draxynnic.3719

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > I think there is a degree to which humans have provided the background foundation for Tyrian civilisation - the OP has listed a series of things which everybody thinks of as being the contributions of those races, but the human contributions are things that people often don't think of as being of human origin _because they've become universal._ Their calendar and language are those that everybody else uses when they want to be understood by members of other races, for instance. Two of the three major multiracial organisations were founded by humans, and you could say something similar of Lion's Arch as well. The connection to Tyria's history, while downplayed in the original release, has been coming up more since as well - it's no coincidence that it's humans that the dwarves and Forgotten have passed the torch to when it comes to Glint's legacy. Finally, the magic that most races use is largely based off human traditions.

> >

> > If you're looking for something more inherent rather than a largely historical basis for their relevance, one thing I would comment on is that the blessing of the gods is probably underrated. It's easy to write it off as empty words (especially since you tend not to see NPCs using human racial skills like you see norn shifting forms), but Tyrian humans do seem to have a tendency to be more effective than you'd expect by looking at them.

> >

> > They also seem to be community-builders, albeit not without their flaws. The fact that a lot of the rest of the races show human influence is probably not entirely through historical accident: humans are good at playing politics and getting disparate groups to work together. This is a double-edged sword, because they're also good at betraying others (including each other), but when they put their mind to it, it's often humans that are responsible for bringing disparate groups together.

> >

> > They also tend to be the race that is most inclined to become ghosts after death, even in the absence of artificial triggers such as the Foefire. Whether this is a good thing is up to interpretation, but there have been a few times when ghosts have served as an auxiliary army or as a source of valuable intelligence.

> >

> > Finally, while the asura probably make the most out of magic, there is circumstantial evidence that humans are inherently _better_ at it, although they might be squandering a lot of that potential. I've commented a few times that scary asura tend to be scary because of their magitech. Scary humans, on the other hand, are often powerful due to raw magical power. There aren't many humans that reach that level, of course, but there are enough to set a trend.

> >

> > Admittedly, a couple of the above also apply to sylvari, but that's probably not surprising, since the sylvari appear to have been based off a human template to begin with.

> >

> > > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > > @"ThatOddOne.4387" said:

> > > > "going extinct"

> > > > "still more populous than any of the other races"

> > > >

> > > > does not add up

> > > >

> > > > humans are the premier magical race however

> > >

> > > Are they the most populous anymore though? Can't really make a judgement because we have no idea what the state of Cantha is, and Elona's population has almost certainly been hurt by the war's and Joko's rule if the judges in Vabbi are anything to go by- unless you count the awakened as part of the population. With revelations like the Olmakhan and how Inquest labs seem to pop up.. everywhere, we also don't know how widespread Charr and Asura are either.

> >

> > Population is difficult to judge. However, it is worth noting that humans are the only playable race we see with more than one major population center.

> >

> > Asura are confined to Rata Sum and their various labs - and while there are a lot of Inquest labs around the world in the game, I don't think that translates into a high asura population. The Inquest labs don't appear to have significant noncombatant populations, so unlike the major cities, there probably isn't a significant hidden noncombatant population at any of those labs. Furthermore, Inquest labs tend to be a sequence of 'one gets destroyed, and the Inquest packs up and makes another lab somewhere else': the various Inquest labs we see around the world are unlikely to have all been simultaneously active.

> >

> > The sylvari sphere of influence is mostly confined to the Grove and the Caledon region, which is smaller than Kryta alone. They have a few outposts elsewhere, but they mostly seem to be expeditions for a specific purpose rather than population centers. There's still the mystery of Malyck's tree, although we don't know its status.

> >

> > Norn are spread across the Shiverpeaks, but sparsely so: Norn do not gather in large cities the way other races do. Even Hoelbrak is themed more as a particularly large lodge more than a city _per se_.

> >

> > Charr are probably the main competition for 'most populous', largely because we can only judge them by the territory of one legion (the Olmakhan seem to be a relatively small offshoot). The Iron Legion do seem to have a lower population than Tyrian humans: they have the Black Citadel, but none of their settlements outside of it seem to be on par with the larger human settlements such as Ebonhawke or Beetletun. Adding Blood and Ash will expand that significantly, however. One thing to keep in mind with the charr, though, is that the combination of larger size and a more meat-based diet means that less charr can be supported in the same amount of land as humans.

> >

> > In the case of humans... humans have a lot of towns and even small cities outside of Divinity's Reach. Ebonhawke is the obvious one, but Beetletun and the Ascalon Settlement are both more significant than any of the outposts or villages that I can think of that other races have outside their capital (although there are some charr settlements that come close). Elona, for all that it's probably been significantly impacted by Joko's reign, also appears to still have major settlements in Vabbi (despite the Branding of the Kodash) and Istan, and there's still quite a bit of Elona we haven't seen in GW2 yet.

> >

> > And while we don't know much about Cantha, there's also not much to suggest that it's no longer the teeming mess that we saw in GW1. The Zephyrites have visited Cantha, and they haven't mentioned any disasters there... although that could be ArenaNet keeping their proverbial cards close to their chests.

>

> Humans didn't take up Glint's Legacy though, the exalted were assigned to guard the legacy and the player + friends are the ones trying to fulfil it. Also we do see other Asura population centers as well, Rata Primus counts especially when you consider how many awakened inquest Joko is able to field, and it was previously unknown so we can hardly say how many unheard of cities and megalabs like Rata Primus there is. Rata Novus too, it was wiped out but it shows there were likely more cities. There's just too many variables to have a definitive answer.

 

The Exalted ARE ex-humans, though - the Forgotten recruited from humans to create the Exalted. The Zephyrites are also involved. The Commander and Dragon's Watch might be forming the tip of the spear now, but they're building on work that the Zephyrites and Exalted have put in over the centuries.

 

Regarding the Ratas:

 

Rata Novus is, as you say, wiped out, as is Rata Arcanum and Rata Pten. There is evidence of cities the asura _used_ to have all around the place, but I don't think ruins count for estimating the _current_ asura population any more than human ruins do. We don't count Ascalon City or Rin in estimates of current human populations, and we shouldn't do so for Rata Novus or other destroyed asura cities.

 

In Rata Primus's case... we're essentially looking at the tendency for scales to be warped for the sake of the game. Genuine cities tend to downsized and/or have unreachable residential areas for the sake of not creating massive maps where not much happens, while combat areas tend to be upscaled compared to the general open world (consider, for instance, the size of the Arah dungeon map compared to the amount of space left in between the Orr maps). Rata Primus is definitely a combat area, and from what I've seen, there aren't any hidden areas. It's very likely that what we see in Rata Primus is what's actually there lorewise: mostly labs, and the Inquest we fight is an accurate reflection of the population of Rata Primus. Residential settlements, on the other hand, are usually shown much smaller than they actually are.

 

You can apply the sanity test here: The Inquest are an offset of the Rata Sum asura. They're not going to have a lab in Elona which has a population that even comes close to Rata Sum, however big it's shown to be on the map.

