I think the utter happiness and fanboy geekout mode has pretty much hit it's peak on this one. I'll be back with more such story videos soon enough where we take a *much* closer look at how things are handled - good and bad! Two mount spotlights and my final VoD to go. Sooo yeah, what did we think about this one?
I think it explains why the Gods left Tyria in Kormir's Library. If you read her journal, it mentions how the Gods recognize that Tyria is doomed (I forget the exact words). Pretty much they see no hope in saving Tyria, so they leave. I loved the library and reading all of the books.
Id been watching the map explorations as an ex player and getting those heavy GW1 fanboi vibes buzzing. But a minute into this I cant do it anymore, expansion bought, video paused, game downloading :D
Also I think someone about how them trying to fight the Elder dragons and each other would simply destroy the world faster? Abbadon being an example. Still a bit of a cop out but I'm satisfied with the answer. I do hope we see more of the gods later, go back into the mists and figure out why Balthazar cursed every god BUT Lyssa, which adds to the strangeness of how he got her mirror.
Kormir does mention how the Gods refuse to fight one another and how they refuse to fight the Elder Dragons because they know of the destruction it would bring to the world.
I think the part where Balthazar kills us was one of the highest points in the story for me. Balthazar KILLS us, it is the FIRST time in GW2 where an enemy talks about how they could easily crush us, and he DOES IT, just, plays with us, and right before we kill him, he just takes us out! Labeling us as a Lost Spirit till we get our name was a really nice flavorful touch, the recap in the Underworld of our story actually kind of... inspired me? Like it got me immersed in the idea that I am THE Commander, and a badass. I think having the Judge explain that he can't just bring us back to life, but by killing the Soul Eater we could absorb that light to reanimate was a good way to explain that we can't just keep coming back. I also REALLY liked The Judge being portrayed not as some angry spirit that is common with the realm of death, but being shown as a very caring Shepard of souls that was there to care for the dead.
Not only was it a high point, it was a freaking critical part of the ongoing story in LWS4, especially as a human character. Joko gets his hands on the Scarab Plague, but as it turns out the plague only affects humans. So how does the human Commander combat against the Scarab Plague? Well, the scarabs don’t like the scent of death, and because Balthazar killed the Commander, the human Commander is also immune to the Scarab Plague. It was brilliant storytelling.
Not sure if you heard or saw, but in the "death" instance, the game automatically puts you in offline mode so people can't whisper you while you are still dead!
Scarlette Atticus I tried to whisper someone when I was in regular game and that person was in the instance still dead and I couldn't. They didn't change to offline manually
At the end, just before he dies, Balthazar curses the other gods one by one: Dwayna, Melandru, Grenth and Kormir. He never mentions Lyssa. And after we learned that he has her mirror too...
From what I remember Kormir said they all stood against Balthazar, "even Lyssa", which doesn't mean she necessarily sided with him, maybe she was just reluctant.
Some things that stood out for me in the main story: 1. In the instance where Vlast dies, the line where the Commander begs him to stop: If you're playing as a human who was blessed by Balthazar you mention he blessed you when you were a baby and you served him your whole life. That was a nice touch! 2. It really upset me that the God's left. Kormir mentions that if the Gods stayed it would lead to conflict with the Elder Dragons, but they weren't on Tyria; they were in the Mists and had left all humanity wondering where they were for years. If they loved Humans so much then why did they just leave, without explaining the situation to the Millions of people worshiping them in Tyria? Now that they are gone, will all the shrines stop providing blessings? In Kormir's journal she says that Tyria is doomed and there are more important things happening in other "worlds", what could be so important that they left all their people? No explanation there. 3. I loved that you almost died in Act 1 and actually died in Act 2, think it reinforced the fact that you were fighting someone who was vastly stronger than you. I think Balthazar was a good villain; he represented perfectly his role within the God's: Fire, War and Challenge. 4. Kormir said that he is no longer "ONE OF THE 6", so who replaced him?? (slightly contradicting above statement there) 5. I don't fully understand how he used Aurene to try kill Kralky; According to the Forgotten Kralky's weakness is that all his creations are linked back to him, thus making him vulnerable through the branded. As Vlast and Aurene were basically the children of a former Branded, do they resonate at the same frequency as Kralky, allowing the War Beast to hurt it? 5. I also loved the way they used Joko. 6. I don't know if Kralky destroyed Amnoon, or if the storm was just due to him moving. I think he flew west; if he had flown East then the devs would have added more on the East of the world map. Interestingly though there is a NPC you need to talk to in the Brand Storm regarding the Griffon collection that says Kralky has just "flown off somewhere". 7. I noticed in the final little clip of Aurene she is a different colour; has Kralky turned her? It could be an interesting story arc finding that out and having to use the same forgotten ritual on Aurene that turned Glint. 8. I was surprised to find many little references to Cantha, and interestingly the final verse of your speech (playing as a human) you mention how all humans; Tyrian, Elonian and Canthan can accomplish anything together. 9. In the Epilogue If you speak to Rytlock after Canach he gets salty that you spoke to Canach before him, and even more upset if you come to him last. I loved that!! 10. I absolutely adored all the dialog both in and out of the story. It made the entire world feel alive and lived in! My favorite piece of dialog is at the party where a noble won't stop complaining about Sand Sharks. Other Npc's will praise you and this noble will downplay your killing a GOD and say the real problems are sand sharks, how someone needs to deal with them.
I think Balthazar can represent those players who didn't buy Kormir's BS about Gods being unable to do anything about dragons. Like, they can do it, they just don't want to, that's it. And even more, Kormir is talking about casualties, but it sounds like they don't want to actually try harder and do the damn thing, while making sure those "casualties" are at minimal level. I mean, FFS, there always be casualties with or without Gods. Heck, look at our PC. Also, yeah, I'm pretty sure Kralk didn't hit Amnoon at all. And that dialogue about sand sharks reminded me of Morrowind's cliff racers so much... looks like we need our own Jiub in GW2. xD
2. It's possible Elder Dragons can tap into the Mists, I think Jormag is the case, cause his Svanir used Mists Portals many times. Also the war between the ED and Gods would cause alot of the planet's destruction so that it wouldn't be inhabitable anymore. 4. Either it's Menzies or they are holding his power for now until someone worthy of it comes around. 5. Glint was initially a creation of Kralkatorrik and her kids were Vlast and Aurene, which means they could both be used to kill Kralkatorrik. Balthazar initially had plans to use Vlast, but he accidentaly killed him when he took the hit for us the Commander. 6. I think the storm was visible in Amnoon, while he was actually flying somewhere else. But if he did fly over Amnoon, I'm not sure what would happen to Dragon's Watch. 7. I think Aurene still looks green/blue though? 8. The speech mentioning Tyrians, Elonians and Canthan is used by all races - Tyrians are also non-humans. 9. Rytlock asked me if I went to anyone before him and I said ''Really?.....'' (and yes, I did not visit others first.)
@g0os1e RE: Your second point. I was under the impression the Gods left because they considered the world doomed. They couldn't stop the Elder Dragon "cycle" without irreparably damaging Tyria. And the Elder Dragon Cycle kinda messes everything up. Especially now that Humans have reached a point where they could combat AND kill a Dragon. They may love humans, but at the end of the day the feeling I got is that WE got ourselves in to this problem. The gods CANT fix it, not without screwing everything up. And so they are writing this little Tyria Ant Colony off as a failure and moving on to another one (Is there any indication that there aren't humans on other planets in the GW-verse?). I know the gods like Humans and all, but they are really other-worldly entities... would you try and tell a jar of sea monkeys that you are leaving them behind? Or would you think they were beneath that action? It's a bit of a stretch of an analogy I realize but it's not THAT far off base! Balthazzar though, being an avatar of war (and seemingly rage too!), was too proud to run from a fight I guess? No way is he going to let this Dragon thing make him turn tail and run, he doesn't care if he has to destroy the Ant Colony to do it, he wants to win. From a player perspective I'm glad the gods are gone. Never meet your heroes and all that. I think that the Gods were amazing when they were figures of Mythology. But to have them be full on helping humanity and becoming big movers in the story would fall in to the trap of "why can't we just have them do everything?". Would the Heroes still be Heroes if the gods were giving us gifts and solving our problems for us? Otherwise, I agree with all of your points. I loved the Joko stuff, I am really excited about the possibility of exploring more of his rule and obvious return (since Balthazzar's prison I would imagine is gone with his death). I'm far far more interested in what's gonna happen with him than I am Kralky at this point.
Something I took away from the relationship between Sohothin and Balthazar was when Balthazar was chained up by the other gods they also took away his DIVINITY. So when he re-lights Sohothin that is some of his of the last divine power. What we face in Path of Fire is an incredibly weak Balthazar who had to absorb the power of the bloodstone to be a threat. Remember when we go to the library Kormirs very existence is enough to stun and perma blind us, and she is not even hostile. So that is my theory and understanding of how the 1v1 fight was able to work.
Matt Lennon I think it's because the bloodstone wasn't enough power to level that of a divine being. It was just enough to grant him strenth and cause havoc. Otherwise balthy could've blinded and stunned us too in the 1v1 fight if he was back at divine power level or even need a machine to fight an elder dragon
I think they should have expanded on Balthazar's rage. He's a "cartoon villain" because he's freaking PISSED. He's lost everything. His realm, his power, even Lyssa; I'm pretty sure he was in love with her. Then, he was trapped in the mists, chained down like a common human criminal. That is a lot of loss and humiliation for a GOD.
Now that you mention this, I remember one of Balthazar's lines where he shouts all the other gods names, accusing them of betrayal (if I'm not mistaken this might be during the final battle). What I found interesting was that he never listed Lyssa there, only the other 4... it might have to do with what you said, who knows...?
If you wait around before killing Balthazar with Aurene, he cries out to all of the gods... except Lyssa. He doesn't blame her for his demise. Also Kormir says that Lyssa laughed at her for staying behind longer. And they still didn't explain why Balthazar had Lyssa's mirror!! Future story? Did Balthazar have an ally amongst the gods? I thought that was the coolest implication of the story.
When you get the sword, skill 2 (at least), is class specific! My mesmer/mirage had a skill that summoned 3 swordsmen, blinked a little and had distortion or so. And for this ONE instance, no? I mean, thats detail and care. So good.
WP!! In relation to 24:31, in that recap of the story while you're dead, you actually see the scene of your mentor's death! Not merely the dialogue they had with you, but you actually see them and the last couple of lionguards around them, being charged at by risen and Blightghast. That was one of the highpoints of the story for me and considering your character was new I don't know if you got to have that. Seeing Sierran die again proper traumatized me, and I imagine seeing Tybalt would have done the same to you :D
It was a bit funny how casual the team was about the commanders death. They didn't show a lot of emotion towards the commander coming back to life. By the way, does dying complete and invalidate the Shining Blade death pact? Asking for a friend. Also what the hell Rytlock, Sohothin is OP and you never used it like that.
I was pissed at the team's reactions TBH, especially after that BS soul eating beast fight. Like...you telling me yall didn't cry? Not even a little? Not even you, Kasmeer? Rytlock? Canach? do yall even care about the Commander personally, and not just as a leader to help you win the war against the dragons (and Balthazar) :( I also think the Shining Blade death pact was invalidated. I doubt the Commander will have a reason to test it, but they don't seem like the type to have anything so permanent holding them back.
Actually Kasmeer was kneeling on you and crying like a baby. Rytlock and Canach aren't all that "emotion" packed so it's justifiable. I guess their reaction was one of that they had so many emotions running that atleast Kasmeer froze in awe. TBH I'd be paralyzed if I was weeping for somebody and suddenly that somebody comes back alive. Specially when the player dismisses what happened in purgatory and gets right back to action. Also Rytlock let's his emotional side slip for a seccond.
I know that Sohothin was already a "divine weapon" of sorts, but when Balthazar reignited the sword was the fire part of his soul? Also Balthazar's motives were clearer to me than they were for you. To me i gathered that Balthazar was the only God that wanted to kill the Elder Dragons, and the other Gods not wanting to fight he saw as a betrayal. We got another tiny detail as well in regards to the mists and "placement" of Tyria. If you do the Griffin mission you see Kormir's realm after she left, it begins to fall apart as Abbadon's influence comes back. This tells us that the mists we know are attached to Tyria. My theory is this: Tyria is a planet like a bit of cereal in a bowl of milk. The bits of cereal are the planets, the mists being the milk so the gods simply jumped to another frosted flake.
