Daybreak Spoilers

Wow, I am kinda amazed by this episode- we have unexpected new villain, we have Kralkatorrik using death magic. Aurene that gave us another vision. And the "bugs" that Joko is looking for...

And one of our team members were about to die, I thought it'd be Rytlock, but Taimi... I was scared when she was repeating "he is coming"...

Canach almost killed us, but then Braham saved us. Rox as always lovely. Rytlock seems to be excited, no sign of Kasmeer and Marjory- very surprising and weird.

I knew it! I was speculating that if Braham would ever join our side then Taimi must be in danger so we would again fight together. :) Taimi and Braham are like sister and brother and I was very happy when I saw his reaction about that Taimi is in danger.

Wait- Joko has an access to Inquest's research?! But the inquest knows something about the one character- they know something about... Deep Sea Dragon... They hide their researches and what if we'll somehow get an access to them? :O

Scruffy 2.0 is dead... I really doubt she will ever do Scruffy 3.0, she will be training to become Holosmith- that's my guess.

What are the bugs?

I think we'll have new current event in one or two week and we'll see the portals that Rox and Braham were talking about.

Joko is going to get Tyria- the continent....

We are completely nooked- Joko is gonna turn the whole Tyria into his new possession, Kralkatorrik turns the Desert into Brand hell...

Also Amnoon is totally destroyed... I hoped we'd win, but Kralkatorrik is so freaking strong!

Logan will be the next character that will be involved to the story, also it really seems that we'll have a huge World Summit, I thought we would have it in Season 3, but the races handled their own problems.

We have to stop Joko... But how... He cannot be killed, right? But what if he will be turned into Branded Joko? Then we will be able to kill him?

The writers did amazing job, the episode is very long, amazing beginning, the middle and the ending were just perfect!

Attack on Amnoon- the perfect fights and music!!! Aurene looks so freaking cool!!

Meeting Koss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was fantastic!!!

Then we were freaking imprisoned... xD When this Awakened hitted my character I thought she killed us. xD

And the ending- Taimi... I was preparing myself for her death... Or I thought Braham would sacrifice himself for her- thankfully it was not necessary and we saved her! When I looked at Taimi... She looked so freaking bad!!!

First Marjory, now Taimi... They touched death... And we did... We freaking died... If somebody from our team will die, I'll personally go to the Mists and take this somebody back!

This episode just showed that ANet listens to the community.

The story: 10/10The fractal: 10/10The new raid- if you enter the new raid the 1st boss is.... The Red Lady! And we see this weird red thingy that we can see in Godlost Swamp! I cant wait to learn who she is!

Also seems that Dhuum is on the picture. So nice!

Joko might still be imprisoned though since what we encountered in Fahranur the "Mysterious Figure" that was teased in Aurenes vision is clearly not Joko.

That and Joko have always had a bit of comedic relief to him while this encounter was straight up horror.

@GrizzlyTank.3145 said:Joko might still be imprisoned though since what we encountered in Fahranur the Mysterious Figure that was teased in Aurenes vision is clearly not Joko.

That and Joko have always had a bit of comedic relief to him while this encounter was straight up horror.

You suggest Joko is still imprisoned but someone else has taken his spot like how Balthazar took Lazarus's spot? I suspect either Dhuum or Menzies to be the mastermind behind everything(Yes the Evil Gods have a habit of disguising themselves as other people as seen with Balthazar posing as Lazarus and Abaddon's Avatar posing as a Fortune Teller). The question is: was it really Joko who hired Zinn or the guy who is now impersonating him?

The bugs are almost undoubtedly something Scarab Plague related. They even mention it shortly before the bugs are brought up, and refer to how Joko is using something similar. Assuming this is Joko -- I have my doubts.

BTW Who is that? https://imgur.com/a/z4zKp

@Mickey Frogeater.1470 said:

@GrizzlyTank.3145 said:Joko might still be imprisoned though since what we encountered in Fahranur the Mysterious Figure that was teased in Aurenes vision is clearly not Joko.

That and Joko have always had a bit of comedic relief to him while this encounter was straight up horror.

Whoever is leading his army put a bounty on your head. Dhuum or Menzies are known to us, but our character is not known to them.

Only Menzies might be an option (although a long shot). It might be that, even though his nemesis is dead and killed by our hand, it also happens to be his brother and even though he always wanted him dead, he dislikes us for killing his brother.

So what? After fake Lazarus fake Joko? I think ANet has better ideas.

I doubt Joko isnt Joko... That would be really stupid... I hope ANet won't go this way again, because it turned out really bad...

Im guessing the mysterious figure is joko, but not physically joko. A thrall that joko is controlling remotely.Another possibility is that joko learned to transfer his soul to a new vessel allowing him to get out of the cage (all this assuming killing balthazar didnt free him).Jokos plan defently seems to be destroying/enslaving tyria to get revenge against the player: assuming he is planning on using the scarab plaugue which possibly the inquest has information on (would fit inquest to reseach a disease to use as a weapon)Hope we see more variety of awakened since we now have asurans that joko awakened

I don't care how pretty GW2 is or how compelling the story, I'm just not interested anymore in playing Commander Doormat. I detest Braham because Anet, you never give the option to put him in his place no matter how badly he treats the Commander. Like Rytlock said, "Enough."