 

Now, maybe there are teeming hordes of asura everywhere that we haven't been yet... but that's the sort of 'maybe' that goes hand-in-hand with 'maybe there's a city of six billion hylek on the opposite side of the world' and 'maybe Cantha has been completely wiped out and nobody, including the Zephyrites that have been there in living memory, has thought to mention it'. We can only go with the information we have, and the information we have indicates that Rata Sum is the only major city the asura have right now, while humans have multiple nations. We can go on and on about unknown variables, but at the end of the line, we can only work with the evidence we have, and the evidence we have indicates that there are significantly more humans in the known world than asura.

The Great "Northern" Wall always struck me as something of a fallback position rather than the first line of defence: the idea being that as long as the Wall was there, the humans of Ascalon could always retreat behind it. It's possible that there was some stage in history when they were worried about potential invasion from the south as well, so a central location means that it could also provide a fallback position against an attack from the south.

 

There may well be geographic considerations of why it was practical to build a wall there and not in a location that might seem more intuitively useful. It might, for instance, be a location where it's not practical for an enemy to bypass the wall by going through the mountains. Being south of the southernmost known pass through the Shiverpeaks at the time is significant, for instance: it means that the Wall could also theoretically serve as a bulwark against an attack from Kryta or some Shiverpeaks enemy (that pass was pretty much controlled by the dwarves in GW1's time, but it might not always have been).

 

There's also, of course, the possibility that it was built there because it was land that was sufficiently uncontested at the time that such a building project was viable.

I think there is a degree to which humans have provided the background foundation for Tyrian civilisation - the OP has listed a series of things which everybody thinks of as being the contributions of those races, but the human contributions are things that people often don't think of as being of human origin _because they've become universal._ Their calendar and language are those that everybody else uses when they want to be understood by members of other races, for instance, as mentioned by Aaron above. Two of the three major multiracial organisations were founded by humans, and you could say something similar of Lion's Arch as well. The connection to Tyria's history, while downplayed in the original release, has been coming up more since as well - it's no coincidence that it's humans that the dwarves and Forgotten have passed the torch to when it comes to Glint's legacy. Finally, the magic that most races use is largely based off human traditions.

 

If you're looking for something more inherent rather than a largely historical basis for their relevance, one thing I would comment on is that the blessing of the gods is probably underrated. It's easy to write it off as empty words (especially since you tend not to see NPCs using human racial skills like you see norn shifting forms), but Tyrian humans do seem to have a tendency to be more effective than you'd expect by looking at them.

 

They also seem to be community-builders, albeit not without their flaws. The fact that a lot of the rest of the races show human influence is probably not entirely through historical accident: humans are good at playing politics and getting disparate groups to work together. This is a double-edged sword, because they're also good at betraying others (including each other), but when they put their mind to it, it's often humans that are responsible for bringing disparate groups together.

 

They also tend to be the race that is most inclined to become ghosts after death, even in the absence of artificial triggers such as the Foefire. Whether this is a good thing is up to interpretation, but there have been a few times when ghosts have served as an auxiliary army or as a source of valuable intelligence.

 

Finally, while the asura probably make the most out of magic, there is circumstantial evidence that humans are inherently _better_ at it, although they might be squandering a lot of that potential. I've commented a few times that scary asura tend to be scary because of their magitech. Scary humans, on the other hand, are often powerful due to raw magical power. There aren't many humans that reach that level, of course, but there are enough to set a trend.

 

Admittedly, a couple of the above also apply to sylvari, but that's probably not surprising, since the sylvari appear to have been based off a human template to begin with.

 

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > @"ThatOddOne.4387" said:

> > "going extinct"

> > "still more populous than any of the other races"

> >

> > does not add up

> >

> > humans are the premier magical race however

>

> Are they the most populous anymore though? Can't really make a judgement because we have no idea what the state of Cantha is, and Elona's population has almost certainly been hurt by the war's and Joko's rule if the judges in Vabbi are anything to go by- unless you count the awakened as part of the population. With revelations like the Olmakhan and how Inquest labs seem to pop up.. everywhere, we also don't know how widespread Charr and Asura are either.

 

Population is difficult to judge. However, it is worth noting that humans are the only playable race we see with more than one major population center.

 

Asura are confined to Rata Sum and their various labs - and while there are a lot of Inquest labs around the world in the game, I don't think that translates into a high asura population. The Inquest labs don't appear to have significant noncombatant populations, so unlike the major cities, there probably isn't a significant hidden noncombatant population at any of those labs. Furthermore, Inquest labs tend to be a sequence of 'one gets destroyed, and the Inquest packs up and makes another lab somewhere else': the various Inquest labs we see around the world are unlikely to have all been simultaneously active.

 

The sylvari sphere of influence is mostly confined to the Grove and the Caledon region, which is smaller than Kryta alone. They have a few outposts elsewhere, but they mostly seem to be expeditions for a specific purpose rather than population centers. There's still the mystery of Malyck's tree, although we don't know its status.

 

Norn are spread across the Shiverpeaks, but sparsely so: Norn do not gather in large cities the way other races do. Even Hoelbrak is themed more as a particularly large lodge more than a city _per se_.

 

Charr are probably the main competition for 'most populous', largely because we can only judge them by the territory of one legion (the Olmakhan seem to be a relatively small offshoot). The Iron Legion do seem to have a lower population than Tyrian humans: they have the Black Citadel, but none of their settlements outside of it seem to be on par with the larger human settlements such as Ebonhawke or Beetletun. Adding Blood and Ash will expand that significantly, however. One thing to keep in mind with the charr, though, is that the combination of larger size and a more meat-based diet means that less charr can be supported in the same amount of land as humans.

 

In the case of humans... humans have a lot of towns and even small cities outside of Divinity's Reach. Ebonhawke is the obvious one, but Beetletun and the Ascalon Settlement are both more significant than any of the outposts or villages that I can think of that other races have outside their capital (although there are some charr settlements that come close). Elona, for all that it's probably been significantly impacted by Joko's reign, also appears to still have major settlements in Vabbi (despite the Branding of the Kodash) and Istan, and there's still quite a bit of Elona we haven't seen in GW2 yet.

 

And while we don't know much about Cantha, there's also not much to suggest that it's no longer the teeming mess that we saw in GW1. The Zephyrites have visited Cantha, and they haven't mentioned any disasters there... although that could be ArenaNet keeping their proverbial cards close to their chests.

It's also worth noting that we know that the charr made attempts at norn territory. They were focused on humans at the time, so they never committed enough strength to overwhelm the norn (in part because of the charr obsession with Ascalon, in part because when push comes to shove, the fertile Ascalonian basin was probably more attractive to them than the Shiverpeaks), but that does mean that historically, _every other culture that we know of that has bordered charr territory_ has, at some point, been attacked, and in the case of the norn at least, seemingly unprovoked.

 

I'd also question the idea that having villages is a prerequisite for having a claim on land. The territory occupied by the grawl before the charr invasion was still territory occupied by the grawl, even if their culture was (and still is) fairly primitive. And the charr don't even have the fig leaf of justification that the colonial powers had that they were "bringing civilisation" - grawl now are little more advanced than the were then.

 

Of course, humans didn't treat the grawl with much more respect, although as far as we know humans didn't enslave grawl to pull chariots in victory processions.

