I'll accept it, because it's probably going to answer one of the biggest lore questions about what happened between GW1 and GW2.
Still kinda wish it was actually Lazarus...
Yeah, agree Tbh I'm pretty disappointed, the reveal wasn't telegraphed very well and makes zero sense. At least, not right now in the story. I kinda suspect knowing Arenanet's storytelling that it'll continue to make no fucking sense.
Do find it kinda amusing that perhaps the only thing he said that was true as Lazarus was the first thing we ever heard him say, depending on what he meant by "their".
What if Queen Jennah and Anise are actually Lyss and Ilya? The double goddess, fallen and missing a lot of their power? It would explain why Jennah is such a ridiculously powerful mesmer and why Anise has all these hints about her being older than she looks (esp given the myth where Lyssa appears to a young lady as a crone).
This would close a LOT of the plotholes introduced by Balthazar.
Balthazar had a mirror that Kasmeer identifies as being made by Lyssa herself. This would give a reason for Balthazar to have been at the Bloodstone -- the Queen & Anise must have known that the Mantle were up to something there, so they gave Balthazar the mirror to disguise himself and hide among the Mantle to spy for them. When they enacted the ritual, Balthazar took the opportunity to 1. regain a huge amount of his lost power, 2. Save Divinity's Reach (I imagine despite how cranky he is now he still has some interest in keeping humans around), and 3. Take on Lazarus' appearance so he could jumpstart an army by duping the White Mantle.
It also explains why Anise could be ancient (without her being Livia, interestingly... which means Livia may be elsewhere!) and, in addition to why Jennah is SO powerful, why she comes off as frankly kind of sinister. Of course Lyssa would want to consolidate her power/take it out of the hands of the Ministers, especially if she, like Balthazar, is trying desperately to get her power back.
Furthermore... why would Lyssa call back Logan to prevent Destiny's Edge from killing Kralkatorrick? There's two possibilities: either she already knows what Taimi knows re: elder dragon deaths seriously destabilizing Tyria, or she's hoping to keep Kralky around so she can absorb his power just like Balthazar was doing to Primordius (since Kralky seems to have dominion over most of the traditional Mesmer things). Or possibly both, like Balthazar -- she knows, but she doesn't care. And there's even a third possibility: "Jennah" really IS in love with Logan, and in truth couldn't bear the thought of him dying, so called him back to protect him. Which, again, it could also be all three of these things.
Basically, the Queen & Anise being Ilya and Lyss patches a whole bunch of big plot holes at the same time, so I really hope it's the case, because if it isn't, then the Balthazar thing kinda doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense
Also,
I feel like elements of this story make a hell of a lot more sense if you were a Charr. Some human players are complaining that it makes NO SENSE for their human character to turn on Balthazar like that, and I agree. Meanwhile, if you're a Charr:
"ha HA! I was secretly the human god of war this whole time! You know, the one who genocided your people and drove you out of your homelands all those years ago? Basically the guy who kicked off the initial Charr-Human conflict in the first place? The one who drove your people to worship the Titans? And so who indirectly started your people's massive hatred for and distrust of gods?"
Charr: "... yeah it's pretty swell to meet you "
so yeah it makes sense that charr characters are like A GOD!? HELL NO FUCK THAT SHIT HE'S OBV UP TO NO GOOD.
meanwhile at the very least:
Asura: gods are just another part of the alchemy and this guy is fucking with that alchemy AND ALSO OUR TECH
Sylvari: lol what's a god???????
Norn: human gods? who cares. im gonna wrassle him.
And even for humans like... the gods haven't been around for the past 300 years, so I can imagine some humans feeling a bit betrayed when one shows up. Like, where the fuck were you, buddy?
Plus the context of "Where was I? I was pretending to be the evil god of a splinter faction of your people so I could amass an army, duh" is a bit like "um what"
But with allll this said, I feel like this entire conflict with Balthazar is a miscommunication caused by a hot-headed, hot-tempered god going "Fuck this shit I'm sick of mortals" and a mortal going "NO FUCK U, YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD" without either side taking a moment to be like "Heyyyy maybe we should take a deep breath and talk about this a bit?"
I haven't played through the entire chapter yet (probably finishing tonight), so maybe this will be contradicted by the end, but after the Lazarus reveal I'm wondering if
the Six Gods and the Dragons are two sides of the same coin.
