Bast.7253

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > but is there a precedent somewhere that all Norn are capable of this?

>

> Typically a norn takes on their personal totem. Eir, however, is known to have used both wolf and bear form, despite bear not being her personal totem.

>

> > If not, are they setting Braham up to be this new kind of magic vessel for the spirits and potentially some newly discovered non-draconic vessel for dragon magic?

>

> Doubtful. Spirit magic seems fundamentally different than dragon magic. The question is how different, and whether it can be used by dragons in a more direct manner - so far, all usage of the Spirits' magic by icebrood/Jormag has been by stealing or being given magic by the Spirits. No mention of Jormag getting use of Owl's magic, despite consuming her. This would even suggest that the Spirits can**not** take the role the Elder Dragons do.

>

> Besides that, there's still the fact that excessive magic makes mortals go mad far faster than dragons.

>

> > I also don't know if anyone commented on this, but in the last instance with Aurene she mentioned that she did our best to comfort us during our dreams as our wounds mended. Was this simply her tapping into Mordremoth's magic within her? Was it just fluff dialogue?

> Aurene and the Commander are bonded. Elder Dragons all have a hive mind with their minions, no Mind domain necessary, so it's not surprising that the Commander and Caithe have a mental link. Which was even showcased in War Eternal, when Aurene telepathically communicated with us to show us the Skyscales.

It just seemed odd that she mentioned comforting us during our dreams to me. We also have the Corrupted Leopard Shaman speaking a lot about going to sleep and joining them in the dream. I doubt this has any relation to the pale tree but it seemed strange.

Another thing, that's probably insignificant, is that each spirit has its own champion during the Drakkar fight. Which is a tad bit strange when you think about how each is represented. Wolverine is the boneskinner, the ox is just some generic oakheart, and eagle is just a svanir mob. Why these specifically? And why are the ones associated with eagle just Svanir and ice mobs when the others get their own classification like Abherrent(whatever the name is) and Fallen?

Is the hunger that created the boneskinner just Wolverine's influence? It seems like Jormag is doing more than just using the spirits as conduits of power, he's either controlling them or twisting their nature or stealing some unique properties from them to twist these creatures?

Or maybe that's the whole point and I'm just late to the party. The essences we're collecting are just imbuing us with the properties of those spirits, so Valor, Resilience, and Vigilance. Valor is blue/Eagle? Vigilance is green/Wolverine. Red is ox/Resilience?

I was trying to think of how I could apply these to the mobs that are represented by each spirit but I'm not really seeing a connection. I.e. how Valor could be corrupted to lead to Svanir. Vigilance could be corrupted to lead to things like the Boneskinner. Resilience could lead to things like the oakheart.

I'm not really sure I understand how Jormag consuming owl and not taking its magic would imply they aren't capable of taking the same role as an elder dragon? I guess because of the fact that Elder dragons can only take on the magic capability of gods and elder dragons? Despite Aurene taking on the ability that Joko had? It is a fair point though.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Jormag using some twisted form of Owl's magic at some point though. Or maybe it is, and we just don't have a mastery to slap us in the face with the realization yet. From the wiki:

"Owl was a silent and clever predator who put her family's needs and safety above all else. She reminds me that to hunt is not just to kill, but also to provide and protect."

We haven't really seen any mobs with glowing auras, but would we if Owl was completely consumed? I guess we probably would. Jormag is probably inherently clever, but it does seemingly try to separate and turn people against each other, which would go against owl who stood for family. We also have the Svanir who adamantly oppose women, and thus would likely never have actual biological families. It's probably reading too much into it though.

It really just feels like the lore is being built around this mastery system and what little lore we do get takes the backseat to Braham, Bangar, and the Brimstones.

I don't really have any hope for this happening anytime soon, but it would be nice to change the gameplay up a bit with some new elite specs.

Perhaps something Aurene is doing in the Eye of the North/Scrying Pool/Connection to the mists is a possible jumping off point for introducing new elite specs?

Not likely, but one can dream!

I think people were thinking, out of desperation, that the big balance changes they were implementing were eluding to class reworks to make room for new elite specs. But after reading the changes, the majority of them are just flat damage reductions across the board with about the same number or less of actual trait reworks/changes.

