Teratus.2859

I'm still a bit salty about that vote xD I really wanted the Abaddon fractal (still do) and I still blame the cheaper WP travel completely screwing the vote as that's what I think a lot of people voted Kiel for. Not saying some didn't want Thermanova, they did and some wanted Kiel to win out of preference but I think there was a large portion who just wanted the cheaper WP travel and that was ultimately a big decision maker for many people. Looking back I still think it was a mistake, Thermanova isn't all that good as a fractal imo nor did it really give us much other than "Scarlet did it".. Never enjoyed Thermanova all that much in the end and would have much preferred a Fractal that give us a chunk of lore on a major historical event that we never even got to see in Gw1. We could have for the first time ever seen the Crystal Sea.. Seen the Margonite lands and their cities, Seen Abaddon and all the Gods themselves in the flesh!! except Kormir of course. Gaaahh i'm still annoyed XD > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > Would be great, the Abaddon fight from Guild Wars 1 was pretty cool story wise. > > Would even provide a great opportunity for a lore related challenge mode: one where the player group receives less (or even no) support from Kormir and thus has to fight a harder fight (would also explain why hopefully dialogue is cut, as it is mostly from existing CMs). The fractal wouldn't have been about the Gw1 Nightfall campaign, it would have been about Abaddon's original fall a long long time before Gw1 when he rebelled against the Gods and started a war amongst the Divines. We would have got to witness the moment when Abaddon was struck down by the other Gods and imprisoned the destruction caused by that event is what turned the Crystal Sea into the Crystal Desert.

I'm also not a fan of the current setup nor the former. Both Monarch's Leap and Serpent's Strike need to be on demand skills. Hornet's Sting should only appear after a successful evade when using Serpent's Strike making it a reward retreat for a well timed evade. It should probably get a damage boost or grant quickness if you manage to land it on an enemy's flank. Probably the best setup for Sword that I can think of.

> @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > @"Hannelore.8153" said: > > Raids are even worse, the whole concept of Enrage Timers is essentially all or nothing. > > > > Judging the game by content that was intentionally made for powercreep isn't particularly wise. We're talking about encounters that were designed to fail if you don't come at them with an "all-in" approach, and that's not a good benchmark. > > Do you think that, if they removed enrage timers and you had all the time you want (per week) to finish a boss that there would be more build variety in Raids/overall? > And would more builds be accepted into Raids with less "toxicity" debate surrounded by it? Absolutely to the first, definitely not to the second. Dungeon's already proved that time will always be an in high demand element in certain content, even without enrage timers there will be people being bhurt about groups that take a few minutes longer to beat the content and still bickering about DPS being too low. Raids can already be beaten with less optimal groups.. people have proven this over and over again and some even actively handicapped themselves for the sport of it, such as those groups that beat the content with masterwork gear builds etc just to prove they could. Most people just don't want to play outside the meta or their own skill level, nor do they want to play with others who don't match those requirements. So removing enrage timers really wouldn't make that much of a difference for them overall other than probably getting into more arguments with people who join their groups despite not living upto the requested requirements. It may attract a few more players but there's no guarantee they will stay.. if they can't easily find groups that will accept that they don't want to play meta then nothing will really change. There's also the problem that removing rage timers would make most some of these bosses easily soloable by tank builds.. it would just take a lot of time. So they do serve a purpose.. but I do agree with the previous poster about the poor choice of benchmark. Ultimately it comes down to the same old argument.. should the content have an easy mode?. I still vote yes on that and have made my arguments many times. However I also believe the content should have a "hard" mode as well for those who really want that high level difficult experience and some raids do have that in the form of CM's. Options.. that's what people want in games like this, the ability to enjoy content at their own pace.

> @"Hallow.7368" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > Sounds fine to me. > > Nolan North is a popular and respected voice talent. > > Before you start with the "find someone so much better" stuff do note that he also voiced Mordremoth, Palawa Joko and Rhoban in the game too. > > > > > > The Commander is supposed to be sort of a bland stand in for the player to some degree which is why the writing in this game and lack of choice on our part often gets criticised. > > The Commander isn't a character like Taimi, Braham and Rytlock are.. they're us and that's a really hard thing to relate to when we have to follow a set in stone story like this where we don't get much in the way of a choices.. especially when in today's gaming industry there are such high and common demands for voice acting not to mention how every player has a different opinion or ideal of what/who their commander is. > > > > This is also why certain elements of who/what the commander is are also never discussed in the game.. such as romantic relationships and sexuality etc > > Commander has to be bland so more people can relate to him/her.. so that people can fill in the blanks with their own traits that they want their character to have and this can vary heavily even between different character's a person makes. > > The thing is though that I don't really care about how respected someone is if their work doesn't feel like a quality effort. Keep in mind that a voice actor is still an "actor".. they don't really get to come into a studio and decide what a character will say or how they will feel in X situation. It's always directed by what the employer wants from the actor in this case Anet would be the ones asking the actor to provide a certain tone or try to convey a certain emotion. Voice Actors do have some freedom to play in those areas sure but ultimately if Anet say we want you to sound monotone or bland for whatever reason then that isn't the fault of the voice actor not giving a "quality effort" as you put it. This is exactly why I brought up those other characters this same voice actor has done in this same game.. it better shows what he's capable of as a voice talent with other material to work with. This is why i'd say the problem isn't with the voice acting.. it's with the writing and the character of the Commander. >The female human sounds absolutely amazing and isn't "bland" as you described the male to be. The male character sounds like a dad who's about to be finished telling a bedtime story and tuck little Jimmy into bed he doesn't sound like he's actually partaking in the story. Showing emotion that fits the context would be perfectly fine. Honestly this is a matter of opinion, I happen to find the female human voice acting to be equally as bland as the male human is. Given the choice I'd say I prefer the male voice but only slightly. >Besides that the fact that the majority of characters made in this game are female despite the audience more than likely being overwhelmingly male throws being "relateable" completely out the window. If I wanted to relate to my character I wouldn't have made my elementalist female, but I did simply because the male voice acting is atrocious and the female voice actor makes the dialogue feel seamless. > Just because the genders are different doesn't mean you can't relate to a character.. there's plenty of reasons why some people choose to make characters with opposite gender or sexuality etc to their own. Hell i've got a good few female characters myself but mostly I play male ones. I don't relate to my characters though, I prefer to think of them as individuals and each is different from the other.. this I enforce through how I play them, their builds and their choices etc. Others do relate to their characters and the gender barrier doesn't have to exist there. Though I'll certainly agree that a sizeable portion of guys who play females probably do it just because they'd rather look at a female instead of a male character.. and most people tend not to invest heavily into their characters like some others do. Plenty of people play games like this for the grind, or for the pvp or just for the gameplay.. but there are a lot who care about the story, the lore or simply RPing in this world as a character etc. Everyone's different and games like this tend to try catering to everyone.