What if Queen Jennah and Anise are actually Lyss and Ilya? The double goddess, fallen and missing a lot of their power? It would explain why Jennah is such a ridiculously powerful mesmer and why Anise has all these hints about her being older than she looks (esp given the myth where Lyssa appears to a young lady as a crone).
This would close a LOT of the plotholes introduced by Balthazar.
Balthazar had a mirror that Kasmeer identifies as being made by Lyssa herself. This would give a reason for Balthazar to have been at the Bloodstone -- the Queen & Anise must have known that the Mantle were up to something there, so they gave Balthazar the mirror to disguise himself and hide among the Mantle to spy for them. When they enacted the ritual, Balthazar took the opportunity to 1. regain a huge amount of his lost power, 2. Save Divinity's Reach (I imagine despite how cranky he is now he still has some interest in keeping humans around), and 3. Take on Lazarus' appearance so he could jumpstart an army by duping the White Mantle.
It also explains why Anise could be ancient (without her being Livia, interestingly... which means Livia may be elsewhere!) and, in addition to why Jennah is SO powerful, why she comes off as frankly kind of sinister. Of course Lyssa would want to consolidate her power/take it out of the hands of the Ministers, especially if she, like Balthazar, is trying desperately to get her power back.
Furthermore... why would Lyssa call back Logan to prevent Destiny's Edge from killing Kralkatorrick? There's two possibilities: either she already knows what Taimi knows re: elder dragon deaths seriously destabilizing Tyria, or she's hoping to keep Kralky around so she can absorb his power just like Balthazar was doing to Primordius (since Kralky seems to have dominion over most of the traditional Mesmer things). Or possibly both, like Balthazar -- she knows, but she doesn't care. And there's even a third possibility: "Jennah" really IS in love with Logan, and in truth couldn't bear the thought of him dying, so called him back to protect him. Which, again, it could also be all three of these things.
Basically, the Queen & Anise being Ilya and Lyss patches a whole bunch of big plot holes at the same time, so I really hope it's the case, because if it isn't, then the Balthazar thing kinda doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense
Also,
I feel like elements of this story make a hell of a lot more sense if you were a Charr. Some human players are complaining that it makes NO SENSE for their human character to turn on Balthazar like that, and I agree. Meanwhile, if you're a Charr:
"ha HA! I was secretly the human god of war this whole time! You know, the one who genocided your people and drove you out of your homelands all those years ago? Basically the guy who kicked off the initial Charr-Human conflict in the first place? The one who drove your people to worship the Titans? And so who indirectly started your people's massive hatred for and distrust of gods?"
Charr: "... yeah it's pretty swell to meet you "
so yeah it makes sense that charr characters are like A GOD!? HELL NO FUCK THAT SHIT HE'S OBV UP TO NO GOOD.
meanwhile at the very least:
Asura: gods are just another part of the alchemy and this guy is fucking with that alchemy AND ALSO OUR TECH
Sylvari: lol what's a god???????
Norn: human gods? who cares. im gonna wrassle him.
And even for humans like... the gods haven't been around for the past 300 years, so I can imagine some humans feeling a bit betrayed when one shows up. Like, where the fuck were you, buddy?
Plus the context of "Where was I? I was pretending to be the evil god of a splinter faction of your people so I could amass an army, duh" is a bit like "um what"
But with allll this said, I feel like this entire conflict with Balthazar is a miscommunication caused by a hot-headed, hot-tempered god going "Fuck this shit I'm sick of mortals" and a mortal going "NO FUCK U, YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD" without either side taking a moment to be like "Heyyyy maybe we should take a deep breath and talk about this a bit?"
Jennah and Anise being, if not Ilya and Lyss, at least having some connection to Lyssa was something I thought of as well. I think the in-game handwave of Jennah's power is that all human royalty have the potential of great magical feats, as they are all descendants of King Doric whose blood was used to reseal the Bloodstone after Abbadon released it's power though, and that might still be the case (Think Foefire).