Oh interesting, I think thats why they want to get over with the elder dragons, after them they will Focus on the gods and the future of the World after that prob
40 minutes was very short for a video like this from him. xD I definitely expected a 1.5 hour video, with the first ten minutes just being "AHHH GUYS THIS STORY IT WAS SO GOOD I DID EVERYTHING I WANTED" kind of geekout lol.
I was playing with a new player that I got the expansion for so they could play with me. Their reaction to dying in the story was pretty funny to me because it is a bit confusing. "I've died so many times and I've never seen this place! How does this make any sense?"
what I understood was that the gods left because if they stayed in tyria there would be an unavoidable conflict with the dragons and that would fuck tyria up. same reason why they fought with balthazar because he wanted to stay.
That's true, but they're leaving more than just Tyria. Tyria is just the world we live in. They're leaving the Mists as well! THAT'S a big deal, since it'd been clear the gods had left Tyria FOR the Mists (hence why Kormir was there), but now they're leaving that too?? And where are they going then?
There's some interesting hints about them having some other business elsewhere in the achievement books. However i do think the explanation of why they were silent since the end of gw1 (abaddon's death triggering latest elder dragon cycle and them appearing on tyria triggering a war between gods and dragons that would be unwinnable for tyria) was pretty important. Not only that, it felt pretty intuitive as well after learning that we couldn't kill more dragons
I think it went a little further than just "unavoidable conflict"; I think they decided that Tyria was just doomed in general and their being there would only speed things up. They just said "screw it" and took off for some other world as a result. I could just be mis-remembering the instance though.
@melimsah I don't think we know enough of the mist they might be just going to a place in the mists that is not connected to tyria? but you propose something rather interesting, a place beyond the mists! what could this be? it's like meta afterlife lol
And here it goes. I'm prepared for all the mistakes the developers did storytelling and lore wise that WP is going to point out thus destroying my love for the story :c What I REALLY loved about the story were the scales of everything. Like Kralky is so damn huge and when he flies over us in the end the entire sky is covered and holy fuck, that was amazing! And the boss fights were pretty amazing and challenging :D
What I got from the Kormir instance is that the gods and dragons are very close in terms of power. They left because they knew a conflict of that size could very well destroy (or at least greatly destabilize) all of Tyria. I also think they felt a sense of guilt as Kormir said because they realized they were the ones who sparked this cycle of dragon awakenings when Abbadon's magic was set loose. Maybe there was even a sense of fear--if the gods and dragon are similar on a power scale, with dragons just getting stronger as they absorb excess magic, perhaps the gods were afraid of dying in a conflict against the dragons. While I agree the gods maybe could've done more to help us figure out how to deal with what is going on, I think they also showed very human emotions in their complex situation, which is fitting.
DelDel that and using the sword(can't pronounce it so I'm not even going to bother) I mean the damn animations and effect on the thing I also loved the final boss fight especially when you compare that too zhaitan
The Spear - Surprised you didn't mention this one. I was with Rytlock when he said that destroying it is a bad idea. It's not like we can use it to kill Big K, but this could have been a really important ace up our sleeves and now it's dust. Being dead - Lots of people from what I saw on Reddit had a problem with the boss in that instance, the Eater of Souls. Showing screenshots of being naked cause their armor broke. I didn't have any problems with him, so I was a bit surprised. People also had a problem with finding their weapons because there's no marker and you have to look through several boxes. I, just like you, liked having no markers, no minimap. I was lost and confused and IT WAS GREAT! It really enforced that part of the story. Minion Mancer mission - This mission was pretty much like playing the game Overlord. And that game was kind of a dark take on Pikmin. Look up a gameplay video from Overlord for a few minutes. I also really liked this mission cause Overlord was cool :P PS: Now you have to do the Griffon. There is actually a surprising amount of story in it. You'll like it :P
I feel that having one added instance with Vlast so we have some level of interaction with him before he sacrifices himself for us. It also would have let them set up Kesho much better, by having Vlast give us the info we need to find it, rather than having us be magic archeologists who can find ancient lost cities in a single day of talking to random people.
True though if not it would be east though I'm not sure what's east that a Dragon would be interested in. I'll also need to check again ingame to see if I can recognise any landmarks
Hey WP! I just wanted to say that I agree with you on not understanding why the Gods left... Kormir tells us that the Gods don't want to mendle because last time they did there were desastrous consequences for the living, but... if they don't help us, giving the fact that we have no idea how to defeat Balthazar, and even less the Elder Dragons, aren't they leaving us to a very probable extinction anyway...? And the way she told us we have to seek for the "thing" that will help us in the fight was ridiculous...! She knew what it was, yet she didn't tell us anything... it's like she wants us dead or something. We litterally went out of the mist more confused than before entering; "now, we know we have to find something to beat Balthazar". That... that was almost parodic.
From what I understood from Kormir told in the library, the human gods abandoned Tyria because of the Elder Dragons. The dragons feed on magic, and the gods are quite magical. Didn't Kormir say that a confrontation between the gods and the dragons would have been inevitable, and would lead to at least another great extinction of sentient races but probably even the destruction of Tyria? The gods could not find a way to defeat the Elder Dragons and save Tyria at the same time, so they retreated into the mists. It sounded harsh when they said that the humans are on their own, but the human gods coming back to help would only make things even worse.
hardy83 You have to do the majority of the post-story quest before you can get there, including spending 250 gold. After that you'll be told to go back there.
Actually, I found Balthazar's development very interesting. All the gods considered fighting the elder dragons- but all of them except Balthazar chose not to. Mostly because it would probably destroy Tyria. Balthazar saw it as cowardliness on the god's part, because you know, he's the god of war. He didn't want to back down! he would do it on his own! and the others were like no! and he was like FINE I'll declare war on you too! And what started out as a noble endeavor turned into bitter revenge for imprisonment. Also that last boss fight with him and Kral.....I literally almost passed out haha
I have to admit, which will make me sound stupid, maybe. I had sympathy for Balthazar. He was the only god who wanted to fight the Elder Dragons and running wasn't his thing. Yes, he was a Prideful twit who went about it in simple terms,"Kill it and take its power! YEAH!" but, I honestly believe that if the Human gods stuck around and planned out their strategy with/through humanity, Pact, or whoever they would succeeded. Now, i'm wondering if at all the gods will return to help and in some way and all the while ask for forgiveness from the Human race for their abandonment.
There's one big problem with quoting Sothothin as the way we were able to kill Balthazar. The "Who needs a magic sword?" achivement. You can kill him without it!
you didnt pick up anything from the kesho instance? i loved that it explained the forged... theyre basically fucked up exalted; balthazar learned how the forgotten made the exalted whilst hunting down vlast and found he could manufacture an army with relative ease
Oh finally, was been waiting for this. I FREAKING LOVE THE DAMN STORY, EVERY BEAT ON POINT, ALL THE LACKLUSTER HOT STORY AVOIDED. ANET REDEEMED THEMSELVES.
I was totally happy with the death story. I enjoyed following our purpose and seeing all the people and our past. Literally the ONLY issue I had was when we come back I feel like maybe our guild should have been a little more upset? Lol I was a little peeved that Kasmeer wasn't crying.
My reactions were very mixed bag: 1.) My character, a Guardian, was blessed by Balthazar upon creation. A small reference to this choice would have been very nice when one considers the dilemma I certainly felt when taking on Balthazar. Having finished to story and slain him, I feel an emptiness within me that I had hoped would be reflected in my character. 2.) The throwbacks to the Crystal Desert of old was absolutely sublime. Many times I felt like I was running around a HD version of the original Guild Wars, right down to the teleporters! I could not believe they had returned! 3.) Despite my initial awe and feeling of being "God struck" upon seeing Kormir in The Sanctum, I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed when it was revealed that the God had left completely. For humans, the Gods are staples in their lives, offering thanks and tribute to them. To have them revealed as retreating from the world entirely is a touch saddening, although it was saved in a small way by having Kormir reveal to us that we have the blessings of each of the Gods for the coming struggle against Balthazar. 4.) The way the story ended was brilliant. I am looking forward to seeing how ArenaNet are going to tackle Aurene's growth and how Balthazar's magic, so seeped in malice, will affect her temperament. Will her bond with us help maintain her sanity like her brother Vlast? Or will Balthazar's magic, combined with Kralkatorrik's influence, turn her in an enemy? I limited myself to 4 points. I have so much more I could say but I want to keep this comment short and sweet. I am pleased to hear that you had such a great time and I cannot wait for your ever-interesting analysis on each act. Stay awesome WP.
WP!! What was your reaction to one of the story missions where you and your party disguise themselves as awakened and Rytlock makes the comment to Kasmeer, "You're worse than Elementalists.. er, no offense Commander."?? I haven't personally gotten to this part of the story on any other profession, but how cool was that? I loved that they had one of the other party members acknowledge the player character like that, it felt so authentic to me. I hope you reply, I'm curious about what you thought of this moment :D
if you look closely at the finishing cutscene with kralkatoric flying off, it is defnetly NOT the Amnoon Oasis he is flying over. he starts in vabi at the basar of kodash (you see the specific towers there and already branded crystals. and then he flys over ruins deeper into the desert.
Since I was playing as a human, I could not resist the temptation of doing the nastiest thing at the end. When he was less than 5% health, I let Balthazar to be killed by his own hounds. ^^
I quite enjoyed the story, one of my main hopes now is that we see the effect that Balthazar's death on the Forged and Zaishen. It seems every time a big bad dies we never hear from their faction again; the Mordrem are going insane offscreen, the Aetherblades went into the Mists, and all of the White Mantle are dead I guess. The only faction we've seen since their boss was killed is the Risen, which while interesting was just turning zombies with a leader into mindless zombies, unlike Balth's guys that all had some degree of free will if the Herald was anything to go by. On a completely unrelated note, I really hope at some point we get a properly difficult Balthazar fight. They could easily set a raid in something like a simulation or have a Fractal-esque fight where you fight Balthazar again but without stuff like Sohothin that evened the field the first time, that way the hardcore players get a proper fight and the casuals don't miss out on the main story.
Isn't it just their memories that return to the Dream? There's space there for Sylvari to have a spirit that's independent of what goes back to the Dream.
Small detail that I loved. If you deliver a somber speech at the end of the epilogue, the councilwoman says something to the effect of that the party was a mistake and, "Please, at least take some hummus." And I don't know why the line about hummus just tickles me endlessly. It's so incongruous with everything else going on. I love it!
Also we built up an army in a mesmerising disguise ... which was also balthazar's tactic when he returned from the mists like parerels to how we returned from the dead
Wp! Kormir explains that because Balthazar lit the sword sohothin, because it was a part of him, it could kill him. Just as the spear to kill kralkatorik was made of his blood
It would be great to be able to chose whether you're in normal Amnoon or branded Amnoon in season 4. Anet pretty much stoped to bring large scale transformations to existing maps after season 1 because it means that all the previous content is changed for ever. Now with different versions of the same map they could bring back the idea of a changing world without erasing what they have done before. It would be an easy way to deliver big expansion sized maps in season 4 by just transforming a map that already exists. Going back and forth between two versions of the same map could also be a nice technology to bring back season 1.
About the last instance, not sure if you know yet, but you can freely swap between your standard build and sohothin. If you weapon swap when wielding it you gaina special action key to re-equip it
The presentation of the story definitely was better this time around. I love how the sun is so bright after you come back from the dead to emphasize the difference between those two states of being, which seems to be the main theme of PoF. There are the awakened who are dead, living beside the vabbians, there are many lost dead cultures out in the desert, and killing elder dragons seems to be a sure way to our own death. It shows an inevitability of death and really makes the conflict of the elder dragon balancing act that much more tense.
Thank you so much! I randomly decided to re-watch the original GW1 playthroughs (good times, loved them), saw your latest vids on the new expansion (which i had no idea was coming) - started playing again a few days before the expansion released, now i've bought both expansions (mount envy) and am slogging my way through the whole game with brand new characters (shiny new revenant class!). Having so much fun with the return to the game and seeing whats new! So much to catch up on - what happened to LA? when did they fix the under construction area of DR? Canthan district would have been better :P Now we're 2 elder dragons down, a baby dragon ally and were fighting Balthazar? seriously, what did i miss!? Really looking forward to seeing the crystal desert, especially Vabbi (Nightfall was my first GW game). Your bright bubbly enthusiasm has always been enough to capture my interest and im having tons of fun! I'm sure Anet appreciates the £43 too :P keep em coming :)
I absolutely loved the story and delivery of it - I've very rarely felt SO engaged and taking my time as in sections like the Library / Mists / Vlast's death / and some of the bigger fights! :) Also enjoying the PoF maps so much, I seem to take much more time to explore them and find them more intriguing then before ^^
Two things I think you missed with Sohotin (probably mentioned already but I'm not reading 400 comments to find out): You can unequip Sohotin and go back to your regular build with the drop bundle key. Then you get a special action to draw it. Different classes get different skills when using Sohotin. Not all of them, but I think the 2 and 3, maybe just the 2, vary based on your class. I found that that was super cool. We always see NPCs do super charged class abilities in story instance, like Marjory's exploding minions in season 2, or the permanent guardian bubbles every single time a guardian shows up anywhere. Giving out character a super-powered class ability felt great.