The datamined icons I'm pretty sure were mostly for underwater weapons or something.

I think better rewards would encourage people to do them, despite it not quite being their scene. If the intention of this was to encourage people who don't normally raid or do fractals to try this harder organized group content, they need to provide more incentive to get them to do it. As it stands right now, someone may be on the fence about doing it and not absolutely hate it, but after the first wipe they may just never attempt it again because the rewards simply aren't there to encourage them to keep trying.

Also, I still want to try the new ones out, but I'm just not in a hurry and don't think I'll do them on a regular basis simply because the rewards are so weak. This one at least gives a mastery point and such which I want, but beyond doing them each one time I don't really know why I would want to continuously come back to them.

I don't see why they can't add some more elaborate vendor for currency or add some special tokens that drop from strike missions for the whole saga in general that encourages people to continuously do these strike missions.

Give them amalgamated loadstones as rewards, give them some other item needed to craft legendaries, create a vendor that sells special cosmetics like armor/weapons/infusions/(god forbid some in-game obtainable mount skin I know will never happen) that people can spend the tokens on from the strike missions. Give people incentive outside of the general experience.

If they relied solely on the experience the player has playing the content, then these episodes would be even shorter than they already are. As it is right now, a lot of people log on just to experience the story or do a few minor achievements and come back months later. The replayability and experience being better for some of these events would help retain some people, but adding better rewards seems like a low-resource investment to keep an even greater number of people invested in the content they create.

I think it's great they're adding in an alternate version of the Boreal weapons to Drakkar, even if the drop rate is so low most people will never see them. It's a step in the right direction.

That being said, I think they could also do to well to adopt that same token principle and have players be able to obtain some of these rare drop items guaranteed, just with consistent effort.

I'm not encouraging grindy gameplay, but I think adding a way for people to get what they want guaranteed by grinding in addition to rng drops is a good compromise. Some of these ultra rare infusions I've always wanted, like the one from Shatterer, I just stopped pursuing because the drop rate is so low and the timer is so long that I just don't see the point in going back and trying to do it. BUT, if I know that after a certain number of kills I can obtain enough tokens to get that infusion, it gives me a reason to go back regardless of what drops. Otherwise it's just some prestige item they spent who knows how long developing that only an extremely small selection of the playerbase will ever receive just for the sake of allowing people to feel like snowflakes or get insanely rich from having better luck. It feels like a waste of development time taking that approach.

> @"hugo.4705" said:

> Just discovered something recently:

> https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Eternatus?file=P_Eternatus.png

>

> It matches all my tastes, adapted to a skyscale, it can defenitely looks gorgeous.

Reminds me of the Apocrypha creatures or whatever back in Guild Wars 1. So I could see it. We sort of had that with a mount recently didn't we? One of the new raptor skins or something?

As for my suggestions:

A mordrem mount pack with mordrem creatures adapated to existing mounts.

Though some of them would be hard to incorporate with current mount skeletons.

Most imortantly - an elder dragon themed Skyscale pack.

Really don't know why this hasn't already been approached outside of Steve/Primordus/Jormag not having any in-game representation yet.

I.e.:

Claw of Jormag,

Shatterer

Shadow of the dragon

Undead tattered skeleton dragon - Zhaitan - Though we do technically have Teq already and a skeletal dragon could be better left for a Halloween special skin.

Primordus - we already have quite a few flaming dragons but they could add a heavily Destroyer inspired skin.

Steve - No clue as we don't really know what Steve looks like and I doubt they would want to spoil this if they plan on visiting that plot eventually.

Vinetooths and Awakened Abominations I think share the same skeletons don't they? I've always thought both could be cool mount skins.

Charr machine for Roller Beetle though I wonder if the vehicles we use in the upcoming Visions will be some new form of mount we gain access too in other game modes.

I think weaver will come out stronger after this balance patch. Sure, twist of fate gets nerfed, but it looks like we're moving towards a sustain and condi era. That's pretty much the entirety of what the current sword weaver build is.