> @"TotallyNotJazzie.1493" said:

> > @"Lily.1935" said:

> > The necromancer is constantly under fire for nerfs. I think players just don't like playing against a debuffer. Necromancer's used to be quite proficient at shredding boons, Now they're still decent at it but don't compare to warrior *Gags*. They apply a wide range of conditions which players don't like and always think they're losing if they have even 1 condition on them. So they constantly get over nerfed by the devs. Their damage gets cut to ribbons, which reaper for example never had great damage but their chill got cut down and they sat in the back seat for ages because no one likes fighting Debuffers. Scourge had too much control with Shades being very placeble and with highly spammable crippling so their damage was nerfed to balance out the real problem which was the Crippling and AoE coverage. Note: The damage on scourge was never the problem! It was always the coverage and Crippling! But now all they've got is the crippling so they can be a wet noodle again! But the necromancer can't seem to have any sort of significant damage or support because they have the worst mechanic in the game, Shroud. But even when they drop shroud they're still not allowed to have any sort of support or damage because... uh... I'm not really sure.

> >

> > The excuses Arena Net seems to give for why Necromancer isn't allowed to be good seems flimsy to me. Usually developers can convince me of their decisions and I can understand why they made specific changes, but Necromancer is always a loss to me. Their reasoning always seems to be counterable with another system in the game that's similar that just works far better! lets give some examples of really really bad changes and claims arena net have done to the necromancer that didn't result in anything good.

> >

> > * Axe Auto: For some reason this needed to be nerfed because you could animation cancel it. and their reasoning behind it was because it wasn't a projectile and at ranged. But Mesmer greatsword auto had the same thing going on for it and the argument of Vuln stacking was weak as well since a majority of classes could stack 25 without an issue. So the change seemed pointless at the time and is still questionable especially considering the female auto animation is still broken to this day. If I wanted to paddle someone, well... I wouldn't be playing GW2.

> > * Dark Path: For some reason this is a slow moving projectile where as in the beta it was a ground teleport. I think we all know which one is better. But the issue is that its not very good for pursuit, you can't escape with it and it puts you in melee range with death shroud which doesn't want to be in melee range. Why did they make such a drastic change to it? Necromancer was considered powerful in the Beta, but people were already seeing holes in its armor at that point, why punch another hole in their armor? This doesn't make any sense especially considering the necromancer has very little access to stability.

> > * The necromancer is an attrition profession: Anyone who plays the necromancer for an extended period of time knows that this is absolute nonsense! The claim that a resourced based profession with diminishing returns on their mechanic is an attrition profession is really trying to pull a fast one on you. If you believe this I have some lovely snake oil that will cure all sicknesses you'd be interested in. But lets examine what the mechanic does. Life force requires death or being heavily offensive to generate. The profession needs to run into battle with nothing and fight without defenses to finally be able to get their defenses up. Once they do its chipped and chewed away. A profession that can outlast the necromancer will win, and those that can't can run away and antagonize them until their resources are burnt out. This is the exact opposite of an attrition profession.

> > * Jagged horrors were changed to have a life span: If these little things weren't bad enough to begin with, Jagged horrors were nerfed because of the necromancer's unintentional raid combo of using Lich form on a condi build to spawn dozens of jagged horrors all dealing bleeding damage. How did Arena net fix this? By removing the bleeding off jagged horrors still offering MMs a build they can at least enjoy? NOOOOOO! Giving them a 30 second life span so that in practice you can only have 1 up at a time with Death nova making the once decent elite of Lich form useless and minion master builds used only by the greenest of players.

> > * Jagged horrors were replaced on Lich form: So Arena net later replaced jagged horrors on lich form with unstable horrors. These horrors would explode after a while but did they return jagged horrors to their previous version? NOPE! Why would they do that? The problem that made them over powered in the first place doesn't have the minion skill anymore, so surely they can regain their old function? Nope! they remain the same and extra ordinarily bad.

> > * Necromancers aren't allowed damage or support because they have two health bars: So necromancer isn't allowed to function in group content is what this is saying. The profession that was supposed to be the home of monks and Necromancers from GW1 caters to neither because they need to be an HP tank, something no one asked for. But That isn't even a good argument. Mesmers can blur themselves for what seems like Minutes then go stealth, Thieves can escape from just about everything, warriors have high health, toughness and can shrug off conditions and damage far easier than necromancer, elementalist can make themselves almost immune to damage, revenant has dozens of evade frames and two healing skills, so on and so on. So this argument is super flimsy to me. A good player with a necromancer hits a hard cap on what they can do. A good mesmer play's cap is far beyond the necromancer's and has higher defensive potential. And each of those professions is allowed to provide significant support for the party and have significant damage. So this argument that necromancer isn't allowed to because of death shroud? If you truly believe that arena net, then you should remove the mechanic from the game. Because a mechanic that punishes the player for wanting to aid their friends shouldn't be a part of a highly cooperative game like this.

> > * You can't heal in death shroud without specific traits: I guess anet's reason is this would make them too tanky. But its so frustrating for the healers in the party playing with them. And especially since players use shroud as a panic button. Which means rather than an ally healing the necromancer when they need it most, the player panics and can't be healed and suddenly dies when they get out of shroud because of how backwards the mechanic is. I've seen this happen so much and I spent so much time learning to avoid being in shroud for any extended period of time because of how anti party it is. If the tankiness is a problem, cut the passive damage reduction from shroud. Honestly, having more active defenses would be far better for us.

> > * You can't use Utility in shroud: Backwards design of shroud means you don't get access to your utility. Why? Because... um... I honestly couldn't tell you. It makes the necromancer so painfully predictable that you see them enter shroud you could walk them right off the cliff with how easy they are to control in this situation. Their options are so limited, so telegraphed that all shroud really does is stall. Except on reaper, but it burns so quickly so it doesn't matter as much. Even then, reaper's shroud is laughably easy to predict and control.

> > * Nerf everything around scourge but the actual problem: I mentioned it before, that the scourge had its shade duration nerfed, the damage nerfed, everything except the other piece to the puzzle that was causing the problem in the first place. The crippling. The crippling provided an extra cover condition and extended the time foes would be in your aoe Fields by 50%. Removing crippling could have been close to a 33% damage or even 66% reduction all on its own. But Anet would rather punish the necromancer for having reliable damage than touch one of two conditions they should have never had on the shade abilities. Spam able crippling or chill at range? Arena net, YOU HAD A RULE ABOUT THIS! And you still went ahead and added it to the shade abilities and nerved everything else besides the crippling!

> > * Sand Savant: Sand Savant was a mistake. It should have never been a trait that increased damage radius. It was too oppressive on top of crippling with its massive coverage and high DPS output. If arena net made sand savant provide buffs to allies rather than conditions to enemies this could have prevented it from running a muck in PvP and somewhat WvW, but arena net continued to nerf everything around it and eventually it, but didn't change that it was required. Now Scourge is a wet noodle but still required in zergs, they just moved to power because the crippling is still keeping suckers in the massive aoe field.

> > * Removing the Putrid Curse boon corrupt: For a skill that requires a massive investment to achieve this really wasn't as big a deal as arena net thinks. And if it was, than why does the mesmer still have boon strip on their sword auto attack? Necromancers already have to justify their boon corrupts and with mesmer just removing them more effectively, and easier with far far less effort I don't understand this change. Why remove one but not both? Why keep the one that can remove all boons in short work, but remove the one that requires a lot of personal investment from the player?