I really really love seeing your videos after I've finished the maps and stories as well. Especially for the story it's sort of a post mortem for me. To again reiterate all I've been through and experienced and also catch some things that I might have missed. I also thought the story of POF was exceptionally good and well written, it was only after I finished it that it occurred to me the story itself was actually quite basic. But in the end it doesn't matter because I had a really awesome and fun time and enjoyed every moment of it. Speaking about some of the last things you said, yesss the party at the end was awesome. Every expansion of the original Guild Wars had a party in the end and so I really liked seeing that. And the speech, an absolute highlight. I think I actually got the best choices coincidentally. Started vague, Canach saying "Good start", then speaking the truth about Kralkatorrik being supercharged now with people getting scared and Rytlock saying "You're all welcome by the way" and then I ended with upbeat. So after telling everyone how screwed they are I ended with "So by all means, eat, drink, party" blablabla. And one of the guys in the crowd was like "But didn't you just say...." and after you completely finished the speech "So are we safe now or.... " I actually laughed out loud there. The only thing I couldn't quite imagine even after seeing the name of the last story instance is that we were actually going to kill Balthazar. He was such an important and prominent part of the franchise since Prophecies and I always imagined it would end in some different and more unexpected way. But of course we've killed another god before and also fought Dhuum in the Underworld so I guess even though they're praised throughout Tyria by all humans the gods are still exchangeable or even disposable. Still though thinking back to all the Zaishen on the Battle Isles and stuff, thinking that Balthazar is gone just like that, it's definitely gonna be interesting to see how Anet is going to deal with it.
I honestly thought the story would end on a cliffhanger, until Season 4. I'm incredibly happy that it didn't. I laughed with the story, I cried with the story, I screamed at my monitor, and I thought the bit where we died was so cool!!!!! I've never played the original Guild Wars, so that part was a complete shock to me! Best story ever!!! I wanted to pace myself, try not to rush through everything, but the story kept leaving me wanting more and more. I can't wait until season 4!!! I love the story, but I don't think I've ever been THIS excited for the story. Gorgeous maps, excellent writing (I loved the comedic dialogue from Rytlock, Canach, and as always Taimi), and all around a lot of fun. I was shocked, sad, and angry about Vlast's quick appearance and demise, but it was so good! I could talk about how much I loved it all day long. lol I was really surprised to see Kralkatorrik as well! Edit: Argh! And my heart melted when we listened to Vlast talking about his life, and to Aurene! Hit me right in the feels. Tears for days! lol And Joko! Ahahahahaha I loved his dialogue! "The torture! Oh-ho-ho-hooo yes! I have plotted it out!" Oh! What you said about re-working minion-mancy!!! YES!!!! Rangers get new pets, Necromancers should get new minions or new ways to use the minions they have at least! They're Necros! Shouldn't they reap the souls of those they kill? lol
I was blown away by the story in PoF, the bit where you meet Kormir and enter the library made my jaw hit the floor! Obviously there are things to pick at but overall I was really impressed with the way the story was delivered - it's really great to see the story finally reach the potential the amazing lore of the guild wars franchise gives it. Very excited for LW Season 4 and to see what happens next! :D
For the past 3 days I've been clicking this video, then watching 10 seconds, then deciding I don't want to be spoiled anyway. Gosh, was it hard to constrain myself, haha! But today I finished the story, unspoiled, and now I've watched this vid. Very cool and I agree with most of the observations made. I loved The Departing, the Library, Kesha and Glint's Lair. Desert Highlands is my absolute favourite zone in the whole of GW. Even though I've only been playing GW for 2 months now (yes, I'm one of those newcomers, thanks to PoF), I feel I have a pretty good handle on what's going on, all thanks to you, WoodenPotatoes. If it hadn't been for your awesome vids, most of the story would have been *moves hand over head, making a whooshing sound*. So thank you!
Killing the dragons one by one was fun but very generic at least for me. I enjoyed it but it became very repetitive of "Go here, kill this dragon, next" i saw it as a means to just move to different areas of Tyria. Now with the spanner in the works of having to think of ways not only to save the remaining dragons, but try and replace the ones we killed, all the while one of them is now super charged with god power and off on his way to do whatever Kralk is gunna do added a lot more meat to the story where i take more notice. I love how 0 chill the ending was. HoT was very calm at the end. It was a lot of "Okay, Mordremoth is dead, next dragon, we'll have a sit down first". Path of Fire is the complete opposite, we get 5 minutes then Kralkatorrik shows up, super charged and ready to nom and i'm already excited for Season 4 and beyond. I really enjoyed PoF!
I spent some time looking over the ending cutscene with Kralkatorrik and it is hard to judge exactly what happens. But the conclusion I came to is that you see him flying over Vabbi but only one of the domes, the southeast one, is branded and the rest of the city is untouched. I've seen other mention how he is flying into the sun which suggests he is going west, but I think his flight starts by going southwest, south of Vabbi, before turning back to the west. I also believe that the Vabbi map we have is after this happens and I have a few things to support this. The first is that the story doesn't show the brand, only Kralkatorrik near Vabbi. Second is that the southeast dome in Vabbi is branded and shattered in the map, which seems to be the same one as the cutscene. The third is that the brand extends to the bottom of the map, the same direction I suspect he flew after leaving his roost at Vabbi. And the final reason is that the stuff with the hidden mount in the brand is post-story, which once again suggests something about that area might occur post-branding. But as I said at the start, it is really hard to judge and I think it is something we'll need to wait for S4 to clarify. It does seem like it was trying to set up new maps south of Vabbi and the Desolation that are branded as we follow Kralkatorrik. Also, Aurene was seen in a branded area, so there is that. As for why you see the branded clouds over Amnoon, I guess that is just to show how powerful Kralkatorrik is now and how far his power extends, but the brand still only occurs under his flight path even if the aura is larger. Aside from the Kralkatorrik cutscene, I think the story was great and I'd say it is easily the best story ingame to date. I kinda wish it was longer and that isn't because it felt too short but because it was so good and I wanted more. That said, adding more could have messed up the pacing or ended up as more filler, so I think they made the right call to keep it the length they did. The biggest problem I have was chasing Balthazar in act 3. He starts the act by toying with and killing us, yet after we return we don't seek a way to defeat him and instead only focus on stopping the Forged... Last time we fought him we lost horribly, so why do we think this time will be different when we learned nothing new on how to stop him? Others have said it was because of Sothin being his weakness and that Kormir eludes to that when she talks to Rytlock, but if that is the case we should have addressed that much sooner, perhaps in the Exalted City when talking about weaknesses, instead of it being a last minute thing Rytlock decided to do. This was the first time I heard the idea that Aurene might have been the key to winning, which I hadn't considered, but I still wish we had just one line of dialog to explain why our character seems so confident to rematch Balthazar and what their plan was. I also wish there was a bit more dialog for smaller things like why Rytlock went to Amnoon since last we heard he was taken back to the legions and he was out of the loop with Balthazar and stuff, so it was a bit weird he beat us here. But that is just a minor thing and overall not that big of a deal. Though I really wish we got more from him about meeting Glint in the mists, especially when dealing with Glint's lair and stuff. It would have been neat if he reacted for Glint for parts like Vlast's death or spoke for Glint when deciding how to deal with the spear.
just finished my story, went strait for this video. Yep, all this...loved it!!! And this beautiful map design. What are these freaking huge pots, these are amazing.
If sylvari are new to tyria, I didnt see anyone in elona reacting to a sylvari player. Also I dont remember seeing any sylvari in the afterlife episode.
You need to watch that end scene again, based on Kralkatorik origin being just southeast of Vabbi and he's heading towards the rising sun means he was heading away from Amnoon, keep in mind the moon was up during the party and Kral heads towards the sun just rising over the horizon...so east of Vabbi. Aurene absorbed some of the power that was released by Balthazar's death but Kralk absorbed even more...and I'm not so sure that "look" we got after Balthazar'd death might not have been one of...thanks?(which would be real odd coming from an Elder Dragon).
I had one big problem with the part that the PC died: I play a Norn and I was also greeted by the Judge from Grenth just like a Human, I should've been greeted by a Judge from the Raven or the Raven himself! That REALLY felt wrong.
Yeah, I think this is an issue. I mentioned it to a friend who mains a Norn last night. She pointed out that there are other races besides human there in that instance, which implies that while the races have their own beliefs, they are all (or more than human at least) subject to Grenth. Weird implication.
I think what they were trying to go for was that the Domain of the Lost was a weird halfway place. It was sort of an emergency stop on the way to all the real after lives because you only go there if you completely forget who you are. Such a small percentage of souls actually show up there that it only needed one caretaker who could get the souls moving again to their proper destinations. But, it would have been greatly improved with some dialogue lines saying that. >
The gods are not just the 'Human' Gods as they are often called. Humans might be their primary believers, but it's fantasy and the gods are not fake. A character can choose to not follow or not believe, but the gods are real and they do control nature, they do control the afterlife, etc. "Charr need no gods" but they have souls all the same. Spirits of the Wild are powerful creatures from the Mists, but they are not just some different kind of god that you can choose instead of the other ones.
Neok the Human gods aren‘t gods at all (at least it was implied that way for some time now) they are mistwalkers with imense powers but aren‘t „Gods“ in the most literal sense (like the greek gods were for instance), so I still see no reason why every race would be judged by a Judge of grenth, especially since the Norn have the Raven. And even if they would be Gods in the most literal sense of the word, that still doesn‘t mean that the Norns believe of the Raven taking them to the Underworld is wrong, both can be right. What I would have liked would be if there was a council made up of one of each of the great races, who judge them (The judge of Grenth, the Judge of Raven, maybe Riannoc for the Sylvari, etc.) this would have been a way more lorefirendly way to do it.
As a GW1 veteran, I was also constantly geeking out at the nightfall references and general GW1 appreciation I honestly missed in GW2 until now. We met Dunkoro, Tahlkora and Devona. we saw Mhenlo...so...awesome! I wonder what else is in PoF we never even touched upon. So hyped right now!
I know this is like a super specific thing that you mention for only a couple of seconds but what you said at like 24:27 is something I've always wished was a part of the game. Ever since I first started the game I really liked the idea of being a part of one of the orders and it does suck that because we're the commander now, no one treats us like we were ever a part of an order. Especially because my main is a whispers agent I feel like I could have had extra dialog with the shadows in PoF. It would have been really nice for the devs to have added to order specific things for the players for sure.
Without knowing that Sohothin was a gift of Balthazar or something, my explanation at the end was that Balthi himself rekindled the flame and it thus had the power of a god. So basically what set him free to begin with came back to bite him at the end and he fell to his own power. That´s also why I was ok with the 1v1. It was previously demonstrated how utterly superior he is when we fought him, but now he couldn´t give us his full attention AND we could abuse his power :)
At the end during the party make sure you choose at least one somber part of the speech and listen to rytlock right after you give that part of the speech. And did you happen to follow the NPC after she helps you in the underworld? her story has a bit of a happy ending.
I saw you dismounting and selecting another mount to quickly mount, in case ou dont know you can define a keybinding for each mount so you can quickly switch them without reselecting it in the skill bar (for example I have Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+3, Alt+4)
The only thing I really wanted from this expansion when we met Kormir, was to also see the other God's before they left. (Also skins for mounts because I want an Aurene skin for my Griffin more than anything!!!) Like meeting Grenth in the underworld who brought our soul to a special place to test us, to see if we truly are capable with a second chance. We pass, and then Dwayna would appear and 'heal' us or something. Then we could have met Lyssa who'd explain how Balthazar got her mirror. (Which if he left the mists into our world right after he was freed then where did he get it? Was it an artifact that already existed on Tyria?) But yea this expansion was amazing. I was crying and screaming for Aurene! I love this expansion, and am loving the Firebrand right now. Whether Druid is still gonna be meta, I'm having a lot more fun with Firebrand. Still upset with Mirage, so will see how well they edit the classes in a month or two.
