them saying that they'd initially only planned out for three chapters, and it wasn't until they'd already committed that they realised they could have taken it much further. At that point, though, they were already, well, _committed,_ so in practice they couldn't extend it much. That's probably where the bit you remember came from - as much as they might have wanted in hindsight to spend more time on him, the realities of their development cycle meant that it was impractical to attempt.

> @"Kossage.9072" said:

> I do hope we'll see more *recurring* norn characters besides Braham and Jhavi in the saga as the story progresses. While we've had some intriguing one-offs like Olar, Torrin and the Fraenir in the story (and Weibe in open world meta; I'd love to see the other havrouns as well as Bear's new havroun in the saga too), I'm missing the involvement of our norn friends from the three orders as well as the Whitebear family who now have an even bigger stake than before once/if they learn about the troubling revelations found in the journal of Knut's grandfather Asgeir.

Which is a very valid point. While Konig's right in that there are more important characters in Bjora than some people are claiming, it's nevertheless true that there's a good chance that Jhavi and Braham are the only ones that will be recurring characters.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > However, there is no evidence to your assumption that dragon minions that only become aware when both their master and all champions of their master are fully asleep lack this forced loyalty. Every instance of a dragon minion that existed while the dragon was asleep - Drakkar, the Great Destroyer, minions created or converted by either - has been loyal to the dragon that created them. Except for Glint, who explicitly went through a ritual to grant her free will, and the Pale Tree, where the cause of her independence was left unspecified... until, apparently, recently.

> Beings like Drakkar, and the Great Destroyer, were already entities that existed before the dragons went to sleep, and were already corrupted before that time. And the destroyers themselves are just magical constructs, and not sentient entities corrupted by dragon influence. The seeds were neither corrupted one way or another, nor were they sentient entities to be corrupted. Its a different situation in its entirety.

And that's kinda the point. We have no evidence or precedence to your argument, since the Pale Tree is the _only_ example we have of a dragon minion who became sentient at a time when neither the Elder Dragon nor a champion of the Elder Dragon was aware enough to take control.

However, if your only example is the very case that's under discussion, and there's an alternate explanation which _does_ have a clear precedent (Glint)... yeah, there's nothing to support your claim. And now we have it being spelled out - the Pale Tree was purified at some point. There's the answer, in black and white. The Pale Tree _was_ purified, and that's why she had the capacity to become benevolent. There's... not really much point in discussing it further. At this point, you're arguing against something we have now been explicitly told.

But if they'd done it ingame, we'd have had it years ago and in a more satisfying manner than a caption in an art book.

> >But here's the point that you seem to be missing: If ArenaNet had taken the opportunity to let us explore the cave sometime during, just before, or just after Heart of Thorns, they could have answered these questions with regards to the Pale Tree and her origins back then, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

> This is competently untrue and you know it. If anything, had they gone into it, we would have had another situation like Lazarus and Joko, entries that were taken care of within a reasonable manner in respect to their overall importance, that the "fandom" constantly complains about because it didn't meet their overblown and unrealistic expectation of how it should be. Any reveal about the Pale tree's "purification" would have been mundane, because that is what it should be.

First, there's a bit of circular reasoning in your argument there. We're saying that ArenaNet could spend a bit more time on fleshing stuff out, and you're saying that they won't because they haven't.

Second, it wouldn't _need_ to be more than an event or two and some interactable items with some text. It's not like we're talking about an epic six-chapter arc here.

Third, ArenaNet themselves have acknowledged that they regret how much some of the stuff you mention was rushed, and that they'd like to do things better in the future.

> @"Sheader.6827" said:

> They jumped his personality too much. I remember from Season 2 how calm and respectful he was towards the PC and Rytlock. This is not the same character. The situation does not demand him to turn into Bangar 2.0.

To be fair, in Season 3 he had Rytlock arrested for questioning, and then deemed Rytlock's experiences in the Mists 'classified' so there was no opportunity to make the link between a figure in the Mists that could reignite Sohothin and Balthazar until Balthazar had already caught us by surprise.

But yeah, there does seem to be a shift in his characterisation.

Your analysis of the ritual is correct - it allows the cleansed creature to make their own choices, rather than being forced to be loyal to the dragon.

