Bast.7253

Was thinking earlier, but the episode being this short on story, pointless masteries and relatively boring events aside, could potentially work if they changed up the format to include more story segments similar to current events in between them. Something like the Traeherne current event with a small instance and some transition. Then maybe they could also focus a little less of the actual episode's story on introductory instances and more on pushing the plot forward or tying it into the map a bit more.

I mean I know that won't happen, and it may be a bad model for people that only log in when episodes are released, but it's just a thought. I imagine they don't really have the team or resources to do that though. By the looks of this episode it would seem they've shrunk their living story team down more.

Even the camp events were kind of, meh. They tell you to check the camp but all you do is wait for the npc's to check it for you before some mob spawns. No interaction with any objects in the camp. Just kill. Wait. Kill. Wait. Kill. Not that big of a deal, just feels like a lot of copy paste events. Which is a bit surprising considering how unique a lot of the events in the prologue felt, but I guess the context was different and allowed for it.

I don't know. I'm not going to rag on it anymore. It is what it is. I like the tone they're getting at, and I really didn't mind the size of the map. It just felt like this is kind of a bad indication of what the content's going to look like moving forward and the emphasis on this useless mastery system and seeming abandonment of fractals... and the lackluster announcement of the saga itself with upcoming "features" just makes it seem even more like they're just tired of investing resources into this game and are producing tidbits here and there until people lose interest and stop requesting new content. It's sad, but I'm sure it's discouraging losing half of your coworkers and having a project you may have been excited about fail.

To give them the benefit of doubt, maybe things will seem a little more interesting once they've gotten the kinks worked out with restructuring. Really hope they listen to feedback about the mastery system though if this is what they're sticking with the rest of this "saga."

I mean they already had a similar system they could have reused that might have even been more interesting. The Siren's Landing was pretty much useless but even it felt a little more useful than this mastery. And if you replace each siren song with a spirit you could grant buffs that way.

Or maybe instead of some dismal beam every 2 minutes you could have some chance on attack with the 30+ stack buff to gain some insane power boost like quickness and +200% damage or something. I mean obviously not that much, but then they could make the mobs significantly more difficult and give the mastery a little more purpose. Because right now the mastery doesn't do anything noticeable in combat and the mobs you generally don't need them for anyway. They're just a season-wide key system for chests instead of using silverwaste shovels or auric keys or chak acid. It's just the same thing but with a blog post that tried to make it sound better than I knew it would be.

I'm not surprised, and I'm probably even more disappointed in them than I thought I would be. I haven't played that much the past month though. I just hopped on for a few hours to complete the story and check the map out. Certainly won't be grinding out the masteries or anything. Maybe when they expand the map or after a few more story releases when I can play through something that doesn't feel like I just ate one M&M out of a package and know that's all I'll get for the week. lol

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > I think my long speculated theory is going to become true this Season!

> >

> > We go BEYOND! The way the cinematic starts with the shot at the starry, astralaria-like thing above us, as if hinting that the true problems lie not on Tyria, but somewhere else.

> >

> >

>

> I don’t quite agree...buuut I certainly lean more towards something more than being just another ED.

>

>

If the gods are beings from the mists and aren't really on the same level as Elder Dragons, I'm not really sure what could be out there that could be threatening to something like Aurene though. Or, if it is strong enough that Aurene would truly need help from Jormag, I'm not really sure what we would even be able to do to help. Besides, we had a cosmos eating elder dragon last season, so I doubt it will be anything more menacing than that.

I'm really just suspecting deep sea dragon. The theme of ice fortifying, this Lovecrafian theme or whatever. The bit in the cinematic with the sinking ships.

I think since we're in the area though tying in the dwarven fractal they added recently with the cryptic spider and being that possesses people could be interesting. We haven't really seen any ancient evils other than elder dragons thus far. Might be cool to see some entities similar to evil versions of the celestials/spirits of the wild.

Still really curious as to what the point of all of these new classifications are, like "fallen" and what not. I mean, outside of them solely existing to justify the mastery, do they have any other meaning? Thus far we really only knew about icebrood, but are these other things other forms of corruption or evil that's taken root? Something not even related to the elder dragons?

Did you forget?

Maybe there's one back in Grothmar. I haven't played in awhile but I know there wasn't one at the episode release. Unless I'm overlooking something.

> @"Palador.2170" said:

> Well, the story has some good and bad points for me. I'll get back to that.

