ThatOddOne.4387

Zafirah's one is especially interesting given she goes on about a prophecy but she wasn't actually there to hear about it because she was off gathering the Zaishen, and just more Balthazar stuff in general. I'll look forward to hers.

Awesome, very nice surprise.

More from Ruinbringer, more on how Rytlock got Sohothin and why he wanted it back so badly. More Balthazar interaction and general world building. Logan being a bro.

Also confirmation that Kralkatorrik is back in the Mists now instead of elsewhere on Tyria - People thought he would head to another part of Elona or to the Charr Lands where he awoke, but it seems that's not the case - And giving more grounds to the theory that he could just consume the entirety of the Mists which definitely classifies him as more than a Tyria-level threat.

The Fallen Gods do not have the blinding aura which is specifically connected with the magic that the Gods hold (Aka, 'Divine' magic) because they do not have that Divine magic. The two are one in the same. Blinding aura = Has Divine magic. (Unless constrained via God-forged bindings like Abaddon, apparently)

Perhaps a better way to term it would be 'signature magic'. Balthazar's signature is fire, so he converts magical energy he absorbs into that signature magic because that's just what he's been attuned to all his existence. I'd imagine the ability to traverse the Mists comes with the type of magical being Balthazar remains as despite not being a God.

But yes, it's quite clear that even without Divine magic, ex-Gods still firmly continue to stick to their 'signature magic' even when losing their divinity (See: Dhuum), and have access to all the knowledge they gained whilst they were a God to still be massively dangerous and powerful, even to Elder Dragons.

So no, Dragons cannot absorb Divine magic as far as we know because they have never had the chance to and if they had the chance I still don't think they could unless it was separate from the God that has that Divine magic - And as we know from a previous example: Abaddon, Divine magic MUST have a vessel. Therefore, to get Divine magic a Dragon would have to kill a God, and that's not a surefire thing. (And would destroy everything in the vicinity as the God will obviously fight back and we know what that causes from the Crystal Desert)

Balthazar had no Divine magic in Path of Fire, at any point.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"ThatOddOne.4387" said:

> > > @"Cristalyan.5728" said:

> > > the six are: unwise (to not use a heavier word), cowards, mortals, weak, making mistakes, sometimes irrationals etc.

> >

> > Continuing to repeatedly claim the Gods are "cowards", "weak" and "mortals" like a broken record does not suddenly make it true.

> It's not the claims that make them so. It's their behaviour. And you can probably add "selfish" to that list as well.

>

> Seriously, they were in such a hurry to leave Tyria at the fist sign their lives may be in danger, they even forgot to clear many messes they themselves made (you know, the ticking bombs like Balthasar, Dhuum and probably Mhenzies). No, saying they didn't want to cause collateral damage doesn't hold any water in a situation when there's a reality collapse incoming and one of those messes is working really hard to accelerate it. They've simply written off the whole Tyria and everything in it, figuring that it will be destroyed anyway, so why would they care. That's another point, by the way. Not only they didn't try to take humanity with them (you know, their most devout worshippers, and the race _they brought toTyria in the first place_). They also didn't save their most important worshippers (like Desmina). Not even Kormir bothered to do so (although it's not like we expected her to help anyone - being useless and/or actively harmful is probably her defining character trait).

>

> Yeah, as you can probably see, personally, i don't really like the way GW2 lore turned the human gods of GW1 into some twisted mockery we should probably be grateful is gone from the game for good. Hopefully.

>

>

>

Hate to disappoint, but ArenaNet have said we haven't seen the last of the Gods, so I feel reasonably confident saying everything you believe about them is going to be proven false in narrative terms.

But just to pick apart your reasoning:

- They were not in a hurry to leave Tyria, they left the world itself after their fight with Abaddon literally turned a sea into a desert, LONG before GW1 even started and before the wider world even had the faintest inkling of Elder Dragons existing. They withdrew further even just after GW1 (assumed timeline) because they knew fighting the Elder Dragons themselves would be cataclysmic regardless if they won or not.