> > * Why was Blood is power given Charges?: Seriously? why not just drop its cool down and up its damage? Why give it two changes which doesn't do much in terms of a damage increase. Is it funny the necromancer can now kill themselves with just one skill for very little benefit? Are you trying to tell us something arena net?

> >

> > I could honestly keep going. I could. There is so much more that is just wrong with anet's decision making when it comes to necromancer, I could be here all day listing things that make NO FREAKIN SENSE in terms of their balance. But how has this translated into the game? Half the necromancer community hates the most of their own class, players get locked into the necromancer because they try it first and have to work twice as hard to learn something else because necromancer taught them bad habits, Part of the community seems to think of necromancers as a death knight WHEN THAT WAS NEVER THEIR DESIGN IN THE FIRST PLACE, necromancer are frequently focus fired in PvP as an easy kill, players have put up signs saying "Necromancer's will be kicked", the glaring issues the community can see for miles and miles goes unfixed for half a decade and the necromancer community is so untrusting of anything the devs say about it that some have gone as far as saying that specific devs should be fired!(Note I never said that, because that's just really cruel and mean.) But the community is so beyond frustrated that we've lost a good 80% of the voices in the community to other games because of how broken the situation is for necromancer.

> >

> > So you asked. Which profession is the community most hostile towards? Necromancer. Hands down, even necromancer players are extremely hostile toward necromancers.

>

> Summed it up pretty well. I love my Reaper aesthetically and thematically but could never main it bc it’s laughably trash tier compared to my Dragonhunter main.

>

> Won’t change until *it* does.

 

Man, I tried Reaper again earlier this week for the first time since PoF landed...

 

Couldn't even get through a single rotation in shroud until my life force was more than half gone more often than not, and that was with the perma-quickness trait.

 

I understand what they were trying to do with the 'faster decay of shroud in exchange for more damage', but...

On number 1 specifically: the Primeval Kings claim he isn't one of them. Whether that's because he isn't part of their lineage or whether it's a "we stripped him of the right to call himself one of us", though, is anyone's guess.

 

On number 2, I can say that there's nothing more on his origins in GW1 than there is in GW2.

 

On number 3: He's had access to Forgotten ruins for a while. It's quite likely that he had some plan in mind that would mean that, at the very least, he himself would remain beneath their notice.

Most of those are simply "We don't know."

 

Regarding #4: People have asked whether Joko is _genuinely_ dead, but the most likely explanation is that since dragons consume magic, she also consumed the magic that rendered him otherwise immortal. This is hinted at in [Joko's last message](

"Joko's last message") - the trigger for his final words being broadcast was his magic "becoming unbound", indicating that such an unbinding would kill Joko or at least render him mortal.

 

If ArenaNet does their usual thing, we'll probably find more about Joko's motives and origins posthumously.

Norn have no need of nations.

 

Sure, I'm dropping a meme there, but it pretty much does sum up their approach. Right now is probably the most united the norn have ever been... or ever _wanted_ to be. They're highly individualistic and won't take orders from anybody - even the Wolfborn are more akin to a like-minded group of sanctioned vigilantes than an organised police force.

 

Hoelbrak and its environs is probably the most organised norn settlement that there has ever been, and that's in response to the pressure from Jormag driving them south. In the past, they were even more individualistic.

 

The closest would be the kodan legend about the norn having originally been a kodan tribe that fell from Koda's favour when a Claw decided to lead on his own without a Voice, but there's a lot that's suspicious about that legend, or Thruln the Lost's tale about the norn being part of the ancient jotun civilisation, which is even _more_ suspicious since parts of it are demonstrably false. Certainly, there's no solid evidence of any genuine effort to unite the norn under one banner during any period during which they were truly norn.

 

Unless you think the Sons of Svanir count, but even they seem to only want _half_ of the norn population.

I'm inclined towards being conservative regarding torch changes.

 

Regarding skill 4: I think the projectile behaviour could definitely stand to be improved, but the overall behaviour of the skill is one I appreciate: you can either use it as a melee area skill or a single-target ranged attack as the situation dictates. Apart from improving the projectile behaviour, if I was to rework it, I'd probably do so by increasing the impact of the final tick of Zealot's Flame, so that there is actually a benefit to letting it tick out rather than it being objectively better to through Zealot's Fire before Zealot's Flame expires.

 

Cleansing Flame has more issues, including the 'often a DPS loss over autoattacking' issue. In principle, I think it's expected to work with Justice passive procs in order to generate the expected burning - but that effect is not as strong as it used to be, and Cleansing Flames's niche of being able to rip through large groups of mobs was killed when the target cap was introduced.

 

I think it would be better to tweak the effects rather than reworking it entirely, however. Some possibilities include:

 

* Increasing the target cap to 5 (in line with similar skills such as the elementalist's Flame Jet and Cone of Cold) to better reward lining up a group.

* Increasing the damage/time ratio, by decreasing the channel time, increasing the damage, and/or introducing inherent Burning into the skill itself (potentially just the final tick, a la Flame Jet, but it doesn't have to be).

* Introducing some self-cleansing, so that the 'cleansing' part of Cleansing Flame can actually be achieved without having to awkwardly line it up over allies.

 

Honestly, doing all three probably wouldn't be out of line.

Aaron just beat me to the mark - there is really no excusing the Searing. It was over a thousand years since the charr last held Ascalon, and yet they considered it justified to employ what was essentially a magical nuke which devastated both the environment (it doesn't seem to have fully recovered even now) and the civilian population. In addition to "reclaiming their land", the charr also attempted genocide on human nations in lands the charr didn't even have that historical claim to.

 

Imagine if, in the real world, nations saw the loss of territory last held twelve centuries ago as justification for war. It'd be a madhouse even if WMDs _didn't_ enter the picture.

 

It's also not something you can just attribute to the Flame Legion. Yes, it was the Flame Legion that actually did it, but as Aaron pointed out, most modern charr still approve of the Searing. They disapprove of the Flame Legion using religion as a method of control over the charr, but while they might not like the titans, the majority still appear to approve of what the Flame Legion did to Ascalon (and intended to do to Orr and Kryta) with that power. In their defence, though, it's worth remembering that most adult charr are still used to thinking of humans as a faceless enemy rather than as _people_ - that attitude might change as the peace settles.

 

With all that said, though, similar comments could be made about any effort by humans to push the charr out of Ascalon. The charr there have called Ascalon home for generations now, and apart from a lack of remorse for a genocide performed by their ancestors, the modern charr are largely blameless for said genocide. Forcing the charr out now would be behaving little better than the charr did two and a half centuries ago.

 

Besides, if humans are in an expansionist mood, they'd have much more justification in looking to reclaim Orr.

 

> @"Genesis.8572" said:

> > @"dusanyu.4057" said:

> > As far as humanity ever retaking ascalon. it will never happen lore paints humanity as a dieing species pushed to one corner and locked in a battle with centaurs determend on their extermination and barely holding there own. Id they tried to reconquer Ascalon they would be mowed over by the char in a matter of days.