>

> As for the map itself? I can sum up my thoughts on it in two words: "Why bother?"

>

> I've not been given enough lore or reason to care about fighting slightly different looking icebrood/svanir or anything else on this map. And why bother leveling up 3 different masteries so I can get full rewards when I can just go to ANY OTHER MAP and get full rewards right now? And that's ignoring the fact that I might power up buff A only to find myself trying to unlock a chest that needs buff B?

>

> Speaking of rewards, the new weapons are pretty enough, but kinda ... generic? There's a ton of other weapons in the game that look just as good, if not better. They don't stand out in any way at all, really. Very much not worth dealing with this map to try and make them. Oh, and that home node? This is the THIRD TIME for this bug to show up, guys!

>

> Now, for the story... Well, it wasn't bad. It had some good moments. It had some bad ones too, though. I have NO problems with Braham having issues with the voices in his head, but the others? I'm not saying they needed to be immune, but they didn't really offer up much resistance at all, even though they knew they were being messed with. Also, if this is how Jormag operates, then why didn't Braham get hit by it before, when his guild was closing in on Jormag directly? And as others have said, it was too short. It raised some questions, but gave us nothing. No answers, and not enough of any lore or anything to sink our teeth into (so to speak). Easily dismissed and forgotten.

Your point about the map is a great one and one that kept coming up for me. We have all these "fallen" and "aberrant" mobs, but they seem to just be plucked into the map for the sake of giving this mastery some semblance of a purpose? Like, where did they come from? Why are they here? Why are we killing them? Then we have the boneskinner just appear in the map, with no tie in to the story.

I was expecting the smaller map, and to be honest the size of the map still feels pretty decent to me. But what I wasn't expecting was a short point a to point b story that was essentially just a 30 minute introduction to the mastery. It feels like this whole episode exists solely to focus on the mastery and I didn't even bother to upgrade my ranks. I thought the whole purpose of splitting the maps in half was to give more emphasis on the story without having a nearly vacant map with nothing to do in it? But here it feels like we have an even shorter story and a map that hasn't been given any real context. There just doesn't seem to be any context or substance to any of this episode. It's literally just an entire episode and story made to shove this mastery system in your face. The mastery system that again, feels extremely lackluster.

I attempted the strike mission in public and found it pretty difficult, but we didn't have any people healing and it's a public setting. I'm not sure how much of a difference having the second mastery rank would have mattered with it because it seemed like it was more a coordination issue than anything else. A lot harder than the first one, and perhaps a bit overtuned for the public version... but I'm guessing this is the replacement for raids and fractals. For what though? A champ bag? Some unidentified greens and a map currency you'll need 100 of to make some weapon skin you'll probably never use just for the achievement points?

Really though, I like the tone, but the story portion of it made this entire episode feel more like a prologue than the actual prologue. I guess if these kinds of episodes were coming on a monthly basis, I could understand, but wow. Some great map design as usual, toss in a short story segment and instance, then plop in some random champ events in the middle of nowhere, bam - episode ready.

I hope the story moving forward is a little more in depth, because the people really hankering for norn lore or hopefully even jotun lore at some point are going to be pretty upset if they don't attempt to add more substance to them.

I think I spent like an hour just trying to solve the riddle following the raven spirits. It was extremely vague and I'm not even entirely sure that what I did was necessary or if I could have just walked into the second puzzle. (Burning library.)

But anyway, pro's - cool environment, enjoyed the dark tone and cinematic. Look forward to the continuation of that.

Cons - no real reason to feel invested in this mastery system - a shield that protects me from some unseen frost damage? A beam that I can shoot like every 2 minutes and does dismal damage? Random mobs everywhere with auras that seem to only exist, with no story background, but just to validate the existence of the mastery?

Yeah, I don't know. This feels like it must have been done by the Siren's Landing team in terms of the mastery system. I mean, "character progression" essentially equates to... damage reduction buffs? Lifesteal on crit buffs? So essentially the same thing I can get from eating food that I have to kill 20 mobs to obtain? And an occasional damage beam that I can use?

Holo and condi daredevil.

They're pretty much the go to class if you want to queue unranked and wipe most of the team. Little counterplay involved. Especially condi daredevil. It's always been bad, and the recent patch has only made them stronger. So great job, balance team.

Holo is better without shockwave, but it still does way too high of damage for the sustain that it has, coupled with lockdowns.