Every skill is changing but the meta and build preferences really aren't. At least not yet. I imagine condi will still be pretty strong, because power damage will go down considerably and sustained damage will be more preferable.

I really don't think it's going to change that much though. It's really just a flat damage nerf for everything across the board, at least power-based. The builds that are strong now will stay strong, they'll just take twice as long to dominate.

Also, holo regen is only getting a 10hp nerf? lol. Okay. Not really seeing anything about the holo nerfs that will make it any less ridiculous.

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said:

> time-related stuff is normally a cheap resource for lazy lore and make history poor, i hope GW2 dont become a MK11.

> Fractals had room to all these stuff, and have a dedicated playerbase that urge for new fractals.

Agree. I really hate that they haven't put more into fractals over the years. I think it just boils down to penny-pinching and cutting everything they can. But there are so many story arcs they could have done that could have been really cool. They could have done a whole set of Arah-themed fractals. I really enjoyed the fractal they introduced with Joko, and it tied in nicely with the story. I wish they had done this more often. Even now, with Eye of the North territory they could have released a fractal with Svanir's corruption, or something involving Jotun or the Spirits of the Wild. There's just more they could have done in general, but I guess they just decided to funnel all of whatever resources they had left into living story with the rest going to their other projects.

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

>

> No doubt Anet is planning for us to revisit previous GW EotN scenery which is pretty cool. (haha cool)

>

> I'm not keen on them trying to mess with the Mists right now, but if Anet decides to mess with the Mists, I think it should deserve its own story arc because there is so much potential in exploring the Mists.

>

> And I'm pretty sure that Aurene has better plans to mess with the Mists.

>

> Look at what her grandaddy did trying to eat the Mists : almost caused the entire world of Tyria to collapse

>

>

>

>

I'm not sure what she plans to do with the mists though. I still have to doubt the longevity of the game in general, but if it had a long future still I could see some plots involving her guiding us to new locations in the mists, reaching out to the human gods, or even communing with the Oracle of the Mists tying in the celestials and Cantha. It just doesn't feel like they have that much more planned for the game moving forward to warrant that kind of direction.

If anything I think her talking about the mists and its connection the scrying pool could just be how she wields whatever power she has to lead us into these Visions. Beyond that, the only other possibility I can think of would be if she were using her connection to the mists to find beings that are capable of maintaining the balance that's currently off in terms of Tyria/Magic/The All so that she doesn't wind up being the one being responsible for everything.

Lastly, on that note, with Dragonfall we essentially saw the creation of Skyscales. Creations that spawned from the power of the mists, right? So she may not even necessarily need to find existing beings to fill those gaps, she may just be able to wield the mists in a way that she can create them.

Am I the only one that absolutely hates Retaliation?

It's probably not that big of a deal in zergs or team fights, but when you're a lone ele just trying to fight off a zerg attacking a tower or at least slow them down while you wait for reinforcements, it's difficult to keep pressure on them when you're getting blasted with retal.

I love the changes to elementalist's elementals. I'm still not sure how viable it will be outside of pve, but they've always needed a little more love.

I don't understand the mesmer greatsword changes though. It doesn't seem like enough of a change to really make it a viable ranged build? At least any more or less than it is in open world. Maybe it will make power chrono a little more fun?

And I can get the frustration with soulbeast pet swap in non-competitive modes. I don't really play them that frequently, but it is nice to be able to have a jaracanda for emergency heals and a power pet for general damage increase.

I get the power creep was an issue, but it doesn't seem like this will effect build diversity at all. Unless as others have mentioned it's going to be all about conditions now. Definitely some positives in here in terms of traits that didn't need high damage getting their damage coefficients reduce drastically, like Holo Shockwave.

I don't know how many people saw the reddit post ages ago before the saga was announced, but there was what looked like an incredibly fake seeming leak that mentioned a dragon of time.

If you've played through the recent episode, we wind up in the Hall of Monuments and Aurene has this newfound fascination with the Scrying Pool. She seems to have this much greater understanding after her ascension of the world, seeing the interwoven threads of time, mists, and presumably all reality.