> @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > @"Yggranya.5201" said: > > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > > Sounds fine to me. > > > Nolan North is a popular and respected voice talent. > > > Before you start with the "find someone so much better" stuff do note that he also voiced Mordremoth, Palawa Joko and Rhoban in the game too. > > > > > > > > > The Commander is supposed to be sort of a bland stand in for the player to some degree which is why the writing in this game and lack of choice on our part often gets criticised. > > > The Commander isn't a character like Taimi, Braham and Rytlock are.. they're us and that's a really hard thing to relate to when we have to follow a set in stone story like this where we don't get much in the way of a choices.. especially when in today's gaming industry there are such high and common demands for voice acting not to mention how every player has a different opinion or ideal of what/who their commander is. > > > > > > This is also why certain elements of who/what the commander is are also never discussed in the game.. such as romantic relationships and sexuality etc > > > Commander has to be bland so more people can relate to him/her.. so that people can fill in the blanks with their own traits that they want their character to have and this can vary heavily even between different character's a person makes. > > > > Solution: Stop paying exorbitant prices for VA, save a ridiculous fortune and use it to make a better game. > > > > How could people "relate" to a bland moron with no choices who follows blindly to what someone tells them to do regardless of their position/title, common sense, and even if the commander would say "that's a bad idea" it will be hand-waved as if the commander said nothing. The usual jargon by Taimi. If saying nothing leads to the same solution, why even bother opening your mouth? Spend that money somewhere else. Only slightly above a blank slate character that are in other games, but not by much, and only in the sense that they are more a character than just a weapon pointed at the next doomsday threat. Although they all wield the commander like a weapon regardless. I actually want to know how people can "relate" to that. Sound like the usual BS, like people "relate" to a **genocidal** villain as long as they have a sob story. Pfft... > > I believe we have recent pandemic caused occurrences which show that your point is not applicable to the entire player base and might even be harmful to the game as a whole. The desire to have VA added for episodes which had none was rather great and was expressed both on these forums as well as in game multiple times (people in LA asking about lacking VA, when it will get added, etc.). It was also very noticeable how much immersion went out the window during the time where we had no VA for eipsodes. > > YOU might not see the value in voice acting, others certainly do. Just as YOU have certain opinions on other parts of the game quite a few others will likely disagree on. > Was vocal about that myself too and refused to play new content until the VA was added. This was mostly because of how Gw2 is designed though.. the lack of Va without an appropriate substitute such as big text boxes etc wouldn't work for me. Games can still be great without VA providing they're designed that way.. but a game that looses VA when it's supposed to have it will never feel the same, it'll always feel broken and incomplete.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > This sounds like my kind of build tbh, I very much enjoy sustain based play hence my bias for my might heal warrior, zealot thief and mostly life siphon Minion builds. > > > > I haven't played around much with SB.. mostly because I dislike the fuse mechanic and now the restriction to 1 pet.. however this poison healing interests me quite a bit. > > I'm going to have to play around with this trait sometime and see if it works out for me. > > It's something I hadn't considered before as a backup for regen. > > I also like the idea of a Ranger built around poison, could be fun. > > You can focus more on poison than the build showed. I mean, the trap trait increase trap's condi duration by 60% and reduce their CD by 20%. If you add alacrity on top of it, your viper nest end up with a 12 second CD... Light on your feet double the number of poison stack you inflict while flanking your target (making it to up to 10 poison stack per foe hit and you can hit up to 5 foes for a maximum of 50 poison stacks applied) and, with alacrity again, it's on a 5 second CD. for example. > Maxing the poison output was pretty much my first thought to maximise the lifesteal benefit. I expect i'll have to take a hit in dps among others things but im fine with that trade off, I don't need the poison to hurt.. i'd be using it as a healing tactic along side regen for max sustain potential. It's an interesting trait that I hadn't given much thought to in the past.. curious how a Dagger Dagger Ranger may work out.. not sure i've ever even seen a Ranger running duel Daggers before. No CD on Predators Cunning too so I imagine the combo of Whirling Defence in a Poison Field could end up being a significant heal.. Sword Axe secondary set perhaps.