Oh and is it just me or was Krag a big disappointment ONLY at the final battle? Like during the end cinematic, you see he looks like a dragon, like a normal dragon with crystals. But in the battle with Balth, when he flys away, he's just a head with a really REALLY long neck, almost serpent like. Made me think they just recycled the Mouth of Morde skin or something.
I think it's also important to note that Kralkatorrik appears to fly overhead in the courtyard that's facing the ocean. That means he's flying from the east out over the ocean heading westward. In my mind, there's only one place Kralk is heading - to Cantha (and possibly DSD (which also might be in/under the Jade Sea))
Hey WP, at the end when Kralkatorrik is flying and leaving behind Brand, he doesn’t destroy Amnoon. If you look at the architecture, it’s clearly Vabbian in design.
About Sohothin, I think they kind of explain the fact that it is capable of destroying Balthazar when we see that Balthazar is the one to put fire on it again in the Mists. So we kill Balthazar with his own fire, even if they didn't go back to its origins, we know where the fire comes from this time
@WP Carefully listen to which names Balthazar mentions in his raging outburst near the end of him. He does not seem to mention Lyssa at all as a betrayer, especially with Kormir mentioning Lyssa was the one "mocking" her for staying behind.
Great overview! Overall loved the story and the expansion so far. Gahh your idea of Sohothin belonging to Balthazar is so cool. Would have loved to see that. I also don't think that was Amnoon getting destroyed. I think Kralkatorik is moving into new territory.
Mini Map off. I am a big fan of the immersion gained by needing to maintain spacial awareness by observing your surroundings vs staring at a mini map. I really hope we get this option some day in vanilla options menu.
My 2 comments: - I really wish we would have had at least one instance with Vlast prior to him dying (maybe a meet and greet or a little history). He was such a cool and massive character that even a superficial instance would have been great. While I really enjoyed the memory crystals, I felt like it was a shame that we only got to see him on screen for a brief fight and never got the chance to talk to him in character. - The Springer mount area, High Jump Ranch (IIRC?). I really wish the game would have pointed you there better. It is implied that you need that mount to finish the instance, but actually locating the area where the mount was took a very long time, and its just luck that I had the tier 3 raptor mastery finished by then. Maybe there were some NPCs that gave a location for it, but as it is, I eneded up wandering around the map for a long time before finally asking my guildmates where it was. Overall though, I'm really happy with the story. Its awesome that they've stepped up the difficulty in their boss fights, especially solo, but man I can't imagine how difficult the fight in the underworld would be if you weren't playing a class with multiple interrupt or CC skills.
For a character that had a minute of screen time, Vlast was the only character I felt was a well-rounded character in the expansion. Everyone else was a bit two-dimensional. Vlast had history, personality, motivation, conflicts, etc. It's amazing how much Anet was able to do with just a few sentences.
The little outpost that you enter when leaving Crystal Oasis has a stable with a few Springers. There a guy told me that I need to go north west to find the ranch. With only that information and then finding a jump that I needed my canyon jump mastery I could locate that area. But I dunno, maybe getting a Springer on day 2 is apparently too long for this community that grinded a Griphon on day 3 etc. Jesus christ these people are fast.
Is there a valid reason why Glint, Vlast and Aurene look like they're made from flesh and bone with crystals growing out of them, while Kralkatorrik and the Shatterer look like pure energy inside crystalline armour/shell ?
I had a theory about this. Glint was corrupted by Kralkatorrik, so she became something like combination of living creature and crystal corruption. When forgotten freed her and she got a free will, the visual remnants of corruption...these crystals, stayed on her body and was inherited to her offsprings. But since Kralkatorrik is origin of this corruption, he is something like...corruption itself. And the reason why he made Shatterer just from the pure corruption is to avoid his previous mistake with Glint. The dragon corruption itself cannot be cured...it will be destroyed instead. Like destroying a virus...without a host. But anyway...don't mind me. My theories are silly :D
On the library instance, they DID mention why the gods are leaving, it's because in a war between the gods and the elder dragons they knew Tyria would be destroyed either way no matter who won.
1st playthrough I was ecstatic, this was a dream come true lorewise and I couldnt find a single thing i didn't like in it. I'm mid way through my 2nd playthorugh and i just finished Kormir Library part, and I've noticed one "flaw" and thing that irks me quite a bit, and that's Balthazar's character. Those scenes where Kormir shows why he was imprisoned in the mists are basically "Hurr durr I wantz kill eldur dargons!, DURR Y U NO LET MEH KILZ ELDUR DARGONZ! I KILZ U WEN I IZ FREEDZ!!!!" He does not sound "godly" in any sense of the word, he looks like a petulant child which has been denied a toy. Gods should be extremely powerful, yes. But also extremely intelligent, i would expect a certain devious intellect and logical reasoning to Balthazar's actions. Hell, they could have simply done "No one know what exactly will happen if all Elder Dragons die, but I am willing to sacrifice everything to see them gone, and we gods can rebuild Tyria afterward." There, a perfectly cynical and logical line of reasoning. Certainly much better than "I WANT POWER, I WANT TO KILL and I dont give a crap what any1 else thinks" Balthazar is such a missed oportunity, and I'm so sad they didn't do more with him. They should have turned to Steven Erikson (author or Malazan Book of the Fallen) to see how a proper gods are crafted and just how devious and incredibly overwhelming such creatures can be crafted as (altho "spoiler alert" moral of the story is that mortals eventually prove to be the doom of them, one way or the other), bah no going back now. Sad panda :(
I do think there is still more about Rytlock trip to the mists. Because when he free's Balthazar is just him leaving the mists. He mentions finding glint too but there sounds like there is more because he said it's classified. Meeting glint and getting freeing someone that helps him get the sword that he says didn't realize was Balthazar until the death of Vlast. I think we may have rytlock giving out need to know basis info and serve to not having all stuff come from Taimi
Hey, WP! I think the end-of-story cinematic suggests that Kralkatorrik is heading towards Kourna rather than Amnoon. If you look at the first shots, the architecture is clearly Vabbian with the domes and not the pyramid structures of Amnoon. The other shot that indicates he's heading for Kourna is the pass surrounded by cliffs that he flies towards. This suggests Jahai Pass to me as there's really no other place that comes to mind from that. What I can't explain is why the effects are felt so powerfully in Amnoon but I still don't think that's what they were going for. Pleeeaase give me your thoughts on this :)
Ive just thought...is there any indication Joko could return with Halloween. That would be great considering halloween story has kind of been dropped over the past few years. Also Mad King Thorn and Joko met at the end of GW1's final halloween. Joko foreshadowed the flooding of Elona. It will also be round about the time of nightfalls birthday
collect the lore Pages from the different maps. it is deactivated right now but map 1 explains what the gods are doing in tyria. couldn't use the more from map 2 or 3 because it got disabled
I think Season 4 will be split between the chase of Kralkatorrik (who is leaving a trail of destruction westward?) and the search for Aurene. Kralkatorrik might be going westward to the fire islands to attempt to slay Primordus with his newly acquired power. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't the elder dragons always been in balance in terms of power and that's why there wasn't a definitive 'stronger' dragon? Gathering the power of a god sure does unbalance the scales of power and Kralkatorrik might see this as his moment to strike! Regarding all that power, isn't the PC gathering some of this aswell? Might help explain how we can go toe to toe with more and more dangerous goes ie. Gods after the defeat of 2 elder dragons by our hands! Maybe we find the key to restoring the magic balance of the world lies in Cantha! They don't call it the Empire of the Dragon for nothing surely!
You can also go back to the sanctum without replaying the story if you work towards the Griffin mount I think whenever you want? Not sure, cause I'm still working on it
I think they could have done the Vlast part a little better: I would have liked to see one story instance where we get to talk to Vlast while he was still alive, have some time to build an emotional connection to him. Or maybe Vlast would have told us how importatnt he himself is for the sake of Tyria, but he would still sacrifice himself for us. The way he died felt a little random and anticlimactic.
I don't think you mentioned it but I enjoyed having fewer characters in the story - we learn more about them and I care more about their story. It also helped that Canach and Rytlock are my favourite of the bunch ( and no Braham). Also great video as always!
Was pretty interesting in the Departed mission when takling to Joko because i genuinly believe we'd side with joko or something then i realised wait, we dont need him. It was pretty funny to see us disguise to steal an army....exactly what balthazar did. Closing up loose ends was great. Rytlock and balthazar together, the explanation to how the forge were made tied in well with out previous exalted lore. Very great!
I do feel like there were some very subtle hints at Cantha throughout the expansion. The most in your face one for me, was in the epilogue when giving the speech, I ended on a positive note and the commander made an inspiring comment and said something to the effect of, "...we're Elonians, Tyrians, Canthans..." It felt very pointed to mention Canthans here since there's been so little story attention to anything Canthan in so long.
I think season 4 will deal with Joko, not necessarily killing him, but something. As well as finding where kralk flew off to, and rebuilding the pact with the order of shadows and Logan at the helm. Rox and Braham can show up somewhere in there if they need to. I think there is enough in there to last for 2 years of good story. I do think there should be more shmoozing and politicking for resources to rebuild the pact etc.
They did show why Sohothin can slay Balthazar. They took the time to show us that it went out in the mists. But they also took the time to show us that it is lit back up by Balthazar. So its a God Infused weapon at this point. That plus the dragon magic from Aurene. Thats the explanation for why we were able to best Balthazar that I took at least
Honestly, what I hope for in LS4 is a closer look at the commander dying and re-visiting Aurene....I don't really expect the former to actually happen, but I appreciated the reaction on the part of the other major characters at the end of the instance and would love to see that addressed further somehow. Also -- not convinced with Rytlock's story! There's still so much unanswered about his time in the Mists, including a few details that might just be flukes but bother me anyway. (did you notice his eye color changed?) Very eager to hear others' thoughts moving forward.
I think the utter happiness and fanboy geekout mode has pretty much hit it's peak on this one. I'll be back with more such story videos soon enough where we take a *much* closer look at how things are handled - good and bad! Two mount spotlights and my final VoD to go.
Sooo yeah, what did we think about this one?
I think it explains why the Gods left Tyria in Kormir's Library. If you read her journal, it mentions how the Gods recognize that Tyria is doomed (I forget the exact words). Pretty much they see no hope in saving Tyria, so they leave. I loved the library and reading all of the books.
Id been watching the map explorations as an ex player and getting those heavy GW1 fanboi vibes buzzing. But a minute into this I cant do it anymore, expansion bought, video paused, game downloading :D
where did the gods go? im wondering if they trascend even their planes of existence, but how is that even possible? XD i dunno man so confusing
Also I think someone about how them trying to fight the Elder dragons and each other would simply destroy the world faster? Abbadon being an example.
Still a bit of a cop out but I'm satisfied with the answer. I do hope we see more of the gods later, go back into the mists and figure out why Balthazar cursed every god BUT Lyssa, which adds to the strangeness of how he got her mirror.
Kormir does mention how the Gods refuse to fight one another and how they refuse to fight the Elder Dragons because they know of the destruction it would bring to the world.
I think the part where Balthazar kills us was one of the highest points in the story for me. Balthazar KILLS us, it is the FIRST time in GW2 where an enemy talks about how they could easily crush us, and he DOES IT, just, plays with us, and right before we kill him, he just takes us out! Labeling us as a Lost Spirit till we get our name was a really nice flavorful touch, the recap in the Underworld of our story actually kind of... inspired me? Like it got me immersed in the idea that I am THE Commander, and a badass. I think having the Judge explain that he can't just bring us back to life, but by killing the Soul Eater we could absorb that light to reanimate was a good way to explain that we can't just keep coming back. I also REALLY liked The Judge being portrayed not as some angry spirit that is common with the realm of death, but being shown as a very caring Shepard of souls that was there to care for the dead.
from what I felt he was playing with us to lure aurene in :|
Not only was it a high point, it was a freaking critical part of the ongoing story in LWS4, especially as a human character. Joko gets his hands on the Scarab Plague, but as it turns out the plague only affects humans. So how does the human Commander combat against the Scarab Plague? Well, the scarabs don’t like the scent of death, and because Balthazar killed the Commander, the human Commander is also immune to the Scarab Plague. It was brilliant storytelling.
