Bast.7253

I'm terrible at holo anyway but I kind of struggled with it the other night, at least against conditions. Does a crap ton of damage though! Metabattle says to use Elixir X but it seems like Mortar would still be the better choice?

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> I wonder if not just Covid19, but that the next expansion is being developed is why it seems like everything is grinding to a halt. We saw a similar drought when they rushed into Heart of Thorns largely because while the company didn't want to have an expansion model they community did and they were so caught off guard when they transitioned into developing one.

I doubt it. I think the expansion is probably still a year and a half away at least. With the way their new content delivery model is having episodes split in half and festivals and visions in between, I imagine they could span the current season out for quite awhile and intended to to begin with. Probably why they renamed it a "Saga" too. I could be wrong but I'd be highly surprised to see it before next fall at the earliest. lol

Probably thinking of more ways to gut mesmer or more passive damage traits to pump into holo.

I bet engi's getting a pulsing 2k projectile 5 target trait on gaining switfness next update. Will probably come with built in reveal, stealth on dodge, 30 seconds of quickness, and shocking aura for good measure!

Or trolling on a pistol/dagger condi thief.

Also, isn't addressing devs against somekind of forum rules? It's difficult to tell when a certain rule applies or not. Seems to vary day to day.

> @"Dantheman.3589" said:

> Just play 2 thief one shot builds like zerker staff or deadeye and farm the firebrands...

lol Is there a staff one shot build? I didn't think Vault did that much damage anymore.

Actual vampires, no, but Kurzicks in Cantha definitely had the whole pale Gothic cathedral thing going. I think it would be cool to discover some vampire-oriented elite spec stemming from them or something they practice. Oh, I didn't play enough to see there were actual vampires in Echovald. I mean, they're pretty ugly, but that's neat.

There are some annoying outliers.

I'd really like a no downstate special event in pvp sometime though. Just to see how it feels.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"Revolution.5409" said:

> > The death of kralk is the ending of PoF,

> No, the death of Kralkatorik is the end of LWS4. The ending of PoF is the celebration of the death of Balthazar at Amnoon.

> >If it had been another game they would have released all the xpac content immediately,

> Also no. Every single MMO I know sets up storylines in expansion packs that get resolved in future expansion packs, or in the content releases between expansion packs. That is called basic narrative setup. That does not mean those future expansion packs, or the content between expansion packs, it just some part of the first expansion pack they cut out.

>

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > But if he's waking him in the map, how does that happen if we're not in the same area?

> Same way we kill Drakkar in episode 2, despite Drakkar not being on the map when we kill him... we got into an instanced story mission that begins on the map, and takes us slightly outside it.

> >Really though, how is he going to "wake" Jormag?

> With the power of plot mcguffin. Who knows, maybe Bangar feeds Jormag his entire Frost Legion army so Jormag can absorb all of their power to wake up.

That's true. I didn't factor in story instances. As far as waking him up, I doubt feeding Jormag a bunch of its own minions or normal non-magic imbued Charr would really do anything. The only thing I can think of is:

1. The bow which was presumed to be used as a way to threaten/control Jormag could potentially have something special capable of waking Jormag instead.

2. Bangar is intentionally drawing Rhytlock to Jormag and hopes to use Sohothin.

3. Bangar is luring the commander in hopes of using Aurene somehow? I don't really know how that would work.

4. They have some other artifact whether it's Titan or something else that he can use.

But it dosesn't seem like Bangar is really informed enough to know that much about Elder Dragons so I guess it will just be a simple rub of the forehead that doesn't make a whole lot of sense with the established story.

Flame Legion False Effigies isn't doing anything for me.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > That doesn't mean that Jormag is in northern Drizzlewood. Could be to the right of the map.

> >

> > While I'm not saying it isn't likely next episode, that text doesn't prove that Jormag is in the northern part of the map.Them going through Drizzlewood doesn't really make sense anyway, when they could have just gone west or southwest.

> You know that isn't what I meant. Jormag is accessible through the northern part of Drizzlewood, be it to the east, west, or north, of the actual in-game map proper.

>

> Also, going straight west or southwest wouldn't have worked due that giant, unscalable, ice wall on the western end of Bjora Marches, that seems to extend past the map in both directions. Bangar's army would have been forced to skirt around it, probably onto the giant ice lake, and then arrive in southern Drizzlewood, and then go north.

But if he's waking him in the map, how does that happen if we're not in the same area? Unless Jormag is like, on the edge of the map. I'm assuming the bow will come into play but I'm not really sure how he's going to wake it to begin with. And if it doesn't require being in close proximity, i.e. same map, I'm not sure why he'd have to trek all the way over to Drizzlewood.