That being said, I feel like much of Balthazar's reasons for being there and doing what he did is still something of an Outside Context Problem for us, and that we just saw one tiny glimpse into what the Six Gods have been doing in the centuries since the Elder Dragons woke up. One of his lines in the final mission makes me thing he might have been recently snubbed by the other gods (maybe he finally lost the Fissure of Woe to his brother Menzies and is ticked that the other Gods didn't do anything to help him? Or maybe... because he visited Tyria in person, which might have been a major no-no.) and that might have been why he was perfectly a-ok to possibly destroying Tyria in order to gain more power.
Hopefully, we aren't going to have to wait any longer than the upcoming xpac for ANET to explain what the bleep was going on. If Balthazar has noticed that not only are people still alive on Tyria, but have killed two of the Elder Dragons, I doubt that the other gods (especially Kormir) are going to sit back and refrain from meddling either.
I hope that not only does Kormir come back, but that she steals our thunder again. Just to spite the fans that hate her. Because I actually like her a lot.
I hope that not only does Kormir come back, but that she steals our thunder again. Just to spite the fans that hate her. Because I actually like her a lot.
Wait, people didn't like Kormir? Why not? I thought she was rad in GW1, myself (and I also think it's rad how she took up the mantle of godhood)
I hope that not only does Kormir come back, but that she steals our thunder again. Just to spite the fans that hate her. Because I actually like her a lot.
Wait, people didn't like Kormir? Why not? I thought she was rad in GW1, myself (and I also think it's rad how she took up the mantle of godhood)
basically it became a meme to hate Kormir because of this stupid video:
A minority of players were butthurt because the PC didn't get to go off and become a god (which is like... why. that's stupid, especially in an MMO) and because she was "useless" (no, she was out of combat so we didn't have to deal with failing missions 'cause she died).
But the video went viral, and it's used as a response to half a dozen things on the GW2 subreddit, to the point where I strongly suspect that the majority of "omg kormir suxxx!!!" people have never played GW1 and just parrot it because of the video.
... Though I do find "We're goin NORTH! to VABBI!" to be amusing.
I hope that not only does Kormir come back, but that she steals our thunder again. Just to spite the fans that hate her. Because I actually like her a lot.
Wait, people didn't like Kormir? Why not? I thought she was rad in GW1, myself (and I also think it's rad how she took up the mantle of godhood)
basically it became a meme to hate Kormir because of this stupid video:
A minority of players were butthurt because the PC didn't get to go off and become a god (which is like... why. that's stupid, especially in an MMO) and because she was "useless" (no, she was out of combat so we didn't have to deal with failing missions 'cause she died).
But the video went viral, and it's used as a response to half a dozen things on the GW2 subreddit, to the point where I strongly suspect that the majority of "omg kormir suxxx!!!" people have never played GW1 and just parrot it because of the video.
... Though I do find "We're goin NORTH! to VABBI!" to be amusing.
"Let's go to HELL and kill SATAN!" made me lol pretty damn hard
I dropped 5k Unbound Magic and picked up an Oakheart's Essence for our guild hall! I put it right before the bridge to the gathering nodes, so if you have the mastery pick it up and go all spiderman around the guildhall!
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
I was asked to move the oakheart essence since if you did not have the mastery it would pop up on your screen telling you to get it. So it is now off to the side of the bridge instead of right in the way to the nodes. Still easily accessible, just not right in the way.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
So I'd been trying to start the quest to restore Caladbolg. I got the first letter, talked to the Warden at the memorial, and got the note from Ridhais that told me to meet her in my home instance... only I couldn't find her there. Googled for other people having the same problem and eventually posted a bug report.
Long story short, I had no idea where the Norn home instance was. I'd been running right past it for literally years. If I hadn't looked it up, I don't think I'd have ever noticed there was a door there.
All this time I thought it was Whitebear's loft, because that was the only instance I could find in the main hall.
I'm... less annoyed with myself than with the game, I think? Because even now that I know where the entrance is, it makes no sense to me given the layout of the building.
I recently built my first gaming PC and I've been enjoying GW2 quite a bit. I made a Norn Ranger and I'm very happy with her so far. Ranger seems like a really noob-friendly class with the pet to tank for me.
What's another good class for soloing as a newbie? I tried Elementalist but she was super squishy and I hated running away. I'm playing Warrior now and she's fun with all the weapon choices, although there is a bit of overlap with the Ranger at times.