Not sure if you heard or saw, but in the "death" instance, the game automatically puts you in offline mode so people can't whisper you while you are still dead!
What! Really?! Wow!
Scarlette Atticus I tried to whisper someone when I was in regular game and that person was in the instance still dead and I couldn't. They didn't change to offline manually
At the end, just before he dies, Balthazar curses the other gods one by one: Dwayna, Melandru, Grenth and Kormir. He never mentions Lyssa. And after we learned that he has her mirror too...
edidaemon sooo lyssa is a traitor too?
Cause Jenna is Lyssa!
Kormir said in the library that Lyssa sided with Balthazar at the beginning, but then joined the other gods, so it may explain that.
From what I remember Kormir said they all stood against Balthazar, "even Lyssa", which doesn't mean she necessarily sided with him, maybe she was just reluctant.
I get the impression that Lyssa is something of a chaotic figure. Maybe she played both sides?
Some things that stood out for me in the main story:
1. In the instance where Vlast dies, the line where the Commander begs him to stop: If you're playing as a human who was blessed by Balthazar you mention he blessed you when you were a baby and you served him your whole life. That was a nice touch!
2. It really upset me that the God's left. Kormir mentions that if the Gods stayed it would lead to conflict with the Elder Dragons, but they weren't on Tyria; they were in the Mists and had left all humanity wondering where they were for years. If they loved Humans so much then why did they just leave, without explaining the situation to the Millions of people worshiping them in Tyria? Now that they are gone, will all the shrines stop providing blessings? In Kormir's journal she says that Tyria is doomed and there are more important things happening in other "worlds", what could be so important that they left all their people? No explanation there.
3. I loved that you almost died in Act 1 and actually died in Act 2, think it reinforced the fact that you were fighting someone who was vastly stronger than you. I think Balthazar was a good villain; he represented perfectly his role within the God's: Fire, War and Challenge.
4. Kormir said that he is no longer "ONE OF THE 6", so who replaced him?? (slightly contradicting above statement there)
5. I don't fully understand how he used Aurene to try kill Kralky; According to the Forgotten Kralky's weakness is that all his creations are linked back to him, thus making him vulnerable through the branded. As Vlast and Aurene were basically the children of a former Branded, do they resonate at the same frequency as Kralky, allowing the War Beast to hurt it?
5. I also loved the way they used Joko.
6. I don't know if Kralky destroyed Amnoon, or if the storm was just due to him moving. I think he flew west; if he had flown East then the devs would have added more on the East of the world map. Interestingly though there is a NPC you need to talk to in the Brand Storm regarding the Griffon collection that says Kralky has just "flown off somewhere".
7. I noticed in the final little clip of Aurene she is a different colour; has Kralky turned her? It could be an interesting story arc finding that out and having to use the same forgotten ritual on Aurene that turned Glint.
8. I was surprised to find many little references to Cantha, and interestingly the final verse of your speech (playing as a human) you mention how all humans; Tyrian, Elonian and Canthan can accomplish anything together.
9. In the Epilogue If you speak to Rytlock after Canach he gets salty that you spoke to Canach before him, and even more upset if you come to him last. I loved that!!
10. I absolutely adored all the dialog both in and out of the story. It made the entire world feel alive and lived in! My favorite piece of dialog is at the party where a noble won't stop complaining about Sand Sharks. Other Npc's will praise you and this noble will downplay your killing a GOD and say the real problems are sand sharks, how someone needs to deal with them.
g0os1e THIS. ALL OF THIS.
I think Balthazar can represent those players who didn't buy Kormir's BS about Gods being unable to do anything about dragons. Like, they can do it, they just don't want to, that's it. And even more, Kormir is talking about casualties, but it sounds like they don't want to actually try harder and do the damn thing, while making sure those "casualties" are at minimal level. I mean, FFS, there always be casualties with or without Gods. Heck, look at our PC.
Also, yeah, I'm pretty sure Kralk didn't hit Amnoon at all. And that dialogue about sand sharks reminded me of Morrowind's cliff racers so much... looks like we need our own Jiub in GW2. xD
So many great points, especially number 4, that immediately popped into my head "Wait, if he's not one of the 6 anymore...who or what replaced him?"
2. It's possible Elder Dragons can tap into the Mists, I think Jormag is the case, cause his Svanir used Mists Portals many times. Also the war between the ED and Gods would cause alot of the planet's destruction so that it wouldn't be inhabitable anymore.
4. Either it's Menzies or they are holding his power for now until someone worthy of it comes around.
5. Glint was initially a creation of Kralkatorrik and her kids were Vlast and Aurene, which means they could both be used to kill Kralkatorrik. Balthazar initially had plans to use Vlast, but he accidentaly killed him when he took the hit for us the Commander.
6. I think the storm was visible in Amnoon, while he was actually flying somewhere else. But if he did fly over Amnoon, I'm not sure what would happen to Dragon's Watch.
7. I think Aurene still looks green/blue though?
8. The speech mentioning Tyrians, Elonians and Canthan is used by all races - Tyrians are also non-humans.
9. Rytlock asked me if I went to anyone before him and I said ''Really?.....'' (and yes, I did not visit others first.)
@g0os1e RE: Your second point.
I was under the impression the Gods left because they considered the world doomed. They couldn't stop the Elder Dragon "cycle" without irreparably damaging Tyria. And the Elder Dragon Cycle kinda messes everything up. Especially now that Humans have reached a point where they could combat AND kill a Dragon. They may love humans, but at the end of the day the feeling I got is that WE got ourselves in to this problem. The gods CANT fix it, not without screwing everything up. And so they are writing this little Tyria Ant Colony off as a failure and moving on to another one (Is there any indication that there aren't humans on other planets in the GW-verse?). I know the gods like Humans and all, but they are really other-worldly entities... would you try and tell a jar of sea monkeys that you are leaving them behind? Or would you think they were beneath that action? It's a bit of a stretch of an analogy I realize but it's not THAT far off base!
Balthazzar though, being an avatar of war (and seemingly rage too!), was too proud to run from a fight I guess? No way is he going to let this Dragon thing make him turn tail and run, he doesn't care if he has to destroy the Ant Colony to do it, he wants to win.
From a player perspective I'm glad the gods are gone. Never meet your heroes and all that. I think that the Gods were amazing when they were figures of Mythology. But to have them be full on helping humanity and becoming big movers in the story would fall in to the trap of "why can't we just have them do everything?". Would the Heroes still be Heroes if the gods were giving us gifts and solving our problems for us?
Otherwise, I agree with all of your points. I loved the Joko stuff, I am really excited about the possibility of exploring more of his rule and obvious return (since Balthazzar's prison I would imagine is gone with his death). I'm far far more interested in what's gonna happen with him than I am Kralky at this point.
Something I took away from the relationship between Sohothin and Balthazar was when Balthazar was chained up by the other gods they also took away his DIVINITY. So when he re-lights Sohothin that is some of his of the last divine power. What we face in Path of Fire is an incredibly weak Balthazar who had to absorb the power of the bloodstone to be a threat. Remember when we go to the library Kormirs very existence is enough to stun and perma blind us, and she is not even hostile. So that is my theory and understanding of how the 1v1 fight was able to work.
I have to play the instance again. Nice touch if we are afflicted throughout our entire encounter with her.
yeah throughout the entire instance you have perma-blind debuff
I personally did not notice any kind of blindness in that instance o.o
It was on your UI as any condition would appear, but didn't seem to do much to stop us as players from actually seeing what's going on.
Matt Lennon I think it's because the bloodstone wasn't enough power to level that of a divine being. It was just enough to grant him strenth and cause havoc. Otherwise balthy could've blinded and stunned us too in the 1v1 fight if he was back at divine power level or even need a machine to fight an elder dragon
All my old friends from GW1 have come back to play the new expansion! Feels like the old days again :)
Vlast dies to save the hero who later dies anyway and finds his own way back. Poor Vlast lol
I think they should have expanded on Balthazar's rage. He's a "cartoon villain" because he's freaking PISSED. He's lost everything. His realm, his power, even Lyssa; I'm pretty sure he was in love with her. Then, he was trapped in the mists, chained down like a common human criminal. That is a lot of loss and humiliation for a GOD.
Yes, agreed, but clearly it wasn't enough if we still have to mention all that.
Now that you mention this, I remember one of Balthazar's lines where he shouts all the other gods names, accusing them of betrayal (if I'm not mistaken this might be during the final battle). What I found interesting was that he never listed Lyssa there, only the other 4... it might have to do with what you said, who knows...?
Kralk goes immediately out of his way to do a loop da loop on top of lions arch to destroy it again, then back to the crystal desert/elona area
Branded Lobsters Arc. The giant lobster is attacking!
If you wait around before killing Balthazar with Aurene, he cries out to all of the gods... except Lyssa. He doesn't blame her for his demise. Also Kormir says that Lyssa laughed at her for staying behind longer. And they still didn't explain why Balthazar had Lyssa's mirror!! Future story? Did Balthazar have an ally amongst the gods? I thought that was the coolest implication of the story.
Oh really ? I did notice the blaming, but didn't notice him not talking about Lyssa. This has to be a hint at something.
Sohothin is so OP that it can kill a god. Yet, Rytlock seems to still be useless as ever in every other fight.
When you get the sword, skill 2 (at least), is class specific! My mesmer/mirage had a skill that summoned 3 swordsmen, blinked a little and had distortion or so. And for this ONE instance, no? I mean, thats detail and care. So good.
In the mission where you command the awakened against the forge, if you dance the entire lines up squad dances with you doing the thriller dance.
WP!! In relation to 24:31, in that recap of the story while you're dead, you actually see the scene of your mentor's death! Not merely the dialogue they had with you, but you actually see them and the last couple of lionguards around them, being charged at by risen and Blightghast. That was one of the highpoints of the story for me and considering your character was new I don't know if you got to have that. Seeing Sierran die again proper traumatized me, and I imagine seeing Tybalt would have done the same to you :D
It was a bit funny how casual the team was about the commanders death. They didn't show a lot of emotion towards the commander coming back to life.
By the way, does dying complete and invalidate the Shining Blade death pact? Asking for a friend.
Also what the hell Rytlock, Sohothin is OP and you never used it like that.
Rytlock is scared of burning his fur so he holds Sohothin with his thumb and this index finger at the very end of the hilt.
I was pissed at the team's reactions TBH, especially after that BS soul eating beast fight. Like...you telling me yall didn't cry? Not even a little? Not even you, Kasmeer? Rytlock? Canach? do yall even care about the Commander personally, and not just as a leader to help you win the war against the dragons (and Balthazar) :(
I also think the Shining Blade death pact was invalidated. I doubt the Commander will have a reason to test it, but they don't seem like the type to have anything so permanent holding them back.
EXACTLY, SOHOTHIN FINNA POP A MUHFUKKA
Actually Kasmeer was kneeling on you and crying like a baby. Rytlock and Canach aren't all that "emotion" packed so it's justifiable. I guess their reaction was one of that they had so many emotions running that atleast Kasmeer froze in awe. TBH I'd be paralyzed if I was weeping for somebody and suddenly that somebody comes back alive. Specially when the player dismisses what happened in purgatory and gets right back to action. Also Rytlock let's his emotional side slip for a seccond.
I know that Sohothin was already a "divine weapon" of sorts, but when Balthazar reignited the sword was the fire part of his soul?
Also Balthazar's motives were clearer to me than they were for you. To me i gathered that Balthazar was the only God that wanted to kill the Elder Dragons, and the other Gods not wanting to fight he saw as a betrayal.
We got another tiny detail as well in regards to the mists and "placement" of Tyria. If you do the Griffin mission you see Kormir's realm after she left, it begins to fall apart as Abbadon's influence comes back. This tells us that the mists we know are attached to Tyria. My theory is this:
Tyria is a planet like a bit of cereal in a bowl of milk. The bits of cereal are the planets, the mists being the milk so the gods simply jumped to another frosted flake.
Oh interesting, I think thats why they want to get over with the elder dragons, after them they will Focus on the gods and the future of the World after that prob
WP: "This will be my greatest challenge yet to not speak for far far far too long"
Me: *immediately checks video length*
40 minutes was very short for a video like this from him. xD I definitely expected a 1.5 hour video, with the first ten minutes just being "AHHH GUYS THIS STORY IT WAS SO GOOD I DID EVERYTHING I WANTED" kind of geekout lol.
