(Spoiler?) Sohotin

I personally think that it was a mistake to give Sohotin into the hands of the player character. More in a way of the skills the blade has/had when we used it. Or rather the damage it could output. Yes it was a really nice add-on in the story to use this blade once. I too did enjoy it a lot. But i think this directly opens a problem for the upcoming story content:

You see Sohotin made everything much easier during that story part. The first reaction i had once experienced that was: Why didn't the hero get the blade earlier? I mean we know its magical and powerful. It makes everything so much easier. So naturally as follows, I can imagen that we will ask Sohotin from Rytlock every time we encounter another problem. And then you start to wonder, do you really want to be bound to that sword from now on out to play the story? I personally like to play it as myself in the class, weapons skills and traits i use. But that would be stupid to do so cause Sohotin makes everything easier. Its like you're trying to bust a door while you can also easily open it with a key.

So to counter balance this. I think the next logical thing that NEEDS to happen is that the sword becomes useless. At least to the degree where it is not so powerful. I think this can be done by either saying Sohotin looses it power duo to the death of Balthazar (since he reignited it). Or Rytlock cleanses his region from the Ascalon ghosts. Another possibility is that it brakes in attempt to use on the next big-bad-ass cause he/she/it is so much more powerful.

Would like to hear your toughts on it.Discuss

Rytlock only let us use the sword because he interpreted what Kormir said to mean that the sword was the key. He won't do that again since the context as to why he let us do it this time wont be there.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:Rytlock only let us use the sword because he interpreted what Kormir said to mean that the sword was the key. He won't do that again since the context as to why he let us do it this time wont be there.

It does make me wonder why Rytlock needs anyone at all. He had the sword he could have done all of this himself, but we've seen that he can't/doesn't. That leaves me to wonder what else was different that unleashed so much more power from the sword? Perhaps we had some Godly assistance From the New God of War & fire.

@nighthawke.3075 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:Rytlock only let us use the sword because he interpreted what Kormir said to mean that the sword was the key. He won't do that again since the context as to why he let us do it this time wont be there.

Nah, we see Rytlock pull some quite badass stuff with Sohotin in HoT. It seems to me the idea is that regardless how powerful Sohotin is, it's not enough by itself to rival Balthazar. We also needed Aurene and our bond with her (not to mention Kralkatorrik also being on Balthazar's plate).

@Feanor.2358 said:

@nighthawke.3075 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:Rytlock only let us use the sword because he interpreted what Kormir said to mean that the sword was the key. He won't do that again since the context as to why he let us do it this time wont be there.

I'm pretty sure Rytlock never cuts like a buzz saw through Zhaitan, Mordemoth or Kralkatorrik or their armies of corrupted. Literally if Sohotin was always as powerful as it was when we fought Balthazar then Snaff would be alive and Glint would be alive and all of the elder dragons would have died before GW2 even began. After all we made short work of the Forged army as well as the branded all along the way as well as throw down with Balthazar.

@nighthawke.3075 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@nighthawke.3075 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:Rytlock only let us use the sword because he interpreted what Kormir said to mean that the sword was the key. He won't do that again since the context as to why he let us do it this time wont be there.

I see a lot of jumping to conclusions here.

First off, Sohotin isn't godlike in power. Sure, its abilities are epic, but nowhere near the levels of devastation the gods have achieved (boiling the Crystal Sea for instance). So it's wrong to conclude Sohotin's power rivals Balthazar's and this was the reason we managed to win.

Second, even if this were the case, Balthazar was arguably weaker than Kralkatorrik at the point of the encounter. Why would he go through all the hassle with capturing a crystal dragon to attack Kralkatorrik's weakness if he could simply overpower him? Hence, a victory over a weakened ex-god doesn't necessarily mean automatic victory over any Elder Dragon. Not by a long shot.