However, there is no evidence to your assumption that dragon minions that only become aware when both their master and all champions of their master are fully asleep lack this forced loyalty. Every instance of a dragon minion that existed while the dragon was asleep - Drakkar, the Great Destroyer, minions created or converted by either - has been loyal to the dragon that created them. Except for Glint, who explicitly went through a ritual to grant her free will, and the Pale Tree, where the cause of her independence was left unspecified... until, apparently, recently.

If the art book specifies that the Pale Tree was cleansed in the past, then that answers it. Every independent dragon minion that we know of would then have been either cleansed, or the result of the dragon outright _dying_ rather than simply going to sleep (and the latter seems rare enough - we had the giant grub in Siren's Landing, but all the other "Unchained" still seem to be pretty much universally hostile).

But here's the point that you seem to be missing: If ArenaNet had taken the opportunity to let us explore the cave sometime during, just before, or just after Heart of Thorns, they could have answered these questions with regards to the Pale Tree and her origins back then, _and we wouldn't even be having this conversation._ As is, I'm pretty sure that ArenaNet has moved on to other parts of the story and I don't think there's much prospect of going back to the jungle any time in the next few years if at all - the closest we're likely to get is the southern Verdant Brink region. Casually dropping it into the art book seems to be an implicit admission that they knew it was something that people wanted to know that they might never actually get around to putting in the game directly - because the best time to have done so has passed.

With respect to the context in which this discussion started, it doesn't really matter which side is right. The point is that it's still a point of contention years after the sylvari-themed storyline was done and dusted.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> Your comment about the seed cave is exactly what I am referring to. Ronan made no mention of anything being in the cave beside the seed and the plant monsters. Why would there be ANYTHING related to the Forgotten there at all? Same thing about the previous dragon rise. Its a cave, with some seeds, and some Modrem in it, and again, Ronan made no mention of there being anything in the cave besides the seeds and the plant monsters. Why would anything from the past dragon rise have survived there at all besides the creatures themselves? If they want to explore something like the last dragon rise they should do so in a manner that doesn't conflict with Ronan's stated experiences. The cave is not the place to do it, and trying to shove the cave into it just raises more questions then it answers due to its not matching up with what we have already been told about the cave.

The whole premise of the Arah explorable paths is finding artifacts and records from the previous dragonrise, _in a location where an Elder Dragon and its minions have been actively seeking to destroy them, either for strategic reasons or just for food_ - and that's without considering the possibility that the seeds were placed there after Mordremoth went to sleep. And as Konig said, with Ronan having been chased out, he probably didn't have the opportunity to leisurely explore the place for clues.

There's no reason, apart from development time and resources, that ArenaNet couldn't have included the cave, and an event or two investigating it, in order to shed more light on sylvari origins _in the expansion that was all about sylvari origins._ If the seed was purified by the Forgotten, then we know the Forgotten aren't afraid to leave long-lasting records or other signs of their passing behind: there could have been a plaque that explains what they did, a miniature Altar of Glaust, or a few other artifacts left behind. Perhaps the cave could have been reclaimed by Mordrem by the time we get to it, and the other seeds grown into Blighting Trees, but there would have been storytelling potential there.

Or if it wasn't the Forgotten that did it, there could have been signs of whoever did in there. Maybe the plant guardians were Oakhearts set there by the druids.

Alternatively, if the scenario was one where any changes to the Pale Tree happened somehow after being removed from the cave, that could _also_ have been shown. We could have an event chain where the cave is a nursery for Blighting Tree seeds and seedlings until a suitable permanent planting location is found for them, and sometime during the event chain, a sylvari has the shocking realisation that _this is the cave._

Instead, the Pale Tree having been purified is (apparently, I haven't got my copy yet) mentioned casually in the art book. Given ArenaNet's preference for the game to be the primary source, this probably means that they're just not planning to go back. Personally, I have a suspicion that it might have been the golden cave at the end of Season 2 (with Ronan having entered via a different route than the door, back during a time when the region was still the Silverwood), but we didn't get the opportunity to explore that in detail either.

And this is just _one example._ ArenaNet themselves have acknowledged that there was a lot that had to be left on the cutting room floor simply because they ran out of time. And it shows. The Heart of Thorns story pretty much has the beats that _have_ to be there for the story to make sense or to set up the plot moving forward and... not much else.

Of course, to bring this back to the topic, this does not mean that just because there were a lot of missed opportunities with the sylvari, that the norn should also be neglected in the context of a storyline focused around Jormag and the northern Shiverpeaks. Two wrongs don't make a right, after all, and ArenaNet has hopefully learned some lessons since then.

