Oerv.5742

Hello everyone! There have been lots of discussions around the whole Soo-Won/Void-Situation in the last month, especially regarding the fact that the Void seems to be conscious and that Aurene is able to filter the Dragon magics out of it. I accidentally stumbled across some references to Hindu mythology while reading a (non-related) article and that made me think about these things in a different light. As many of us come from a Western background, we tend to apply our traditions to all pieces of media. That often includes thinking about strict "good vs evil" and "dark vs. light" dichotomies. I want to challenge this point of view with this post and look at this piece of lore from a non-western perspective. Now, please be aware, that I am not Hindu, so my knowledge about the Vedic mythology is only superficial and definitely incomplete. Also, English is not my native language, so there might be spelling and/or grammatical errors. With this little disclaimer out of the way, I want to start with the concept of Shakti. In Vedic traditions, Shakti is basically the "energy" of the Universe, all and everything and represents the "female" aspect of it. She is portrayed as the highest Goddess and the most powerful of all the gods in Hinduism. Shakti is the wife of the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) and therefore appears in the form of Brahma's wife Saraswati, Vishnu's wife Lakshmi and Shiva's wife Parvati. Now, like with most religious traditions, there is also an apocalypse scenario: When the evil in the world becomes too much, Shakti manifests in the form of Kali, her dark side, that basically destroys absolutely everything to create a new universe. She's the Goddess of Death, Time and Change and represents the "ultimate reality". Now, you might see, where I am going with this. In regards to Vedic traditions, Soo-Won in the very beginning of the universe would be "Shakti", the energy that created the world and everything in it. As a part of the creation, she split her own aspect (the Void) into the six distinctive magics, we know from the Elder Dragons, retaining only the aspect of Water (and probably Life). Later on, after many, many Dragon cycles, the magic has become impure again, because everything in the universe is intertwined and the six dragons being only one-sixth part of the primordial energy are unable to completely filter out the kinds of magic that don't belong to them. They start feeling the torment and get crazier and more insatiable over time, further enhancing the speed of their decline. With the Elder Dragons being killed off by us, one after another, even more unfiltered energy enters the system, speeding up the process even more. Soo-Won (the "Shakti") succumbs and becomes the Dragonvoid ("Kali"). But at the same time, a new "Shakti" has entered the fray, in the form of Aurene. Notice, that especially in Vedic traditions everything happens in cycles. When Kali consumes the universe, she more or less becomes Shakti again and creates it anew. Aurene explicitly tells us in the end, that the cycle is "reborn", and not "ended". Now, I've implied several things with these two paragraphs. First, I don't think the Void itself has consciousness, it just is. IMHO, the Dragonvoid that talks with Soo-Won's voice is Soo-Won in her most primordial state, the first consciousness that emerged from the Void. One comes from the other, but they are not identical. It is the "Soo-Won-as-Kali" of the GW2 universe, instead of the "Soo-Won-as-Shakti" that we get to know before that. Secondly, yes, theoretically, if Aurene is the new "Shakti", this means she could (and probably in a far-away future will) become a new "Kali", so a new Dragonvoid. But I don't think that this will ever happen in the timeline of the game, unless they make an expansions set several hundred millenia in the future. But the game somewhat implies it in the ending dialogue with Aurene, that a future like this would be possible. I know some people might say, that this theory is quite farfetched, but many pieces of popular media draw inspiration from antique and/or modern cultural or religious traditions, with Guild Wars 2 being no exception. We find references to ancient Greece (Luxon), ancient Rome (Charr), Middle and South America (Hylek), ancient Mesopotamia (Orr and parts of Elona) and many more throughout the game. And in fact, also nods to Vedic traditions, with "Asura" being a Sanskrit word, that describes demons which are envious of the gods (Devas) and their powers. While I wouldn't call out the GW2 Asura as demons (at least not undifferentiated), you could say they strive to be somewhat godlike with all their technology, even going as far as breaching the Mists. Might this theory be valid? I personally can absolutely see it, but what do you think? I will provide some links at the bottom of this post, so you can read further into it, if you want to. And of course, we are talking of "drawing inspiration" here, not "copying word by word", so yes, not everything will fit the shoe, but that doesn't mean that no influence has taken place. (Oh and btw: There are some people whining about the fact, that both "good" Elder Dragons are female. With Shakti representing the female aspect of the universe, that would absolutely make sense. Also the fact, that the one morally ambigous Elder Dragon we talk to, is also ambigous with their gender. Not to mention that Hinduism is one of the few bigger religions that actually has a third gender as a part of its traditions.) Sources: Hinduism - The Role of Shakti in Creation Wikipedia - Kali

