Jimbru.6014

When we first meet Kasmeer and Marjory in LS1, the dialogue hints that Kasmeer is a young adult, probably somewhere around 18-20 years old, and Marjory is at least a few years older (and MUCH more experienced in the world) than Kasmeer. Kasmeer's family fell from grace while she was still young enough to have a stuffed animal that she kept, so she was probably single digits in age when it happened. Therefore I think it unlikely that our newly created noble characters would have known Kasmeer personally, though they might have at least known of her family But hey: it's YOUR story. How much you know about Kasmeer would depend at least in part on how old you envision your character to be. If you can work it out for yourself that you somehow knew Kasmeer, go for it. Far be it from me to ruin a good RP idea.

Hygiene is what your characters do while you're offline. Unless it becomes part of a story, there's no need to show it in game. Right now our offline characters are at an inn or wherever they live (my main lives in the Salma District). They're washing their clothes, taking baths, sleeping, researching their next big thing (especially the Asura), plotting with the Pact, attempting to out-drink Knut Whitebear (and losing -- again) or whatever their "not adventuring" life looks like. Then when we log in, they meet back up with us where we left off and away we go together again. Ain't no thing.

My main (human ranger) walks around in fiery gear with War God's weapons, fiery mounts, Balthazar pup mini pet and so on. My lore on him is that when he killed Balthazar, he got a tiny splash of Balthazar's power that lets him conjure those things. It's very cool and all, but he just wishes it didn't come with Balthy's voice in his head from time to time. Of course, I highly doubt ANet would want to turn my character into the next Balthazar, but I like how the story works for my character anyway.

I'm curious as to what happened to Eir's bow. Much like Magdaer, Eir's bow has disappeared after getting into the hands of NPCs who are now dead (Ryland) or indisposed (Bangar survived Jormag's death but hasn't been seen since -- presumably he's in a the deepest hole of a Charr prison that Crecia and Malice could find for him). I can imagine Braham saying something like, "My mother's bow? Well, I wouldn't mind having it back if anyone ever finds it. Family heirloom and all. But then again, given what it started, maybe it's better lost."

The Mists guy in Eye of the North opens a public instance in a rotation with Marionette at reset, Tower at XX:30, Dragonstorm from the copter guy one hour after reset, then the Battle for Lion's Arch at XX:30. That's where people usually start that content now. The instances close to reset are usually good; the ones later in the game day not so much. I personally dislike the Tower because it somehow manages to be both boring and frantic at the same time, takes a significant amount of time that doesn't easily fit into a player's daily rotation, and the rewards are meh compared to Marionette and Dragonstorm. It would be nice to see those four instances have somewhat equivalent rewards.

I tend to stick to the racial naming conventions described in the wiki, though I do get silly with them sometimes. My Asura Mechanist with his big eyepiece and other mechanical parts is Assimilator Borgg; his mech is named Locutus. Lore wise, he is a member of the Dynamics sub-college that studies and "assimilates" the technology of other races for Asura use. Hence his name and adoption of all the latest things to come along, the most recent being jade tech.

Mad King Thorn. The last two years have watered him down a bit, but his backstory is still a psychotic horror show right up there with Hannibal Lecter. Mad? Only to others' eyes. He knew exactly what he was doing the entire time and loved every minute of it.

Still bugged. Just did the fight in under six minutes and no achieve. And yes, I have an old account, even though I didn't have the achieve from before.

Most games have a "holy trinity" of tank, DPS and healer, and classes are designed specifically to fill those roles. In GW2, the "trinity" is boons, DPS and healer; "tanks" only exist in a few specific raids. Also, almost any class can fill almost any role depending on gear and build. GW2 is much more wide open than other games in that regard.

What I want is simple. You know what Sneakthief armor looks like on female humans, Norn and Sylvari? Tight, laced up, throwing stars and all that? I want that armor skin on my female Charr daredevil, instead of a razzin frackin bulky trenchcoat.

Like I said, it disappeared into an anonymous box in a warehouse never to be seen again. 😉

The completely unexplained return of the dwarfs during IBS. Killing off Blish, who could have been the single most interesting character ever made in GW2. Creating a world full of Charr steam tanks, Pact ariships, Vigil megalasers, firearms and artillery and magic and explosions of all kinds, which in reality ended close formations and melee combat as primary modes of warfare a long time ago. But despite the military unreality of it all, for some reason the main mode of combat in GW2 is a melee range infantry boon pile. Making Norn too much like humans. Norn are just EverQuest's Barbarians in a different game; they're both just big dumb drunk humans with a pseudo Nordic-Celtic culture, and little to really separate them from humans other than their size. I honestly think the game would have been better off if Norn had simply been left as NPCs. Not including Tengu as a playable race from the start. They were the first non-humans we encountered in GW1, for Zinn's sake. I'd trade Norn for Tengu in a heartbeat.

The Kodan generally do not seek confrontation. The Kodan's "enemies" are whoever attacks them, which IMHO it takes a special kind of stupid to deliberately anger a ten foot tall bear-man with a giant hammer. Suffice to say I'm glad the Kodan are on our side. The Kodan are a bit judgmental and even arrogant about others understanding their idea of "balance". But to be fair, the Kodan are an ancient race that survived the last Dragonrise; they have earned the right to be a little judgmental. As for Koda: I have wondered if maybe Koda isn't a Kodan hyperstasis of Soo-Won. Or perhaps Koda was somehow identified with or even the spirit of Primordus before it became a raging animal, given that Koda is pretty much the opposite of Jormag in every respect. Just a thought, anyway.