From what I recall from the Guild Chat, the horn you hear is essentially a charr equivalent of an air raid siren, used as a warning to either evacuate the area or to seek shelter. It's part of a system used by the United Legions to warn of incoming fire, rather than being part of the source of the incoming fire.

The Stormcaller weapon sets are described as being an experimental weapon program of the United Legions. It _is_ curious that they don't look much like traditional charr designs, and it's possible that they've extracted magic from the original Stormcaller to make them. They're apparently going to be upgradeable, so we might find out more about them in the future.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> What plotholes or unanswered questions from HoT? As for cut content there is Mylack, which has no affect on HoT's story, and the 4th route on Dragon Stand.... which also has no affect on the story.

Off the top of my head, there was also supposed to be something going into more detail regarding the Nightmare Court and how they interacted with Mordremoth, which also got cut pretty much entirely apart from Faolain's appearance and Chrysanthea showing up in Dragon's Stand.

I was making the "don't forgot that losing a third core traitline is a tradeoff" argument back when the tradeoffs discussion first started. It's become pretty clear that ArenaNet doesn't think that's enough. Nor do they seem to think it's enough that there's a tradeoff to using your ability if you can choose not to use your ability (that's what happened to soulbeast and druid).

The real litmus test, though, is this:

Are there top-end builds that use the core profession?

For Elementalist, the answer seems to be no. Snowcrows has no core elementalist builds. Metabattle has a handful, but they all seem to be core variants of weaver or tempest so F2P players have an option, and nobody's suggesting using core elementalist for the most demanding modes (raids and sPvP).

Compare this to, say, Guardian (which recently had people jonesing for some pretty harsh tradeoffs to Firebrand) which has a core build on Snowcrows and high-rating core builds for all modes in Metabattle.

Now, while Tempest has been making a bit of a comeback in sPvP, it certainly doesn't seem to be dominating the 5v5 meta, so I don't think there's a need to take anything away from Tempest. I'd be inclined to give something to base elementalist. Some examples could be:

* The aforementioned suggestion to grant something aura-related as an F5 skill.

* Make elementalist a medium health profession, _but_ apply a vitality penalty to Tempest and Weaver (Weaver has the potential to get back up, but only when wielding sword.)

* Make lesser forms of the elemental adept minors available to core elementalists even without the relevant traitlines.

Other possibilities might be worth considering as well.

> @"Vancho.8750" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > I think it is worth noting that the Steel Warband wasn't necessarily involved in the apparent genocide of Drizzlewood's original population - they may have come in later. That said, though, we have clear evidence that Ryland at least is bigot - his trigger for walking out of the first negotiation was basically "How dare you fraternise with humans!"

> >

> > And as people have said, just because there are personable individuals among a group doesn't mean that group is right.

> >

> > Regarding the Svanir - norn culture _does_ tolerate membership of the Sons of Svanir. Hoelbrak does have a ruler (Knut) and a guard (the Wolfborn) - if they were so inclined, they could kick the Sons of Svanir out (although any such policy would end at the edge of Hoelbrak). However, norn culture doesn't judge anybody based on their affiliation, but on what they have actually done themselves. Sons of Svanir that are out killing people, raiding homesteads, forcefully converting people into icebroods, and so on are regarded as threats and dealt with accordingly, but this is because they're committing crimes themselves, not simply because they're Sons of Svanir. Sons of Svanir that chill out in the Veins of the Dragon being misogynist dudebros are left alone until they actually _do_ something that marks them as a threat to other norn.

> Wouldn't it be funny if the Crystal Bloom guys started converting sons of svanir with 'Well your dragon is cool and all, but have you met our lord and savior Aurene she can travel the mists and everyone knows crystals are better than ice'.

>

The thought has crossed my mind that Aurene could be presented as a better representative for Dragon than Jormag. Problem is that Aurene, for all her power, doesn't have the 'ultimate predator' aspect that the Sons of Svanir are looking for, and the Crystal Bloom have too many girls for the liking of the Svanir guys and joining the Crystal Bloom might give them cooties. It's probably more likely that any Aurene-affiliated group would be a rival organisation rather than getting a lot of converts from the Sons of Svanir.

They might become very popular for ex-Svanir who turned away of their own accord, though.

The warband might not have been present at Grothmar, but remember that we get to Grothmar via the Black Citadel, and afterwards we go into episode 1 from the Black Citadel. So there's a couple of opportunities there.