Other than that, I can't anything really stands out. Mesmer could get knocked down to 1 phantasm and 3 weapon skills and people would still complain about it. Sure, it's easy and can be annoying, but it's nowhere near as bad as it once was. Aside from a people I've seen playing that seem to have endless ambush attacks, dodges, and spit out phantasms and clones faster than I imagine you should technically be able to without somekind of 3rd party mod.

I tend to struggle with necro in matches because I get focused too fast to build life force, and I don't really like the playstyle of having to worm and spectral walk myself to safety and kite. Is there a good reaper build that allows you to do good damage, keep up life force, and not have to teleport all over the place?

I tend to be bad at necro and life force management anyway though. It always amazes me that they keep nerfing scourge relentlessly because aside from maybe one or two people I haven't ever been able to or seen many people able to warrant that kind of attention. And now I see mostly core necros and reapers. I can't ever seem to do any decent damage as core necro and feel like I'm just walking around in shroud.

So, with the latest changes, what are some of your favorite builds for necro?

I can't really decide between dual-swords and longbow.

I like the idea of either a vampiric-centric dual sword melee necro. But when I think about how it would play I just keep thinking it would be a slightly better version of rev with shiro or a thief.

Longbow could be cool, like a dark ranger themed class that maybe has access to different and more powerful pets. But then how is that different than a ranger?

I think the coolest thing they could do to really set them apart would be to give them a demon-centric spec and maybe hammer or mace. A transform spec but if they didn't do that for soulbeast or druid, I don't see them doing that with anything else. Though I suppose they sort of do already with reaper and death shroud. But it would be neat to actually turn into a big demon. I've always liked Lich form but it's always been so weak and clunky. If they redesign anything else for necro I wish they would redesign that or form a spec around it.

Other than that I can't really think of anything that isn't just more condi spam. It would be nice to have a rapid-attack power spec outside of axe 2 and reaper shroud 4.

So, final verdict: A demon transform themed spec (because I really miss my demon hunter in WoW) or a shadow assassin style spec where necro uses dual swords and behaves similar to a rev with emphasis on vampiric abilities. Or a true lich themed spec where the necro actually summons undead and skeletons instead of weird freaky looking fleshbeasts. Maybe even allow the spec to empower one specific minion.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I wish Arenanet would just make specs that mirror wow professions like demon hunter, druid, warlock, and monk. We already have warriors, and thieves are pretty much rogues, and rangers are rangers, and necros in general are pretty much shadow priests, and guardians are pretty much paladins. I never really cared much for mages but it would be nice if ele's got some melee spec that could survive and do high damage without relying on half of their abilities being evades or having to trait for condi cleanse.

It's a beautiful map and I know they recently adjusted the Charr artifact loot table, but it still feels highly unrewarding.

The events are pretty fun, but it's a little discouraging when the only guaranteed way it seems to get a Charr artifact is to loot the 4 key chest. Do they drop from the individual metas as well? I can't remember.

The metas are so spaced out that, even if they do, that's like 30 minutes just for ONE Charr artifact.

I would also have loved to get more decorations for my guild hall, and it's what I'm currently saving up for, but they take so much currency and are locked behind achievements so there isn't really a point in endlessly farming for something I'd really only want ONE of anyway. I mean, the cannon is.. eh. The tank I haven't gotten yet because of the insane cost, but I'm saving up for it. The helipads are locked behind some 300 target achievement which is also kind of timegated behind event participation and it's really not a decoration I'm stoked for. Would have loved to see some of the beautiful assets on this map incorporated, like the trees or Aurene's branded crystals. The monument is cool, but it's also expensive and I really don't need 30 statues of devourers in my guild hall...

I love combat tonics and always look forward to them, but now we have one and I want it, even though it's just another Charr, but it's locked behind rng of.. a jumping puzzle, right? It must be pretty rare if it's 400 gold on the trading post at all times.

Then we have the map specific chests, which don't drop map currency and only reward you with unidentified gear. I could get that same amount of gear from just grinding mobs in the middle of nowhere, if not substantially more, and especially if I just farmed events.

Then here we have the Charr artifacts, which still have laughable drops, which are essentially the only unique new skins added with this patch right? Or am I leaving off some weapons somewhere on one of the map currency vendors?