The last known mention of the Krytan royal locket is during LWS2. Before LWS2, it was with the Durmand Priory, who moved it and other artifacts around among their bases like a shell game to protect them. When the Mordrem attacked the caravan carrying the locket at Fort Concordia, it lost much of its power and was taken to the Priory HQ for study. So presumably it's still with the Priory, probably lost in a generic box in a warehouse like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

The problem being that Logan isn't the rightful heir to Ascalon. TheThackerays were never connected to the Ascalonian royal family. Unless there's an unknown descendant of Duke Barradin hiding somewhere, the rightful heir by blood MIGHT be Wade Samuelsson in Ebonhawke, the leader of the Ebon Vanguard, who MIGHT be descended from Ascalonian royalty at some unknown point in the past before the time of GW1. But there's two problems with that: he doesn't want anything to do with his supposedly royal family history, and the story of him being descended from Ascalonian kings may or may not be true, as with many stories handed down in families. For Jennah to make a claim to Ascalon, she'd have to go all the way back to King Doric himself for a blood connection. Not to mention that neither the Charr nor many Ascalonians would accept such a claim. So that's highly unlikely too. Given all that, it's entirely possible that there may be no living rightful heir to Ascalon. Therefore, Ascalon is stuck with ghosts for the foreseeable future. Reference: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tyrian_royalty_family_tree EDIT: The Ascalonian royal family tree is almost entirely blank before GW1, so it would be easy to retcon a royal blood connection for Logan back through Keiran Thackeray somehow, perhaps some kind of "royal mistress" or illegitimacy in the distant past. Not saying the writers SHOULD do that, but they easily could without changing existing lore.

Yep. Speaking as a veteran, show me someone who is eager for war, and I'll show you someone who has never fought one. This new background on Snargle makes me like him even more because I can relate to him. Snargle has SEEN THINGS, and writing is his way of dealing with the memories. I just hope they don't still wake him up at night like mine do sometimes.

A game engine that uses modern CPUs and GPUs properly.

To understand the Mad King, first you need to understand that the Mad King actually isn't "mad" at all, in the sense of being crazy. Being crazy and being insane are two different and not necessarily related things. A crazy person is the kind of person that straitjackets and rubber rooms were made for. Crazy people are disconnected from reality. Their awareness and control are impaired. A guy who goes on a spree of random violence driven by the voices in his head with no thought of himself, and you look him in the eyes as he comes at you and there's nobody home; that guy is crazy. That's not Mad King Thorn. Mad King Thorn is like the Joker, or Hannibal Lecter. He is a narcisstic psychopath with compulsive behaviors; criminally insane, but for the most part, not crazy. Thorn knows full well what he's doing and how it's perceived by others, and he loves every minute of it. Which honestly makes him scarier than if he was simply crazy. Thorn's relative silliness (which may or may not be an act, depending on the moment) makes it easy to forget that he is both a psycho killer and a supernatural being of considerable power. Not on the level of the Elder Dragons or The Six certainly, but he is also no mere ghost. He is powerful enough that he has carved out his own realm in the Mists with an army of followers. Various conversations that can be heard during the Halloween event make it clear that the only reason Thorn isn't more dangerous is that he simply doesn't feel like it. The Ascent to Madness mission is just him toying with us, perhaps testing us. That lack of active villainy is what defines the commander's relationship with Thorn. Thorn is evil to be sure, but he's not out to wreck the world like the Elder Dragons. At worst, Thorn is a nuisance during a certain season of the year, and the attention he gets during that time keeps him appeased. We humor his ego with things like "Court Duty" and playing Mad King Says and titling ourselves as his "Emissary", and in return he stays his hand. That, and the fact that Thorn is well aware of the Commander's deeds; though Thorn would never admit it, the Commander may be the only being besides Erdric that Thorn might actually fear, or at least respect. Neither the Commander nor Thorn wants to fight each other in earnest, and so the status quo of uneasy tolerance continues from year to year.

Snargle being a former Lionguard Lieutenant at least partly explains both his "sweet" views of the other races (he learned about them in the melting pot of Lion's Arch) and his sometimes commanding attitude (he was an officer). I wonder if perhaps he was born a gladium and grew up in Lion's Arch outside the mainstream of Charr culture, because he really doesn't seem like a product of the Legion fahrar system in any way.

Scepter -- specifically Meteorlogicus, as befits a Tempest -- is my Tempest's main weapon. Has been for a few years now. Taking away Water Trident healing is a big deal to me, because being able to turn on heals in group content like world bosses and metas is why I love playing Celestial Tempest in the open world. Honestly, it's making me wonder if I should remain committed to this game when ArenaNet wants to slap one of my most fun characters like that for no good reason at all. I'm fine with most of the other scepter changes, but don't take away my Water Trident.

What I've gotten out of the last few balance patches for Engineers is that someone on the balance team plays Holosmith.

It's typical ANet Bizzaro logic. "We want to improve scepter and broaden our support options...so let's nerf scepter healing!"

ArenaNet logic: - Mesmer: one certain build used by a minority of players in the meta is over-performing, so we're going to change how mesmer staff works for EVERYBODY! - Thief: Rifle Deadeye is an endangered spec, so we're going to buff it by taking away everything that makes it special to make sure it goes extinct. - Tempest: We want to improve scepter and broaden support options, so let's nerf scepter healing. Seriously, where does ANet's balance team live, Bizarro World?

If these changes go through as written, Rifle Deadeye will go from endangered to extinct. It's that simple.

The way I read this is that ArenaNet plans to nerf every mesmer who uses staff because one particular build used by misbegotten meta edge riders was over-performing. If that's NOT what it means, then somebody with an ArenaNet tag needs to clarify it.