With that being said, I think it's fairly obvious that the new visions will probably launch from here and arrive directly as a result from her studying of the scrying pool. So, while it could likely just be a device to allow for the implementation of those, I have to wonder if it isn't meant to be much more going forward.

Being the first of her kind, being a dragon that's absorbed a fallen God's magic and gained an ability and connection to the mists as well as numerous other elder dragon's magic... AND already belonging to a family of dragons that are known for farsight, it's within reason to assume that, even if not now, she could eventually gain some control over time.

With that being said, what effect could that have on the story moving forward?

For one, I really hope visions wind up being a way for us to explore things we otherwise wouldn't be able to in the current plot, though fractals to some degree could also serve this purpose. But imagine being able to explore a vision of Arah pre-cataclysm, or Jotun before their fall, a dwarf in the height of their civilization, an asura before they were pushed from the depths, or witness the birth of some of these mysterious beings in lore like the spirits, or the elder dragons, or the celestials. Or for that matter, Malyck's tree and the adventure he embarked on. Or Joko as he became a lich. (Though unlikely as that ship seems to have sailed and we've had a few hints that seem to further imply the Djinn and wish theory.)

There are so many possibilities this could open up to really dive deep into lore without being forced to read about it in collection items. (Which they don't even do anymore anyway.)

As far as the overall story, without reliving the past, Aurene having some deeper connection, ability, or sphere of influence of time, could be a jumping off point for some other exciting plots moving forward.

We could have long-gone beings from the past being brought back.

For that matter, though I'd prefer it not go this route, we could up in a situation where Aurene's power over time actually winds up unintentionally being a more destructive force than the other elder dragons. (This also seems unlikely, but is really just meant to explore the subject.)

A jumbled mess of what if's and theoretical, but it is an angle they haven't really taken yet. It's most likely just setting the stage for the new visions with little long-lasting impact on the story, but food for thought and nutty speculation.

Despite having the new saga and expanding of lore (though not nearly as much as I had hoped), there doesn't seem to be much excitement or crazy speculation in these lore forums these days. Not sure if that's general lack of interest from the playerbase, or if the story just hasn't reached the point that people are wanting to even bother speculating, or people became disinterested in lore because of previous story developments.

But it's still fun to speculate and I still have a passion for the story. Despite the game seemingly drudging downhill for sometime now and the focus fading, it still has so much potential with gameplay and still has so much story to tell. And that's just with building onto or elaborating on pre-established lore, without diving into anything new for the franchise.

Or, the emphasis on Braham's transformation could just be setting stage for the inevitable Wolf-Braham Funko Pop.

I'm honestly kind of wondering about this whole prophecy with Braham now. They put such a strange emphasis on his transformation, and I feel like it was inferred at one point during the final instance that Braham may be able to tap into more than just the Wolf spirit.

Kind of makes me wonder if they're setting it up so that he has some destined ability to surpass previous Norn transformations. Perhaps he can embody all of the spirits. I know the player character already can with racials, but is there a precedent somewhere that all Norn are capable of this? If not, are they setting Braham up to be this new kind of magic vessel for the spirits and potentially some newly discovered non-draconic vessel for dragon magic? I would hope not, because even though I don't hate him as much as I used to I still don't really feel any attachment to him.

But as they continue to explore the lore of the spirits I'm wondering if they are actually taking this angle in some form.

Given that we don't know anything about their origin, and it seems that dragon corruption effects them differently, I wonder what implications that could have in relation to their part in the magical ecosystem of Tyria despite the seeming lack of their connection to The All.

I also don't know if anyone commented on this, but in the last instance with Aurene she mentioned that she did our best to comfort us during our dreams as our wounds mended. Was this simply her tapping into Mordremoth's magic within her? Was it just fluff dialogue?

With them stating last season that they didn't really have an origin story for the elder dragons yet and all of these new subtleties being dropped into the story in terms of the spirits, the scrying pool, and Jormag's motivation/warning, it's hard to tell how much of this will get any elaboration or if it's just a multi-seeding plot approach in which many of them may wind up being nothing more than ambiance.

