So about Sohothin

Did I miss something? Is there a lore-related reason why we don't keep using the obviously overpowered as hell weapon from PoF to cleave down all the foes in LSE4?I mean - it cleaved down a god and countless minions. It took down a huge war engine - remind me again why I'm struggling with measly undead and not using the sword?

Or is it just another huge plot hole added to the list of huge plot holes in GW2 lore?

I wouldnt mind, but Rytlock is clearly inept with it...

Think about poor Rytlock!

He barely does anything even with Sohothin. Just imagine what he will be like if we steal the one thing that makes him somewhat kind of powerful-ish...?

It's still unexplained why this weapon was so powerful in our hands back then, I suspect it may have something to do with Balthazar being creator of this weapon, making him vurnerable to it. And we should remember that Aurene was helping us, directly, and I believe albo indirectly, we're bonded with her after all, it may give us some power too, which activated Sohothin.

Commander is a nice guy/gurl and gives the kitty his toy back :)

I asked myself the same question. I am glad I am not the only one who was wondering about that.

Kind of like Trahearne in that Personal Story mission where you get trapped and he conjures these reapers or whatever that tear apart the mobs so you can backtrack and escape the cave. Never does that again later ;)

@cNd.1096 said:It's still unexplained why this weapon was so powerful in our hands back then, I suspect it may have something to do with Balthazar being creator of this weapon, making him vurnerable to it. And we should remember that Aurene was helping us, directly, and I believe albo indirectly, we're bonded with her after all, it may give us some power too, which activated Sohothin.

See? This doesn't really hold up. Balthazar was vulnerable to it when we fought HIM. But what about the other hordes of enemies that we fought earlier using the sword that were easily and mercilessly cut down?Also - Aurene is with us during the last part of the fight - but not the fight entirely. So there are moments in time in which we engage, hold our own and significantly damage balthazar's siege engine with just ourselves and the sword.

I know you can try to make up various explanations - I could do that too - but I feel the writers should have had the decency to address this in LS4 in order to keep the story somewhat consistent in universe. Otherwise it just feels there's less and less holding this story together as a coherent form.

Yeah, the story just feels like a badly written fanfiction sometimes. It always amuses me when an author forgets what they wrote in their previous chapter. Sometimes Anet forgets that too it seems.

I am not angry about plotholes like that. They just amuse me and I tend to ignore them. I would never be able to write a coherent story either xD

@Harper.4173 said:Did I miss something? Is there a lore-related reason why we don't keep using the obviously overpowered as hell weapon from PoF to cleave down all the foes in LSE4?I mean - it cleaved down a god and countless minions. It took down a huge war engine - remind me again why I'm struggling with measly undead and not using the sword?

Or is it just another huge plot hole added to the list of huge plot holes in GW2 lore?

Sohothin belongs to Rytlock, he lent it to us just that time, and I don't think hes keen to depart with it anytime soon and we cannot force him to give us the sword, it would obviously create a friction among the commander and him and having to deal with braham is already a headache to have 2 of them.

Just think about it yourself, you're a proud warrior and owner of a legendary sword, and in onw occacion you lent it to a friend to help him archieve something, later he want to have it because, according to him, he uses the sword better than you, would you give it to him? just like that? even knowing the sword could save your ppl from ghosts?

@Pax.3548 said:

@Harper.4173 said:Did I miss something? Is there a lore-related reason why we don't keep using the obviously overpowered as hell weapon from PoF to cleave down all the foes in LSE4?I mean - it cleaved down a god and countless minions. It took down a huge war engine - remind me again why I'm struggling with measly undead and not using the sword?

Or is it just another huge plot hole added to the list of huge plot holes in GW2 lore?

But that's not the point? Rytlock can keep is sword, sure. But Rytlock, please USE your damn sword! He is fighting with us a lot. WHY doesn't he use the power of the sword?

Like others stated, Rytlock only lent the sword to the "commander", who never intended to keep it.Just a little extract of the conversation with Rytlock before he gave us the sword.