I recently built my first gaming PC and I've been enjoying GW2 quite a bit. I made a Norn Ranger and I'm very happy with her so far. Ranger seems like a really noob-friendly class with the pet to tank for me.
What's another good class for soloing as a newbie? I tried Elementalist but she was super squishy and I hated running away. I'm playing Warrior now and she's fun with all the weapon choices, although there is a bit of overlap with the Ranger at times.
I've long maintained that Ranger is one of the best classes to start with.
Warrior and Guardian are both pretty newbie-friendly, Warrior a bit more so. For casters, I feel that Necro is the most newbie friendly.
I recently built my first gaming PC and I've been enjoying GW2 quite a bit. I made a Norn Ranger and I'm very happy with her so far. Ranger seems like a really noob-friendly class with the pet to tank for me.
What's another good class for soloing as a newbie? I tried Elementalist but she was super squishy and I hated running away. I'm playing Warrior now and she's fun with all the weapon choices, although there is a bit of overlap with the Ranger at times.
Elementalist is a bit tough to get into without knowing what skills are good. You are quite squishy if anything actually lives long enough to hit you but you have a few skills that let you lay down damage fields while retreating.
Thief is in a similar boat of high damage high squish but has better armor and on demand blinds with an offhand pistol which goes a long way with durability. No class can really take repeated hits in GW2 so being able to negate enemy attacks is really handy.
Necro is very hardy despite being a light armor class. It has the same base health value as a warrior. While there are some good builds using condition damage and the scepter, while leveling up you'll ignore that in favor of stabbing things to death up close with a dagger in the main hand and a focus or warhorn in the off hand and minions as backup. They won't really tank for you since you're far more durable yourself but sometimes they might block a hit for you.
I'd really only say Mesmer and maybe Engineer are tough to level. Mesmer does crap damage even in the best of circumstances and the quick fights you tend to have leveling are not the best circumstances for a Mesmer's phantasms. Engineer isn't actually difficult to play and survive but it has so many abilities to swap between that trying to understand them all and why they're good or not while learning about the game mechanics in general are confusing and many players end up not really learning the class in favor of spamming a few abilities until 80 and suddenly finding themselves not particularly effective at the high end.
Thanks for the tips, I'll give Necro a shot. I'm super casual so I don't know that I'll make it to 80 on any class. I just want to explore.
Another question: do I need to stay in my race's starting zone or can I warp somewhere else to level?
You can go wherever you'd like to level! If you like another race's starting zone more, go for it! Use the asura gate in your home town to travel to Lion's Arch, and then use their gate hub to travel to any other racial city and check out their starting areas.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
Thanks for the tips, I'll give Necro a shot. I'm super casual so I don't know that I'll make it to 80 on any class. I just want to explore.
Another question: do I need to stay in my race's starting zone or can I warp somewhere else to level?
You can go wherever you'd like to level! If you like another race's starting zone more, go for it! Use the asura gate in your home town to travel to Lion's Arch, and then use their gate hub to travel to any other racial city and check out their starting areas.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
Thanks for the tips! I just started a Necro and I already love it! I warped to the Sylvari starting area and it's like a fresh new game again.
Engineer isn't actually difficult to play and survive but it has so many abilities to swap between that trying to understand them all and why they're good or not while learning about the game mechanics in general are confusing and many players end up not really learning the class in favor of spamming a few abilities until 80 and suddenly finding themselves not particularly effective at the high end.
Aw yiss, it's me, engineer first character to be a super baddy at max level
Actually: to start off I dumped points into turrets and some gun passives. There are...a lot of kits and elixirs. I know eventually we have everything, but are there any particularly good to pick up early either to help leveling or just to learn how/when to use before things are particularly hard?
Grenade Kit is strong, Bomb Kit and Flamethrower show up with it in many builds. Elixer S is a get-out-of-jail skill and Elixer Gun can be worthwhile support, as can Mortar Kit. Pistols are favored over the rifle.
Really, as long as you learn to make good use of your Healing Turret you'll be well off no matter what you're running. The trick is to double tap it so that the ability goes off after being dropped rather than potentially being animation locked later on, and either blowing it up in that water field for more healing or using another blast finisher and picking it up.
I enjoy using Elixer Gun a great deal as a support weapon and extra movement ability, with the reverse leap to compliment my Rocket Boots. Not a damage kit by any means but it does some work for me.