> I don't think that this depiction of humanity holds much weight anymore, to be honest, especially when we analyze the lore. Even in the pre-expansion days, this "dying race" idea lost a lot of steam. This idea is less rooted in "lore" and more an initial sales pitch meant to show how dire things have changed for humanity since the previous game, and meant to also build up some excitement for non-human races by taking humanity down a notch. The game depicts, however, humanity firmly holding their ground and fighting back as well. In order for the ball to bounce, the ball must first drop. This was essentially a brief 250-year setback for humanity. The charr were setback by over 1000 years out of Ascalon. Should we have written them off as a dying race too?

 

Pretty much this. The 'dying race' trope was something that was mostly said by ruder members of other races that believed/hoped that their race would be the one to achieve primacy after the humans died off, and the fact of the matter is that humanity's position is bouncing back. The main threats to Kryta (apart from the global threats that apply to everyone) are either gone or beaten back. Elona is (SPOILERS) on the track to returning to being genuinely under human control with Joko's consumption by Aurene. It's hard to say how long it will take for Elona to recover from Joko's rule or how the Awakened will respond to Joko's defeat (or whether the ghosts of the Primeval Kings will play a part in Elonian politics now that they've shown that they're capable of leaving their tomb and travelling long distances). It seems quite likely, however, that an alliance between Kryta and Elona would form, and such an alliance could well match or even exceed the allied charr legions in capability to project power (keeping in mind that the charr still have a number of problems in their own lands).

 

Politically speaking, though, humans starting a new war against the charr to reclaim Ascalon seems unlikely. One of the ironies of charr-human relations was that it was essentially the qualities that they have in common and which they would otherwise respect in one another that kept them fighting for so long, but fighting together against common enemies can easily change that, and that's happened in recent Tyrian history again and again.

> @"Rise.8259" said:

> I don't see why I would would ever want to use it over pistols, when a lot of your firearm skills are geared towards pistols, conditions, and close range crit.

>

> It also seems like a contradiction of design. Why would you want to dive towards your enemy and ruin the only thing rifle has going for it (superior range, immobilization, and knockback)?

>

>

 

Kinda feels like what you're actually asking is "what is the point of taking firearms with rifle?"

 

While rifles _can_ be used as a long-range weapon, they're not really intended to be used that way. Where a rifle really shines is in mobile playstyles: get in, do some damage at close range, then back off (or push the enemy away) if you have to, and the autoattack means you can still pressure at range if you need to. It's part of the reason why engineer rifle animations are all "firing from the hip" - long-range precision isn't really their forte. The power-oriented Firearms traits reflect this.

 

Another contributing factor is that back in the day Firearms was explicitly a condition damage traitline. Traitlines are no longer directly linked to statistics like they used to be, but as you can probably see, Firearms is still fairly condition-oriented. For a power build - and any build using a rifle has a good chance of being a power build - it's entirely reasonable to take a different line instead.

> @"Faction.4013" said:

> Trust me, biggest issue you'll have as an Engineer is finding armor that fits the theme of the Holosmith. I just use Magitech like every other Holosmith out there.

 

Warbeast might also work if you use the holosmith shoulders and an appropriate headpiece (scrapper's mask and gas mask work well). Mind you, my Engineer is a female charr, which is pretty much fashion wars hard mode.

I have mixed feelings myself - I liked the old behaviour of being a flamethrower-style weapon with the ability to poke at long ranges.

 

The boonsmiting of Wave of Wrath left it in a situation where nobody was happy, though, and the Radiance-Virtues-Firebrand build largely covers that playstyle. Healing allies with the new skill 2 is a lot easier than it was before, and the third skill on the autoattack chain is essentially replacing undetonated Orb of Light.

 

On the whole, it's objectively an improvement over what guardian staff was before the patch, and from a holistic viewpoint, the new staff (with the existence of Firebrand as an additional consideration) is a big improvement to guardian overall, even compared to the original staff mechanics.

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > > > > @"Lavith.8930" said:

> > > > > > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > > > >

> > > > > > [This article](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Path_of_Fire%E2%80%94Road_to_the_Desert) says they brought humanity to Cantha, but it never says where they arrived on the planet from another world. We **know** the Six and humanity are not native to the world, and not only does the [Orrian History Scrolls](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Six) say they arrived on the world at Arah, but so does [the Seventh Reaper](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cathedral_of_Silence_%28story%29#Dialogue).

> > > > > >

> > > > > > As I said in [my prior post](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/632843/#Comment_632843), there's a lot of other suggestions to colloborate the notion that the Six arrived at Arah, brought humanity to the world there, then moved them elsewhere. Nothing has so far debunked or implied against the Orrian History Scrolls, nothing suggests they are "more myth than reality".

> > > > > >

> > > > > > So I'd appreciate you don't pronounce something as fact unless you have a source.

> > > > >

> > > > > That same article says they first appear in Cantha ... So ...

> > > > > (By the way i can't argue a lot cause english is not my native language, sorry about that, truly)

> > > > > "Timeline

> > > > > 786 BE: The Gods Arrive, and They Brought Friends

> > > > > **The Six Gods first appear in Cantha, bringing humanity with them.** Like gardeners starting a new patch, they transplant human beings to this lush new world, working the soil and tending their seedbeds to ensure the new crop will take root, spread, and thrive."

> > > > >

> > > > > So they came in Cantha first, they're not native to the world so they obviously come from another one.

> > > > > I'm not sure if i totally got what you said if not I apologize.

> > > >

> > > > "First appear in Cantha", as in "the first time they appeared in Cantha" and not "they first appeared in the world at Cantha".

> > > >

> > > > Nothing about that sentence suggests they came to the world at Cantha, just that 786 BE is when they arrived at Cantha specifically, for either god or humanity. While we have multiple other statements saying they arrived on the world at Arah, and suggestions that they arrived in Cantha via boat from across the sea (per my aforementioned post with a dozen quotes).

> > > >

> > > > > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > > > > @"ugrakarma.9416" said:

> > > > > > > @"Cristalyan.5728" said:

> > > > > > > In my opinion the "gods" as they are now (I don't speak here about the gods from the start of the game - they were credible as gods) behaves as a bunch of slavers. Very powerful, very wise and old, herding the human cattle from pasture to pasture, searching a place with no predators. Because if they find predators they are unable to protect the herd. Or they don't want? I don't know. But wandering from place to place is not something a god should do.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Many Asurans seems the gods as just extremely powerful mists entitys that only pose of Gods.

> > > > > >

> > > > >

> > > > > Well that's what they are, they're not omnipotent and didn't create the world. They're not infallible either and can be killed so they're not truly immortal.

> > > >

> > > > Depends on how one defines a god. Eekasqueak is pretty easily using the monotheistic definition of god, but if we look at the hundreds of polytheistic faiths in our own world, the Six Gods are pretty darn close to those, such as the Olympians, Asgardians, etc. Very few of those god pantheons created the world, are unkillable, omnipotent, and infallible - hell, most older religions pretty much put the blame of natural disasters and everything wrong with the people and world on the gods' failures or punishments.

> > > >

> > > > If we're talking about the Abrahamic "one perfect god" then yeah, they don't match, but if we compare to any polytheistic faith, then they match. In that context, the main things that define god would be: Living in a higher plane of existence, the power to mold and create life, some relation to the world's nature/elements (e.g., sea, animals, thunder) or humanity's personalities/cross-culture similarities (e.g., war, honor, justice), and dominion over the souls of the dead. In which the Six match all four primary attributes.