I was playing with a new player that I got the expansion for so they could play with me. Their reaction to dying in the story was pretty funny to me because it is a bit confusing. "I've died so many times and I've never seen this place! How does this make any sense?"
what I understood was that the gods left because if they stayed in tyria there would be an unavoidable conflict with the dragons and that would fuck tyria up. same reason why they fought with balthazar because he wanted to stay.
That's true, but they're leaving more than just Tyria. Tyria is just the world we live in. They're leaving the Mists as well! THAT'S a big deal, since it'd been clear the gods had left Tyria FOR the Mists (hence why Kormir was there), but now they're leaving that too?? And where are they going then?
I figured they were going to another planet.
There's some interesting hints about them having some other business elsewhere in the achievement books. However i do think the explanation of why they were silent since the end of gw1 (abaddon's death triggering latest elder dragon cycle and them appearing on tyria triggering a war between gods and dragons that would be unwinnable for tyria) was pretty important. Not only that, it felt pretty intuitive as well after learning that we couldn't kill more dragons
I think it went a little further than just "unavoidable conflict"; I think they decided that Tyria was just doomed in general and their being there would only speed things up. They just said "screw it" and took off for some other world as a result. I could just be mis-remembering the instance though.
@melimsah I don't think we know enough of the mist they might be just going to a place in the mists that is not connected to tyria? but you propose something rather interesting, a place beyond the mists! what could this be? it's like meta afterlife lol
And here it goes. I'm prepared for all the mistakes the developers did storytelling and lore wise that WP is going to point out thus destroying my love for the story :c
What I REALLY loved about the story were the scales of everything. Like Kralky is so damn huge and when he flies over us in the end the entire sky is covered and holy fuck, that was amazing! And the boss fights were pretty amazing and challenging :D
That video comes later, right now I'm riding the high :D
Just because WP doesn't like those "mistakes" doesn't mean you shouldn't like them.
What I got from the Kormir instance is that the gods and dragons are very close in terms of power. They left because they knew a conflict of that size could very well destroy (or at least greatly destabilize) all of Tyria. I also think they felt a sense of guilt as Kormir said because they realized they were the ones who sparked this cycle of dragon awakenings when Abbadon's magic was set loose. Maybe there was even a sense of fear--if the gods and dragon are similar on a power scale, with dragons just getting stronger as they absorb excess magic, perhaps the gods were afraid of dying in a conflict against the dragons. While I agree the gods maybe could've done more to help us figure out how to deal with what is going on, I think they also showed very human emotions in their complex situation, which is fitting.
Didn't Kormir say that Elder Dragons are superior when it comes to power, but doesn't necessarily mean one side would 100% win.
DelDel that and using the sword(can't pronounce it so I'm not even going to bother) I mean the damn animations and effect on the thing I also loved the final boss fight especially when you compare that too zhaitan
So been waiting for this video WP!
Love your discussions on story and always enjoy your thoughts.
Thanks.
The Spear - Surprised you didn't mention this one. I was with Rytlock when he said that destroying it is a bad idea. It's not like we can use it to kill Big K, but this could have been a really important ace up our sleeves and now it's dust.
Being dead - Lots of people from what I saw on Reddit had a problem with the boss in that instance, the Eater of Souls. Showing screenshots of being naked cause their armor broke. I didn't have any problems with him, so I was a bit surprised. People also had a problem with finding their weapons because there's no marker and you have to look through several boxes. I, just like you, liked having no markers, no minimap. I was lost and confused and IT WAS GREAT! It really enforced that part of the story.
Minion Mancer mission - This mission was pretty much like playing the game Overlord. And that game was kind of a dark take on Pikmin. Look up a gameplay video from Overlord for a few minutes. I also really liked this mission cause Overlord was cool :P
PS: Now you have to do the Griffon. There is actually a surprising amount of story in it. You'll like it :P
a story you pay for with alot of gold :P
I feel that having one added instance with Vlast so we have some level of interaction with him before he sacrifices himself for us. It also would have let them set up Kesho much better, by having Vlast give us the info we need to find it, rather than having us be magic archeologists who can find ancient lost cities in a single day of talking to random people.
re the direction Kralkatorrik is flying, we see him head into the setting sun so west. Maybe a LS4 map west of the Desolation?
Thats what I wanted to point out. But it could've been East as well. Both direction seems correct.
is it really the setting sun? it seems like we are in amnoon at night so it could be the sunrise.
True though if not it would be east though I'm not sure what's east that a Dragon would be interested in.
I'll also need to check again ingame to see if I can recognise any landmarks
I hope for Kourna and Istan...
heading east would explain at least why the map shaman datamined is extended a little more to the east than we can see ingame
Hey WP! I just wanted to say that I agree with you on not understanding why the Gods left... Kormir tells us that the Gods don't want to mendle because last time they did there were desastrous consequences for the living, but... if they don't help us, giving the fact that we have no idea how to defeat Balthazar, and even less the Elder Dragons, aren't they leaving us to a very probable extinction anyway...? And the way she told us we have to seek for the "thing" that will help us in the fight was ridiculous...! She knew what it was, yet she didn't tell us anything... it's like she wants us dead or something. We litterally went out of the mist more confused than before entering; "now, we know we have to find something to beat Balthazar". That... that was almost parodic.
From what I understood from Kormir told in the library, the human gods abandoned Tyria because of the Elder Dragons. The dragons feed on magic, and the gods are quite magical. Didn't Kormir say that a confrontation between the gods and the dragons would have been inevitable, and would lead to at least another great extinction of sentient races but probably even the destruction of Tyria? The gods could not find a way to defeat the Elder Dragons and save Tyria at the same time, so they retreated into the mists. It sounded harsh when they said that the humans are on their own, but the human gods coming back to help would only make things even worse.
About library - we visit it later if you happen to do secret achievement line and place is a little different since Kormir left ;)
How do you visit it again?
hardy83 You have to do the majority of the post-story quest before you can get there, including spending 250 gold. After that you'll be told to go back there.
Tickwick no? I don’t
the griffon mount, right?
Actually, I found Balthazar's development very interesting. All the gods considered fighting the elder dragons- but all of them except Balthazar chose not to. Mostly because it would probably destroy Tyria. Balthazar saw it as cowardliness on the god's part, because you know, he's the god of war. He didn't want to back down! he would do it on his own! and the others were like no! and he was like FINE I'll declare war on you too! And what started out as a noble endeavor turned into bitter revenge for imprisonment.
Also that last boss fight with him and Kral.....I literally almost passed out haha
I have to admit, which will make me sound stupid, maybe. I had sympathy for Balthazar. He was the only god who wanted to fight the Elder Dragons and running wasn't his thing. Yes, he was a Prideful twit who went about it in simple terms,"Kill it and take its power! YEAH!" but, I honestly believe that if the Human gods stuck around and planned out their strategy with/through humanity, Pact, or whoever they would succeeded. Now, i'm wondering if at all the gods will return to help and in some way and all the while ask for forgiveness from the Human race for their abandonment.
There's one big problem with quoting Sothothin as the way we were able to kill Balthazar. The "Who needs a magic sword?" achivement. You can kill him without it!
you didnt pick up anything from the kesho instance? i loved that it explained the forged... theyre basically fucked up exalted; balthazar learned how the forgotten made the exalted whilst hunting down vlast and found he could manufacture an army with relative ease
Oh finally, was been waiting for this. I FREAKING LOVE THE DAMN STORY, EVERY BEAT ON POINT, ALL THE LACKLUSTER HOT STORY AVOIDED. ANET REDEEMED THEMSELVES.
I was totally happy with the death story. I enjoyed following our purpose and seeing all the people and our past. Literally the ONLY issue I had was when we come back I feel like maybe our guild should have been a little more upset? Lol I was a little peeved that Kasmeer wasn't crying.
My reactions were very mixed bag:
1.) My character, a Guardian, was blessed by Balthazar upon creation. A small reference to this choice would have been very nice when one considers the dilemma I certainly felt when taking on Balthazar. Having finished to story and slain him, I feel an emptiness within me that I had hoped would be reflected in my character.
2.) The throwbacks to the Crystal Desert of old was absolutely sublime. Many times I felt like I was running around a HD version of the original Guild Wars, right down to the teleporters! I could not believe they had returned!
3.) Despite my initial awe and feeling of being "God struck" upon seeing Kormir in The Sanctum, I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed when it was revealed that the God had left completely. For humans, the Gods are staples in their lives, offering thanks and tribute to them. To have them revealed as retreating from the world entirely is a touch saddening, although it was saved in a small way by having Kormir reveal to us that we have the blessings of each of the Gods for the coming struggle against Balthazar.
4.) The way the story ended was brilliant. I am looking forward to seeing how ArenaNet are going to tackle Aurene's growth and how Balthazar's magic, so seeped in malice, will affect her temperament. Will her bond with us help maintain her sanity like her brother Vlast? Or will Balthazar's magic, combined with Kralkatorrik's influence, turn her in an enemy?
I limited myself to 4 points. I have so much more I could say but I want to keep this comment short and sweet. I am pleased to hear that you had such a great time and I cannot wait for your ever-interesting analysis on each act.
Stay awesome WP.
WP!! What was your reaction to one of the story missions where you and your party disguise themselves as awakened and Rytlock makes the comment to Kasmeer, "You're worse than Elementalists.. er, no offense Commander."?? I haven't personally gotten to this part of the story on any other profession, but how cool was that? I loved that they had one of the other party members acknowledge the player character like that, it felt so authentic to me. I hope you reply, I'm curious about what you thought of this moment :D
if you look closely at the finishing cutscene with kralkatoric flying off, it is defnetly NOT the Amnoon Oasis he is flying over. he starts in vabi at the basar of kodash (you see the specific towers there and already branded crystals. and then he flys over ruins deeper into the desert.
in the epilogue, did you go near the back where all the mount npcs are boasting about their mounts
Since I was playing as a human, I could not resist the temptation of doing the nastiest thing at the end. When he was less than 5% health, I let Balthazar to be killed by his own hounds. ^^
There was references to your orders. I got to see my Norn Vigil bro in the lost realm. Not sure if other choices went in though...
I quite enjoyed the story, one of my main hopes now is that we see the effect that Balthazar's death on the Forged and Zaishen. It seems every time a big bad dies we never hear from their faction again; the Mordrem are going insane offscreen, the Aetherblades went into the Mists, and all of the White Mantle are dead I guess. The only faction we've seen since their boss was killed is the Risen, which while interesting was just turning zombies with a leader into mindless zombies, unlike Balth's guys that all had some degree of free will if the Herald was anything to go by.
On a completely unrelated note, I really hope at some point we get a properly difficult Balthazar fight. They could easily set a raid in something like a simulation or have a Fractal-esque fight where you fight Balthazar again but without stuff like Sohothin that evened the field the first time, that way the hardcore players get a proper fight and the casuals don't miss out on the main story.
100% agree Minionmancer with skills like we had in the Awakened Recruit mission. That instance was the most fun I had in the expansion. I loved it!
Was I the only one who was confused by the sylvari going to the underworld sylvari are ment to return to the dream when they die
Isn't it just their memories that return to the Dream? There's space there for Sylvari to have a spirit that's independent of what goes back to the Dream.
Maybe mordremoth dies and the dream does not exist anymore (lul im just random guessing don't mind me XD)
That actually makes a lot of sense and it was my assumption
The video we have all been waiting for!!
Also thanks for not keeping it too long and splitting the topics into many shorter videos (to come out later).
Small detail that I loved. If you deliver a somber speech at the end of the epilogue, the councilwoman says something to the effect of that the party was a mistake and, "Please, at least take some hummus." And I don't know why the line about hummus just tickles me endlessly. It's so incongruous with everything else going on. I love it!
Also worth mentioning is, that it was balthasar himself who reignited sohothins flame, so we in fact attack him with a part of his own power
Also we built up an army in a mesmerising disguise ... which was also balthazar's tactic when he returned from the mists like parerels to how we returned from the dead
Wp! Kormir explains that because Balthazar lit the sword sohothin, because it was a part of him, it could kill him. Just as the spear to kill kralkatorik was made of his blood
It would be great to be able to chose whether you're in normal Amnoon or branded Amnoon in season 4.
Anet pretty much stoped to bring large scale transformations to existing maps after season 1 because it means that all the previous content is changed for ever. Now with different versions of the same map they could bring back the idea of a changing world without erasing what they have done before.
It would be an easy way to deliver big expansion sized maps in season 4 by just transforming a map that already exists.
Going back and forth between two versions of the same map could also be a nice technology to bring back season 1.
