Rognik.2579

We also know that elder dragons have always had minions. Zhaitan had the Risen, Mordremoth the Mordrem, Primordus the Destroyers, Jormag is Icebrood, Kralkatorrik the Branded, and there'll be one for this last dragon, too. Presumably, at least some magic is expended to create these minions, or convert the living into them, and maybe that's how it gets into the jade. Or, the jadetech only gets the dragon magic infused into it after it has been treated. There's still a lot intentionally being withheld on the story that true theorizing depends on our imagination.

Konig already covered most of this, but I just want to add that each chapter can have drastically different paths, including a branch in the middle. Every human's chapter 3 will start the same, but the previous two were based on your character's starting biography, and can lead you elsewhere. Going to Black Haven in Chapter 3 is one way to get everyone to the same location before pushing them to the next locale. But as pointed out, there's not really a deep lore meaning as to why that fort is so important. It just happened to be in a convenient spot for the level characters were expected/suggested to be. Fort Salma is too far west for the story (and it was meant to push everyone towards Lion's Arch first), and I don't know Kessex Hills well enough to talk about the other human fortifications. I do know sylvari and asura cut through Kessex from Brisban Wildlands, but I don't think they spend that much time there before pushing on to Gendarren.

Only in the loosest sense. None of them are a one-for-one parallel. Just because Balthazar is a god of war, that doesn't mean that he has the same personality as Ares, or Tyr or any other god of war.

Are you sure you're not confusing Cantha for Elona? The Order of Whispers definitely had secret ways into Elona, but I don't think they mentioned Cantha, which is across the ocean, quite a ways away. However, they did have Kuunavang. While not an elder dragon, she is a large dragon that the Canthan hero of old spoke to.

Remember in Season 3, that became our primary motivation not to kill the dragons, since two dragons' deaths meant an imbalance, and destroying a third risked destabilizing everything and bringing about the end of the world. Somehow, Aurene seems to be counteracting this, so there is no current threat. At least, I hope so since 5 dragons are now dead.

We still don't know that much of the dragons' background, but as far as we can tell, this is a natural cycle. No one brought dragons in specifically to eat all the magic and destroy sentient life.

And Jennah is descended from Salma. I'm not quite sure what your point is.

I was about to like this. Then you ruined it at the end...

Zojja does not count. She's still there, even if she's essentially a vegetable now. As for scale, there were at least a dozen people who died in the path leading up to killing Zhaitan. Far more if you count all the branches. The main difference is those three were important characters, while most of the deaths in the Personal Story were there just for that chapter.

On the flip side, war has been one of the biggest technological motivators. With Tyria constantly under attack from the dragon minions, they were more driven to research new magics and weapons to fight back and survive. Peace is a great time to find other uses for that tech, but much of it was first found while fighting for our lives. I mean, the airships would likely not have been built if not to take down Zhaitan.

Been a while since I played through Mordremoth's story, but remind me how many people died. I'm talking named NPCs, since all the dragons have killed countless NPCs.

Haven't really read replies, but I can look at it kind of how Japan is in modern day. They were isolationists for a long time, and only really opened their borders because people forced them to. Even now, they have a LOT of old traditions, but at the same time, they very quickly learned and developed technology so that they are one of the world leaders in that field. Thing is, the country is a place where you can have a metropolitan area like Tokyo, and the instant you leave the city's borders, there's rice fields and people transporting water from a well on a wagon (maybe not that extreme, but close). So no, I don't think it's that unusual that a country that was supposedly so advanced in dragonjade tech have a lot of old-traditions behind some of their elite specs. Catalyst, meanwhile, seems like a more modern spec with the jade sphere as a field that can change elements. I'm going to wait until the last three elites are revealed before passing final judgement, but so far, no objection to the lore they've given.

I don't think Braham is so bad. Oh, he was pretty degraded in Season 3, when pretty much all of Dragon's Watch abandoned the Pact Commander (PC from here on out) just before going to Elona, but he got better over season 4, and he served his purpose during Icebrood (I hate IBS as an abbreviation; reminds me of Irritable Bowel Syndrome). Honestly, I think they should have killed Braham during Champions, when he and Ryland were going at each other and Jormag and Primordus killed each other. Only reason they didn't, I feel, is because they wanted that last fight with Ryland and force Rytlock to kill his son. I say this because, after having so many people die in the fight against Zhaitan who we barely got to know, the rest of the dragons have been pretty light on ally deaths. Braham was someone we got to know for a long while, and his volunteering to be Primordus's champion to guide him seemed like a fitting end to his arc, where his death would actually hurt. With him not dead and the norn free of Jormag, I think I'm ready to marry him off so Eir's lineage can continue on, and I'm happy for him to be a background character to helps out occasionally, kind of like Logan is now. He wasn't exactly my favourite, but even at his worst, I never hated him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Queen Jennah also proposed the peace treaty with the charr, and sent Dougal and company off to Ascalon City ruins to retrieve the Claw of the Khan-Ur as a peace offering. If not for both Jennah and Smodur, the charr might still be warring, even though there were signs from both sides of tiring of the long war. Of course, you'll always have people like the Separatists and the charr Renegades who refuse to accept peace, but thankfully they are a very vocal (or active, in the Plains of Ruin) minority.

You do know that Scourge and Harbinger are two different elite specs and, as such, they can't both be used? Equipping three elite specializations would totally break the character, even without conflicting mechanics change.