- They have left no messes. Balthazar got free because of a single charr wanting a sword back, otherwise Balthazar was locked up, depowered and unable to do anything, a much more effective type of imprisonment than Abaddon had, so clearly the Gods learned from their misstep there.

- Them not wanting to cause collateral damage DOES hold water, don't be ridiculous, given the last known time the Gods used their powers in combat _it turned a sea into a desert_, they are quite right to be concerned that could/will happen again. The threat of reality collapsing has only happened several hundred years after the Gods departed and could well precipitate their return and involvement however brief. They could not take into account Balthazar's escape and Kralkatorrik's new powers to enter the Mists.

- They've quite obviously not written off Tyria, Glint and the Forgotten made PLANS with them, from Glint's dialogue. They are part of the plan to replace the Elder Dragons and likely had a part to play in coming up with the idea. This is from Glint herself, wondering what the plans of the Gods are because they didn't tell her or the Forgotten everything. So yes, they haven't written it off and they do care.

- They had nowhere to take humanity to. They can't take them into the raw Mists as that would kill them eventually, they need a terrastrial world to move them to which they do not have/are looking for/are preparing as the Plan B (Garden of the Gods). Which makes absolute sense for them to be the back-up plan in case the Plan A (Glint + Scions replacing Elder Dragons) does not succeed.

- There is no need to save Desmina and other similar worshippers because they are charged with overseeing the Gods realms whilst they attend to Plan B, that much is plain.

- Kormir likely is following the lead of the other Gods (Her seniors by a wide, wide margin) who also did not take their followers with them. She is not useless and that GW1 personality meme should remain a meme instead of using it to base the character on.

> @"Cristalyan.5728" said:

> the six are: unwise (to not use a heavier word), cowards, mortals, weak, making mistakes, sometimes irrationals etc.

Continuing to repeatedly claim the Gods are "cowards", "weak" and "mortals" like a broken record does not suddenly make it true.

"Glint: The Forgotten told me much, but not everything... What did they tell the Six? What do the gods know that I do not?" Is the quote Konig is referring to, for those who can't be bothered reading through the link he gave.

I think we can safely assume there is/was cooperation between Glint, the Forgotten and the Gods.

Damn, I forget how excited I got at the end point of this mission when first playing it. Meeting only Kormir was a partial disappointment.

> @"Rockin Twilight Sparkle.2615" said:

> > @"ThatOddOne.4387" said:

> > People thinking the Gods are antagonists is laughable.

>

>

> You are aware that basically everything in Guild Wars 1 was Abaddon's fault, right? (I mean, I guess Balthazar was the one who said 'dude the other races will be easy to conquer)

> And did you miss the part where Balthazar was totally fine with destroying the world in the name of throwing down with dragons?

> Grenth deposed Dhuum to take on the mantle of god of death because Dhuuum was, and I quote, 'a prick'

>

> This is a little less solid, but there's also that whole thing where Bath Salts doesn't curse Lyssa as he dies and the hand mirror that he used to disguise himself was enchanted by Lyssa herself

>

>

> The point is that the gods have quite a number of fuckups to their name. I won't call them antagonists, but I think Kormir had it pretty right when she said 'you never needed out help'

>

>

Oh, gee. You're right, how could I be so blind?

Of course I'm not referring to the Gods and Ex-Gods that turn into villains, I'm referring to Gods that left Tyria.

... Except that's not what the Gods are or what they did at all. The Gods were divine before they came to Tyria.

They haven't "stolen" anything, their magic is completely self-contained, and is in fact anathema to the Elder Dragon corruption and minions, if not the Elder Dragons themselves.

People thinking the Gods are antagonists is laughable.

I'm not going to hold out hope that you realise how much of a strawman that was.

Apart from you know, the act of forbidding themselves from intervening in Tyria due to the destruction it caused when they fought Abaddon, and withdrawing to avoid fighting the Elder Dragons directly and causing the exact same thing.

They demonstrably care enough to not want to harm Tyria. At point where they -could- kill the Elder Dragons if they wanted to, but knew this would destroy the world in the process and so did not, they proved they cared.

They demonstrably care enough about humanity and perhaps other races as well to outright leave and search for a new world free of Elder Dragons, if we assume Garden of the Gods is accurate.