Realistically, we didn't even defeat a weakened ex-god. All we did was tip the balance of power against him. That's the extent of the power we could muster, with Sohotin and with Aurene's help. Meaning the long shot I mentioned above is very long.

We're using Ancient Magic with Sohothin, something which if you recall, we mastered during the last Living Story. Rytlock never learned how to use Ancient Magic, so he cannot use that power. That explanation works, at least for me.

@RyuDragnier.9476 said:We're using Ancient Magic with Sohothin, something which if you recall, we mastered during the last Living Story. Rytlock never learned how to use Ancient Magic, so he cannot use that power. That explanation works, at least for me.

I'm sorry what? Ancient Magic's, is just an additional mastery line for the lws3 maps. It gave us certain special skill abilities specifically bound to those maps. You're incapable of using those abilities outside the maps. Next to that: its bound to HoT, you dont have to own HoT to play PoF. So that makes your comment completely irrelevant

As for the rest, Yes Rytlock gave us the sword duo to what Kormir said, and yes we do have to count Kralka as well as Aureene in here. However it is still more powerful then our own class abilities. Look at the "pre-event" where you have to destroy the pillars and kill some mobs along the way. So why wouldn't you as the hero ask for the sword from him? It's like you walk 5km to do some shopping, while you also can take the car which makes it easier. So yeah, lore wise the context may not be there. But from a logical perspective. You would ask the sword from Rytlock

The more important question is why is Sohothin so powerful against Balthazar ("Balthaddon")?The sword itself was a present from the gods (possible forged by Balthazar itself) and I doubt they give them something powerfull enough to challenge a god (even a weakened). Otherwise the Ascalonians wouldn't had any trouble to defeat the charr with two of the swords.Balthazar re-ignited the sowrd in his weakened state, so I think he could easily put the flames out again.Furthermore Balthazar is the god of fire, so fire shouldn't be an effective weapon against him.

@Doni.3402 said:The more important question is why is Sohothin so powerful against Balthazar ("Balthaddon")?The sword itself was a present from the gods (possible forged by Balthazar itself) and I doubt they give them something powerfull enough to challenge a god (even a weakened). Otherwise the Ascalonians wouldn't had any trouble to defeat the charr with two of the swords.Balthazar re-ignited the sowrd in his weakened state, so I think he could easily put the flames out again.Furthermore Balthazar is the god of fire, so fire shouldn't be an effective weapon against him.

Sohothing behaved differently in the hands of the player character, either the blade got "powered up" in our hands somehow or balthazar's reigniting the blade made it more powerful. Balthazar WAS the god of fire, but I don't think that made him imnune, just like a fire elementalist that masters fire can be hurted by another elementalist throwing fireballs at him. Or maybe the sword's fire was so potent it managed to actually hurt balthazar in his "demigod" state.

I think it doesn't matter about the sword because the Commander is in no position to demand the sword from Rytlock, nor would he do that. If your friend let you borrow his really powerful truck to pick up some supplies from the home improvement store and you said "hm, I really like this truck. It would make my life easier to have it." You wouldn't demand that your friend give you his truck. What hero acts like that?

What I wonder is why, if my Guild has all this power that I don't have, I am the one who is "in charge" and gets all the glory. Why did Rytlock give ME the sword instead of slaying Balthazar himself. Rytlock also has super Revenant powers that no Player Character has. That is what doesn't make any sense to me. And Kas has Mesmer powers no PC has. Etc. It seems the Player Character actually brings the quality of the group down since I don't have any of the super-abilities that they have.

Probably is hard to counter destruction Sohotin promotes on on his atack 5. In fantasy plots in general, there is always some explanation that getting addicted to the use of powerful magical artifacts is not being good thing. Or, perhaps, in the dialogue some explanation might relate to the fact that it was ignited by Balthazar, to be effective against him, but not against other things. But since I did not notice their concern (the developers) to put something related to this in the dialogues, I imagine it will have a comeback.

Kralkatorrik's weakness is the spear made from himself, Glint (who is made from himself), and Vlast and Aurene (who are made from Glint).