I will absolutely be buying the next expansion regardless of this subject. That said, yes I would support an option to toggle off certain effects on other players. Sorry but i'm not sorry about that.. when I play this game and I see these horrendously ugly character that are walking around with a million effects on them it ruins my immersion into this game world. I don't care how hard you worked for your shinies and I don't care if you love looking like your armour is made out of multi coloured high intensity lights. I am not taking anything away from you, you still get to look how you please to yourself on your own screen. But I am saying that others who dislike your choice in fashion should have the option not to look at it on their screens if they choose, especially if your shinies are actively hurting their experience via performance.

> @"Smoosh.2718" said: > I also played around with a viper build on ranger for a bit with the main intention to never use the pets >  > > Every bit of poison you do is 170 health, every 3 seconds is 375 health without having to do a thing. Gains 240 Ferocity from having the axe equiped so despite being vipers, you're doing a high level of power damage while still doing high damage from conditions as well. > > From what I recall, i barely touched the heal skill. This sounds like my kind of build tbh, I very much enjoy sustain based play hence my bias for my might heal warrior, zealot thief and mostly life siphon Minion builds. I haven't played around much with SB.. mostly because I dislike the fuse mechanic and now the restriction to 1 pet.. however this poison healing interests me quite a bit. I'm going to have to play around with this trait sometime and see if it works out for me. It's something I hadn't considered before as a backup for regen. I also like the idea of a Ranger built around poison, could be fun.

I partially blame the meta mentality for it since a lot of people tend to get fed the same line about DPS is king so only use X stats. Personally I have fun experimenting with different stats sets on different builds to see how the result turns out. It's why i've clashed with some people in the past when I disagree with their opinions about certain stat sets which they claim to be garbage and "useless". I don't disagree with the overall subject here though I do think there are sets in the game which don't really have much purpose if any at all and I would like to see them find a use somewhere. But I do disagree with some claims about some stats being useless. For example I think Maddoctor said Power and Ferocity is a useless combo without Critical chance.. Precision and while that is true there are ways to obtain high Crit chance without needing the precision stat.. such as, certain Necromancer traits, one of which can give you a flat 50% crit chance that is extremely easy to maintain in group play. So for them that is a viable stat combo to some degree. I won't deny that these are very niche circumstances that occasionally only apply to a single class or elite spec but this is something I think should be a thing in this game and would like to see more of going forward. To be clear Im not saying we need more useless stat combos that only benefit one class or spec or something.. i'm saying Anet should improve existing classes and specs via traits to where these less useful existing stat sets are actually viable for currently ignored potential build on them. Give people more reason to take or at least play around with largely neglected stats and traits.

> @"Yggranya.5201" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > Sounds fine to me. > > Nolan North is a popular and respected voice talent. > > Before you start with the "find someone so much better" stuff do note that he also voiced Mordremoth, Palawa Joko and Rhoban in the game too. > > > > > > The Commander is supposed to be sort of a bland stand in for the player to some degree which is why the writing in this game and lack of choice on our part often gets criticised. > > The Commander isn't a character like Taimi, Braham and Rytlock are.. they're us and that's a really hard thing to relate to when we have to follow a set in stone story like this where we don't get much in the way of a choices.. especially when in today's gaming industry there are such high and common demands for voice acting not to mention how every player has a different opinion or ideal of what/who their commander is. > > > > This is also why certain elements of who/what the commander is are also never discussed in the game.. such as romantic relationships and sexuality etc > > Commander has to be bland so more people can relate to him/her.. so that people can fill in the blanks with their own traits that they want their character to have and this can vary heavily even between different character's a person makes. > > Solution: Stop paying exorbitant prices for VA, save a ridiculous fortune and use it to make a better game. > > How could people "relate" to a bland moron with no choices who follows blindly to what someone tells them to do regardless of their position/title, common sense, and even if the commander would say "that's a bad idea" it will be hand-waved as if the commander said nothing. The usual jargon by Taimi. If saying nothing leads to the same solution, why even bother opening your mouth? Spend that money somewhere else. Only slightly above a blank slate character that are in other games, but not by much, and only in the sense that they are more a character than just a weapon pointed at the next doomsday threat. Although they all wield the commander like a weapon regardless. I actually want to know how people can "relate" to that. Sound like the usual BS, like people "relate" to a **genocidal** villain as long as they have a sob story. Pfft... That was part of my point, people can't relate to such a character very well despite the PC being designed that way for that reason.. hence why so many criticise the way the Commander is written. In RPG's your character tends to be either a representation of you to some degree and offers you choices so you can define your characters path and actions. Or it's a predefined character that becomes your avatar so you can act out and experience their story typically in a more linear way. Gw2 started out trying to go more for the former and later became more the latter, hence our choices in the early game which were supposed to matter but they all ultimately became irrelevant about half way through the personal story once you got to the pact arc. It probably would have been better had the commander been written as their own character with a predefined personality right from the start. That said as a big fan of RPG's in general, specially the older ones. I would not have minded had the Commander not been voiced at all and communicated instead through text based dialogue that contained multiple choices and options. We had a fair bit of this in the early Gw2 story such as getting to choose Ferocious, Dignified and Charming options in conversations but again this was all completely irrelevant due to poor implementation.. probably why that whole system was completely scrapped later on. The main thing I think we need to factor in is that the kind of character freedom that exists in some older more text reliant RPG's just isn't possible to incorporate in modern "voiced" MMORPG's very well due to their different nature's.. for one example, it is significantly easier and cheaper to convey a ton of information via a text box than it is via voiced dialogue. So the best you can get is the illusion of choice in these more modern games which Gw2 tried to do but for the most part failed at. This is part of the problem with discarding the old and modernising everything.. something we see quite a lot in games these days, specially in "remakes". New and modern isn't always bad.. but it's not always good either, sometimes the oldies get it right and just need a bit of polish, not a total redesign. Guess you could say in Gw2's case they did do good, but they did some bad too. For example, there's good reason people still think this game could benefit from a traditional quest system.