I mean I get that you wanted to change up the obtainment method to prevent the content from being rushed and encourage people to keep revisiting the map, but with my luck, it has probably an even more adverse effect for me. I go and chill out in the map or do a few events, and then I'm just kind of... disinterested because I know that I'm not going to get that lucky rng drop of a new armor skin, combat tonic, and definitely not an infusion.

Is there somekind of balance you can strike between these two that will prevent players from unlocking everything the moment the patch drops but still keeps them invested in revisiting? Maybe a way to obtain them outside of rng that still requires effort?

Is the infusion not enough incentive as is without locking the armor and weapon skins and combat tonic all behind this rng? To be honest I'm not overly interested in the skins to begin with, I just think that this is kind of a backwards step in terms of the reward system and really hope that it isn't like this moving forward.

I also don't think I've gotten a Charr artifact from strike missions, granted I've only done them like 5 times so far, but you would think for something that's locked to... 3 times a day?... and supposed to be the challenging new content (which people have pretty unanimously agreed it isn't), that it would have better rewards than a few pieces of unidentified gear and some dismal amount of map currency?

Eh, I think outside of the rewards in this map and the lack of more interesting decorations (which is honestly probably only an issue with me as an adamant enthusiast of decoration and guild halls in general), the map and the events exceeded my expectations.

I just hope there is a different approach next patch, especially for the new showcase Strike Missions feature, which I think in their current implementation won't gain much traction unless you make them significantly more rewarding. Especially if you intend on increasing the difficulty as time goes on.

As far as suggestions go, I think it's good changing the loot table of the Charr artifact, but it needs far more drop sources than what I've seen. Seems like it should be guaranteed from all the individual metas, the jumping puzzle, the grand meta chest, the strike missions, and maybe a rare chance from the map specific chests if you keep their drop chances the same even with the increase. It feels a lot more satisfying opening a multitude of those Artifacts at once than just opening one and realizing that you're probably not going to get another one until reset when or if you even bother to try for another one. Might also encourage people to more regularly revisit the map moving forward in hopes of getting something rare they can sell. I mean, for that matter, I don't think they are so what if you made those artifacts tradeable? It doesn't solve the dissatisfying rng factor, but it at least gives the people more deadest on getting those skins more chances to get them. Sure, if they really want them they'll farm the hell out of the map and keep coming back all season, but I'd say there's far fewer people that would do that than there are people that would rather just farm the latest map release.

And I still think the chests should give map currency, but that would be less of an issue if they had something besides some unid gear or mats.

Well it's anyone's guess what domains the Deep Sea Dragon has now that we've learned Kralk is apparently "Fury" and Primordus is "Conflagaration." They seem kind of random and like they don't really have a whole lot of meaning.

But, and granted all dragons have corruption, I wouldn't be surprised if the deep sea dragon's domains were Water and Corruption. Maybe Water and Deceit.

But I like the idea of the actual domain of Corruption. Especially if they found a way to tie it into the grand scheme of things and the other elder dragons. I think there was a theory awhile back that the dsd could have been what birthed the original madness in Kralk. The livestream mentioned that the combined magics exacerbated it, but posed the question that there could have been something before that.

Aren't the Inquest Subjects always just combined from all other dragons, and in place of the dsd's minion since we still haven't actually seen one in game? Having the DSD link to the others could explain why that Subject is always able to withstand the combination of all of the elder dragons. I mean, Jormag and Primordus supposedly cancel each other out right? Maybe not that simply, but as we saw with Balthazar they have opposing forces. And you would assume the same would apply to Zhaitan and Mordremoth. Since Zhaitan is all about death and Mordremoth is more about blight and almost tumerous level growth.

But anyway, I think it would also be a good counter having the dsd possess that kind of connection in opposition to Aurene, who is already known to be able to create harmony among the different magics. And the similar nature between water and crystal.

Personally I've always liked the idea of the dsd being involved in Abaddon's downfall. Sure, it wasn't overnight, but could one of the earlier visits of the gods have given way to the dsd having somekind of corrosive effect on Abaddon? It feels a little bit more interesting, to me at least, than having his fall solely stem from the hatred in his heart or whatever. I mean I guess that's kind of a Lucifer trope or something, but eh...