About the last instance, not sure if you know yet, but you can freely swap between your standard build and sohothin. If you weapon swap when wielding it you gaina special action key to re-equip it
The presentation of the story definitely was better this time around. I love how the sun is so bright after you come back from the dead to emphasize the difference between those two states of being, which seems to be the main theme of PoF. There are the awakened who are dead, living beside the vabbians, there are many lost dead cultures out in the desert, and killing elder dragons seems to be a sure way to our own death. It shows an inevitability of death and really makes the conflict of the elder dragon balancing act that much more tense.
Thank you so much! I randomly decided to re-watch the original GW1 playthroughs (good times, loved them), saw your latest vids on the new expansion (which i had no idea was coming) - started playing again a few days before the expansion released, now i've bought both expansions (mount envy) and am slogging my way through the whole game with brand new characters (shiny new revenant class!).
Having so much fun with the return to the game and seeing whats new! So much to catch up on - what happened to LA? when did they fix the under construction area of DR? Canthan district would have been better :P Now we're 2 elder dragons down, a baby dragon ally and were fighting Balthazar? seriously, what did i miss!?
Really looking forward to seeing the crystal desert, especially Vabbi (Nightfall was my first GW game). Your bright bubbly enthusiasm has always been enough to capture my interest and im having tons of fun! I'm sure Anet appreciates the £43 too :P keep em coming :)
I absolutely loved the story and delivery of it - I've very rarely felt SO engaged and taking my time as in sections like the Library / Mists / Vlast's death / and some of the bigger fights! :) Also enjoying the PoF maps so much, I seem to take much more time to explore them and find them more intriguing then before ^^
Two things I think you missed with Sohotin (probably mentioned already but I'm not reading 400 comments to find out):
You can unequip Sohotin and go back to your regular build with the drop bundle key. Then you get a special action to draw it.
Different classes get different skills when using Sohotin. Not all of them, but I think the 2 and 3, maybe just the 2, vary based on your class. I found that that was super cool. We always see NPCs do super charged class abilities in story instance, like Marjory's exploding minions in season 2, or the permanent guardian bubbles every single time a guardian shows up anywhere. Giving out character a super-powered class ability felt great.
in the underworld memory part, you’ll see the person who died at claw island (tybalt for me as order of whispers)
I really really love seeing your videos after I've finished the maps and stories as well. Especially for the story it's sort of a post mortem for me. To again reiterate all I've been through and experienced and also catch some things that I might have missed.
I also thought the story of POF was exceptionally good and well written, it was only after I finished it that it occurred to me the story itself was actually quite basic. But in the end it doesn't matter because I had a really awesome and fun time and enjoyed every moment of it.
Speaking about some of the last things you said, yesss the party at the end was awesome. Every expansion of the original Guild Wars had a party in the end and so I really liked seeing that. And the speech, an absolute highlight.
I think I actually got the best choices coincidentally.
Started vague, Canach saying "Good start", then speaking the truth about Kralkatorrik being supercharged now with people getting scared and Rytlock saying "You're all welcome by the way" and then I ended with upbeat. So after telling everyone how screwed they are I ended with "So by all means, eat, drink, party" blablabla. And one of the guys in the crowd was like "But didn't you just say...." and after you completely finished the speech "So are we safe now or.... "
I actually laughed out loud there.
The only thing I couldn't quite imagine even after seeing the name of the last story instance is that we were actually going to kill Balthazar. He was such an important and prominent part of the franchise since Prophecies and I always imagined it would end in some different and more unexpected way. But of course we've killed another god before and also fought Dhuum in the Underworld so I guess even though they're praised throughout Tyria by all humans the gods are still exchangeable or even disposable. Still though thinking back to all the Zaishen on the Battle Isles and stuff, thinking that Balthazar is gone just like that, it's definitely gonna be interesting to see how Anet is going to deal with it.
I honestly thought the story would end on a cliffhanger, until Season 4. I'm incredibly happy that it didn't. I laughed with the story, I cried with the story, I screamed at my monitor, and I thought the bit where we died was so cool!!!!! I've never played the original Guild Wars, so that part was a complete shock to me! Best story ever!!! I wanted to pace myself, try not to rush through everything, but the story kept leaving me wanting more and more. I can't wait until season 4!!! I love the story, but I don't think I've ever been THIS excited for the story. Gorgeous maps, excellent writing (I loved the comedic dialogue from Rytlock, Canach, and as always Taimi), and all around a lot of fun. I was shocked, sad, and angry about Vlast's quick appearance and demise, but it was so good! I could talk about how much I loved it all day long. lol I was really surprised to see Kralkatorrik as well!
Edit: Argh! And my heart melted when we listened to Vlast talking about his life, and to Aurene! Hit me right in the feels. Tears for days! lol
And Joko! Ahahahahaha I loved his dialogue! "The torture! Oh-ho-ho-hooo yes! I have plotted it out!"
Oh! What you said about re-working minion-mancy!!! YES!!!! Rangers get new pets, Necromancers should get new minions or new ways to use the minions they have at least! They're Necros! Shouldn't they reap the souls of those they kill? lol
I was blown away by the story in PoF, the bit where you meet Kormir and enter the library made my jaw hit the floor! Obviously there are things to pick at but overall I was really impressed with the way the story was delivered - it's really great to see the story finally reach the potential the amazing lore of the guild wars franchise gives it. Very excited for LW Season 4 and to see what happens next! :D
For the past 3 days I've been clicking this video, then watching 10 seconds, then deciding I don't want to be spoiled anyway. Gosh, was it hard to constrain myself, haha! But today I finished the story, unspoiled, and now I've watched this vid. Very cool and I agree with most of the observations made. I loved The Departing, the Library, Kesha and Glint's Lair. Desert Highlands is my absolute favourite zone in the whole of GW. Even though I've only been playing GW for 2 months now (yes, I'm one of those newcomers, thanks to PoF), I feel I have a pretty good handle on what's going on, all thanks to you, WoodenPotatoes. If it hadn't been for your awesome vids, most of the story would have been *moves hand over head, making a whooshing sound*. So thank you!
Killing the dragons one by one was fun but very generic at least for me. I enjoyed it but it became very repetitive of "Go here, kill this dragon, next" i saw it as a means to just move to different areas of Tyria. Now with the spanner in the works of having to think of ways not only to save the remaining dragons, but try and replace the ones we killed, all the while one of them is now super charged with god power and off on his way to do whatever Kralk is gunna do added a lot more meat to the story where i take more notice. I love how 0 chill the ending was. HoT was very calm at the end. It was a lot of "Okay, Mordremoth is dead, next dragon, we'll have a sit down first". Path of Fire is the complete opposite, we get 5 minutes then Kralkatorrik shows up, super charged and ready to nom and i'm already excited for Season 4 and beyond. I really enjoyed PoF!
I spent some time looking over the ending cutscene with Kralkatorrik and it is hard to judge exactly what happens. But the conclusion I came to is that you see him flying over Vabbi but only one of the domes, the southeast one, is branded and the rest of the city is untouched. I've seen other mention how he is flying into the sun which suggests he is going west, but I think his flight starts by going southwest, south of Vabbi, before turning back to the west.
I also believe that the Vabbi map we have is after this happens and I have a few things to support this. The first is that the story doesn't show the brand, only Kralkatorrik near Vabbi. Second is that the southeast dome in Vabbi is branded and shattered in the map, which seems to be the same one as the cutscene. The third is that the brand extends to the bottom of the map, the same direction I suspect he flew after leaving his roost at Vabbi. And the final reason is that the stuff with the hidden mount in the brand is post-story, which once again suggests something about that area might occur post-branding.
But as I said at the start, it is really hard to judge and I think it is something we'll need to wait for S4 to clarify. It does seem like it was trying to set up new maps south of Vabbi and the Desolation that are branded as we follow Kralkatorrik. Also, Aurene was seen in a branded area, so there is that. As for why you see the branded clouds over Amnoon, I guess that is just to show how powerful Kralkatorrik is now and how far his power extends, but the brand still only occurs under his flight path even if the aura is larger.
Aside from the Kralkatorrik cutscene, I think the story was great and I'd say it is easily the best story ingame to date. I kinda wish it was longer and that isn't because it felt too short but because it was so good and I wanted more. That said, adding more could have messed up the pacing or ended up as more filler, so I think they made the right call to keep it the length they did.
The biggest problem I have was chasing Balthazar in act 3. He starts the act by toying with and killing us, yet after we return we don't seek a way to defeat him and instead only focus on stopping the Forged... Last time we fought him we lost horribly, so why do we think this time will be different when we learned nothing new on how to stop him? Others have said it was because of Sothin being his weakness and that Kormir eludes to that when she talks to Rytlock, but if that is the case we should have addressed that much sooner, perhaps in the Exalted City when talking about weaknesses, instead of it being a last minute thing Rytlock decided to do.
This was the first time I heard the idea that Aurene might have been the key to winning, which I hadn't considered, but I still wish we had just one line of dialog to explain why our character seems so confident to rematch Balthazar and what their plan was. I also wish there was a bit more dialog for smaller things like why Rytlock went to Amnoon since last we heard he was taken back to the legions and he was out of the loop with Balthazar and stuff, so it was a bit weird he beat us here. But that is just a minor thing and overall not that big of a deal. Though I really wish we got more from him about meeting Glint in the mists, especially when dealing with Glint's lair and stuff. It would have been neat if he reacted for Glint for parts like Vlast's death or spoke for Glint when deciding how to deal with the spear.
"We're gonna become a god slayer"
God Stomper, please.
Love the WP lore videos!! Can't wait for the in depth story reviews!
just finished my story, went strait for this video.
Yep, all this...loved it!!! And this beautiful map design. What are these freaking huge pots, these are amazing.
If sylvari are new to tyria, I didnt see anyone in elona reacting to a sylvari player. Also I dont remember seeing any sylvari in the afterlife episode.
You need to watch that end scene again, based on Kralkatorik origin being just southeast of Vabbi and he's heading towards the rising sun means he was heading away from Amnoon, keep in mind the moon was up during the party and Kral heads towards the sun just rising over the horizon...so east of Vabbi. Aurene absorbed some of the power that was released by Balthazar's death but Kralk absorbed even more...and I'm not so sure that "look" we got after Balthazar'd death might not have been one of...thanks?(which would be real odd coming from an Elder Dragon).
I had one big problem with the part that the PC died: I play a Norn and I was also greeted by the Judge from Grenth just like a Human, I should've been greeted by a Judge from the Raven or the Raven himself! That REALLY felt wrong.
Yeah, I think this is an issue. I mentioned it to a friend who mains a Norn last night. She pointed out that there are other races besides human there in that instance, which implies that while the races have their own beliefs, they are all (or more than human at least) subject to Grenth. Weird implication.
I think what they were trying to go for was that the Domain of the Lost was a weird halfway place. It was sort of an emergency stop on the way to all the real after lives because you only go there if you completely forget who you are. Such a small percentage of souls actually show up there that it only needed one caretaker who could get the souls moving again to their proper destinations. But, it would have been greatly improved with some dialogue lines saying that. >
The gods are not just the 'Human' Gods as they are often called. Humans might be their primary believers, but it's fantasy and the gods are not fake. A character can choose to not follow or not believe, but the gods are real and they do control nature, they do control the afterlife, etc. "Charr need no gods" but they have souls all the same. Spirits of the Wild are powerful creatures from the Mists, but they are not just some different kind of god that you can choose instead of the other ones.
Neok the Human gods aren‘t gods at all (at least it was implied that way for some time now) they are mistwalkers with imense powers but aren‘t „Gods“ in the most literal sense (like the greek gods were for instance), so I still see no reason why every race would be judged by a Judge of grenth, especially since the Norn have the Raven.
And even if they would be Gods in the most literal sense of the word, that still doesn‘t mean that the Norns believe of the Raven taking them to the Underworld is wrong, both can be right.
What I would have liked would be if there was a council made up of one of each of the great races, who judge them (The judge of Grenth, the Judge of Raven, maybe Riannoc for the Sylvari, etc.) this would have been a way more lorefirendly way to do it.
actually a raven guided you between each vision of your past
As a GW1 veteran, I was also constantly geeking out at the nightfall references and general GW1 appreciation I honestly missed in GW2 until now. We met Dunkoro, Tahlkora and Devona. we saw Mhenlo...so...awesome! I wonder what else is in PoF we never even touched upon. So hyped right now!