Sounds fine to me. Nolan North is a popular and respected voice talent. Before you start with the "find someone so much better" stuff do note that he also voiced Mordremoth, Palawa Joko and Rhoban in the game too. The Commander is supposed to be sort of a bland stand in for the player to some degree which is why the writing in this game and lack of choice on our part often gets criticised. The Commander isn't a character like Taimi, Braham and Rytlock are.. they're us and that's a really hard thing to relate to when we have to follow a set in stone story like this where we don't get much in the way of a choices.. especially when in today's gaming industry there are such high and common demands for voice acting not to mention how every player has a different opinion or ideal of what/who their commander is. This is also why certain elements of who/what the commander is are also never discussed in the game.. such as romantic relationships and sexuality etc Commander has to be bland so more people can relate to him/her.. so that people can fill in the blanks with their own traits that they want their character to have and this can vary heavily even between different character's a person makes.

> @"Smoosh.2718" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > That's a good point, I completely overlooked that trend as well. > > > > Although personally I don't think Ranger's healing is all that great, not compared to Warrior and Necromancer's > > Ranger relies a lot on the regen boon which is pretty garbage as a form of sustain. > > > > Warriors Might Healing is vastly superior to Regen as is Necromancers multi source Lifesteal. > > Factoring in that I'd say Ranger is definitely on the bottom as far as sustain goes compared to the other easy to play classes. > > > > > To address the tankiness of ranger, yes they are. From the PvP background a ranger is able to put out an insane amount of self sustain through boons that seem to be endless in duration. They are able to do this while still maintaining a source of reliable damage. Warrior by comparison is not able to do so, to have the same sustain the warrior loses all sources of damage (almost becomes a tickle fight). > > Boons should not be underestimated in this game, there is a huge connection between the hardest to kill and the ones with the most boon uptime. Not to forget Ranger with soulbeast does also have the poison heals trait (Making the ranger stupidly hard to take down in the PvE enviroment). > > If the class was to be made into a high health class, much of its sustain would need to be chopped away, be it boons, heals or even overall stats (pet or class). In PvP maybe sure.. but that can easily be fixed with skill and trait splits, much as they have with other classes. I've not seen it so much in PvE, i've yet to find a really good modern Ranger build that can outsustain a lot of damage.. they seem to be more alike with thieves there and rely more on evading damage or manipulating the aggro onto their pets etc to boost their survivability. I don't think i've ever seen a proper tank ranger build in PvE, I'll have to give it another try sometime.

> @"Smoosh.2718" said: > > @"InsaneQR.7412" said: > > > @"VocalThought.9835" said: > > > > @"InsaneQR.7412" said: > > > > > @"Lonami.2987" said: > > > > > I think it should be this way: > > > > > > > > > > * **High:** Necromancer, Engineer, Warrior. > > > > > * **Medium:** Elementalist, Ranger, Guardian. > > > > > * **Low:** Mesmer, Thief, Revenant. > > > > > > > > > > For reference, here is the current setup: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health > > > > > > > > I would agree with that line up. > > > > It would balance out some problems with guardian, elementalist buildcraft and mesmers would be a bit more squishy. > > > > High health engineer could be problematic though. > > > > > > So how about > > > * **High:** Necromancer, Ranger, Warrior. > > > * **Medium:** Elementalist, Elem., Guardian. > > > * **Low:** Mesmer, Thief, Revenant. > > > ? > > > > Ranger has also quite the sustain plus a pet, it is not a better candidate in those regards sadly. > > Without hampering other aspects of survivability it is quite problematic to give rangers a health buff for just symmetry. > > I honestly can understand everyones reasoning to give the ranger high health. They currently are one of the easiest professions to play, easy to get health back, two attack damage sources and the best downstate skills for sustain. That's a good point, I completely overlooked that trend as well. Although personally I don't think Ranger's healing is all that great, not compared to Warrior and Necromancer's Ranger relies a lot on the regen boon which is pretty garbage as a form of sustain. Warriors Might Healing is vastly superior to Regen as is Necromancers multi source Lifesteal. Factoring in that I'd say Ranger is definitely on the bottom as far as sustain goes compared to the other easy to play classes. > @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > Being as all three of those classes can be slippery with the right build I think the next question to ask is which ones can be tanky right now. Both Ranger and Engineer can be built very tanky, especially with certain E-Specs. The same cannot be said for Thief. Slippery yes, but tanky no. > > If I had to rank them by the Health pool they should all have based on that it would be. > > Engi - Low HP, but with Scrapper's Vitality penalty removed. Would go pretty far in balancing Holo as well as a bonus. > Ranger - High HP, but a lot of the boons via traits would need to be scaled back. > Thief - Medium HP. I don't think Ranger is that tanky tbh.. maybe druid if it invests heavily in healing and defence but i've never managed to build a tanky Ranger build that I considered "good" tbh. I don't think tanky is really a factor to consider though, Warriors can be really tanky as well yet they have high health.. and Necro's.. Necro's I know from personal experience can become near unkillable in PvE with the right setup lol I think PvP is the better deciding factor in this debate which is why I'd say Ranger deserves it more as Engineers are far better scrappers than Rangers are in this game mode due to their great healing potential, tankyness and access to slippery skills that give them far more survivability than Rangers imo when fighting other players. In regards to the thief though, it's true they can't tank for crap.. but they can get a significant amount of self sustain via traits which combined with their evasiveness can make them very formidable to anything that can't down them in a single shot.. or a very small period of time. > @"FrownyClown.8402" said: > High hp ranger would be fine but they would need to reduce some damage and access to regen and protection I wouldn't be against this if those boons were buffed slightly. Less access to regen but slightly better healing from it and less access to protection but better duration. This would make rangers more vulnerable to boon stripping and corruption.

