Improving the Ice Brood Saga ending with minimum changes [Spoilers]

[Storub.5907]

So, at this point I believe it is fair to say that the final episode of IBS was a big disappointment for many people. It was enough for me to actually visit these forums for the second time ever, and write this wall of text. A few have compared to the last season of Game of Thrones, since it leaves the same impression of being extremely rushed. We can only speculate as to why such a decision had been made, but the result of it will be with us forever. That is, unless Anet decides to make us a solid and actually update the story down the line. I am not sure how realistic such expectation is, but we can only hope for the best. With that I present to you my vision of how the story can be made to make sense, with minimal (in my understanding) effort required and close-to-no changes to what is already there.

 

First big plot-point that makes little sense in the current version is the biggest one - how do we actually make Jormag face Primordus. The story had been banging the drum about how much more intelligent Jormag is compared to other dragons, and how she will never face her only weakness head-on without being sure of victory. This means that to get them to destroy one-another, they must be close in power-level and Jormag must be forced to face Primordus by some outside force.

 

Primordus also presents a problem. It have been mentioned that Primordus has barely any mental capacity, and certainly not enough to direct his power at his Jormag. In his normal state he content to chill in his lava-bath, continuously spawning destroyers. This is why Braham (however much some people may hate him) had a good idea for once - to "saddle" the fire dragon to direct his attention, and make the confrontation happen. This however is not easy, and by the final chapter we see Braham barely hanging on to his mind, not even remembering who he is. He also clearly needs a push get him to where we need Primordus to be.

 

This "push" is what is critically missing from what was released, together with a massive case of "tell, don't show". Taimi's presented "plan" regarding ley-lines has some massive holes in it. While we knew that dragons are attracted to ley-lines since Season 2, none of the previous ones we faced were in any way constrained in their movement by them. Zhaitan was happily flying around Orr, Kralkatorrik traveled half a world from his emergence zone, and later traveled all over the world, including into the Mists. Mordremoth was the only one content to sit mostly underground, poking his head above every once in a while. There is no reason to believer that once in the same place, Jormag will fight Primordus, instead of high-tailing it out of there to make more frozen and gather more power.

 

While Aurene's whole deal was specifically stated to be able to channel any kind of magic without issue, her being able to literally cut other dragons from magic sources is a bit of a deus-ex-machina. What is ironic, it is clear that writers were keenly aware of it, even explicitly asking the question of "why haven't we done it before?" only to answer it with a hand-wave response of it being the "final measure" and "the only chance". They have also completely glossed over how we are actually supposed to lure both dragons to the designated place. In current story both show up "because plot says so".

 

Once the champions are down and the magic sources are cut, Jormag has no real reason to stick around. Primordus had shown no interest in fighting her over the past thousands of year, and it is unlikely he will pursue Jormag away from the battlefield. Jormag can just cut the losses, leave, get a new champion, make some more frozen. Maybe kill Aurene so this sort of thing does not happen again, she is clearly not in a hurry and has plans many mortal generations ahead. Currently Jormag seemingly loses her cool (get it?) and decides that this is it, now or never, for no discernible reason.

So, lets begin patching up the holes.

 

1. We need to lure both dragons to the same place, and make them want to stay there and fight.
There is one big plot-point that was completely dropped in the current version of the story, and that will serve as a perfect "bait" for both dragons, or more specifically, their champions - Eir's Bow. Jormag/Ryland deliberately sat on it for the whole IBS to not let it fall in our hands. It was also mentioned that it does indeed has some power over Jormag, so it would stands to reason that Ryland would be interested in recovering it as fast as possible, especially if he has a reason to believe that it can fall into Primordus' hands. Braham also has a vested interest in recovering the bow, for obvious reasons. Now we just need to steal the bow from Ryland, which can be done in an instanced mission on an existing map. Then we let Braham know we have the bow, perhaps even over the magical radio that he should still have. This is how we actually lure both champions to the Dragonstorm.

 

2. We need to equalize them in power level so they destroy each other.
We cut the dragons from their champions and destroy their ley-siphons during the fight. Taimi does confirm that dragons have equalized in power. No changes necessary here.