> > >

> > > Actually, all of those polytheistic religions you mentioned do have the gods playing a part in the creation of the world. Slaying Ymir for the Norse, the Titans for the Greeks which the gods are offspring of, etc.. The human gods in GW2 come off largely as aliens with a lot of power and not gods.

> >

> > For the Norse... _somewhat._ They still had raw material to work from, and we know the Six performed some reshaping of what they found when they arrived. Probably not as significant as turning a giant into a world, but neither are creating something out of nothing. Additionally, only the oldest of the Aesir were involved in the actual act of creation - the younger Aesir (including Thor and Loki) and the Vanir were not.

> >

> > For the Greeks... _not so much._ The world is Gaia - the Olympians were not the creators of the world, but the _grandchildren_ of it.

> >

> > Similar observations apply to other mythologies. For instance, Egypt has multiple origin stories, but some of the most well-known Egyptian gods - Osiris, Isis, Set - post-date the creation of the world. In Chinese myth, Pan Gu died, and while in some versions there was a dragon, tortoise, qilin, and fenghuang present to help, by and large the deities of the Chinese pantheon were not involved in the creation. And so on.

> >

> > One could argue that descendants of the creator would presumably have inherited the ability to create, they just don't need to any more... however, the Six _do_ appear to be able to shape realms in the Mists. We can't rule out the possibility that they have the capability to create a world, it would just take an impractically long timescale to do so (which, for the record, does not disqualify divinity: some creation myths have the act of creation taking thousands of years, and the gods presumably didn't have that long when they evacuated humanity).

> >

> > Bottom line, it would be hard to create a non-arbitrary definition of 'god' that certainly excludes the Six while not also excluding some major gods from real-world pantheonic religions.

>

> Osiris and Isis came after Ra, who did create life in the world and was somewhat literally the sun. Odin killed Ymir, the rest of the Aesir were his descendants, there's nothing saying that referring to the six as not gods is any less correct in universe as referring to them as gods, in universe. It's ambiguous enough that Asura referring to them as just powerful entities isn't really incorrect, in the end it's purely an argument of semantics.

>

> I'd still argue against the worship of them being a good thing though. I'm of the opinion that power corrupts and they're not to be trusted because of that.

 

Gods are powerful beings here.

 

Like you say, it really is an argument of semantics.

 

In the world of Tyria, the word "god" is the word that is used to denote the Six and beings considered to be similar in nature to the Six. They're essentially the yardstick which defines what a 'god' is. If it turns out that they don't have properties that you believed they had, do they stop being gods (in which case, _what do you call them?_), or does the term 'god' simply mean something different to what you thought it did?

 

Cats, for instance, have been associated with all sorts of supernatural properties in history, but as we've determined that they don't have those properties, we don't stop calling them cats.

 

Even outside the world of Tyria... at the bottom line, the gods behave like and have the properties of pantheistic deities. Maybe they didn't create Tyria, but most pantheistic gods weren't involved in the creation of the world either, and given that we don't know much about their predecessors except that _some_ of them have predecessors, we can't say for sure that they don't have world-creators in their ancestry. Otherwise... they certainly have more power than all but the most heroic mortals, and each one embodies and has dominion over a concept.

 

Whether they should be worshiped... that's another question. Honestly, I get the feeling that most of the gods have reached a point where they think that humans should outgrow worship and stand on their own (the second part having been explicitly stated by ArenaNet). They'd probably still like to be respected, but worship per se might not be something that the majority of the gods even _want_ any more.

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > > @"Lavith.8930" said:

> > > > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > >

> > > > [This article](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Path_of_Fire%E2%80%94Road_to_the_Desert) says they brought humanity to Cantha, but it never says where they arrived on the planet from another world. We **know** the Six and humanity are not native to the world, and not only does the [Orrian History Scrolls](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Six) say they arrived on the world at Arah, but so does [the Seventh Reaper](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cathedral_of_Silence_%28story%29#Dialogue).

> > > >

> > > > As I said in [my prior post](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/632843/#Comment_632843), there's a lot of other suggestions to colloborate the notion that the Six arrived at Arah, brought humanity to the world there, then moved them elsewhere. Nothing has so far debunked or implied against the Orrian History Scrolls, nothing suggests they are "more myth than reality".

> > > >

> > > > So I'd appreciate you don't pronounce something as fact unless you have a source.

> > >

> > > That same article says they first appear in Cantha ... So ...

> > > (By the way i can't argue a lot cause english is not my native language, sorry about that, truly)

> > > "Timeline

> > > 786 BE: The Gods Arrive, and They Brought Friends

> > > **The Six Gods first appear in Cantha, bringing humanity with them.** Like gardeners starting a new patch, they transplant human beings to this lush new world, working the soil and tending their seedbeds to ensure the new crop will take root, spread, and thrive."

> > >

> > > So they came in Cantha first, they're not native to the world so they obviously come from another one.

> > > I'm not sure if i totally got what you said if not I apologize.

> >

> > "First appear in Cantha", as in "the first time they appeared in Cantha" and not "they first appeared in the world at Cantha".

> >

> > Nothing about that sentence suggests they came to the world at Cantha, just that 786 BE is when they arrived at Cantha specifically, for either god or humanity. While we have multiple other statements saying they arrived on the world at Arah, and suggestions that they arrived in Cantha via boat from across the sea (per my aforementioned post with a dozen quotes).

> >

> > > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > > @"ugrakarma.9416" said:

> > > > > @"Cristalyan.5728" said:

> > > > > In my opinion the "gods" as they are now (I don't speak here about the gods from the start of the game - they were credible as gods) behaves as a bunch of slavers. Very powerful, very wise and old, herding the human cattle from pasture to pasture, searching a place with no predators. Because if they find predators they are unable to protect the herd. Or they don't want? I don't know. But wandering from place to place is not something a god should do.

> > > >

> > > > Many Asurans seems the gods as just extremely powerful mists entitys that only pose of Gods.

> > > >

> > >

> > > Well that's what they are, they're not omnipotent and didn't create the world. They're not infallible either and can be killed so they're not truly immortal.

> >

> > Depends on how one defines a god. Eekasqueak is pretty easily using the monotheistic definition of god, but if we look at the hundreds of polytheistic faiths in our own world, the Six Gods are pretty darn close to those, such as the Olympians, Asgardians, etc. Very few of those god pantheons created the world, are unkillable, omnipotent, and infallible - hell, most older religions pretty much put the blame of natural disasters and everything wrong with the people and world on the gods' failures or punishments.

> >

> > If we're talking about the Abrahamic "one perfect god" then yeah, they don't match, but if we compare to any polytheistic faith, then they match. In that context, the main things that define god would be: Living in a higher plane of existence, the power to mold and create life, some relation to the world's nature/elements (e.g., sea, animals, thunder) or humanity's personalities/cross-culture similarities (e.g., war, honor, justice), and dominion over the souls of the dead. In which the Six match all four primary attributes.

>

> Actually, all of those polytheistic religions you mentioned do have the gods playing a part in the creation of the world. Slaying Ymir for the Norse, the Titans for the Greeks which the gods are offspring of, etc.. The human gods in GW2 come off largely as aliens with a lot of power and not gods.