What if Balthazar's re-ignition of Sohothin made him particularly vulnerable to that weapon, in the same way?

@GWMO.4785 said:I personally think that it was a mistake to give Sohotin into the hands of the player character. More in a way of the skills the blade has/had when we used it. Or rather the damage it could output. Yes it was a really nice add-on in the story to use this blade once. I too did enjoy it a lot. But i think this directly opens a problem for the upcoming story content:

You see Sohotin made everything much easier during that story part. The first reaction i had once experienced that was: Why didn't the hero get the blade earlier? I mean we know its magical and powerful. It makes everything so much easier. So naturally as follows, I can imagen that we will ask Sohotin from Rytlock every time we encounter another problem. And then you start to wonder, do you really want to be bound to that sword from now on out to play the story? I personally like to play it as myself in the class, weapons skills and traits i use. But that would be stupid to do so cause Sohotin makes everything easier. Its like you're trying to bust a door while you can also easily open it with a key.

So to counter balance this. I think the next logical thing that NEEDS to happen is that the sword becomes useless. At least to the degree where it is not so powerful. I think this can be done by either saying Sohotin looses it power duo to the death of Balthazar (since he reignited it). Or Rytlock cleanses his region from the Ascalon ghosts. Another possibility is that it brakes in attempt to use on the next big-bad-kitten cause he/she/it is so much more powerful.

Would like to hear your toughts on it.Discuss

It is perhaps not the sword itself which has power but rather the player character. The commander is not any ordinary being by the time of PoF, not at all, he/she/cabbage is a dragon champion, specifically a champion of Aurene. We have no idea, officially, what kind of perks this gives, but so far we haven't seen any dragon champion that wasn't grossly empowered by its master. And Aurene is no longer a baby plush doll either, as she (she?) has absorbed Mordremoth's magic and has apparently learned how to use it. A strong gameplay cue is that the sword's flame is much larger when the sword is on the hands of the commander. Another cue is that Aurene was already in proximity to the player character when we take hold of Sohotin, and proximity greatly increases the range of magic available to a dragon champion.

The sword might be a powerful catalyst of sorts but the magic that empowered it so much probably came from us or rather from Aurene. And Kormir did say that Elder Dragons are worthy opponents to rival the human gods (Jormag has, in fact, killed the spirit of Owl, which is probably not very far in magic from a human god). Balthazar was very weakened by then and he was also fighting Kralk, which makes it more believable if it had to do with the dragons, and not with the sword itself. So I don't think Anet actually has to somehow nullify the sword, as long as they clearly set it up so that the sword never had that much power to begin with. Of course, that Balthazar lightning it up made it strong against him is also a hypothesis, but honestly it would be very lame if they keep repeating this trope.

@GWMO.4785 said:

@RyuDragnier.9476 said:We're using Ancient Magic with Sohothin, something which if you recall, we mastered during the last Living Story. Rytlock never learned how to use Ancient Magic, so he cannot use that power. That explanation works, at least for me.

I meant from a story standpoint. The events of LS3 happened in the story. We HAD to master the first part of that line at the least to continue. So by a story standpoint, the Commander has mastered Ancient Magics. Sohothin has ancient magic in it. Thus we can use the power because we learned FOR STORY PURPOSES how to use Ancient Magic.

There's a lot of speculation and interesting ideas to explain things, some of which make sense. The problem is, this should not be ambiguous. We suddenly have a weapon capable of cutting through 2 armies, without the need of the army we had spent the preceding time getting our hands on with no exposition as to why this was suddenly so powerful compared to what we had seen before and the fact it was without prior explanation as to why, it was the key to defeating Balthazar.

There was a lot of improvement in the substance and detail in the PoF story, but this was my main disappointment.

@Randulf.7614 said:The problem is, this should not be ambiguous.