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> IMO, there are far more players who complain about the lack of new content. To stop producing new content, and focus on re-igniting old content, would be detrimental.

That's true, but you'd think they would have a way to do both, even if one is only minimal. They went through a phase where they seemed really gung-ho about updating world bosses. Then that motivation just kind of dwindled. I think a lot of people were kind of hoping for this from the current events team, which I assume doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for awhile. (As even the festivals only receive minor updates, if any, usually.) Then again they might have just turned that current events team into another living world team since they seem to be striving for a release schedule that wouldn't really give reason to have a bunch of current events in between patches.

I do think there are steps that could be done to reignite old content though. I don't think it would be a game changer or anything, but adding new rewards for old content even if the content itself doesn't actually get updated or have any gameplay changed might be one way. People always like to hop to shiny new things, and generally those shiny new things are weapon skins or cosmetic items. But those seem to be few and far between. For armor it's somewhat understandable because of model-fitting and making sure there isn't too much clipping.

People have been wanting a gold variation of the legendary fractal backpack for years now that they could have added. We don't have any sinks for golden relics that could be used for this, and spark people into running fractal dailies again even without new fractals being added. They could add combat tonics of fractal bosses. They could even add a less visually unique fractal specific legendary set like the pvp set. Wouldn't even need to be a new armor set, but could be a different form of acquisition.

I don't know. It's a waste to type all of this anyway. There have been countless suggestions, and while I have seen a few make it into the game, whether it be open world/story or gem store, it's pretty rare. Obviously it's their game and it's not a good idea to make all of your design decisions entirely based on the community, but there have been a few pretty good ones I'm surprised haven't seen the light of day.

> @"Alin.2468" said:

> In my opinion we should not comment on layoffs. As valued customers we are totally allowed to express our opinions about the game (like we voted for removal of teamQ in ranked), but we are not allowed to comment on layoffs. This is their management as a company. We do not know their staff (developers, managers, assistants, designers, testers, and so on), therefore we have no right to comment on them or their decisions.

>

> As a side note we can comment on "crunch time" and this practice of game companies, but I personally consider this our fault, as clients, because we always complain while not requesting content for long term (like teamwork in teams with better PvP rewards), but this is just my opinion, feel free to ignore it and play alone.

I'm not sure I follow?

What comments about the layoffs are not allowed? But ignoring that one...

Our faults because we complain while not requesting content for the long term? I'm a little lost on that. There have been countless threads with suggestions for long-term changes.

Suggestions for improving the achievement point system and reworking it, suggestions for dungeon and fractal rewards, suggestions for other difficulties of raids, suggestions for wvw, suggestions for alternate pvp game modes like deathmatch modes. There have been suggestions. Tons of them. Requests. Tons of them.

It's just that they never seem to have the resources or time to get to any of them, and rarely any feedback on whether they are considering it or would consider it. We get some occasional feedback from the pvp dev on here and Reddit who seems to be the only one who really has any community involvement or communication. We get occasional roadmaps. But in general, despite requests and suggestions for each of these game modes there's rarely any implementation of these ideas, at least that I've seen. Right now it feels like they have a pvp/wvw team, a gem store team, and supposedly 4 living world teams. We don't even know how many people are on those teams. The living world teams are obviously the largest, but if they have over 100 employees right now I'm just not really sure what they're doing. I guess you have to factor in that there are sound engineers and voice actors. It doesn't seem like there are too many working on encounters as strike missions are the main focus and they seem to have absorbed the fractal and raid teams. Level designers - a lot of copy pasted events throughout each side of Bjora march - and I'm not really sure what else this entails. Pathing? General flow? Story integration? All of the above? Environment artists.