Thanks for the tips, I'll give Necro a shot. I'm super casual so I don't know that I'll make it to 80 on any class. I just want to explore.
Another question: do I need to stay in my race's starting zone or can I warp somewhere else to level?
You can go wherever you'd like to level! If you like another race's starting zone more, go for it! Use the asura gate in your home town to travel to Lion's Arch, and then use their gate hub to travel to any other racial city and check out their starting areas.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
As a F2P player I'm locked out of Lions Arch until level 35. But the game has 1 waypoint unlocked in each starting zone so you can still warp around to start leveling in a different area from your race. That's a nice feature!
Thanks for the tips, I'll give Necro a shot. I'm super casual so I don't know that I'll make it to 80 on any class. I just want to explore.
Another question: do I need to stay in my race's starting zone or can I warp somewhere else to level?
You can go wherever you'd like to level! If you like another race's starting zone more, go for it! Use the asura gate in your home town to travel to Lion's Arch, and then use their gate hub to travel to any other racial city and check out their starting areas.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
Thanks for the tips! I just started a Necro and I already love it! I warped to the Sylvari starting area and it's like a fresh new game again.
As a F2P player I'm locked out of Lions Arch until level 35. But the game has 1 waypoint unlocked in each starting zone so you can still warp around to start leveling in a different area from your race. That's a nice feature!
Ahh, I forgot about the f2p peeps being initially locked out of LA, oops! At least you had the starting area waypoints available, so there's that. The sylvari starting area is definitely my favorite, but then I'm biased as the sylvari are the best race in the game. There's a reason I have 4 sylvari characters! Their cultural armor is the best as well!
If you do your personal story you'll have to go back to your own starting area, unfortunately, but it's a fun story and takes you through a lot of the game's areas so it's a good thing to do while/for leveling. If you enjoy it and later consider getting the expansion, Heart of Thorns, I would also recommend dropping the cash on the Living World season 2 and 3 packs as well. 2 is a prelude to Heart of Thorns, and I when I came back to the game a few months ago I went through it, HoT, then season 3, and I thought it was all a ton of fun and really sets up the expansion well. Season 3 picks up right after HoT and is setting up whatever is going to happen in the next expansion, but it's not finished yet, and the expansion's not even officially announced yet so you have plenty of time to consider whether or not you want to pick any of it up. I will also add that LW season 2 & 3 and HoT are much higher quality than the base game areas since they've obviously had more time to get better at their craft and it really shows. [/shilling]
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
Engineer isn't actually difficult to play and survive but it has so many abilities to swap between that trying to understand them all and why they're good or not while learning about the game mechanics in general are confusing and many players end up not really learning the class in favor of spamming a few abilities until 80 and suddenly finding themselves not particularly effective at the high end.
Aw yiss, it's me, engineer first character to be a super baddy at max level
Actually: to start off I dumped points into turrets and some gun passives. There are...a lot of kits and elixirs. I know eventually we have everything, but are there any particularly good to pick up early either to help leveling or just to learn how/when to use before things are particularly hard?
goddess, I love engineer
it's probably my most favorite mmo class ever - it's hard to play anything else because I want to go back to engineer
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And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
Same here. I even got that one ancient magic mastery that adds a fifth downed skill and I've never had a chance to use it.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
Same here. I even got that one ancient magic mastery that adds a fifth downed skill and I've never had a chance to use it.
I know two! I think. One regens health on damage and the other is a fear?
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
Same here. I even got that one ancient magic mastery that adds a fifth downed skill and I've never had a chance to use it.
I know two! I think. One regens health on damage and the other is a fear?
Sadly, I know them well. I think part of my issue is that my exotic gear is more for a condition necro than what seems to be in vogue for power reapers. Well, something to work on.
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And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
Same here. I even got that one ancient magic mastery that adds a fifth downed skill and I've never had a chance to use it.
I know two! I think. One regens health on damage and the other is a fear?
The fear one actually gets a lot of use in high level fractals. Does wonders in negating the avenger ghost that spawns and would otherwise stomp you. The others . . .uh, got me there.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
Same here. I even got that one ancient magic mastery that adds a fifth downed skill and I've never had a chance to use it.
I know two! I think. One regens health on damage and the other is a fear?