!! Rytlock Brimstone: I got us into this mess over Sohothin, but you can get us out of it.! Rytlock Brimstone: Thinking back, I now know what Kormir meant. "Undo this wrong. The means are in your grasp." You should have it.! Character Name: No. Sohothin is yours.! Rytlock Brimstone: The only thing that matters is stopping Balthazar. When he sees you're not dead, he'll turn his full fury on you and no one else.! Rytlock Brimstone: He won't expect you to have it, which makes this our best hope.! Character Name: I'm honored, Tribune. I'll bring it back in one piece.! Rytlock Brimstone: Yes, you will.

The reason why the Sword isn't that powerful while Rytlock is using it, is probably that he shouldn't carry us through the instances, which means nothing that can be explained lorewise. Or maybe he don't know to use it properly, or simply can't use it's full power because he isn't human? After all Sohotin and Magdaer are both swords which were made by the human gods while they still lived in arah. Watching the past, before and after it got re-ignited by Bahltazar sohotin never was that powerful while Rytlock wielded it. When he tried to use the sword to break the curse of the Foefire (with a second artifact, the crown, which fragments we searched for in living story 2) something went wrong as well, and the sword was drawn to the mists and lost its power. In addition the curse never got broken, maybe weakend, and the number of the ascalonian ghost got just reduced.

@Myrdreth.6829 said:

@Pax.3548 said:

@Harper.4173 said:Did I miss something? Is there a lore-related reason why we don't keep using the obviously overpowered as hell weapon from PoF to cleave down all the foes in LSE4?I mean - it cleaved down a god and countless minions. It took down a huge war engine - remind me again why I'm struggling with measly undead and not using the sword?

Or is it just another huge plot hole added to the list of huge plot holes in GW2 lore?

Probably because he would carry us through the instances? robbing us protagonism? and maybe make players jealous like it has done several times with other npcs?

@Dondarrion.2748 said:Kind of like Trahearne in that Personal Story mission where you get trapped and he conjures these reapers or whatever that tear apart the mobs so you can backtrack and escape the cave. Never does that again later ;)

Well he does...

When you fight him again during the Knight of the Thorn side story. He summons 4 flesh golems and 4 flesh wurms in that fight, while having a mixture of Caladbolg and Reaper-Greatsword skills.

@Pax.3548 said:

@Harper.4173 said:Did I miss something? Is there a lore-related reason why we don't keep using the obviously overpowered as hell weapon from PoF to cleave down all the foes in LSE4?I mean - it cleaved down a god and countless minions. It took down a huge war engine - remind me again why I'm struggling with measly undead and not using the sword?

Or is it just another huge plot hole added to the list of huge plot holes in GW2 lore?

I doubt we couldn't "force him". I could easily postulate that we could have taken the sword and never returned it as a form of atonement for what he ended up doing to Elona while he was in the mists.It seems rather fitting too - you - in your desperate quest to regain the sword unleashed this horror - and now to put it to rest you must relinquish the sword for good in order to make things right. I think it would have been something he'd accept.

Of course I'm in the band that would keep the sword and just get rid of Rytlock altogether.

It also doesn't explain why the sword is so strong at times and so weak at others. Rytlock is nearly useless in all combat during the story. I might say that if he cares about winning he might willingly hand you the sword seeing how inept he is with it.And to answer your question - if I cared about the cause we fought for and wanted us to succeed then yes - I would give them the sword.

As to his people - they have no business being there in the first place - they could rebuild their city anywhere else - but they're stubborn and want to take the city. For no reason. It's burned to the ground. It's done. But they keep trying. They deserve to struggle against the ghosts if they can't prove to be more intelligent or adaptable than said ghosts.

@Ronan.9518 said:Like others stated, Rytlock only lent the sword to the "commander", who never intended to keep it.Just a little extract of the conversation with Rytlock before he gave us the sword.