I also like the idea of DSD being behind the magic that turned the Jade Sea into, well, Jade, and the forest to stone. Sure, it was supposedly magic from Dwayna that Shiro stole that caused it, but then we have the solid ocean fractal with tentacle monsters everywhere which.. sorry.. but no matter what profession Shiro is in lore or how edgy he is, why would his magic take on that form or have that much power? I mean, it took Abaddon dying to turn the Crystal Sea into the Desert, so why does a little gift of magic from Dwayna have that adverse of an effect on an entire region? It's just always felt like there was something more going on here or being hinted at.

I also wish we had more on the Artisanal Waters and what originally drew the Gods to Tyria. I mean, I get that Zhaitan was underneath that area, but it still feels like it has room to be fleshed out more.

Then again the same could be said for pretty much all of the lore in this game, it's always left so open ended or there's always some random 180 somewhere that makes you remember that they really just kind of write all of this on the fly. Which is why I think adamantly defending existing lore, dialogue, or claiming someone is wrong with 100% certainty is kind of a fool's errand.

At their current pace, and in the game's current state, I really don't feel like we'll get to a point where we replace all 6 elder dragons, and wouldn't be surprised to see Aurene take up the mantle as the one that balances it all. I'm not really offended by it, but it certainly doesn't add up to what they've previously established.

Either way though, it's a stalemate right now, because no matter how different Aurene is, if she isn't capable of solely holding that balance, we're not going to kill Jormag, Primordus, or the dsd, because we'll tip the scales too far according to what's already been established.

So that leaves us with several things moving forward:

1. Finding another dragon to replace Jormag.

2. Finding some other means to replace Jormag, whether it be the spirits of the wild or some ordinary being and newly discovered secrets via Taimi that make way for a multitude of possibilities with the story moving forward.

3. Aurene being able to balance it all, and we either kill Jormag and Aurene takes the power boost... or:

4. This talk of Lovecraftian horror, usually saved to describe the DSD and its minions, eludes to Jormag offering us alliance in the fight against the DSD, who just got a tasty little magic snack dropped into the ocean. (And no matter how far out or down he is in the ocean, you can't tell me he didn't notice when we have Mordremoth stretching his legs all the way over to Ascalon.)

5. The next threat we face is from the mists and Kralk's rift shenanigans was the catalyst that brought them here.

Personally, I don't really have any clue on what's next or have any expectations, and there are a lot of things I would like to see.

Going back on what I said earlier though, I think it would be pretty interesting to have the DSD be at the heart of a lot of events in history as a kind of hidden mastermind. Whether it be Shiro's effects on Cantha, Abaddon's fall, all the elder dragons slowly going insane and becoming these ravenous malevolent forces, etc. Would be funny to think that all along, we thought the DSD was only a threat in the ocean and thus left out of the forefront of the story, only to find out that its been the root cause of so many of the events that have transpired and led us to where we are now. It doesn't need to make itself known, because it has everything it needs right where it's at.

Mmm, well the wall clinging I suspect got reused for the skyscale. And I assume there may have been some Oakheart's Reach tech used for it. To be honest, I've never bought the arachnaphobia bit.

I think it's more likely that they just didn't think that it added the same amount of value as the other mounts do, or they decided they would "scrap it" until a future release.

I mean, just think of how many spider bosses we have in core Tyria alone. And they're adding "Lovecraftian" themed horrors in this season like the Boneskinner that should theoretically be far more terrifying, phobia or no phobia.

Or they just couldn't get the mount to work the way they wanted to and it was purely technological issues that prevented it from being fully implemented. To be honest though, I wouldn't be surprised to see it still released at some point even this season. I imagine we'll find a lot of caverns moving forward through this season in the shiverpeaks, and I wouldn't be surprised to find the introduction of a wall-crawling mount.

Outside of a wall-crawling mount, the only thing really left is an aquatic mount. But perhaps there are challenges with wall crawling, thus why the skyscale only clings and doesn't actually crawl up the wall.

I'd personally love a spider mount though. And I just really can't fathom how it would be any worse than some of the giant spiders we already have in game, or that the fear is that widespread that people in a fantasy land video game would be too sensitive to tolerate its presence. I mean, if that were the case then why do we have ranger pets that are spiders, much less giant boss spiders? I mean, a fractal whose boss is a giant creepy possessed spider. Sun's Refuge introductory phase in which you are literally carried across the room by a spider, with dozens of smaller spiders.

I'm just not buying that's the real reason, sorry.

How much longer are we going to have to deal with the cancer that is holosmiths?

Or is this shockwave range reduction supposed to fix what's actually broken about the class?