This is Anet we're talking about. Ambiguity, inconsistency, neglect, and disappointment are the names of the game when it comes to story and plot. :\

I wish they wouldn't do this but you know the saying: wish in one hand, take a dump in the other, see which one fills up the fastest.

@Randulf.7614 said:There's a lot of speculation and interesting ideas to explain things, some of which make sense. The problem is, this should not be ambiguous. We suddenly have a weapon capable of cutting through 2 armies, without the need of the army we had spent the preceding time getting our hands on with no exposition as to why this was suddenly so powerful compared to what we had seen before and the fact it was without prior explanation as to why, it was the key to defeating Balthazar.

There was a lot of improvement in the substance and detail in the PoF story, but this was my main disappointment.

I agree with you. I’m really hoping they explain this in the next living story. Is it the link between a dragon and it’s champion? Is it the knowledge of ancient magic? Is it something unmentioned or a god’s blessing? We need answers, not more questions. Hell, they could have given us a foreshadowing moment at the least, but I suspect they didn’t think that far ahead.

Now there has been discussion on the forum, mostly theories or wishes for the alternative, that Balthazar is actually Menzies. Normally, I dismiss such theories as conspiracy theories, but based on the last Guild Chat, I'm willing to reconsider. He mentions that there's a certain character that we meet repeatedly throughout the PoF story that was from GW1. Thing is, the only person like that is Balthazar. The funny thing is, it's pretty clear that he wasn't talking about Balthazar himself but someone else. He also mentioned there was a line lifted straight from GW1. Now, I never played Fissure of Woe back in the day (to my eternal shame), but hearing him talk like this, it really suggests that it might've been Menzies we were chasing the whole time and not Balthazar. Which kind of begs the question: what has the real Balthazar been doing, if Menzies was trying to kill Kralkatorrik?

It could also refer to Devona (a.k.a Herald of Balthazar).

In fact, the Herald repeats one exact sentence from Devona : "There's little I hold in higher regard than loyalty."

I'd like to think the story writers thought of this when laying out the next season story with it's bosses.

@Rognik.2579 said:Now there has been discussion on the forum, mostly theories or wishes for the alternative, that Balthazar is actually Menzies. Normally, I dismiss such theories as conspiracy theories, but based on the last Guild Chat, I'm willing to reconsider. He mentions that there's a certain character that we meet repeatedly throughout the PoF story that was from GW1. Thing is, the only person like that is Balthazar. The funny thing is, it's pretty clear that he wasn't talking about Balthazar himself but someone else. He also mentioned there was a line lifted straight from GW1. Now, I never played Fissure of Woe back in the day (to my eternal shame), but hearing him talk like this, it really suggests that it might've been Menzies we were chasing the whole time and not Balthazar. Which kind of begs the question: what has the real Balthazar been doing, if Menzies was trying to kill Kralkatorrik?

There is pretty much no chance this is the case. Kormir specifically talks about Balthazar and how and why he turned to the path he chose and did so in enough detail to leave no ambiguity. If this was Menzies, any of The Gods would have known this when they stripped him of his powers and Kormir would have mentioned it to us, given it would have been obstructive not to.

Also, given Menzies is much less known than Balthazar especially to non gw1 players, substituting a well established villain with a less prominent one is an illogical move

It may not be the most well thought out arc and story, but I like to think even Lazarus-is-Balthazar-is-Menzies is too ridiculous for even them to consider.

@RyuDragnier.9476 said:

@GWMO.4785 said:

@RyuDragnier.9476 said:We're using Ancient Magic with Sohothin, something which if you recall, we mastered during the last Living Story. Rytlock never learned how to use Ancient Magic, so he cannot use that power. That explanation works, at least for me.

It's also worth noting that at least one of the Ancient Magics (and arguably two) involve mastering potent fire magic. Another involves invoking the powers of the gods (the sirens). So it stands to reason that this knowledge might allow us to get better usage out of a fiery sword that is probably powered by god magic.