Anyway, there are plenty of requests and even suggestions, but the only thing we ever really hear is, "we've got something really awesome we're not ready to talk about yet." Which could actually be something really cool, or could just wind up being Funko pops. They veil so much of what they do in secrecy, silence, and mystery that any hint at hype they throw out has typically been blown so far out of proportion from imagination-run-wild that it seems like it's done nothing but lead to disappointment and unmet expectations. Sure, it's the player's faults, but not entirely. lol

They've revealed the whole visions thing they plan on adding, and the system they implement for that could wind up being something interesting and expanded upon in the long-term, or it could just be another experiment that people find underwhelming and they abandon. I think people are just craving things with more longevity and impact, no matter the game mode. Which is why we have nearly hourly uproar about no elite specs being added and missing "expansion-level" content. I'd have to agree, because aside from a faster release cadence, this saga so far feels exactly like every other living season, if not a little less. Sure, this last episode was a little better than the previous, but that's how these seasons always go. They're consistently inconsistent.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. To be honest, it's probably hard for the devs to even be interested in making content for the game anymore because nearly all feedback is just bitterness and resentment or disappointment. But sadly, I can't even fault the community for that. Some people act like entitled brats, sure, but it gets really frustrating when you feel like your favorite game that had so much potential is just getting occasional drips of content keeping people invested just enough to fund some other project. It's also frustrating when you've played this game for so long, always had a deep admiration for the talent behind its creation despite the occasional hiccup, and now know that they've either been moved off of the project or are being forced to restrict their vision and creativity because of a quota or lack of resources and priority.

To be honest, yes I've been relatively underwhelmed with this saga so far.. as I think many others have... but I think they truly are doing the best that they can. I think it's just the issue that last season suffered from in that they only have so many people and have so little to work with that it misrepresents the effort they put into it.

Believe he made his mark in Thunderpeaks too. Guess he's the environment artist that loves doing snowy maps and puts his signature. lol

Oh, and actually looking at the map again - there is one chunk of landmass that looks like it could line up pretty nicely with where the Valajar stone circle is. But it's difficult with the differences between maps.

So it's still a possibility they could do something with it in a future map.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > I'm not sure what dungeon structures you mean, but what about that area in Guild Wars 1 that had those encoded glyphs or whatever? What map was that? I only played briefly and don't think I saw it in gw1. Was it a bonus mission or something? I think it had to do with the gods maybe? Would be interesting to see if they try to tie that in somehow in a future release.

> >

> > Or for that matter if they tried to tie in the voice we hear in the new Dwarven fractal, especially with how many dwarven ruins we've had added in between Thunderpeaks and this new map. The raven puzzle architecture looks dwarven to me, but why would the dwarves have built these structures around a spirit of the wild? Just asset reuse maybe?

>

> The structures I mean were in the Far Shiverpeak dungeons, they were structures made out of ice, used in almost every dungeon. Complete unknowns, but very clearly artificially made.

>

> As for encoded glyphs? There's dozens of glyphs, pictograms, and runes throughout the game. So... you're going to have to be far more precise. If it had to do with the gods, and the shiverpeaks, only thing I can think of would be the Path to Revelations quest chain.

>

> The raven structures are using reskinned dwarven structure assets, yes; they're lacking some key details that mark them as dwarven. Exception being Sifhalla. They also use reskinned exalted structures and original norn structures.

Yes, that's the correct thing. Path to Revelations. I couldn't remember where it was. Looking at That Shaman's historical guide it places it right in the middle of that giant body of water. So I'm guessing there's probably nothing left of interest there anyway.

I also didn't realize how close Bitterfrost Frontier was to Eye of the North. If Jormag is north of Bitterfrost and the Bitter Cold area then that puts him really close to Eye of the North, which without spoilers is interesting considering recent events. Were they both ultimately drawn to that area? Or just coincidence?

The debuff to enter the portals is too long and I find that people just wait for it to expire to enter and kill the mob. Or the mob gets killed while you're waiting and you're just stuck there in the empty room during that time. The debuff just feels awkward and unnecessary.

I think one thing that could be done is to have the Whisper of Jormag spawn while those portals are up, so you have this extra boss to fight while people are going into the portals to kill the champs. Gives them something to do, and the Whisper has a bit harder mechanics than Drakkar. Also keeps everyone from immediately rushing through the portal - though the aforementioned debuff may be their way of preventing Drakkar from despawning if everyone enters the portals and leaves the room empty.