Really though, how is he going to "wake" Jormag? Not picking at what you'e saying. Just wondering how that happens. All the previous elder dragons woke up from high magic releases like Abaddon's death or the death of another Elder Dragon, unless it was their time to wake up.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > While many would see this as bad considering the "Frost Legion" was just introduced, I'm not sure how much they can really do with that plot anyway. If not the second half of this episode, then the next episode after another Vision episode. If we don't finish Bangar and Ryland in Drizzlewood, I imagine we'll chase him to wherever Jormag is sleeping and will ultimately "wake" Jormag.

> We are already chasing Bangar to where Jormag is sleeping, that is where Bangar is going right now. They mentioned this at the end of Visions of the Past

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Darkrime_Delves_(story)

> >Rytlock Brimstone: Yeah. Cre's got some updates from the front lines.

> >Rytlock Brimstone: Bangar's forces have trekked pretty far north. He's almost made it to Jormag, and when that happens—well, no one knows.

> >Rytlock Brimstone: Crecia's got all the imperators playing nice. For now.

> >Rytlock Brimstone: Things will only get worse from here. Bangar's a piece of work, but without him there's a power vacuum.

> >Rytlock Brimstone: I know Cre can handle herself, but when the fighting gets ugly, she's gonna need our support.

> Jormag is sleeping somewhere in the northern part of Drizzlewood, on the other side of the bridge. Bangar waking Jormag is almost certainly going to be the finale of the next episode.

That doesn't mean that Jormag is in northern Drizzlewood. Could be to the right of the map.

While I'm not saying it isn't likely next episode, that text doesn't prove that Jormag is in the northern part of the map.Them going through Drizzlewood doesn't really make sense anyway, when they could have just gone west or southwest.

I think we'll get a festival and then the second half of Drizzlewood in which we likely end Bangar and Ryland's plan.

While many would see this as bad considering the "Frost Legion" was just introduced, I'm not sure how much they can really do with that plot anyway. If not the second half of this episode, then the next episode after another Vision episode. If we don't finish Bangar and Ryland in Drizzlewood, I imagine we'll chase him to wherever Jormag is sleeping and will ultimately "wake" Jormag.

I honestly don't see much plot potential with the Frost Legion and unless this Saga is intended to last 2+ years I don't even see Jormag being the center of all of this for too much longer.

Personally, I'd prefer to shift focus from the Charr politics to learning more about Norn, Kodan, Jotun, origin of the Elder Dragons, Jormag's motives, etc. And the plot in general seems to be moving at a snail's pace.

This is a really difficult time to predict map releases though. I'm guessing:

Dragon Bash - end of June

Festival of the Four Winds- end of July/early August.

August - Drizzlewood 2.0 in mid/late August.

September - Some other content release/qol update/fractal/legendary armory?

Halloween - late October

November - Vision

December - Wintersday

It sucks having Dragon Bash and FotFW so close together though, because you're just getting bombarded with festivals. I don't see a vision being released before the second half of this map though. The last vision was kind of setting stage for Ryland's warband and giving us more incite into Almora's death. I don't really see us participating in a vision involving Frost Legion/Bangar/Ryland or setting anything up for the second half of the map.

If we DO get a vision between the two summer festivals, I could see them doing something involving Drizzlewood playing as a Tengu evacuating the map during the invasion of the Dominion. I guess they could wait and do something similar to this after the release of the second half of Drizzlewood that would give us context to diverge from the Jormag plot again and introduce us to some refugees or something, leading us to a new map that isn't dealing with Charr/Jormag but introducing us to a secondary plot they can start diving into.

Idk. The pace of this story is just moving so slow it's hard to gauge what's coming next. At least Drizzlewood felt 10x better than Bjora 1.0. I still think it's likely that the second half of Drizzlewood will involve us taking territory from the Frost Legion and culminating in a meta killing Ryland/Bangar. I'd imagine one of them will survive and be the one to wake Jormag.

One interesting twist would be if something in the plot forces US to awaken Jormag.

> @"Kalavier.1097" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > They recently updated one of the artbooks with a section on Utopia that updates the lore to make it cohesive with current GW2, including things like Chronomancer, Asura architecture, etc.

>

> Is it actually confirmed to be canon, or simply them talking about stuff that was in the ideas for that expansion that got taken and adapted into GW2? Like the Chronomancer class and the buildings?

It goes into depth about how Chronomancer the mesmer elite on Tyria is different than the magic they use in Utopia. As well as differences in architecture of Asura to the race of Utopia. A bunch of other stuff as well. I don't have the book but WP goes into a bit of detail about the various things that seem to make everything "canon."