> @"Veprovina.4876" said: It's a pretty confusing subject as we still don't fully understand it yet but as others have said i'll also try to explain it as best I can. This representation you are seeing with the orbs is known as The All, it's a symbolic representation of Tyria and the balance of magic in the world. The orb in the middle is believed to specifically represent Tyria itself while the coloured orbs that are forever circling it each represent one of the Elder Dragons. It's said that each of the Elder Dragons is constantly in a tug of war like situation with the world's magic which create's a balance between them and Tyria, this we can verify in the world with the Elder Dragons hording and consuming as much magic as they can during each of the Dragon cycles before they go back into a dormant state and the magic slowly seeps back into the world from their bodies eventually waking them up again to repeat the process. As we learned back in season 2 when entering Omadd's machine, we saw in a vision of The All that killing Zhaitan had upset this balance.. and we upset it even more when we killed Mordremoth later on in HoT thus causing Primordus to move from the far shiverpeaks down to the fire island chain to consume the massive amount of magic that had been unleashed by Zhaitan and Mordremoth's deaths. This is the point where Season 3 comes into play with Balthazar coming back to Tyria with the goal of eradicating the remaining Elder Dragons. After learning about Taimi's machine and that it can focus Primordus and Jormag's powers against one another to kill them both, Balthazar decides to steal the machine and use it to destroy both dragons.. fully aware that the damage this would do to Tyria would be catastrophic if not outright destroy the world entirely. This event is what you are specifically seeing in the cutscene you are referring too. The Orange and Blue orbs that represent Primordus and Jormag clash together and destroy each other which causes The All to destabilise and the central orb (Tyria) to explode.. this we interpret as the end of the world and why we then decide to stop Balthazar from killing any more Elder Dragons while also re-evaluating our own agenda as well since we now know that we cannot simply keep killing them as we have been doing up until this point without further destabilising the balance of magic and risking the destruction of the world.

I like my weapons to match either colour or theme wise with my armour when possible :) For example, this is my main Ranger's current look in which I dyed his armour from the Blue I was using for years to Orange to match the new Sword and Axe skins I give him a while back. 