Maybe in the next balance patch in about 6 months to a year we'll see some changes that actually make this class less of a braindead all-in-one spec that takes some actual effort to play.

I mean honestly, do they even play this game or do they just select skills out of a hat and make a few changes to them to give the illusion of difference?

How long has this been happening? My internet in general has been running slower than usual since I got a blue screen of death the other day. But I updated a few drivers, installed and then uninstalled some antivirus software that seemed to be slowing it down even more.

But for the past two or three days I've been getting average 1k but 2k-3k ping spikes as well. It's basically been unplayable and I'm not really sure what to do.

I attributed it to the crash, but it's hard finding why my computer got the blue screen. I've disabled windows defender because it looked like it was using a lot of memory but it was never an issue before.

With the game running, even during the last strike mission my cpu averages 50%, gpu 25%, and ram 50%. Which doesn't seem that high to a non-IT saavy person like me.

I'm not sure what could be causing this all of a sudden and it seems odd it happened after that blue screen, (that happened while I was playing guild wars 2), but I can't think of how it could be related if my cpu/gpu/ram all seem to be functioning reasonably.

Does that mean it's a network/internet issue?

> @"TheMaverick.6104" said:

> There are already ascalonian trees available as decorations. Autumn colored... not sure this is what you look for.

Yeah, those are my go to. But that means no variation. I’d hope for a larger variation than just basic green trees, palm trees, and ascalonian trees.

Some cherry blossoms, the nice big trunked trees you see in this map, the desert trees you see in sand swept. Would love to be able to make the environment look more natural than just putting the same three tree types everywhere.

I mean really I’d love another guild hall this season but that’s probably impossible.

Something that uses some of the bitter frost assets like the geyser area, maybe some forgotten jotun ruins, the huge trees in bitter frost with maybe some tree houses for the actual upgradable structures. Some enchanted forest style guild hall filled with snow and Aurenes brand. Maybe some hidden cavern areas and a nice deep lake and such.

Windswept is pretty but it just didn’t give me that same sense of awe that I got from gilded hollow and lost precipice, and with the area were in now I feel like they could have a lot of fun and be really creative with it. Everything from snow, to old ascalon ruins, to Aurenes brand, to even lush floating land masses like you’d see in verdant cascades.

A pipe dream but I know if I had half the talent some of these map artists have I’d have a blast.

> @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> Will there be more uses for hatched chillies ??

> I managed to unlock the shirt and banner skins and rock on emote by using WvW reward track potions that I saved.

> I now have access to a new repeatable WvW reward track that gives hatched chillies ? but I don’t see much use for them currently.

Buy decorations with them and donate them to your guild. I'm trying to get one of each decoration but I imagine it will take a week just to get that much. I'd like to get one of each for each of my guild halls but they cost way too damn much.

You could also just hoard them. Hoarding is always good in this game. I'm sure by the end of the "saga" there will be something that requires 500 of them.

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Have you seen the Guild Hall Decorations that are on offer in the map?

>

> Never mind, just saw what was on offer, and they aren't what you are looking for.

> Though, one of them is free. :)

Uh, which one is free? Because everything I'm seeing is like 300 map currency?

There's only like one more I haven't unlocked, the helipad one.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> So far, the map seems to be the only thing worthwhile in this new release. The contents are boring (unless I haven't yet discovered the interesting parts, which is likely) and the dialogue is... oh well.

Well I found most of the activities and "events" rather annoying. Many of them are odes to hearts and such, like the Ash camp mission impossible adventure. But I found that and the sous chef to be some of the most annoying things I've every attempted to do in this game. The mission impossible stuff wasn't too bad in the sandswept isle inquest patch but this one just .. eh.

And the chef thing has just never really excited me.

The shooting and derby are pretty fun, and the concert is cheesy as hell but it's a pretty amusing event. Not sure I'd want to do it all the time, but it's still pretty good.

The jumping puzzle is fun when people aren't intentionally summoning large pets to disorient you.

The strike mission was alright but pretty easy, and I can't really say the rewards excite me much. Doesn't seem like something that's going to bring people in more than for achievements and then abandoned.

Braham's drunken frat boy dialogue was probably amusing to some people, and was well scripted, but didn't appeal to my personal tastes.

All in all I think it was better than I was expecting, and it feels like a fun map for new players to start off in.