> @"Kalavier.1097" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > @"Fenom.9457" said:

> > > > @"Arcaniaxs.4519" said:

> > > > Lol a literal god of war tried to enslave some elder dragons and consume their magic and he died... now a Cat is trying to enslave a dragon and think he can make it xD

> > >

> > >

> > > I think Jormag is the key difference, if Balthazar had come to Jormag, things could have been quite different

> >

> > Because he's the elder dragon of persuasion and seems smarter?

> >

> > He was the former god of war and fire though. As long as he resisted Jormag's temptations and whispers I feel like in terms of sheer magic/fight he would be well equipped to deal with Jormag.

> >

> > With the most recent update to the Utopia lore it sounds like the Six may have abolished some corruptive/malevolent force of equal or more power that had destroyed an entire pantheon of gods. And the establishment of lore on an entire whole other pantheon of gods, even if far away in the mists, seems like it could be setting precedent for a lot more unknown moving forward, even within the confines of Tyria or even diving into the origins of the elder dragons.

>

> What do you mean, Utopia lore? The old canceled expansion to GW1 that has no real bearing to canon?

>

> I've long held theories that the Gods came from another world, devastated by war between the gods (and the resulting deaths of gods), and imprisoned gods eternally locked in cages like Dhuum and Abaddon were. And the Six came from that world bringing humanity with them to try to save humans. But that's all it is, theories really.

They recently updated one of the artbooks with a section on Utopia that updates the lore to make it cohesive with current GW2, including things like Chronomancer, Asura architecture, etc.

> @"Fenom.9457" said:

> > @"Arcaniaxs.4519" said:

> > Lol a literal god of war tried to enslave some elder dragons and consume their magic and he died... now a Cat is trying to enslave a dragon and think he can make it xD

>

>

> I think Jormag is the key difference, if Balthazar had come to Jormag, things could have been quite different

Because he's the elder dragon of persuasion and seems smarter?

He was the former god of war and fire though. As long as he resisted Jormag's temptations and whispers I feel like in terms of sheer magic/fight he would be well equipped to deal with Jormag.

With the most recent update to the Utopia lore it sounds like the Six may have abolished some corruptive/malevolent force of equal or more power that had destroyed an entire pantheon of gods. And the establishment of lore on an entire whole other pantheon of gods, even if far away in the mists, seems like it could be setting precedent for a lot more unknown moving forward, even within the confines of Tyria or even diving into the origins of the elder dragons.

I feel like they hinted pretty heavily that Aurene being able to consume all Elder Dragon magics is not really feasible. In the livestream they kind of subtly mentioned that Aurene going crazy from it similar to Kralk could be a thing. So, even if the balance of number of dragons wasn't an issue, I think the magic still would be eventually.

I'd imagine we'll get more on it as we get closer to Cantha, or while in Cantha.

> @"Jilora.9524" said:

> There is no cap to how many keys you can buy at 250 supply so when you have a ton extra you can buys keys to skip the hustle you kinda need to do to get 40 per meta

Oh, that makes sense. I could have swore I bought more than 4 the other day but I did notice my supplies seemed like they were being drained by a lot more than 25. Good to know.

I don't know. I don't see myself ever running out of reasons to spend them on more trees. I bought 100 on top of what I already had the other day and that's just for 1 guild. On the plus side Windswept has a lovely Redwood encased lake now.

Hopefully we'll get some more similarly useful decorations next release. I need to start spending them on commendations or something I guess to get more mastery points but I just can't justify spending them on anything other than decorations, given that decorations have so much more long-term value.

I also run out of keys pretty frequently but I think you can only buy 4 of those a day.

In unranked it's probably because the higher ranked players are avoiding queues and duo'ing or running around unranked because they want to pvp without losing their rating.

But I agree it's pretty lame. I played unranked a few weeks ago and seemingly every other match I was up against a duo legend pair. Really frustrating and I can imagine it's even more frustrating for new players that are just stepping foot in unranked or wanting to casually check out the game mode.

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> Well you would lose the ability to pick up orbs from monsters allied killed aswell so it would be a nerf to classes with less area of effect skills.

>

> I do agree that it should last longer maybe an hour like the ascended food, not 12-24 like you propose.

That's true. But maybe leave the orb system but make the orbs worth more stacks so you can accumulate the 30 faster?

And why would you only want it to last an hour? They're only beneficial in these maps, so what does it matter if it's an hour or a day? I don't understand why one would WANT to run around collecting essences if they didn't have to, especially amidst 3-4 veteran or elite mobs attacking you, or catapults, arrow carts, and random poison fields being dropped all over the place.

I know this has been said a dozen times, but I'm still not liking the way the essence system works. It's fun when you have a full stack, but the buff doesn't last nearly long enough for the effort required.