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > > @"kharmin.7683" said: > > > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > > > Personally I wish they were toughter on this though and players caught using bots and hacks like that are never allowed to come back to the game. > > > > They deserve to be perma-banned. > > > > > > > They never reveal the actions that are taken, but I'm pretty certain perma-bans do occur. > > > > > > > Positive that perma bans are rare and usually only done for extreme cases. > > I'm pretty sure most bans are x amount of days/months which really isnt much of a deterrent for people willing to use 3rd party hacks. > > They pay a subscription for that software so getting banned is not going to stop them using it over and over again. > > > > That is... not true. If you've ever gone digging into the history of these forums, you'll find a graveyard lying just below the surface. Every once in awhile I'll go looking for an old post of mine, because occasionally I'll say something smart that I want to reference. Each time I do this, I'll come across a years-old thread full of names that I recognize, but haven't seen in awhile. Some I like, some I hate, but whatever reason I decide to click on a name to see what they're up to, only to see those dreaded red letters and a last post made years ago. > > We call it the memory hole. We're so inundated with media that we don't realize when somebody has dropped off the face of the earth. We don't see these banned people, largely because they aren't around to be seen. They may have new accounts and are still active and hacking in the game just not on the forums, can't know for sure.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > What we do know is that Braham is some kind of Norn of Prophecy and linked to several Spirits of the Wild, it's possible that since Jormag has corrupted a couple of them (3 that Braham has directly associated with) that Brahams ability to sense destroyers maybe something that Jormag is influencing somehow. > Braham's ability to sense Destroyer should come from his connection to Wolf. > Wolf has the ability to give mortals the ability to track down dragon minions. > Unless Arenanet pulls something completely unnecessary, it's the very same ability that Wolf blessed the human heroes with in GW1, so that they could track down the Nornbear, which was a minion of Jormag. > That is the other popular theory too yeah, although nothing in game has been raised so far to prove it other than the link to Volfen Blessing in Gw1. There's also one thing that kind of disproves it as well.. Volfen Blessing was used in Gw1 to track Svanir.. a minion of Jormag as you said. If this power Braham has does come from wolf then he should be able to sense all Dragon Minions, not exclusively Destroyers which so far is all he can sense. It's also curious how only Braham has this power so far and no other Norn attuned to Wolf have been revealed who also possess it.. I would think if it is a gift from Wolf other Norn would have it as well not only Braham. Then again Anet could also write it in as "he's the norn of prophecy so he has special powers" and have that explain it which would be a pretty mediocre excuse to give him that ability tbh Either way I guess we'll find out in the next few episodes ^^ > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > As I've explained in previous posts, Primordus's tendency to attack everything within reach _could_ be a learned behaviour. Animals or people that have been hurt multiple times can get to a point where they paranoiacally lash out at anything that gets too close in a kind of pre-emptive retaliation to push away anything that might hurt it again. Primordus' behaviour makes sense when viewed through this lens, and in the context that he has minions. Just that instead of claws or words, his weapons are the destroyers. > > We have one dragon who's good at manipulating mortals, and one dragon that appears to view all mortals as enemies (more so than other Elder Dragons). The first dragon wants to destroy the second, while the opinion of the second regarding the first is unknown. These two statements... _might_ be connected. > > Or Primordus might genuinely be the monster he's being made out to be. Like we've _both_ said now... speculation. > I don't think Primordus views mortals as enemies, if anything he probably thinks of them as irrelevant, weak and pathetic life forms compared to himself.. although that attitude could definitely have changed in recent years as he's most certainly aware that 3 beings as powerful as himself have been killed by them. It's quite likely he does consider us a threat now.. although I doubt he did before the events of Gw2. I don't think it's learned behaviour though.. nothing seems to suggest that so far and the only times we know of where Primordus has been in a dangerous situation was previously in a physical conflict with Jormag in which he came out the victor and back in living world 3 where Balthazar was trying to kill him using Jormag's magic. That would put Jormag as the priority threat to Primordus both now and thousands of years in the past and who knows how long those two have been trying to kill one another really.. and who started that conflict, we can all assume Jormag will put the blame on Primordus.. but that is one opinion we can definitely not trust. The best I can think of that would make your theory make sense to me is that Primordus targets mortals because either he associates them with Jormag's minions and cannot tell the different (which I strongly doubt as it would imply a lack of intelligence) or he does it preemptively as a means to deny Jormag potential minions in the future.. which does make sense tbh. For the record i'm not saying you're wrong and just dismissing your theory, I just think it's very unlikely that's all. > Regarding Braham - my reaction last chapter was "don't be silly, Braham's a follower of Wolf who only recently gained the ability to transform, he's probably using the same Wolf-granted tracking ability that we used to track Svanir in Eye of the North". Now, though, we're getting strong hints that Braham has the destroyers "calling to" him. > If they were calling to him though I would think they wouldn't attack him.. but then again they have been described recently as "Rabid". Plus there's the fact that Primordus doesn't corrupt living beings.. and the fact he doesn't associate with mortals. There's a lot with this particular story element which doesn't make much sense atm.. and it's hard to buy into these theories that Primordus wants Braham as a champion or servant. Jormag may have changed recently taking on Ryland and it could be possible that Primordus may have changed in a similar way too but so far there's too just little info about to put much stock in those kinds of theories. I really can't wait for Anet to finally reveal this lol it's one of the more interesting elements in the story so far. > While I don't think we can rule out the idea that Jormag instilled Braham with some destroyer-sensing ability while he was communing with the corrupted Spirits, I also don't think it's the most likely explanation. First, because the term "calling to" suggests that there's more going on that Braham simply sensing their presence - the choice of description implies _communication,_ albeit on a very primitive level, and that Braham is somehow linked to them rather than simply feeling their proximity. There's also the thing about Braham being prophesied to be able to kill Jormag, something that has otherwise been suggested to require Primordus' power - the two dragons are each other's weaknesses, after all. If this is true and they genuinely are each other's weakness rather than a simple "fire melts ice, ice extinguishes fire" thing, than that implies that to be able to kill Jormag as the prophecy demands, Braham must have access to some of Primordus' power. > It's a long shot theory admittedly, but it would be a fun twist. Manipulating is what Jormag does best and it would explain why Jormag is so interested in corrupting more spirits.. but yeah im not 100% sold on it either, was just something I put together based on available info and events that could explain a few things. I don't know if Braham will require Primordus power though not in the way some expect him to "possess" it.. there are other means of hurting Jormag as we saw with the Jotun Scroll and I expect the same is true for Primordus as well. That said we also got that little comment from the Norn in the Thunderhead Keep Mission about not understanding prophecies until they have been fulfilled. Braham's involvement in Jormag's death could be extremely literal as in Braham actively kills Jormag in combat or it could be something extremely different such as a key decision or action that Braham takes results in the death of Jormag. For an example of that think about how Logan fled the battle with Kralkatorrik to protect the Queen and Glint and Snaff died in the battle to which he was blamed for years as his decision to leave potentially caused those events to take place. Braham could do something similar such as Killng Ryland which could distract Jormag long enough for Primordus to deliver a deathblow.. which is a scenario I've suggested in another thread as well as a potential way IBS could end and set us up with Primordus and Sea Dragon for End of Dragons. That would technically fulfil the prophecy as Braham's actions directly lead to the death of Jormag. This is ultimately the problem with Prophecies and why they are typically so vague and hard to understand.. it's also what makes them a lot of fun to play with in games too ^^ > Where could he have picked that up? Well, we don't know where the power of that jotun scroll came from, but we do know that a lot of ancient magic involved tapping directly into the energies of the dragons. It's possible that the jotun harnessed some of Primordus' power to make that scroll. Now, most of that power went into the bow, of course, but if just _some_ of it transferred to Braham instead as he was empowering the bow, that would explain why he seems to have some connection to the Destroyers now. > I have also put forward that exact theory in the past as well, this is another of those unanswered questions that Anet has yet to go back and explain but I still think there could be merit in this theory and it would explain a lot if it were true.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said: > In Primordus' case... we don't know much, largely because Primordus is the Elder Dragon that interacts least with mortals. Even most Destroyers, despite names like "Destroyer Troll" and "Destroyer Harpy", are not actually corrupted regular creatures, but constructs given life by Primordus' power (and in some case, being able to reproduce by laying eggs, something that dragon minions of other dragons seem to generally be unable to do unless they were corrupted while pregnant). Which means we know zilch about Primordus' actual motivations, just his actions. > The only interest Primordus has shown in both games regarding mortals is exterminating them wherever he can find them. It's why theories about redemption or misunderstanding him kinda of fall flat.. if he just wanted to be left alone he would avoid conflict and bury himself deep underground where he would be safe and isolated. He has not done this though, he has consistently attacked and killed at every opportunity, driven multiple races out of their homes with his constant attacks and lived up to his reputation as a being of pure destruction. Primordus is in fact the one dragon that has been somewhat recorded in history by other races who survived his last awakening.. most notably the Dwarfs who to this day consider Destroyers and Primordus as their mortal enemies because of the legends that still existed about him and his Destroyers from his previous awakening. > Technically speaking, we only have Jormag's word that Primordus identifies as male. Given that line about being two sides of a coin that can't see each other directly, Jormag might not even _know._ > A misleading line tbh, It's not so much that they "can't" see each other directly it's that Jormag is avoiding such an encounter for it's own self preservation. Jormag and Primordus have physically clashed before and Jormag was injured during that encounter. The Shards of Jormag scattered about the Drizzlewood Coast are splinters of Jormag's body and blood that were broken off by Primordus when the two dragons fought each other during their last awakening. Knowing that information it's a safe bet that Jormag's motives against Primordus now are more to do with it being afraid to face Primordus again without a big advantage or it could be as simple as revenge. Either way Jormag is hell bent on killing it's brother. > Applying some meta-thinking to the topic, though, the hints that Braham might have some connection to the Destroyers provides an avenue through which that might change. That's their opportunity to spring a twist that changes our interpretation of Primordus, _if they were so inclined. We don't know much about this yet but so far aside from being able to sense destroyers there's no apparent connection between Braham and Primordus.. but there is between Braham and Jormag. What we do know is that Braham is some kind of Norn of Prophecy and linked to several Spirits of the Wild, it's possible that since Jormag has corrupted a couple of them (3 that Braham has directly associated with) that Brahams ability to sense destroyers maybe something that Jormag is influencing somehow. Jormag's dedication to corrupting Owl (another spirit Braham is associated with) as part of some plan Jormag and Ryland are working on and the fact that Braham was specifically called out by an Icebrood who said "this doesn't concern you Eirsson" could also suggest that this is another of Jormag's plots to manipulate Braham, the one who's been prophesied to kill Jormag into being a weapon Jormag can use against it's brother. At the moment it's too soon to know for sure yet, we just don't have enough to go on so it's all just speculation.