 

For the Norse... _somewhat._ They still had raw material to work from, and we know the Six performed some reshaping of what they found when they arrived. Probably not as significant as turning a giant into a world, but neither are creating something out of nothing. Additionally, only the oldest of the Aesir were involved in the actual act of creation - the younger Aesir (including Thor and Loki) and the Vanir were not.

 

For the Greeks... _not so much._ The world is Gaia - the Olympians were not the creators of the world, but the _grandchildren_ of it.

 

Similar observations apply to other mythologies. For instance, Egypt has multiple origin stories, but some of the most well-known Egyptian gods - Osiris, Isis, Set - post-date the creation of the world. In Chinese myth, Pan Gu died, and while in some versions there was a dragon, tortoise, qilin, and fenghuang present to help, by and large the deities of the Chinese pantheon were not involved in the creation. And so on.

 

One could argue that descendants of the creator would presumably have inherited the ability to create, they just don't need to any more... however, the Six _do_ appear to be able to shape realms in the Mists. We can't rule out the possibility that they have the capability to create a world, it would just take an impractically long timescale to do so (which, for the record, does not disqualify divinity: some creation myths have the act of creation taking thousands of years, and the gods presumably didn't have that long when they evacuated humanity).

 

Bottom line, it would be hard to create a non-arbitrary definition of 'god' that certainly excludes the Six while not also excluding some major gods from real-world pantheonic religions.

> @"Hashar.6082" said:

> > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > Just that if it was, I’d like it. Because then godhood would be sort of a Faustian deal rather than a straight “upgrade”.

>

> It still is, I believe. Even though the gods don't become one-dimensional representations of their domains, they lose their former personality, desires, and beliefs to serve a "grander" purpose they previously didn't even understand. It certainly isn't something I would ever choose for myself, not for any amount of new knowledge or power (which wouldn't be used by _me_ or to achieve _my_ goals, anyway). Personally, I find this outcome more complex than the first alternative and equally, if not more, terrifying.

>

>

 

Which is actually an interesting philosophical question... Would you accept godhood if you knew that it would completely change your being

 

I probably _would_ take that trade. I don't expect to be the same person in ten years' time than I am now, and the opportunity to learn more about the universe than a mortal is likely to learn in their lifetime (and may not even be able to comprehend) would be worth it.

 

But that, in itself, might be part of the "why Kormir?" question. We have a lot to indicate that Kormir was someone who valued knowledge before Nightfall even started, and it's possible that part of the requirement for being a suitable candidate to godhood is that you already embody that principle such that you wouldn't resist being made to embody it further. Kormir might be saddened at what she gave up to become a god, but at the end of the line, for her, the trade was worth it (even before you consider the consequences of her not jumping in), and that's what made her a suitable candidate.

> @"Arden.7480" said:

> Why do we even need the gods?

>

> Even Kormir- not directly- said that the Commander and his gang need no gods, because they are the gods.

>

> Lol. Who cares about the gods, screw them.

 

There's been a lot from ArenaNet that indicates that the gods (with the apparent exception of Balthazar...) regard their relationship to humanity as similar to the parents of adult children. They'll help and guide if they can, particularly if it's the only way humans are going to survive (preparations for the Garden fit into this category) but they consider it to be better if the humans can deal with the problem themselves.

Supposedly, ArenaNet had a chart which showed which professions were common, uncommon, and rare among various races. We haven't been given many details on what was on that chart, though.

 

Here are my thoughts, based partly on observation and partly by what I know of the races:

 

(Note on revenants and warriors in summaries: Revenants, due to their recent appearance, are probably still the rarest of the professions by far. For the purpose of comparison, I'm listed their presence as relative to the number of revenants that are actually present: revenants being listed as 'common' for charr, for instance, is probably more accurately considered to mean that revenants are commonly charr rather than the other way around. Conversely, warriors seem to be the most common fighting profession by a significant margin, probably because in-universe it's a relatively easy profession to get into. For the purpose of comparing the prevalence of these professions within a race, warriors should be bumped up a category, and revenants should be bumped down a category. Similar comments could be made broadly about guardians and scholars (which are generally less common than more mundane professions, except among asura) on the one hand, and rangers and thieves on the other.)

 

Asura: It's been noted that asura, like sylvari, have no hangups about necromancy. Being a research-oriented race, all three scholar professions are fairly common. Engineers are also fairly common due to how much technology is involved, even though a lot of asura tech is more magically-oriented and scholars might be contributing just as much if not more. This is reflected in the asura NPCs we tend to see: most of the time, they're scholar professions or engineers. Thieves are also common, often as espionage agents, but it's unclear whether they're common among the asura generally, or among organisations that the PCs often interact with (such as the Inquest and the Order of Whispers). Soldier professions and rangers are rare, but present. On revenants specifically, asura are probably the least likely to be interested in this profession: they're more inclined towards self-reliance and looking to the future rather than tying themselves to the mumbo-jumbo of the past.

 

Summary:

Common: Elementalist, engineer, mesmer, necromancer.

Uncommon: Thief.

Rare: Guardian, ranger, revenant, warrior.

 

Charr: It's probably clearest to divide charr among the legions with their different specialisations:

 

Ash: The Ash Legion focuses on covert ops, making thieves a natural fit. They also seem to be the legion in good standing with the least distrust towards magic - necromancers and mesmers are both reasonably common among the Ash Legion.

 

Blood: The Blood Legion focuses on frontline combat, making warriors their specialty, but most charr beastmasters (and therefore rangers) also come from the Blood Legion. There's a good chance that revenants are most common among the Blood Legion due to Rytlock's influence.

 

Iron: The bulk of the Iron Legion seems to be warriors and engineers. Guardians, interestingly, come up as stock NPCs, but I think that's in part because they wanted a clear distinction between the stock Iron Legion melee NPC and the stock Blood Legion melee NPC. Due to greater exposure to humans, the Iron Legion probably does have more guardians than other legions, but other information we have suggests that guardians are generally rare among the charr.

 

Flame: The Flame Legion's heavy use of elementalists probably make that profession one of the most distrusted among the (rest of the) charr, with the exception of the Olmakhan.

 

Summary:

Common: Engineer, revenant, thief, warrior.

Uncommon: Mesmer, necromancer, ranger.

Rare: Elementalist, guardian.

 

Human:

 

All GW1 professions are naturally going to be present among humans, and they've also picked up a bit of engineering. We have been told, however, that necromancers are distrusted among humans, which probably suppresses their numbers (although their connection with Grenth likely prevents them from being persecuted altogether), and rangers seem to be less common than in GW1 (possibly because humans are more urban, possibly simply for mechanical reasons since warriors can be archers now). Conversely, some professions do seem to be markedly more common: warriors are the default in human armed forces, guardians are a profession that originated among humans, and mesmers are common among the nobility - while on the other hand, humans have the most notable criminal element, making thieves also fairly common. The connection between most revenant legends and human history probably makes humans suitable revenants, but this could swing both ways: humans might baulk at channeling legends that are viewed as having been enemies of humanity. Certainly, as yet, we have no indication that revenants have penetrated into human society to any significant degree.