Like I said, it feels like the typical ArenaNet "gotcha" of focusing on the big important stories because the downtime isn't interesting from an MMORPG perspective, and then assuming that the PC is doing nothing and not paying attention to anything in that downtime, and then berating the player character for not attending to things that the developers never game the player the chance to do anything. It's something that goes back to GW1 (which had years between Factions and Nightfall, and years between Nightfall and EOTN, but in that time even Canthan PCs apparently didn't care about what was happening in their homeland and just washed their hands of everything after downing Shiro), and every time they do it it feels like it undermines the character and, in some cases, even makes them come across as incompetent.

It's understandable that ArenaNet doesn't want to spend a lot of resources dealing with the warbands when most PCs don't have a warband, but I'm getting a little tired of ArenaNet assuming that the PC is just sleeping through everything that doesn't happen under their spotlight.

I think it is worth noting that the Steel Warband wasn't necessarily involved in the apparent genocide of Drizzlewood's original population - they may have come in later. That said, though, we have clear evidence that Ryland at least is bigot - his trigger for walking out of the first negotiation was basically "How dare you fraternise with humans!"

And as people have said, just because there are personable individuals among a group doesn't mean that group is right.

Regarding the Svanir - norn culture _does_ tolerate membership of the Sons of Svanir. Hoelbrak does have a ruler (Knut) and a guard (the Wolfborn) - if they were so inclined, they could kick the Sons of Svanir out (although any such policy would end at the edge of Hoelbrak). However, norn culture doesn't judge anybody based on their affiliation, but on what they have actually done themselves. Sons of Svanir that are out killing people, raiding homesteads, forcefully converting people into icebroods, and so on are regarded as threats and dealt with accordingly, but this is because they're committing crimes themselves, not simply because they're Sons of Svanir. Sons of Svanir that chill out in the Veins of the Dragon being misogynist dudebros are left alone until they actually _do_ something that marks them as a threat to other norn.

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > Honestly, it's an extension of the "the PC never does anything apart from what is shown directly on-screen" principle that annoys me with ArenaNet a bit. If a charr PC was spending any time at all with their warband beyond level 20, the fact that the champion of Aurene is a member _of their own warband_ and someone who's possibly discussed the actual nature of their relationship with Aurene over a drink or two should really have made the PC's warband pretty much inoculated against what Bangar was peddling. This was an opportunity to bring the warband NPCs back into play, but they really should have been on the United Legions side rather than as enemies.

> >

> > Make it so that for PCs that didn't meet them in their own personal story, they just say that the leader of their warband is with the Pact and has told them enough that they know not to believe Bangar.

> >

> > Would be much more satisfying than implying that charr PCs have been neglecting their warbands as much as ArenaNet has.

>

> Personal headcanon, but I _cannot_ fathom the charr PC not meeting up with the warband during Flame and Frost events and the moment they return during Season 2. It does seem that for PoF+S4, the PC never leaves Elona canonically until Thunderhead Keep, and until Joko's death communications with Central Tyria would be pretty much impossible. So neglecting _does_ make sense during that timeframe. Same for the months from S2E3 to the end of HoT as well, but in-between HoT and S3 there was a good year of no real activity (that time gap _does_ bother me a bit, given S3 begins with Eir's memorial - did it really take 7 months to set up a memorial for Eir?).

>

> That said, even if we are just considering S3-and-later as being little to no contact, that could be enough with years with only off-and-on contact and the sparring partner being a not-so-great leader. The act of the three betrayals also highlights the harm of the civil war and how even level-headed charr are falling for Bangar and, it would seem given some dialogue in Drizzlewood, even Jormag's whispers are active in the area but not to the Commander.

I'm not sure about the Commander being stuck in Elona the whole time, given that there are the invasion events, Halloween, and so on to deal with - but that might be a distinction between fluff and gameplay.

But it's pretty much unbelievable in my mind that a charr commander wouldn't have checked in with the warband around the time of the prologue, and taken the time afterwards to correct the warband on what Bangar is saying. If we were looking at random warband members recruited after the Commander left, sure, but you get Elexus and Yahuk out of sufficiently bad circumstances that you'd expect the PC to have _some_ goodwill to be believed over Bangar's gasbagging.

I get that they're trying to show how the civil war has been tearing warbands apart by making it personal, but I think this was a clumsy way of doing it.