- Warning: Long comment ahead! - I think, overall the event itself is quite fine. Even though all my runs have failed so far, I enjoy all the mechanics behind it. I don't even mind the fact, that the turtle is locked behind it. It makes for a great goal to work towards. That said, I think there are some issues with the meta. And I don't mean to repeat the bazillion posts that have already talked about that. Currently the forums show mostly two subgroups of players: The "git gut" brigade and the "too hard - nerf" crowd. The rest (which probably makes up the majority of players) is probably in the game right now and would like some adjustments but isn't in either of those two extreme camps. A big issues with "git gud" is this: What does it even mean to "git gud"? That every player should turn up geared in raid gear, knowing the ins and outs of their classes? This is unrealistic. I just had a DE map instance I left, because the commander kept insulting the squad members, telling them, they were "slackers" for not switching to qfb and alacrigade. He reckoned, because they had 10000+ AP, they surely had the gear and the experience with that roles, which is simply wrong. Most people turning up for the meta, spend the majority of their time in the open world. The OW has different gear requirements and is much less punishing than instanced content. Why should someone that never does CM fractals or raids spend hundreds of gold for a complete set of support equip when he probably never needs to play a supporting role during most of his playtime? To me, "getting good" in the game means understanding the win conditions of a certain encounter. For raids, CM fractals and other "harder" instanced content, these win conditions are as far as I (as a non-raider) understand it: understanding the most effective way you and your class can be useful for the group gearing appropriately learning the encounter, its mechanics and the difficulties that can arise during a fight (for both, you and your teammates) For "challenging" open world content on the other hand (I'm talking metas like DS or Drakkar here), the win conditions so far looked more like this: Turn up understand the mechanics of the encounter, the role of your positioning and the timing (e.g. Tarir, Teq, Drakkar, DS etc.) try not to die and make sure to get at least some damage in This game already has some metas that are actually engaging and require the player to know what they are doing. Yes, they are not very punishing, but if the whole squad is doing pretty much nothing or everything wrong, they are still failable. If a few players are dead weight its not to the detriment to the rest, who can carry the whole thing. Now, with DE, I actually see a lot of players doing the mechanics correctly. And I also see improvements among the groups with each try. People are learning the encounter, they are dodging attacks (or at least try to), they are going for the tail, are covering behind the crystals before the tsunami during green phase, they are killing the mini bosses simultaneously. Even the breakbars (if one came up), were pretty much melting in a few seconds each of my tries. Most of my tries had groups doing all of that and yet they still failed. Why? It's simple. Because the damage output was simply too low in the short frames were the boss was vulnerable. A successful open world encounter should not rely on people bringing each and every boon under the horizon permanently for each and every other player. It should not require the casual player to min-max their DPS, when they were never forced to do so in the past. It can rely on mechanics. It's okay if there is even a certain (healthy!) amount of RNG involved for some movement variety. (Sidenote: I think they did a pretty good job with telegraphing the attacks and the sound cues provided by the NPCs.) Heck, it's okay, if the success rate is at about only 40% and not 100% or 3% like it seems to be right now. So my solution would be to simply nerf the health a little. Not too much.. A boss shouldn't be brought down by auto-attacks only as is the case with world bosses. But enough that an organized and min-maxed squad with perma alacrity and quickness is not required. Enough that an average OW build is enough to enjoy the fight and its awesome mechanics. A raid-level squad should be able to complete the fight in about 7 to 10 mins. An average PUG squad should be able to clear it in the given time about a third of each tries MINIMUM. If that was the case; I'd consider the meta balanced and successful. A meta should not be able to divide a community like this one, that was always heralded for its friendlyness and openness. It is sad to see, that this meta apparently was. EDIT: clarification in one sentence

I am sorry, but you are aware, that you are not required to use the new weapon choices, correct? As the meaning of the word "weapon choice" implies, they are a choice for you to use, if you wish to engage with a different playstyle. Not more, not less. If you wish, you can still play Catalyst/Harbinger with scepter, staff, dagger or focus (or whatever weapon choices there are) and you would still be able to use the new class functionalities like the new harbinger shroud or catalyst spheres. The weapons are not a requirement for those and the new weapons are also not necessarily better than the old ones. Also, if it is the class functionality you don't like, you don't even need to use Catalyst or Harbinger, isn't that great? When PoF came out, Tempest was still viable alongside Weaver, just like Reaper was viable along side Scourge. The same applies to the new elite specs. If it is for example Tempest you prefer, feel free to still play it. Catalyst is different than Tempest, not "better". No content is gatekept behind a specific elite specialization besides the respective weapons (which shouldn't bother you, seeing how you don't like them anyway). To be quite frank, I don't really see the point in your post as nothing has been forced on you and you are still free to play the way you like it. I hope your angry mood settles soon and you are able to enjoy your day. 🙂