 

This analysis assumes Krytan and Ascalonian humans: Elonians, Zephyrites, and other cultures are likely to have different tendencies. Zephyrites are probably mostly elementalists, for instance (although Sun acolytes may be closer to guardians), and Elonians probably have a higher frequency of necromancers and rangers (not to mention nonplayable professions like paragons and dervishes).

 

Summary:

Common: Guardian, mesmer, thief, warrior.

Uncommon: Elementalist, engineer, ranger, revenant.

Rare: Necromancer.

 

Norn:

 

The norn focus on personal excellence through hunting and physical combat make rangers and warriors some of the most common professions. Revenants may also become increasingly popular: the norn reverence towards legend would make them a good fit, and unlike humans, they're likely to care little about whether the legend they channel was a hero or a villain, and their good relations with the charr mean that revenants are possibly more likely to filter through into norn society than into other races (but again, AFAIK we've had no indication that this is happening). Like humans, necromancers appear to be distrusted, but their connection to Raven means that they are present. Other professions seem to come up due to connections with the spirits: guardians with Wolf and possibly Bear, thieves and mesmers with Raven and Snow Leopard. Engineers are probably fairly rare: they certainly DO exist, but the norn as a while tend to prefer less technological approaches. Elementalists are hard to pick (outside of Svanirites, obviously) - we don't see them very often, however, and given that the norn don't seem to have any animal spirits associated with the elements directly and elemental spirits were (according to Egil Fireteller) generally regarded as enemies rather than friends, they're probably not all that common.

 

Summary:

Common: Ranger, warrior.

Uncommon: Guardian, mesmer, revenant, thief.

Rare: Elementalist, engineer, necromancer.

 

Sylvari:

 

Most generic sylvari tend to be nature-oriented professions such as rangers and elementalists. Outside of that, sylvari curiosity appears to drive themselves towards learning at least some magic: mesmers and thieves are both fairly prevalent. Straight warriors appear to be uncommon (there's an ambient discussion of the subject in the sylvari outpost in Brisban Wildlands) and necromancers, while not looked down on by sylvari, still seem to be atypical for sylvari according to ArenaNet - both are seen in reasonably large numbers in the Nightmare Court, but the nature of the Nightmare Court might be increasing their frequency relative to regular sylvari. Guardians seem a good fit for their chivalric and courtly nature, and a number of sylvari NPCs are guardians. Sylvari engineers also appear to be against type: everything is new for the sylvari, and most sylvari seem to be more interested in magic and nature than technology. Like most races, there is little evidence of the revenant having spread among the sylvari, but given the influence of Ventari's Tablet among the sylvari, there would probably be interest in following that legend among the sylvari.

 

Summary:

Common: Elementalist, ranger.

Uncommon: Guardian, mesmer, revenant, thief.

Rare: Engineer, necromancer, warrior.

The thought did strike me that Joko might have had access to Forgotten magic and could have made himself immune to draconic digestion...

 

Assuming that he was completely digested, though, Aurene having picked up Joko's control over the Awakened could be an interesting plot development. Yes, the Awakened are people, but there's probably going to be variance in how they respond to Joko's defeat. Some will probably want to integrate, some might react violently. Aurene having control over them would allow her to restrain the latter, while possibly making people more willing to trust the former (since Aurene can command them to, well, not be evil). We see that even under Joko the Awakened do have free will except that they can't disobey orders (although they can interpret them creatively): Aurene controlling them with a light touch might be more of a matter of setting laws that are enforced by magic rather than denying them free will.

> @"perilisk.1874" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > Koss on Koss object found during Hidden Arcana in season2 as well as Kormir's Journal in Facing the Truth both mention that Kormir "died" whem she ascended.

>

> This sort of conflicts with the lore around Dwayna and Grenth though, since she's clearly still "alive" enough to get knocked up by a mortal. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work with a ghost, or anomaly, or djinn, though I guess I could be wrong if biology works very, very differently in Tyria. Don't know if it's a retcon, if the relationship of Dwayna and Grenth is a lie, or if there's some explanation for the conflict.

 

As has already been commented, it's not necessarily a good assumption that just because Dwayna apparently had Malchor's "child", that the process is anything at all like how mortals have children. It might, for instance, have involved taking some of his spiritual essence and using it as a seed to add her own essence, drawing in the creative energy of the Mists to form a new being out of the combination of the two essences, similar to the creation of Razah except much more powerful. Which she might then have regarded as her son because _that's simply how gods have children._

Treasure hunter events seem to pop at 2N:40 server time, where N is an integer. Didn't catch the time for the others, but the Labyrinthine Cliffs seems to have three events total, cycling skimmer race-dolyak race-treasure hunt.

> @"Zaraki.5784" said:

> Aurene will have to poo sooner or later :p

 

Honestly, this is something I've considered myself. Joko has possibly had access to Forgotten magic, and may have figured out a way of making his 'core' magic indigestible to dragons. So now he's inside Aurene, but still potentially capable of re-emerging and reconstituting himself. His "in the event of my death" stuff may be because he felt that if he did end up as dragon-chow, he didn't want Aurene or the PC to think that might actually be something he could survive.

 

> @"Tabasco.1743" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

>

> > I hope it's not because I've never enjoyed the fantasy trope of epic enemies that keep coming back. The Green Goblin and the Joker and yes, the Daleks become less appealing to me with each iteration. (Probably because I think it shows a lack of imagination on the part of the authors.)

>

> Hey whoa hey uncalled for why are we bringing the Daleks into this? EX-PLAIN?!

> 

>

 

Given normal Dalek speaking patterns, shouldn't that be EL-UC-I-DATE? :P

It is worth noting that ArenaNet was fairly careful not to give out avatar forms willy-nilly. There were a lot of dervish enemies in Nightfall, EOTN, and Beyond, but avatar forms _only_ cropped up when the user was connected to the gods in some way - being human or a servant of the gods. M.O.X. had avatar forms _mechanically,_ but didn't have the same graphics, and it was described as MOX essentially having a 'supercharged mode'.

 

However, we do see avatar forms used by humans who are, shall we say, not performing the will of the gods, such as Peacekeepers serving the White Mantle. Or, as I did, invoking the Hounds of Balthazar to fight the Hounds of Balthazar.

 

The most logical conclusion is that it is as Lyssa's Muse said: the power is in (humans and others tied to the gods). The gods do not have to do anything to allow their followers to use avatar forms, nor do they appear to be able to _stop_ them from doing so once the technique is known.

And then there's practically every backpiece floating in the air on female Charr...

 

The Banner of Dynastic Reckoning is almost a cape as it is.

It's a difficult choice to make, since both have their good points. I like the architecture and generally more civilised bent of the Kurzicks, with each house having its own separate flavour.

 

If I had to choose just one and I was making the decision myself (my guild went with Kurzicks), though, I'd probably go with the Luxons. I preferred their armour, the Jade Sea was one of my favourite zones and had some of my favourite opponents (visually, anyway, I probably swore at some of them quite a bit!), the concept of siege turtles and travelling on giant sea beasts was a compelling one, and on the whole I preferred the Luxon armour sets to the Kurzicks. (My GW1 characters have a mix of both, but out of the Factions sets, most of the ones I just _had_ to have were either the 15k Luxon or the 15k Canthan sets.)