Sadly, I know them well. I think part of my issue is that my exotic gear is more for a condition necro than what seems to be in vogue for power reapers. Well, something to work on.
For open world and low-level fractal stuff, yeah. High level fractals Condi Necros are the preferred, or at least they where the last time I was doing fractals seriously before the last balance tweaks. Some of it is holdover when toughness scaling made Condi builds the only thing worth bringing in 50+ fractals, but it's also because Scepter/Dagger Condition Reapers have much more flexibility to tweak their skills and traits for that fractal's bosses and instabilities with sacrificing DPS.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
Same here. I even got that one ancient magic mastery that adds a fifth downed skill and I've never had a chance to use it.
I know two! I think. One regens health on damage and the other is a fear?
The fear one actually gets a lot of use in high level fractals. Does wonders in negating the avenger ghost that spawns and would otherwise stomp you. The others . . .uh, got me there.
1 is a life drain channel that heals you and a rate slightly higher than the DoT you take while downed.
2 is a single target fear
3 is an AoE field centered on the target. I think it poisons and/or bleeds, but I'd have to look at the wiki to confirm, and that would be cheating.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
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Phantasmal Berserker: This skill now fires a boomerang projectile that inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerability for 3 seconds in addition to summoning a phantasm.
Phantasmal Swordsman: This skill now performs a sword strike in front of the player when summoning the phantasm. If the sword strike hits you and all Swordsmen currently summoned, gain 8 might for 10 seconds.
Phantasmal Warden: This skill now throws an illusionary axe at the target, which immobilizes for 2 seconds in addition to summoning a phantasm.
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I dunno if it was not telegraphed, I mean
Do find it kinda amusing that perhaps the only thing he said that was true as Lazarus was the first thing we ever heard him say, depending on what he meant by "their".
This would close a LOT of the plotholes introduced by Balthazar.
Balthazar had a mirror that Kasmeer identifies as being made by Lyssa herself. This would give a reason for Balthazar to have been at the Bloodstone -- the Queen & Anise must have known that the Mantle were up to something there, so they gave Balthazar the mirror to disguise himself and hide among the Mantle to spy for them. When they enacted the ritual, Balthazar took the opportunity to 1. regain a huge amount of his lost power, 2. Save Divinity's Reach (I imagine despite how cranky he is now he still has some interest in keeping humans around), and 3. Take on Lazarus' appearance so he could jumpstart an army by duping the White Mantle.
It also explains why Anise could be ancient (without her being Livia, interestingly... which means Livia may be elsewhere!) and, in addition to why Jennah is SO powerful, why she comes off as frankly kind of sinister. Of course Lyssa would want to consolidate her power/take it out of the hands of the Ministers, especially if she, like Balthazar, is trying desperately to get her power back.
Furthermore... why would Lyssa call back Logan to prevent Destiny's Edge from killing Kralkatorrick? There's two possibilities: either she already knows what Taimi knows re: elder dragon deaths seriously destabilizing Tyria, or she's hoping to keep Kralky around so she can absorb his power just like Balthazar was doing to Primordius (since Kralky seems to have dominion over most of the traditional Mesmer things). Or possibly both, like Balthazar -- she knows, but she doesn't care. And there's even a third possibility: "Jennah" really IS in love with Logan, and in truth couldn't bear the thought of him dying, so called him back to protect him. Which, again, it could also be all three of these things.
Basically, the Queen & Anise being Ilya and Lyss patches a whole bunch of big plot holes at the same time, so I really hope it's the case, because if it isn't, then the Balthazar thing kinda doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense
Also,
"ha HA! I was secretly the human god of war this whole time! You know, the one who genocided your people and drove you out of your homelands all those years ago? Basically the guy who kicked off the initial Charr-Human conflict in the first place? The one who drove your people to worship the Titans? And so who indirectly started your people's massive hatred for and distrust of gods?"
Charr: "... yeah it's pretty swell to meet you
so yeah it makes sense that charr characters are like A GOD!? HELL NO FUCK THAT SHIT HE'S OBV UP TO NO GOOD.
meanwhile at the very least:
Asura: gods are just another part of the alchemy and this guy is fucking with that alchemy AND ALSO OUR TECH
Sylvari: lol what's a god???????