It better be Joko, 'cause if they pull another, "It's this guy....BUT NOT REALLY!" half a year on, I may rage.

It makes sense to be him, we've stolen his army, pissed him off and he's come after a party member to further his goals of spreading his awakened to Tyria. Why now? A beefed up Elder Dragon is even further in his territory than it was before causing issues and he probably wants to find a way to cause mass plague throughout Tyria to get a massive awakened army.

@JayMack.8295 said:It better be Joko, 'cause if they pull another, "It's this guy....BUT NOT REALLY!" half a year on, I may rage.

It makes sense to be him, we've stolen his army, pissed him off and he's come after a party member to further his goals of spreading his awakened to Tyria. Why now? A beefed up Elder Dragon is even further in his territory than it was before causing issues and he probably wants to find a way to cause mass plague throughout Tyria to get a massive awakened army.

Yeah! Scarab plague is coming for us!

So as I said- we must prepare a new world summit, we have to defend Tyria from Joko and Elona from Kralkatorrik- we are nooked...

In the end, isn't Joko's attempted invasion of Tyria just a hollow threat? Looking at it objectively, the Awakened forces and the Mordant Crescent are barely able to suppress open revolt in their own lands. How conceivable is it for Pawala Joko to launch an invasion of conquest and hope to be successful against what would almost certainly be the combined forces of Divinity's Reach, Rata Sum, Hoelbrak, the Black Citadel, the Grove and Lion's Arch. As Rytlock pointed out in the end, the Awakened would face the full might of the High Legions, which alone would probably wipe out the invaders. Charr civilization is built for war.'

What is really interesting going forward is how Joko intends to take revenge on the Commander. Clearly all of this is intended as payback, so it will be for us to see just who is targeted, just as Taimi was here.

Honestly, the scary thing is that Anet may well have decided they've had enough of Taimi, so I actually did fear for her. I wouldn't put it past the writers to think that killing a member of Dragons Watch would be a dramatic way to begin the season.

Still, the pacing of this episode has left me confused. Weren't we on the Amnoon docks at the end of PoF when the Brandstorm appeared? Why are we suddenly meeting in the farm like nothing ever happened? More to the point, isn't the place we visit on this episode a fair distance away from Amnoon (a days sailing, at least?). How did Taimi, Rytlock and Canach get to the island so fast, when we clearly had a huge head start?

Anet purposely put that "Mysterious Voice" and "Mysterious Figure" in for a reason to show it wasn't Joko, atleast not the physical Joko we know. Anyone else surprised that our character and none of the NPC's mentioned them?

Looking at the videos it almost seems as if the cast are making assumptions on Joko ambushing the Inquest when he could have ambushed any Asura or got his info from Zinn himself. If the latter then Joko may very well be the leader of the Inquest just as Minister Caudecus was leader of the White Mantle.

@twobears.5713 said:In the end, isn't Joko's attempted invasion of Tyria just a hollow threat? Looking at it objectively, the Awakened forces and the Mordant Crescent are barely able to suppress open revolt in their own lands. How conceivable is it for Pawala Joko to launch an invasion of conquest and hope to be successful against what would almost certainly be the combined forces of Divinity's Reach, Rata Sum, Hoelbrak, the Black Citadel, the Grove and Lion's Arch. As Rytlock pointed out in the end, the Awakened would face the full might of the High Legions, which alone would probably wipe out the invaders. Charr civilization is built for war.'

What is really interesting going forward is how Joko intends to take revenge on the Commander. Clearly all of this is intended as payback, so it will be for us to see just who is targeted, just as Taimi was here.

Manpower isn't really a problem for Joko. The more people he kills, the larger his armies become. That was probably the plan: wipe out major population centers like Hoelbrak and Rata Sum, and use the corpses from those massacres to spread farther into the continent. If they get beaten back? No problem. He has control of the portals, and can turn them off at any time. Meaning his victims can't retaliate without sending armies across a massive, extremely hostile desert.

He had very little to lose from this little excursion, and everything to gain. Not just territory, but other things, too: a treasure trove of wealth, technology and magical artifacts that could be sent back to Joko's domain. Plus revenge. And honestly, for all the practical reasons, revenge was probably the biggest factor here. Joko wasn't just conquering. He was trying to hurt the Commander, by lashing out at their friends and home. This was a scorched earth campaign.

@StAllerdyce.3941 said:The bugs are almost undoubtedly something Scarab Plague related. They even mention it shortly before the bugs are brought up, and refer to how Joko is using something similar. Assuming this is Joko -- I have my doubts.

I was thinking Chak.. They look like bugs and absorb magic.