 

3. We need to make sure Jormag does not escape once she realizes what is going on.

Maybe Eir's bow alone can be such a reason, depending on how powerful writers make it. Perhaps in Primordus-Braham's hands it will be able to actually kill Jormag, so she decides to try to end it on the spot, instead of hiding and facing the certain doom down the line. This was, however, not her style so far, and it forces us to gamble on her fight-or-flight response. The more sure-fire way to end it is to literally hold both dragons in place using Aurene's magic. During the fight Aurene is busy doing something that is not adequately explained, showing up at the end to absorb the released magic. We can make here play a more active role, and create a massive magical dome over the whole battlefield (if a human mesmer can do it, so can an elder dragon) to prevent Jormag from running away, sealing her doom. As a cherry on top, after realizing what is going on, Jormag can appeal to Aurene, continuing the "Jormag guilt-trips Aurene" sub-plot that had been going on for half the season.

After that we watch the existing cutscene, and go looking for survivors.

 

TLDR: To fix the IBS ending we need to steal Eir's from Ryland, use it to lure both champions to one place, and make Aurene prevent Jormag from just running away when things turn sour.

[Teratus.2859]

Easiest way I can see them "fixing " this without actually changing anything big or relevant as far as story goes is to just make a big Kaiju Battle cutscene and put it into the episode so we get to see both dragons in their full body designs actually having a big dragon fight that trashes the surrounding area.

Nothing they can do about all the lore holes without significant changes to the episode.
But at the very least they can make it more epic with a big dragon fight cutscene that everyone was expecting to see in this patch.
Would be a lot easier to do it in a cutscene than it would to have 2 giant Dragon models go at it in game.. don't even think the game engine could even handle that anyway.. which is probably one of the reasons it was done the way it was in the first place.
A big fight cutscene would have been the best choice here imo.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

3 hours ago, Storub.5907 said:

1. We need to lure both dragons to the same place, and make them want to stay there and fight.

There is one big plot-point that was completely dropped in the current version of the story, and that will serve as a perfect "bait" for both dragons, or more specifically, their champions - Eir's Bow. Jormag/Ryland deliberately sat on it for the whole IBS to not let it fall in our hands. It was also mentioned that it does indeed has some power over Jormag, so it would stands to reason that Ryland would be interested in recovering it as fast as possible, especially if he has a reason to believe that it can fall into Primordus' hands. Braham also has a vested interest in recovering the bow, for obvious reasons. Now we just need to steal the bow from Ryland, which can be done in an instanced mission on an existing map. Then we let Braham know we have the bow, perhaps even over the magical radio that he should still have. This is how we actually lure both champions to the Dragonstorm.

The bow wouldn't be a particularly good bait. While Jotun fire magic is able to harm Jormag, Primordus's fire magic is literally THE weakness of Jormag. The bow is nothing compared to Primordus's power, and Primordus wouldn't have any reason to care for it. Likewise Braham, in the state he was in, really shouldn't care about the bow because his mind was lost to Primordus at that point, and he already has power greater then the bow.

3 hours ago, Storub.5907 said:

3. We need to make sure Jormag does not escape once she realizes what is going on.

Maybe Eir's bow alone can be such a reason, depending on how powerful writers make it. Perhaps in Primordus-Braham's hands it will be able to actually kill Jormag, so she decides to try to end it on the spot, instead of hiding and facing the certain doom down the line. This was, however, not her style so far, and it forces us to gamble on her fight-or-flight response. The more sure-fire way to end it is to literally hold both dragons in place using Aurene's magic. During the fight Aurene is busy doing something that is not adequately explained, showing up at the end to absorb the released magic. We can make here play a more active role, and create a massive magical dome over the whole battlefield (if a human mesmer can do it, so can an elder dragon) to prevent Jormag from running away, sealing her doom. As a cherry on top, after realizing what is going on, Jormag can appeal to Aurene, continuing the "Jormag guilt-trips Aurene" sub-plot that had been going on for half the season.

Continued from above, trying to use the bow as bait/plot device at this point wouldn't make sense because the bow is nothing compared to Primordus's power. And Aurene creating a dome over the battlefield wouldn't work as a plot device to keep Jormag there because Jormag could literally just Mist portal out if it wanted.