Norn: human gods? who cares. im gonna wrassle him.
And even for humans like... the gods haven't been around for the past 300 years, so I can imagine some humans feeling a bit betrayed when one shows up. Like, where the fuck were you, buddy?
Plus the context of "Where was I? I was pretending to be the evil god of a splinter faction of your people so I could amass an army, duh" is a bit like "um what"
But with allll this said, I feel like this entire conflict with Balthazar is a miscommunication caused by a hot-headed, hot-tempered god going "Fuck this shit I'm sick of mortals" and a mortal going "NO FUCK U, YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD" without either side taking a moment to be like "Heyyyy maybe we should take a deep breath and talk about this a bit?"
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
That being said, I feel like much of Balthazar's reasons for being there and doing what he did is still something of an Outside Context Problem for us, and that we just saw one tiny glimpse into what the Six Gods have been doing in the centuries since the Elder Dragons woke up. One of his lines in the final mission makes me thing he might have been recently snubbed by the other gods (maybe he finally lost the Fissure of Woe to his brother Menzies and is ticked that the other Gods didn't do anything to help him? Or maybe... because he visited Tyria in person, which might have been a major no-no.) and that might have been why he was perfectly a-ok to possibly destroying Tyria in order to gain more power.
Hopefully, we aren't going to have to wait any longer than the upcoming xpac for ANET to explain what the bleep was going on. If Balthazar has noticed that not only are people still alive on Tyria, but have killed two of the Elder Dragons, I doubt that the other gods (especially Kormir) are going to sit back and refrain from meddling either.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
A minority of players were butthurt because the PC didn't get to go off and become a god (which is like... why. that's stupid, especially in an MMO) and because she was "useless" (no, she was out of combat so we didn't have to deal with failing missions 'cause she died).
But the video went viral, and it's used as a response to half a dozen things on the GW2 subreddit, to the point where I strongly suspect that the majority of "omg kormir suxxx!!!" people have never played GW1 and just parrot it because of the video.
... Though I do find "We're goin NORTH! to VABBI!" to be amusing.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Never again will Divinity's Reach lack for horse meat and our Engineers are flush with glue.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Gosh, that was funny.
Long story short, I had no idea where the Norn home instance was. I'd been running right past it for literally years. If I hadn't looked it up, I don't think I'd have ever noticed there was a door there.
All this time I thought it was Whitebear's loft, because that was the only instance I could find in the main hall.
I'm... less annoyed with myself than with the game, I think? Because even now that I know where the entrance is, it makes no sense to me given the layout of the building.
I went from 5 gold to 266 gold within the space of like an hour. I guess hoarding crafting mats for years paid off
(chris cleary gave them gold and another quip for it)
(kapwing! honk honk honk!)
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
What's another good class for soloing as a newbie? I tried Elementalist but she was super squishy and I hated running away. I'm playing Warrior now and she's fun with all the weapon choices, although there is a bit of overlap with the Ranger at times.
Dubh.6359
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I've long maintained that Ranger is one of the best classes to start with.
Warrior and Guardian are both pretty newbie-friendly, Warrior a bit more so. For casters, I feel that Necro is the most newbie friendly.
Guardian and Necrodancer are both super tanky in their own ways. Guardian can no-sell for days, Necro has an on demand second life bar and pets.
Elementalist is a bit tough to get into without knowing what skills are good. You are quite squishy if anything actually lives long enough to hit you but you have a few skills that let you lay down damage fields while retreating.
Thief is in a similar boat of high damage high squish but has better armor and on demand blinds with an offhand pistol which goes a long way with durability. No class can really take repeated hits in GW2 so being able to negate enemy attacks is really handy.
Necro is very hardy despite being a light armor class. It has the same base health value as a warrior. While there are some good builds using condition damage and the scepter, while leveling up you'll ignore that in favor of stabbing things to death up close with a dagger in the main hand and a focus or warhorn in the off hand and minions as backup. They won't really tank for you since you're far more durable yourself but sometimes they might block a hit for you.
I'd really only say Mesmer and maybe Engineer are tough to level. Mesmer does crap damage even in the best of circumstances and the quick fights you tend to have leveling are not the best circumstances for a Mesmer's phantasms. Engineer isn't actually difficult to play and survive but it has so many abilities to swap between that trying to understand them all and why they're good or not while learning about the game mechanics in general are confusing and many players end up not really learning the class in favor of spamming a few abilities until 80 and suddenly finding themselves not particularly effective at the high end.