It's pretty much a trope in fantasy at this point for Gods to care about what happens to the world/peoples they are watching over but being unable to intervene because they believe doing so would make things worse.

The Gods being "cowards" has been debunked so many times on this forum I'm surprised people are still saying it.

They're not omniscient. They likely weren't aware he was in the Mists. Their intervention would require us finding them and likely asking forcefully or impassionedly for assistance - Like King Doric did with the Bloodstones.

That said, yes. If Kralkatorrik is next fought in the Mists, where I assume he will go to recuperate, it stands to reason that the Gods could assist, maybe not outright, but in the form of empowerment/resurrecting Aurene/reinforcements from their servants. Because again, clearly what we gathered in Episode 5 still wasn't enough.

What I am describing is exactly what Kormir did to Abaddon. At it's core, "Secrets" and "Truth" are the same domain, but with a different intent behind them. Similarly, "Conflict" and "Protection" can both fall within war.

She doesn't have Divine magic at her disposal and neither does Kralkatorrik.

what do you mean it came from nowhere, the vision told us all we needed to know

My prediction is the next step is going to hinge on Glint taking Aurene aside to explain Ascension - Which is linked more to the Gods and Forgotten than dragons, so there's some kind of cooperation or great plan going on here we're not privy to - Especially since it was a story point that Ascension had stopped because the Gods left.

It's either that or Aurene eating Joko.

Either way it still leaves the fact we clearly still do not have the power to take Kralkatorrik on.

The Elder Dragons really ceased being unknowable monstrosities of nature the moment Mordremoth was introduced as a talking antagonist, to be honest.

You could even argue they started moving away from that as far back as when they started elaborating on Jormag's personality, and even Kralkatorriks in the Destiny's Edge books.

This is not a new thing.

Serious face though, well played ArenaNet. You have my attention again.

If Balthazar was really "in control" of Kralkatorrik then he'd be off hunting down the Gods not fighting us, since that was Balthazar's stated goal.

It's an image of Balthazar in equal standing with the orbs representing Mordremoth and Zhaitan's magic, so it just seems to represent some of his power in Kralkatorrik's hands.

Also where the kitten were Marjory and Kasmeer.

And the answer to what we can do is simples, go find the Gods and get them to help in some manner because CLEARLY everything we're coming up with doesn't work.

That manner would probably involve resurrecting Aurene but who knows at this point. ArenaNet threw a curveball.

We start by going to Glint's Lair to get Aurene back with Caithe. Do some trials, learn that Kralkatorrik is actually not some great unknowable force of nature but is actually an evil SOB that saw a vision of everyone getting along without him around and is having an ages long fit over it.

Trials are successful, though Glint's voice takes Aurene away briefly to explain Ascension to her properly.

We go to Thunderhead Keep after this, use a forge underneath the keep manned by Exalted and Zephyrites to start making Dragonblood weapons.

We spend more of the episode getting doohickeys and knickknacks such as Dredge mirrors to boost the resonance output of crystals (Because Branded crystals are Kralk's weakness).

During this more ghosts start popping up because Kralk is in the Domain of the Lost eating souls and getting more and more powerful so the plan is to fight him NOW.

There is more elaborate plotting including bringing a mountain down on him to pin him in place.

We fight him in big cave, end up wounding him, he plays dead though and when we get near he blasts us point blank that Aurene defends us from. We get blasted through a mountain, somehow survive, start staggering our way up the path passing people going "OH NO HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN" and then we see Aurene impaled on Branded spikes and dead.

Kralkatorrik slinks off.

That is the cliff notes version ask about specifics and I will try answer.

Unless they go the route that Balthazar was still a supremely powerful magical being without being a God and clearly state that, then it would imply that Kralkatorrik has Divine magic given its significant enough for his image to stand separate to both Mordremoth's and Zhaitan's.

I was getting more and more annoyed throughout the episode thinking "Really? THIS is all we needed?"

And then my hope was restored.

Though a certain God's image appearing above Kralkatorrik during his charge up made me really kitten suspicious that ArenaNet has forgotten their own lore.