> @"Axl.8924" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > > @"ollbirtan.2915" said: > > > @"Teratus.2859" But what about Signet of the Locust! It's a whopping 25% movement speed increase. Surely, this deserves to be nerfed, right? :o > > > Edit: And I forgot that it can be buffed to 33% if traited! :o > > > > Almost every class has access to a trait or signet (some have both) that grant's 25% movespeed increase, plus as other have mentioned the same effect can also be gained with runes and also consumables. > > Swiftness grants an increased 33% making it superior to the permanent 25% increase gained by traits, runes and signets and Necro has far less access to this boon than most classes do, combined with a lack of gap closer's. > > > > All in all having a permanent 25% increase on a trait or sigil really isn't that much of a benefit for a Necromancer since pretty much every class can gain this same benefit really easily and surpass it with swiftness, superspeed and gap closer skills, all of which Necromancer lack access to. > > This puts the Necromancer at a major disadvantage in mobility compared to most other classes which is one reason why it's bulk is justified and it's access to hard CC like daze/stun and fear as well as soft movement CC's like cripple and chill. > > Also it's access to pulls to which is unfortunately not that useful at times since for experienced players it's pretty obvious to see coming most of the time. > > Necros are more designed to lock down opponents rather than chase them but with cleanse spam and some classes having too much access to stunbreaks and teleports/leap skills etc this locking down tactic is nowhere near as useful imo as both the offensive and defensive effectiveness of gap closer skills are. > > Reaper darkness GS has a pull tech which can be useful with blind pull and spinal shivers are extremely powerful. I think some like you are seriously undermining how useful it can be. I'm not, they're great if you can land them. However they are very predictable attacks and in many cases an experienced player will either see it coming and avoid it or will predict it's use in the situation and avoid it. If you cannot land those skills then they're effectively useless in the fight like many other skills. Gap closing abilities do not suffer this same problem when they're being used to create distance, the only thing that can upset them is an interrupt which is not that easy to land on a leaping/dash foe that is rapidly moving out of your attack range. That is one reason why leap's, dash's and teleports etc are such a superior form of offensive and defensive ability, it's why almost everyone uses them and why Necro's who lack access to those abilities has such a mobility disadvantage in most fights.