!! Rytlock Brimstone: I got us into this mess over Sohothin, but you can get us out of it.! Rytlock Brimstone: Thinking back, I now know what Kormir meant. "Undo this wrong. The means are in your grasp." You should have it.! Character Name: No. Sohothin is yours.! Rytlock Brimstone: The only thing that matters is stopping Balthazar. When he sees you're not dead, he'll turn his full fury on you and no one else.! Rytlock Brimstone: He won't expect you to have it, which makes this our best hope.! Character Name: I'm honored, Tribune. I'll bring it back in one piece.! Rytlock Brimstone: Yes, you will.

The problem here is this ultimately - they relied on the sword to carry the story but didn't end up fixing the plothole afterwards. A simple line of "Now with Balthazar gone the sword...its fire seems so much dimmer -maybe the magic that powered it got absorbed by Kralk. added when you returned the sword would have nicely tied this up together. But they didn't bother and that's what irks me. The lack of thought put into things.

If you'll argue that he can't or won't use the power then - lorewise - it would make sense for him to give it up again or permanently - seeing how vastly superior we are with the sword compared to him.

The point is you can try to cover it up but bad writing is bad writing and I stand by the idea that it should be called out.

From the mechanics perspective, it was smart on Arena's part to do that. That way people wouldn't struggle depending on their build and stat allocation, Sohathan was just a cookie-cutter build players used from which Arenanet could balance the content around.

@Ronin.7381 said:From the mechanics perspective, it was smart on Arena's part to do that. That way people wouldn't struggle depending on their build and stat allocation, Sohathan was just a cookie-cutter build players used from which Arenanet could balance the content around.

Let's not stress the players by forcing them to actually improve or be decent at the game. I remember when I started playing GW1 and every bad build was punished beyond belief. It wasn't pleasant but it was healthy and made me learn how to build and become a good player.

Weird. I could have sworn I'd responded to this thread, but it's not here now...

To recap: It does seem a bit of a plothole that Sohothin is apparently so powerful in the hands of the Commander. It makes it so that, now, basically anything bad that happens that could have been prevented if the PC had had more firepower is now on Rytlock. Any citizens of Amnoon you didn't rescue in time? Rytlock's fault, you could have been using Sohothin to break those crystals in no time. If you hadn't completed the final battle of the final instance in time? On Rytlock's head.

They really needed to give some explanation that the sword had some kind of one-time power boost. If it was something that could be replicated at any time by putting the sword in the PC's hand... then it really should be being given to the PC to use any time that the PC isn't pulling a Thackeray and getting themselves captured.

@Pax.3548 said:

@Myrdreth.6829 said:

@Pax.3548 said:

@Harper.4173 said:Did I miss something? Is there a lore-related reason why we don't keep using the obviously overpowered as hell weapon from PoF to cleave down all the foes in LSE4?I mean - it cleaved down a god and countless minions. It took down a huge war engine - remind me again why I'm struggling with measly undead and not using the sword?

Or is it just another huge plot hole added to the list of huge plot holes in GW2 lore?

I agree with you. But then Anet shouldn't have given him that sword. Or shown us how easy it is to fight with that sword, how overpowered it is. And now we are at the beginning of the question again :)

Maybe Rytlock has just been coasting on everyone else's coattails for so long. Is there any evidence that he's level 80?

@scherazade.2891 said:Maybe Rytlock has just been coasting on everyone else's coattails for so long. Is there any evidence that he's level 80?

Dammit! I knew it!

It's alright.. doesn't go with my armor anyway..

We all know Guildwars ain't about power.. or fame.. It's basically a fashion contest with violence ^^

@Harper.4173 said:

@Ronin.7381 said:From the mechanics perspective, it was smart on Arena's part to do that. That way people wouldn't struggle depending on their build and stat allocation, Sohathan was just a cookie-cutter build players used from which Arenanet could balance the content around.

With a horribly complain-about-everything attitude and indirect "me are better than thou!" jabs. So... yeah, "good" as in skill, at least?

It's the other way around. Its a decent weapon that turnt out to be extra effective against Balthazar's fire.Fight fire with fire, literally. Its just an okay weapon against branded and awakened