I did like the map aesthetics a lot more than I thought I would. I am a bit disappointed that there's nothing happening in the old Kralk resting spot area. It's a beautiful part of the map but it feels like they could have added something into that area to give it a little more to entice people. I'm not sure what the rift thing is in the middle but this area feels like something that's going to change at some point in future releases? Maybe not though since they don't really phase maps out like that anymore and it would be a bit of a story spoiler.

I think with the addition of the new branded assets they've created for Aurene, the Northern Shiverpeaks maps will be even more stunning.

I kind of wish we had more Wardowns area in the new zone though. They really did it justice to the feeling I got during Guild Wars 1, I just wish it had more of it. But I love forest areas anyway.

To get some of these beautiful trees added as decorations in the guild hall. And some of the Aurene branded and crystalline branded trees and assets too.

It's nice getting any at all, but we've needed some more non-potted plant variations for awhile. I think we got the Grenth tree in Dragonfall so I was kind of hopeful with this one but no dice yet.

About 90% of my unranked games tonight have been bots. And all of the matches so skewed that if I were a new player trying it out for the first time I would just uninstall.

> @"Lighter.5631" said:

> Why are you shifting attention away from condition mesmer

I mean, holos can easily disorient condition mesmers. Sure, I wouldn't advise them to duel or anything, but in a team fight against a condi mes.. having a holo to spam away the clones and dish out that sweet cc and those water fields, as long as your team isn't completely hopeless you've got a pretty good chance of at very least running that mirage's ability to help out their team.

The stealth on elixir would solve a lot of problems as well. I think they have enough disencages, regen, blocks, cc, and everything else without some stealth that lasts entirely too long to begin with allowing them to reset their cooldowns or set up their "burst" which is basically just every other ability.

> @"Taelac.7036" said:

> Aurene's Lair, maybe? Yes, please.

My thoughts, and what I was hoping for in a post long ago. It did look like she flew North last episode, and what better way to remember and honor the good parts of Kralk than at his old resting spot.

I have wondered how large of a crater he must have left after he crawled out of the dirt.

> @"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:

>

O_o. It's the Aurene branded enchanted forest scene I was hoping for from this area! Great to see parts of the map that aren't siege-y industrial Charr land. And I bet the story step involved in this area will be quite nice too.

> @"Crystal Paladin.3871" said:

> Will full trailer reveal a new legendary weapon?

>

> Or... Braham get converted by jormag's words and become an icebrood?

lol Highly doubt they'll do legendary weapons for awhile but I guess ya never know.

The fact that they keep showing bits that we've already seen for these teasers or linking wiki articles makes me think there probably isn't much more to it than, new map, activities, MAYBE somekind of meta event, and a strike mission boss.

If the trailer shows anything we haven't seen, it MIGHT advertise somekind of new armor or weapon set or more screenshots of the map. I can get that this could just be a different approach to marketing, but my gut feeling tells me that there just isn't anything to show that we haven't already devised from watching the trailers we've already seen. So, MAYBE a new armor or weapon set bought/made with map currency, but highly doubtful about any kind of legendary, a new fractal, or anything outside of a new map with a few events and activities. Just keep low expectations and be pleasantly surprised if there's something more.

We may get to see some more cute little baby charr though, so that's a plus.

Also, I would say Mesmers could potentially be Deep Sea Dragon more than Jormag. I mean none of this really fits, but....

Doesn't Zhaitan use illusions during one of the personal story instances? Maybe not. Not him directly at least, but I'd say at the very least Zhaitan would be more fitting for Mesmers/Thieves/Necros.

Eles tend to throw this whole idea off with the attunements to many different elements and not a lot of representation in game to base characteristics off of. Do we even have an ele lore character in Guild Wars 2? Was Zolja?

We have Taimi, engineer. Braham, guardian. Rox, ranger. Marjory, Necromancer. Jenna, Alise, Kas, mesmers. Logan, warrior or guardian? Can't remember.

Canach, thief or engineer? Caithe, definitely thief. Rhytlock, revenant, but was a warrior wasn't he?

Faren, has he ever actually done anything? No clue on this one.

I guess the Olmakhaan are some form of elementalists aren't they? Or are they rangers?

Traeherne was a necro wasn't he?

I really can't recall any elementalists at the moment. I wonder what this new norn character will be in the coming saga. Looked like she was wearing heavy armor so probably a warrior or guardian, and that's probably more fitting for norn.