> @"ollbirtan.2915" said: > @"Teratus.2859" But what about Signet of the Locust! It's a whopping 25% movement speed increase. Surely, this deserves to be nerfed, right? :o > Edit: And I forgot that it can be buffed to 33% if traited! :o Almost every class has access to a trait or signet (some have both) that grant's 25% movespeed increase, plus as other have mentioned the same effect can also be gained with runes and also consumables. Swiftness grants an increased 33% making it superior to the permanent 25% increase gained by traits, runes and signets and Necro has far less access to this boon than most classes do, combined with a lack of gap closer's. All in all having a permanent 25% increase on a trait or sigil really isn't that much of a benefit for a Necromancer since pretty much every class can gain this same benefit really easily and surpass it with swiftness, superspeed and gap closer skills, all of which Necromancer lack access to. This puts the Necromancer at a major disadvantage in mobility compared to most other classes which is one reason why it's bulk is justified and it's access to hard CC like daze/stun and fear as well as soft movement CC's like cripple and chill. Also it's access to pulls to which is unfortunately not that useful at times since for experienced players it's pretty obvious to see coming most of the time. Necros are more designed to lock down opponents rather than chase them but with cleanse spam and some classes having too much access to stunbreaks and teleports/leap skills etc this locking down tactic is nowhere near as useful imo as both the offensive and defensive effectiveness of gap closer skills are.

To the base game? No very unlikely. But we've seen new pets added upon each expansion release so yes I do expect at least 4-5 new pets to come in with End of Dragons as we have seen with both PoF and HoT.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > Necro's have the worst mobility in the game.. it is their biggest weakness as a class. > > That's arguable. The necromancer have access to 2 way to have 25% move speed (dagger trait/locust signet), relatively good sources of swiftness, wurm and spectral walk and a movement skill per e-spec. Not to forget that there exist runesets that grant 25% move speed. > > It's not over the top, but I wouldn't say mesmer, guardian or revenant are better off in the mobility departement. I'd say that the necromancer lag behind when it come to gaps closer, not in pure mobility. It make it frustrating for a necromancer to chase after a foe, it make him vulnerable to kitting, but that's all. Devs tried to cover this "flaw" with skills that pull the foe and conditions that keep the foe close to the necromancer but the dynamic of the final result just can't hold a candle to a simple yet very effective leap or teleport. The so called "gap closers" are the most important mobility tools and Necro has very very little access to those. The 25% move speed buffs and Swiftness are not all that useful in competitive play compared to the leaps and teleports most others have access to, that's the main difference that hurts the Necromancer and leaves it lacking in the mobility department. Also the 25% move speed buff is dependant on your HP so that is already kinda useless in competitive since you're not going to sustain it long at all unless there is a lot of healing being thrown on you constantly.

> @"The Greyhawk.9107" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > Dunno why some of you guys want Primordus redeemed, if anything I want him to be exactly what we expect him to be.. a being of pure destruction and evil. > > We already had this redemption not it's fault thing with Kralkatorrik, no need to do that again specially with Primordus. > > > > We've already got Jormag playing the "im not bad really" card while clearly being a bad dragon. > > For Primordus I want to be dealing with essentially a pure evil, living nuclear bomb who's only agenda is to watch the world burn. > > That to me makes him far, far more dangerous than any other enemy we've had in Gw2, including the other Elder Dragons and I want to see that represented in the game with us feeling almost completely useless and outclassed compared to him. > > We came close to something like that with Kralkatorrik but in the end it was just setback after setback. > > > > With Primordus they need to go all the way.. like Smaug in the hobbit when he just flies off and destroys lake town while the heros can do nothing but watch the carnage completely helpless to do anything.. I hope we get something like that with Primordus where we see the cost of our failure through the carnage and destruction he wages on the world and the regret that we once spared his life really kicks us in the gut. > > I want Dragon's Watch to be brought to the absolute brink of giving up and accepting the end of the world due to witnessing the sheer power of Primordus. > > Really only one person brought up "Redeeming" Primordus in this thread, and rather randomly at that. I don't think its something anyone else expects from what is quite literally the embodiment of destruction. Even if that somehow ended up being the case I can't imagine the current iteration of Arenanet being able to write that in a way that was believable. It's not the first time i've seen the subject raised.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > Dunno why some of you guys want Primordus redeemed, if anything I want him to be exactly what we expect him to be.. a being of pure destruction and evil. > Can we really say he's evil though? > For all we know, Primordus may just be a mindless beast that's closer to a natural disaster than anything else. > I really would call such a thing evil. Well good and evil are ultimately perspectives.. some would consider a natural disaster evil, others wouldn't. But I don't think Primordus is mindless.. while we don't know the origins of the Elder Dragons I do think they were once normal Dragons and they became Elder's via similar means as Aurine did. Kralkatorrik after all mentioned a mother and we know Jormag and Primordus are siblings and since we know dragons reproduce solo in this universe it suggests that they too have or had a parent at one point. While it doesn't rule out that they were born with their power it does leave room to speculate that Elder Dragons are something they became and that there was something else before them which they potentially usurped to become what we know them to be today. Unfortunately this kind of lore would date back tens of thousands of years.. possibly millions and so far as we know there is nothing on Tyria that old aside from the Elder Dragons themselves and I doubt Jormag would share that kind of information which could give us ideas on how to replace it without another Aurine.

> @"radda.8920" said: > of course she has to die, this abomination killed joko, the only villain who had real potential in this game > i can't wait for her to be killed with the other dragons, that we can finally move on to interesting stories (you know like in gw1) Joko didn't die he actually choose to fuse with Aurine and become an immortal Elder Dragon. Her true name is Palawarine Joko and she is the true ruler of Elona :D