Is there any real value to making players run over and collect the orbs? Can stacks just not accumulate like auto loot? You kill a dozen mobs to get a full buff, all while they slowly fade off if you don't specifically grind one color, run over the orbs during their limited spawn window, and then you have a .. what... 30 minute buff?

It's fun and makes a difference to have the handy lazer beam but it's really fun feeling the need to run out of the way every other mob because I need a certain color orb to build my stacks.

I would think either reducing the required stacks, lengthening the buff to 12/24 hours, or auto-accumulating the essences as you kill mobs would greatly increase the feeling of this system.

It's just incredibly awkward. You're spending a ton of mastery points on a mastery that you can't even use unless you specifically go after mobs of the right color, kill them, run over the orbs while surviving the countless other mobs, and then you have a special action that you can only use during select windows.

It just feels kind of unnatural, even as someone who is used to chasing mirrors on Mirage. I think it works fine on engineer healing kit drops or Dragonhunter aegis trap drops in pvp and even in pve because you get an immediate benefit from them, but for this system in an open world pve setting it just feels really awkward to me.

They also can be incredibly difficult to see and I find myself just running around aimlessly hoping that I'm picking some up.

> @"VanWilder.6923" said:

> I don't know about you. But for me, everything is tradable, consumable. My inventory is always neat and organised

But how much needless effort goes into keeping it that way?

I agree that this map has way too many random items that don't need to be clogging up inventory. We have specific crafting reagents that were implemented without their own designated bank slot with numerous other items, for years, that haven't been able to be deposited. It's annoying! I guess there's some technical limitation to just making a predetermined slot for these items? It doesn't seem to be an issue with map currencies going into material storage, so I don't know why the same can't be done for these other items that are added.

Then there's the useless scrolls that just wind up getting deleted or sold on the tp.

Then there's the siege weapons, which would be a lot less bothersome if the scrolls and msc weapon set crafting reagents didn't clog up inventory.

I'm not saying it isn't manageable or game breaking, but they seem to keep repeating similar mistakes over and over again between different releases. One Eternal Ice shards can't be consumed for Volatile Magic but I guess that's intentional as we've moved onto a different living story season?

One release we have consumable items and minimal inventory management beyond the norm, the next we have a thousand turret parts, sigils to unlock a daily door in Sun's Refuge, or Scrolls for some weird, grindy, clunky new achievement system unlocking "special missions."

There's just no consistency. I mean I still love the map, despite it being relatively more dead than maps like Dragonfall was at least, but it does get pretty frustrating trying to stop and manage inventory when you have to race to champions at the end of the meta.

Did I miss something? I don't remember them explaining why they are called "Dominion" forces? Is it just a placeholder until they reveal that they are the Frost Legion?

> @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> I mentioned this before because of the reduction of dmg killing a healer getting harder in combination with **(3vs 3 or 2v2s) and low rang** they can become undying. I said that in regards of heal tempest which use teleport to escape the fight long enough to heal himself up again. But I know this is true for FB and heal warrior too with the correct builds. The problem isn't so much their heal its the fact that they are tanks which face less dps then before.

>

> In the end it is exactly what people screamed for on the board less dps and smaller teams(??). When we now reduce the HP and heal we are exactly where we started again just with smaller numbers.

They also do a significant amount of damage with overloads, and in a cc heavy comp can leave you trapped. They're just really strong in a 3v3 setting. Mes/Thief or some other bursty class can eat a firebrand far easier than they can eat a tempest, imo. With tempest having an immob shout, shocking aura, stability on overload, superspeed/swiftness the rest of their team can widdle you down or cc lock you before you even get a window of opportunity.

That's not even including the invuln from focus, the cripple from overload, or the dazes from lightning field combos. Ultimately I guess it just boils down to switching to something that counters it.

> @"mistsim.2748" said:

> Boon strip, immob, condis. 90% of tempests melt under some preassure. Really good ones can be tough to take down, but it's still ok when focused.

Assuming the complimentary necro isn't loading you up with cover condis ontop of the immob or fearing you in between shocking auras. lol

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > @"gert.7698" said:

> > > Start with giant slayer.

> > > Then do focus and shield master.

> > > After that do twice told legend. Then go for the 250 000 kills in wvw.

> > > And last but not least, do Legendary Tarrktun Supporter.

> > >

> > > That will do ??

> >

> > lol I've got the portable ecto gamble.

> >

> > The kills might take awhile longer though!

> >

> > I guess the weapon achievements have to be killing blows? Isn't Guard the only thing that does damage with shield? lmao

>

> Warrior skill 4 does and I think engi and Mesmer have damaging shield skills

>

> Farming white mobs is the answer to getting it quickly

NO. I will not resort to killing ambient creatures for ap!

Thanks for the tip though. I wasn't sure if engi 4 actually did damage or just reflected. Totally forgot about mesmer though.