I know this is like a super specific thing that you mention for only a couple of seconds but what you said at like 24:27 is something I've always wished was a part of the game. Ever since I first started the game I really liked the idea of being a part of one of the orders and it does suck that because we're the commander now, no one treats us like we were ever a part of an order. Especially because my main is a whispers agent I feel like I could have had extra dialog with the shadows in PoF. It would have been really nice for the devs to have added to order specific things for the players for sure.
I also noticed that the city folk of Amnnoon talk about your decision. And different dialogue onthe different decisions :D
Without knowing that Sohothin was a gift of Balthazar or something, my explanation at the end was that Balthi himself rekindled the flame and it thus had the power of a god. So basically what set him free to begin with came back to bite him at the end and he fell to his own power. That´s also why I was ok with the 1v1. It was previously demonstrated how utterly superior he is when we fought him, but now he couldn´t give us his full attention AND we could abuse his power :)
At the end during the party make sure you choose at least one somber part of the speech and listen to rytlock right after you give that part of the speech. And did you happen to follow the NPC after she helps you in the underworld? her story has a bit of a happy ending.
I saw you dismounting and selecting another mount to quickly mount, in case ou dont know you can define a keybinding for each mount so you can quickly switch them without reselecting it in the skill bar (for example I have Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+3, Alt+4)
I have same but with CTRL :D
He knows. I think at this point every single member of SPUD has told him 5 times over.
The only thing I really wanted from this expansion when we met Kormir, was to also see the other God's before they left. (Also skins for mounts because I want an Aurene skin for my Griffin more than anything!!!) Like meeting Grenth in the underworld who brought our soul to a special place to test us, to see if we truly are capable with a second chance. We pass, and then Dwayna would appear and 'heal' us or something. Then we could have met Lyssa who'd explain how Balthazar got her mirror. (Which if he left the mists into our world right after he was freed then where did he get it? Was it an artifact that already existed on Tyria?) But yea this expansion was amazing. I was crying and screaming for Aurene! I love this expansion, and am loving the Firebrand right now. Whether Druid is still gonna be meta, I'm having a lot more fun with Firebrand. Still upset with Mirage, so will see how well they edit the classes in a month or two.
Oh and is it just me or was Krag a big disappointment ONLY at the final battle? Like during the end cinematic, you see he looks like a dragon, like a normal dragon with crystals. But in the battle with Balth, when he flys away, he's just a head with a really REALLY long neck, almost serpent like. Made me think they just recycled the Mouth of Morde skin or something.
I think it's also important to note that Kralkatorrik appears to fly overhead in the courtyard that's facing the ocean. That means he's flying from the east out over the ocean heading westward. In my mind, there's only one place Kralk is heading - to Cantha (and possibly DSD (which also might be in/under the Jade Sea))
I'm almost a year late but I just finished Path of Fire and oh my was it so good!!!!!! Thanks for all your videos.
Hey WP, at the end when Kralkatorrik is flying and leaving behind Brand, he doesn’t destroy Amnoon. If you look at the architecture, it’s clearly Vabbian in design.
About Sohothin, I think they kind of explain the fact that it is capable of destroying Balthazar when we see that Balthazar is the one to put fire on it again in the Mists.
So we kill Balthazar with his own fire, even if they didn't go back to its origins, we know where the fire comes from this time
@WP Carefully listen to which names Balthazar mentions in his raging outburst near the end of him. He does not seem to mention Lyssa at all as a betrayer, especially with Kormir mentioning Lyssa was the one "mocking" her for staying behind.
Great overview! Overall loved the story and the expansion so far. Gahh your idea of Sohothin belonging to Balthazar is so cool. Would have loved to see that. I also don't think that was Amnoon getting destroyed. I think Kralkatorik is moving into new territory.
Mini Map off. I am a big fan of the immersion gained by needing to maintain spacial awareness by observing your surroundings vs staring at a mini map. I really hope we get this option some day in vanilla options menu.
My 2 comments:
- I really wish we would have had at least one instance with Vlast prior to him dying (maybe a meet and greet or a little history). He was such a cool and massive character that even a superficial instance would have been great. While I really enjoyed the memory crystals, I felt like it was a shame that we only got to see him on screen for a brief fight and never got the chance to talk to him in character.
- The Springer mount area, High Jump Ranch (IIRC?). I really wish the game would have pointed you there better. It is implied that you need that mount to finish the instance, but actually locating the area where the mount was took a very long time, and its just luck that I had the tier 3 raptor mastery finished by then. Maybe there were some NPCs that gave a location for it, but as it is, I eneded up wandering around the map for a long time before finally asking my guildmates where it was.
Overall though, I'm really happy with the story. Its awesome that they've stepped up the difficulty in their boss fights, especially solo, but man I can't imagine how difficult the fight in the underworld would be if you weren't playing a class with multiple interrupt or CC skills.
For a character that had a minute of screen time, Vlast was the only character I felt was a well-rounded character in the expansion. Everyone else was a bit two-dimensional. Vlast had history, personality, motivation, conflicts, etc. It's amazing how much Anet was able to do with just a few sentences.
The little outpost that you enter when leaving Crystal Oasis has a stable with a few Springers. There a guy told me that I need to go north west to find the ranch. With only that information and then finding a jump that I needed my canyon jump mastery I could locate that area. But I dunno, maybe getting a Springer on day 2 is apparently too long for this community that grinded a Griphon on day 3 etc. Jesus christ these people are fast.
I didn't catch that dialogue from that guy. That would have made things easier.
I loved the death instance. It had such a great feeling, and going through our story and finding ourselves was really really cool
Is there a valid reason why Glint, Vlast and Aurene look like they're made from flesh and bone with crystals growing out of them, while Kralkatorrik and the Shatterer look like pure energy inside crystalline armour/shell ?
I had a theory about this. Glint was corrupted by Kralkatorrik, so she became something like combination of living creature and crystal corruption. When forgotten freed her and she got a free will, the visual remnants of corruption...these crystals, stayed on her body and was inherited to her offsprings. But since Kralkatorrik is origin of this corruption, he is something like...corruption itself. And the reason why he made Shatterer just from the pure corruption is to avoid his previous mistake with Glint. The dragon corruption itself cannot be cured...it will be destroyed instead. Like destroying a virus...without a host. But anyway...don't mind me. My theories are silly :D
On the library instance, they DID mention why the gods are leaving, it's because in a war between the gods and the elder dragons they knew Tyria would be destroyed either way no matter who won.
1st playthrough I was ecstatic, this was a dream come true lorewise and I couldnt find a single thing i didn't like in it.
I'm mid way through my 2nd playthorugh and i just finished Kormir Library part, and I've noticed one "flaw" and thing that irks me quite a bit, and that's Balthazar's character.
Those scenes where Kormir shows why he was imprisoned in the mists are basically "Hurr durr I wantz kill eldur dargons!, DURR Y U NO LET MEH KILZ ELDUR DARGONZ! I KILZ U WEN I IZ FREEDZ!!!!"
He does not sound "godly" in any sense of the word, he looks like a petulant child which has been denied a toy.
Gods should be extremely powerful, yes. But also extremely intelligent, i would expect a certain devious intellect and logical reasoning to Balthazar's actions.
Hell, they could have simply done "No one know what exactly will happen if all Elder Dragons die, but I am willing to sacrifice everything to see them gone, and we gods can rebuild Tyria afterward." There, a perfectly cynical and logical line of reasoning.
Certainly much better than "I WANT POWER, I WANT TO KILL and I dont give a crap what any1 else thinks"
Balthazar is such a missed oportunity, and I'm so sad they didn't do more with him.
They should have turned to Steven Erikson (author or Malazan Book of the Fallen) to see how a proper gods are crafted and just how devious and incredibly overwhelming such creatures can be crafted as (altho "spoiler alert" moral of the story is that mortals eventually prove to be the doom of them, one way or the other), bah no going back now.
Sad panda :(
I do think there is still more about Rytlock trip to the mists. Because when he free's Balthazar is just him leaving the mists. He mentions finding glint too but there sounds like there is more because he said it's classified. Meeting glint and getting freeing someone that helps him get the sword that he says didn't realize was Balthazar until the death of Vlast.
I think we may have rytlock giving out need to know basis info and serve to not having all stuff come from Taimi
Hey, WP! I think the end-of-story cinematic suggests that Kralkatorrik is heading towards Kourna rather than Amnoon. If you look at the first shots, the architecture is clearly Vabbian with the domes and not the pyramid structures of Amnoon. The other shot that indicates he's heading for Kourna is the pass surrounded by cliffs that he flies towards. This suggests Jahai Pass to me as there's really no other place that comes to mind from that. What I can't explain is why the effects are felt so powerfully in Amnoon but I still don't think that's what they were going for.
Pleeeaase give me your thoughts on this :)
Ive just thought...is there any indication Joko could return with Halloween. That would be great considering halloween story has kind of been dropped over the past few years. Also Mad King Thorn and Joko met at the end of GW1's final halloween. Joko foreshadowed the flooding of Elona. It will also be round about the time of nightfalls birthday
collect the lore Pages from the different maps. it is deactivated right now but map 1 explains what the gods are doing in tyria. couldn't use the more from map 2 or 3 because it got disabled
I think Season 4 will be split between the chase of Kralkatorrik (who is leaving a trail of destruction westward?) and the search for Aurene. Kralkatorrik might be going westward to the fire islands to attempt to slay Primordus with his newly acquired power. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't the elder dragons always been in balance in terms of power and that's why there wasn't a definitive 'stronger' dragon? Gathering the power of a god sure does unbalance the scales of power and Kralkatorrik might see this as his moment to strike!
Regarding all that power, isn't the PC gathering some of this aswell? Might help explain how we can go toe to toe with more and more dangerous goes ie. Gods after the defeat of 2 elder dragons by our hands!
Maybe we find the key to restoring the magic balance of the world lies in Cantha! They don't call it the Empire of the Dragon for nothing surely!
You can also go back to the sanctum without replaying the story if you work towards the Griffin mount I think whenever you want? Not sure, cause I'm still working on it
Tybolt was there when I was dead! So there are some references back if you did the personal story.
Oh my. That's weird too because when demmi dies she mentions him. Coul she have actually been speaking to him?
What if he became an Envoy? :D not likely but cool
I think they could have done the Vlast part a little better: I would have liked to see one story instance where we get to talk to Vlast while he was still alive, have some time to build an emotional connection to him. Or maybe Vlast would have told us how importatnt he himself is for the sake of Tyria, but he would still sacrifice himself for us. The way he died felt a little random and anticlimactic.
I don't think you mentioned it but I enjoyed having fewer characters in the story - we learn more about them and I care more about their story. It also helped that Canach and Rytlock are my favourite of the bunch ( and no Braham). Also great video as always!
In the final cutscene, there's no Amnoon structures, so I doubt Kralk went over it. Also he flies west, there's a setting sun in the background.
Was pretty interesting in the Departed mission when takling to Joko because i genuinly believe we'd side with joko or something then i realised wait, we dont need him. It was pretty funny to see us disguise to steal an army....exactly what balthazar did. Closing up loose ends was great. Rytlock and balthazar together, the explanation to how the forge were made tied in well with out previous exalted lore. Very great!
I do feel like there were some very subtle hints at Cantha throughout the expansion. The most in your face one for me, was in the epilogue when giving the speech, I ended on a positive note and the commander made an inspiring comment and said something to the effect of, "...we're Elonians, Tyrians, Canthans..." It felt very pointed to mention Canthans here since there's been so little story attention to anything Canthan in so long.
I think season 4 will deal with Joko, not necessarily killing him, but something. As well as finding where kralk flew off to, and rebuilding the pact with the order of shadows and Logan at the helm.
Rox and Braham can show up somewhere in there if they need to. I think there is enough in there to last for 2 years of good story.
I do think there should be more shmoozing and politicking for resources to rebuild the pact etc.
They did show why Sohothin can slay Balthazar. They took the time to show us that it went out in the mists. But they also took the time to show us that it is lit back up by Balthazar. So its a God Infused weapon at this point. That plus the dragon magic from Aurene. Thats the explanation for why we were able to best Balthazar that I took at least
Honestly, what I hope for in LS4 is a closer look at the commander dying and re-visiting Aurene....I don't really expect the former to actually happen, but I appreciated the reaction on the part of the other major characters at the end of the instance and would love to see that addressed further somehow.
Also -- not convinced with Rytlock's story! There's still so much unanswered about his time in the Mists, including a few details that might just be flukes but bother me anyway. (did you notice his eye color changed?)
Very eager to hear others' thoughts moving forward.