@twobears.5713 said:In the end, isn't Joko's attempted invasion of Tyria just a hollow threat? Looking at it objectively, the Awakened forces and the Mordant Crescent are barely able to suppress open revolt in their own lands. How conceivable is it for Pawala Joko to launch an invasion of conquest and hope to be successful against what would almost certainly be the combined forces of Divinity's Reach, Rata Sum, Hoelbrak, the Black Citadel, the Grove and Lion's Arch. As Rytlock pointed out in the end, the Awakened would face the full might of the High Legions, which alone would probably wipe out the invaders. Charr civilization is built for war.'

What is really interesting going forward is how Joko intends to take revenge on the Commander. Clearly all of this is intended as payback, so it will be for us to see just who is targeted, just as Taimi was here.

In addition to what DorDor said...

He was going for a knockout blow before his targets could rally their forces.

In pure military terms, he shouldn't have been able to seize Elona either. His first invasion, that Turai defeated, started with a surprise attack through a mountain range that the Vabbians thought was impassable (and which probably was if it wasn't for the tunnel - said tunnel, incidentally, seems to be how we get from the Desolation to the Domain of Vabbi now). The second invasion, which succeeded, didn't succeed by direct military means, but by Joko diverting the Elon and starving Elona into submission.

His portal attack was essentially an attempt to repeat his original success in Vabbi. The nations of Tyria would not have been expecting an invasion through portals opening right into their capital city, so under the circumstance it seems reasonable for Joko to have hoped to achieve a knockout blow that would have delivered him one or more of Tyria's capitals. It currently seems as if he didn't pull that off (I don't think ArenaNet would pull a "one of the capitals had fallen to the enemy months ago" in a future update), but if he'd managed to take, say, Divinity's Reach or the Black Citadel, then it might not matter how many Seraph or angry charr were outside the walls - the damage would already have been done.

Now that the conventional surprise attack has apparently failed, he may now be looking for the equivalent of the diverging of the Elon: some way to strike at one of the nations without having to face their strength directly.

I just hope we don't actually beat Joko to be honest.

Well we can look at the facts.

• We know Joko was left in the Realm of the Lost but could of some how escaped?? (doubt it tbh)
• Balthazar is dead.
• The person clearly knows of the commander as the commander has a bounty on their head.
• The person knows of Asuran technology due to the hidden lab in Fahranur , which is obviously extremely bad, especially having control over the Inquest.
• The person clearly is aware of the scarab plague, as there's evidence suggesting it. at least something to do with bugs and experiments.
• Zinn is mentioned a bit and makes since. Zinn was banished from the asuran lands so it would make sense to find a hidden lab somewhere even if its the crystal desert as well as Rata Novus as a high chancellor as well as relocated to Rata Arcanum. I noticed a large number of scattered broken asura gates throughout the ls4 which is interesting. I even seen 1 somewhere in the crystal desert at one point (wish I remembered where xD)
• We have this picture from Aurene's Vision https://i.imgur.com/DxxOWaP.png
• Here's a video that includes the vision. I did a time link to the vision directly.
• This is clearly bigger than Joko (not including the dragon issue of course)

@Ronin.7381 said:I just hope we don't actually beat Joko to be honest.

I kinda hope we do beat Joko for a couple of reason's. First, in my opinion i don't really like unkillable immortal enemies. Second, while a great antagonist and one of the few well written characters he really is just a throw back to GW1. Lastly, I would love to see the fallout of the power vacuum after his death, maybe his lieutenants take over or there is some sort of Elonian civil wars or maybe just maybe another clever antagonist will take his place and subvert our intentions to free all of the Elonian people.

just my two cents, other likely will feel differently.

IDK about you all but the whole thing when Taimi stopped answering the commander and the commanders voice goes soft and frail made my heart sink xD

@Soruf.4875 said:Well we can look at the facts.

• We know Joko was left in the Realm of the Lost but could of some how escaped?? (doubt it tbh)
• Balthazar is dead.

Nenah states that the chains "are beyond the judge's power to break. They exist at Balthazar's will". While it's not explicitly stated, one interpretation is that since Balthazar no longer wills them to be (since he's now dead) the chains would have dissipated on their own and freed Joko to return to Tyria.

@nighthawke.3075 said:

@Ronin.7381 said:I just hope we don't actually beat Joko to be honest.

That I feel is the problem, it's overly cliche that every single baddy we come across must be defeated by the main protagonist - namely, ourselves the playter. Kind of counter intuitive to a persistent world, in my honest opinion. Joko was the comedic relief in GW: Nightfall. He was bad but he was so bad he was good, I just couldn't compel myself to despise the guy. However, I do feel he's been underhanded with Path of Fire and even dumbed down to be your typical mustache-twirly super villain which is the only saving grace for me not caring whether we truly defeat him.

As for political vacuum, we kind of did that in Path of Fire. He was locked away and we acted in his stead to use the Awakened against the Forged. But that too, like Joko in PoF, was underdeveloped. Could have been better I suppose.