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Sent you a guild invite @Dubh
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Another question: do I need to stay in my race's starting zone or can I warp somewhere else to level?
You can go wherever you'd like to level! If you like another race's starting zone more, go for it! Use the asura gate in your home town to travel to Lion's Arch, and then use their gate hub to travel to any other racial city and check out their starting areas.
And necro is da coolest class in the game. You might think you're a squishy caster, but you're actually really freakin tough. With your regular healing, life steal, and your second life bar (your life force bar that lets you use your shroud), it can be tough for the enemies to keep you down.
Thanks for the tips! I just started a Necro and I already love it! I warped to the Sylvari starting area and it's like a fresh new game again.
Aw yiss, it's me, engineer first character to be a super baddy at max level
Actually: to start off I dumped points into turrets and some gun passives. There are...a lot of kits and elixirs. I know eventually we have everything, but are there any particularly good to pick up early either to help leveling or just to learn how/when to use before things are particularly hard?
Really, as long as you learn to make good use of your Healing Turret you'll be well off no matter what you're running. The trick is to double tap it so that the ability goes off after being dropped rather than potentially being animation locked later on, and either blowing it up in that water field for more healing or using another blast finisher and picking it up.
I enjoy using Elixer Gun a great deal as a support weapon and extra movement ability, with the reverse leap to compliment my Rocket Boots. Not a damage kit by any means but it does some work for me.
As a F2P player I'm locked out of Lions Arch until level 35. But the game has 1 waypoint unlocked in each starting zone so you can still warp around to start leveling in a different area from your race. That's a nice feature!
Ahh, I forgot about the f2p peeps being initially locked out of LA, oops! At least you had the starting area waypoints available, so there's that. The sylvari starting area is definitely my favorite, but then I'm biased as the sylvari are the best race in the game. There's a reason I have 4 sylvari characters! Their cultural armor is the best as well!
If you do your personal story you'll have to go back to your own starting area, unfortunately, but it's a fun story and takes you through a lot of the game's areas so it's a good thing to do while/for leveling. If you enjoy it and later consider getting the expansion, Heart of Thorns, I would also recommend dropping the cash on the Living World season 2 and 3 packs as well. 2 is a prelude to Heart of Thorns, and I when I came back to the game a few months ago I went through it, HoT, then season 3, and I thought it was all a ton of fun and really sets up the expansion well. Season 3 picks up right after HoT and is setting up whatever is going to happen in the next expansion, but it's not finished yet, and the expansion's not even officially announced yet so you have plenty of time to consider whether or not you want to pick any of it up. I will also add that LW season 2 & 3 and HoT are much higher quality than the base game areas since they've obviously had more time to get better at their craft and it really shows. [/shilling]
I have a friend who plays necro and doesn't know what most of his downed skills do, since he sees them so infrequently.
goddess, I love engineer
it's probably my most favorite mmo class ever - it's hard to play anything else because I want to go back to engineer
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Same here. I even got that one ancient magic mastery that adds a fifth downed skill and I've never had a chance to use it.
I know two! I think. One regens health on damage and the other is a fear?
Sadly, I know them well. I think part of my issue is that my exotic gear is more for a condition necro than what seems to be in vogue for power reapers. Well, something to work on.
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The fear one actually gets a lot of use in high level fractals. Does wonders in negating the avenger ghost that spawns and would otherwise stomp you. The others . . .uh, got me there.
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For open world and low-level fractal stuff, yeah. High level fractals Condi Necros are the preferred, or at least they where the last time I was doing fractals seriously before the last balance tweaks. Some of it is holdover when toughness scaling made Condi builds the only thing worth bringing in 50+ fractals, but it's also because Scepter/Dagger Condition Reapers have much more flexibility to tweak their skills and traits for that fractal's bosses and instabilities with sacrificing DPS.
1 is a life drain channel that heals you and a rate slightly higher than the DoT you take while downed.
2 is a single target fear
3 is an AoE field centered on the target. I think it poisons and/or bleeds, but I'd have to look at the wiki to confirm, and that would be cheating.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
:O