I enjoyed the fight from the one time I got to do it so far aside from that though. Drakkar's abilities aren't that intimidating though, so I can understand the disappointment with that. But ultimately what would that look like? More random aoe that does more damage? More mobs spawning in to help that need to be cleaved? More cones to avoid?

I think one mechanic they could have particularly found useful with Jormag and the way Jormag corrupts is to create somekind of mind control mechanic. Certain players get targeted and their characters get taken over and must be taken down. Perhaps they use their slotted skills and cooldowns and have to be beaten down to like 20% health to be set free. As it is right now the only thing that happens is that we get turned into a block of ice, and I'm not even entirely sure that happens during the Drakkar fight.

One issue with that mind control mechanic may be the way the game itself is coded though. Because it might involve temporarily replacing a player character with a copied npc - or something akin to the doppleganger. This may be easier in games like world of warcraft because of pre-existing logic that accounts for world pvp. Maybe it's just not something they can do without completely breaking some legacy code. If they did add something like this though, I could see it being a cool theme for a new elite spec for mesmer or something.

But why are they this eternal font of power that he can just keep feasting on, if I remember the dialogue correctly?

And are they free now that we slayed the voice? Or did he just like, absorb them and is still able to use their magic?

And why is Raven the key that seems to be the focus? I guess because of Raven's ability to counter Jormag's sphere of influence or something?

On a different note, we have tons of norn npc's that turn themselves into their animal forms? Ones in the Arah dungeon that I can recall right off the top of my head. But did we ever see Eir turn into one? Jhavi? Why are they putting so much focus on Braham and his transformation like it's a part of his prophecy and not just some rite of passage that all these anonymous npc's have already gone through off-screen? It felt like maybe it was paying tribute to the dynamic between Jora and Svanir - with Jhavi and Braham.

I guess they might get into a lot of this as time progresses, but that's the part that's so frustrating about how short the story in these episodes are. It feels like they could get way more in depth than they are, and we're just getting snippets of info here and there that may just get shoved to the side with future episodes.

I'm not seeing what I think you're expecting me to see.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > I am confused about the location of Drakkar Lake in this episode.

> >

> > The POI for Silfhalla is to the far west of this map and in GW1, Silfhalla was NE of Drakkar Lake. So does that mean the fractured lake seen here is not related to the GW1 lake (it''s certainly a lot smaller)? And that Drakkar's Lake is either off map under the ice/glacier or at The Den of Whispers?

>

> When Jormag woke and made that four-year blizzard as they marched south, they shifted the Shiverpeaks, shattering and sinking it, so as to flood it and create that giant in-land sea we see on the world map. Drakkar Lake was consumed by this sea, as was Sifhalla, and the sea is how the kodan fled south into the Shiverpeaks from Jormag and the arctic seas. The giant ice wall and all the ice caverns is "Drakkar Lake" now, once water that the kodan sailed on to escape Jormag.

>

> Sifhalla is "too far west" because of a literal landslide that sunk it, this is why it's beneath ice.

>

> It would seem that ArenaNet is dubbing the entire in-land sea to be "Drakkar Lake", though I always figured it was the [sea of Desperation](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sea_of_Desperation).

>

> > @"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:

> > Doubt it. Primordus very clearly retreated away from his current chosen spot (as per the LS3 finale). I'd expect both dragons not to fall asleep on their back as the magical kawabunga happened. To boot, Drakkar Lake is almost directly north from Bitterfrost.

> >

> > Again, pure speculation. But I'm thinking what'd be 'logical' and 'coolest' thematics-wise as per devs' POV.

>

> Primordus didn't retreat. It sunk into protection on the spot. Same was with Jormag - it sunk beneath the ice it was on. Which we were last told was just beyond The Bitter Cold area, in a "tundra beyond Bitterfrost Frontier" as mentioned.

>

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > So, northwest of Eye of the North then?

>

> It would be Southwest. Possibly "over" the Battledepths area of GW1.

>

> https://www.thatshaman.com/tools/guide/?v=4&x=-236.6875&y=922.75&z=3

>

> > Was really hoping we would get lore on some of the more intricate and lesser known lore of this area. We get tidbits about the spirits of the wild but they're completely focused on Braham. No Jotun lore. No origin story or background on the elder dragons, which may be coming later when we have another chat with Jormag.