3 hours ago, Storub.5907 said:

Once the champions are down and the magic sources are cut, Jormag has no real reason to stick around. Primordus had shown no interest in fighting her over the past thousands of year, and it is unlikely he will pursue Jormag away from the battlefield. Jormag can just cut the losses, leave, get a new champion, make some more frozen. Maybe kill Aurene so this sort of thing does not happen again, she is clearly not in a hurry and has plans many mortal generations ahead. Currently Jormag seemingly loses her cool (get it?) and decides that this is it, now or never, for no discernible reason.

This is wrong. There is an achievement in Drizzlewood Coast to collect the frozen blood of Jormag, and said achievement states that this blood was the result of Jormag and Primordus fighting. They have tried to kill each other in the past.

 

Jormag would also not flee the fight, even if its champion was dead, because Primordus is already awake, and leaving would allow it to eat the ley energy around the area. Not to mention, Primordus's whole power is that it gets more powerful the more it burns. The longer its awake, the more powerful it becomes, whereas Jormag has no such power. Jormag literally doesn't have the time to go back, find a new champion, and build a new army, because by that time Primordus would have already eclipsed Jormag's power, and there would be no way for Jormag to defeat it. Which is why Jormag stays in the fight as is. Its literally a now or never situation for Jormag to defeat Primordus.

3 hours ago, Storub.5907 said:

They have also completely glossed over how we are actually supposed to lure both dragons to the designated place. In current story both show up "because plot says so". .

Also incorrect. The dragons show up there because it was the hub of the ley lines Jormag was feeding on to gain power, and Primordus is naturally drawn to Jormag because it wants to kill it, and becuase Braham is directing its movements to Jormag. Aurene used her prismatic powers to alter the magic to the ley lines to draw Jormag, and thus Primmordus there. As explained in the dialog.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

1 hour ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

Continued from above, trying to use the bow as bait/plot device at this point wouldn't make sense because the bow is nothing compared to Primordus's power. And Aurene creating a dome over the battlefield wouldn't work as a plot device to keep Jormag there because Jormag could literally just Mist portal out if it wanted.

Since Jormag should have this power, it could in theory go into the mist and have a fest there. Or wherever it wanted. If we are generous enough to remember skills the dragons should have that the writers forgot to make use of, we should also take other effects this would have into consideration.

1 hour ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

 

Jormag would also not flee the fight, even if its champion was dead, because Primordus is already awake, and leaving would allow it to eat the ley energy around the area. Not to mention, Primordus's whole power is that it gets more powerful the more it burns. The longer its awake, the more powerful it becomes, whereas Jormag has no such power. Jormag literally doesn't have the time to go back, find a new champion, and build a new army, because by that time Primordus would have already eclipsed Jormag's power, and there would be no way for Jormag to defeat it. Which is why Jormag stays in the fight as is. Its literally a now or never situation for Jormag to defeat Primordus.

Thats what you say. Jormag is described as a cunning being, very intelligent. So why did it never occur that it go have some sweet magic in the mists? Or ANYWHERE? Thats because the writers wanted to get rid of the 2 and blissfully ignored everything Jormag COULD have done with the powers it SHOULD have.

1 hour ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Also incorrect. The dragons show up there because it was the hub of the ley lines Jormag was feeding on to gain power, and Primordus is naturally drawn to Jormag because it wants to kill it, and becuase Braham is directing its movements to Jormag. Aurene used her prismatic powers to alter the magic to the ley lines to draw Jormag, and thus Primmordus there. As explained in the dialog.

The whole "prisms shape magic" thing was shoehorned in last second. Considering a huge chunk of the IBS has been cut, it COULD have executed better, but as it stands now, it's rushed, poorly implemented and simply leaves most players speechless about how terribly written it is. The pacing is off, the execution beyond clunky. And players notice rightfully notice this.

[Psientist.6437]

If retreat isn't an option for Jormag why do the writers invent ley-line tethering?

If Primordius is focused on killing Jormag why does Braham need to become Champion?

If Jormag's and Primordius's magics can lead to mutual assured destruction, why would they ever fight?

If the 6 sphere All mechanism contains a catastrophically unstable element can the 6 sphere configuration ever be considered stable?

 

You can't fix the second half of the IBS with superficial changes. We wouldn't need an overload of magic contrivances if we had more time spent on Jormag's motivation. We wouldn't need to tether Jormag if they were at their emotional breaking point. This wouldn't require Jormag be a good Elder Dragon.