>

> Was personally hoping for some lore on the dungeon structures. They're still a complete mystery about who built them, etc.

I'm not sure what dungeon structures you mean, but what about that area in Guild Wars 1 that had those encoded glyphs or whatever? What map was that? I only played briefly and don't think I saw it in gw1. Was it a bonus mission or something? I think it had to do with the gods maybe? Would be interesting to see if they try to tie that in somehow in a future release.

Or for that matter if they tried to tie in the voice we hear in the new Dwarven fractal, especially with how many dwarven ruins we've had added in between Thunderpeaks and this new map. The raven puzzle architecture looks dwarven to me, but why would the dwarves have built these structures around a spirit of the wild? Just asset reuse maybe?

Going by the teaser and what we've seen so far, I think we'll have:

0: Grothmar

1: Bjora

2: I'm not sure why we would go, but I could see another Charr map. Maybe near the burning forest?

3: Eye of the north hub like Sun's Refuge

4: Connected to the hub will be a new map containing Eye of the North

5: Due to the scrying pool and some discovery of Aurene we wind up in search of something or someone (still surviving seers or mursaat or something?) in Woodland Cascades. Or we go here to find something because of the talk we finally got to finish with Jormag in the episode before this one.

6. We follow whatever mid season plot twist towards either the Isles of Janthir - thus sinking ship - or south and make our way towards Dragonfall and Scavenger's Causeway/Orr because the nice little magic land that got plopped into the ocean has caused Bubbles to become a little more aggressive.

7. New undiscovered island far in the ocean.

8. Expanse on that island that leads into Cantha.

OR

They could wind up bringing Primordus in as a curve ball and we stick to the mountains and underground - but Primordus was still far south of where we are now.

ORRRR

Some of those tome slots are actually there for the visions they plan on adding. Instead of assuming that we need to go to the scrying hub in Eye of the North, we may just get tomes that allow us to teleport to those instances and play through them as those characters in open world maps. I find this a little less likely but I suppose it's a possibility.

> @"DanAlcedo.3281" said:

> I dont understand how a simple arrow shot was enough to almost kill the commander.

>

> Yes its a magic bow but come on!

>

> Remember when we got send flying a few hundred meters and smash full force into a wall from kralks attack?

>

> The commander had some broken bones at most but thats it.

>

>

> Some old charr with a magic bow is now on the same level as balthazar in PoF?

>

>

> And how the frick did they get away after braham got his ssj transformation?

>

> Braham still useless as ever huh?

>

> The fact that both charr made it out alive pisses me off to the 10th level.

>

> Dont care if it brings a war wirh the charr or hurts mr flame sword.

>

> Both will be dead by the end of the saga.

As to this, I guess because we were already incapacitated by the Whisper and Jormag. I'll have to replay it again but it seemed like he shot us while we were communing with Jormag and that arrow is what interrupted it. So in a sense, even if he shot and severely injured us he sort of saved our sanity? I don't know. It's all pretty fuzzy so I'll probably play through it again real quick. Either way though, we did just fight an elder dragon champion and Rhytlock and Crecia. Where as with Balthazar we fought him and only him, the second time with Aurene's help.

Maybe, but why would we need to go anywhere new Charr related? His seat of power is in Grothmar and that's where the legions have already established as a meeting ground.

I suppose we could pull the flame legion into it as that could be Bangar's way of gaining some sort of power against Jormag, but aren't most of the flame legion already in... what's the vanilla zone where the dungeon's at? lol

I suppose there's also the burning forest and some possible incentive to go there to retrieve some useful weapon against Jormag related to the titans?

Some incentive from Rhytlock to attempt to end the Foefire in an attempt to divert attention away from Bangar and his current plans? To establish himself or someone else as the Khan-ur or something? I honestly have no clue about Charr politics.

I don't think there were any centaur in that area in Guild Wars 1, but during the teaser at Pax we did see a heavily wooded area with centaur and human slaves. I doubt that's in the Charr lands due to neither really being in that region, but who knows what could have happened in the time since.