[Spoilers] What is your Favorite Elder Dragon?

[SirRocket.3516]

With most Elder dragons now a memory, which Elder Dragon will you continue to be a champion in, in spirit?

 

For me it was Kralkatorrik

 

Kralkatorrik was wise and knew what needed to be done. He handled his end with grace. I never saw him as a monster, but as a force of nature. 

 

Praise be with Kralkatorrik. 

 

Edit: These are some great overviews. Thanks for the posts and keep them coming. It's cool to learn more about the lore of this game 🙂

Edited August 12, 2021 by SirRocket.3516

[Efar.8153]

Zhaitan - it was the first dragon I heard of and just because of the amazing personal story at the beginning :D. Overall I like all of them.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Sure as hell wasn't Jormag and Primodus, at least not as they were in IBS.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1. Mordremoth. 

2. Kralky

3. Zhaitan

4. Jormag

5. Primordus

 

 

 

 

[Randulf.7614]

It was Kralk until the end of LS4 where they tried to humanise it and it jarred badly. As a force of nature, it started off in the book and the beginning of PoF as a huge and impressive creature that seemed untouchable. Looking up in the sky and first seeing it in that last instance of PoF was an iconic moment. Watching it beaten up by Aurene was just sad

 

Mordremoth I think they nailed the all consuming power and ancient feel of. The story was a mixed bag around it, but I think they got the Dragon itself right

 

The others were missed opportunities. Jormag was interesting, but short lived and dismissed too soon. Zhaitan was a victim of a rushed release (albeit the lead up was strong) and less said about the wasted material of Primordus the better.

 

I don't think they always quite got a handle on the Dragons. Leaving them as background forces of nature we couldnt destroy seemed preferable to me at least, whilst we dealt with other threats. The concept of Balthazar or a being wanting to steal the magic of a Dragon and thus being the main protagonist, keeping the Dragon as a looming danger was something i liked about PoF for example.

[Harak.8397]

Kralkatorrik was my favorite. He was the closest we got to how Elder Dragons were first pitched to us: Unrelatable, dangerous forces of nature. The same to us as we are to ants in the yard.

It's worth noting that he was the only Elder Dragon with Primordus (such a waste) to never address us in any way. (Zhaitan spoke through proxies) Mordremoth and Jormag, directly and that made him somehow more threatening than if he had acknowledged us that way.

He didn't even feel "evil" he was just chaos and entropy given form.

[Teratus.2859]

Kralkatorrik.. largely because this is the only dragon that really did feel epic and dangerous in Gw2.

Zhaitan suffered from early GW2 problems.. I believe if Anet were to go back and redo this dragon now they could make something truly amazing with it's boss fight.

Mordremoth overall I think was done pretty well, the mouth battle in Dragon Stand has not particularly aged well with all the power creep in the game.. it's kind of become a joke tbh but I still remember the first time I fought it and genuinely yelled "YES!!! this is what an elder dragon battle should be!!"
His story fight as far as I am aware is still kind of a drag though, takes too long and there are no checkpoints for failure.
I still see people complain about this fight, namely having to restart from scratch after they were unfairly yeeted off the map by a dodgy mechanic.

Kralkatorrik.. this one just delivered for me, everything I wanted in an Elder Dragon.
He was massive, powerful, constant destruction and chaos whenever he showed up.
I loved every moment Kralkatorrik was on screen.
To this day chasing Kralkatorrik through the mists is by far the most visually impressive and epic thing I have ever seen in an MMORPG without contest.

Jormag.. Finale of IBS aside I was actually enjoy Jormag through the beginning of the Ice Brood Saga.
At first Jormag came across as creepy, malevolent, sly and very dangerous.. I was sold, loved that this Dragon of Ice was even creepier than the Dragon of Death.. another dragon done right?
But sadly all good things must come to an end and unfortunately Jormag did not live up to it's earlier build up.
A disappointing end to what was building up to have been a great antagonist.

Primordus.. Oh boy, 14 years.. 14 bloody!! YEARS!!! waiting for this one.
Merely teased in Gw1.. merely teased again in LW3.
A giant, colossal being of fire, rock, magma and pure destruction incarnate!!
A living volcano.. a walking nuke.. a being that's only purpose in life is to eradicate life.
It shows up, chews some rocks, gets bopped on the nose a few times then poof.. gone.. just like that.

There are Moa Birds in this game that have more character development than what should have been by far the most dangerous of all Elder Dragons.
Primordus was an absolute waste of an antagonist.. a waste of an elder dragon and a monumental waste of our time as players.
14 years we waited to fight this thing.. 14 YEARS!!!
Without doubt the disappointment is immeasurable for how bad this dragon was done.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Teratus.2859

[LadyEden.7519]

Zhaitan - the only Elder Dragon that looked its part... rather than looking like a badly drawn cartoon. Its whole design and animations were excellent. A shame the story mission dedicated to its end was so poorly engineered.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Zhaitan's story was the best, but they also had the worst ending.

 

Mordremoth's story was absolutely massive and felt like it took too long. It encompassed most of LS1, all of LS2, and all of HoT, and continued on a bit into LS3. I felt like it was done very well but it just dragged. That said Mordremoth has the best open-world fight, and a pretty good story fight too.

 

Kralkatorrik's story kept getting pushed to the wayside for Balthazar and Joko, but overall was pretty good. It had one of the most satisfying endings of the game and the best open-world map, even if the final fight is a little lackluster. The story fight wasn't bad, but could've been more difficult at times.

 

Primordus & Jormag were in a difficult position because their story is spread all the way from the first game, through Core, (They both get way more exposure in Core than Kralkatorrik, and ofc Modremoth for obvious reasons), and then got alot of focus in LS3 only to be interrupted by Balthazar, Caudacus and Lazarus, and the finally picked up again in IBS in time for an abrupt and unsatisfying ending two of the longest plotlines in the entire game.

 

The journey to this point felt good, but it really needed at least one more chapter and a proper cinematic ending. One thing that would've helped is to have some flashbacks to past content, because I think alot of players genuinely forgot Peanut Butter & Jelly were even in LS3 because it was so long ago compared to IBS.

 

Its a shame the devs have an aversion to fixing up old content, because it wouldn't take very much effort to fix both Zhaitan's ending and Primordus & Jormag's endings to be epic instead of crapic.

 

Who knows, maybe Zhaitan's still out there in the Mists and could bring PB&J back for us. 😆

Edited August 12, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[ugrakarma.9416]

Primordus by far the great missed oportunity..

 

I dont like underground areas, but a primordus "zones", could be like the Norfair of Planet Zebes(supermetroid). a mix of hot, lava, caves and ancient ruins. 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by ugrakarma.9416

[Kalocin.5982]

As a Gw1 fan it was pretty cool to see they actually tried to make Kralk feel massive and opposing and actually be a mountain to walk on. I think Dragonfall could have been a bit more epic if it wasn't killing off his bacne though.

 

Primordus would be up there but, y'all know it by now

[Fenom.9457]

1. Kralkatorrik

2. Jormag

3. Mordremoth

4. Zhaitan

5. Primordus

 

Jormag would’ve been my favorite if only IBS hadn’t been gutted 😞 and Primordus likely would’ve beat at least zhaitan if not mordy too.  I’ll take a preemptive guess though and say DSD will be #1 once that story is done.  It’s been my most anticipated since day one, even if they butcher it horribly I have a hard time imagining myself not liking it more than most of the others.  But then, storytelling is big.  I find deserts to be the least interesting biome but Elona proved to be cool and Kralk was my favorite so far despite that disadvantage to me personally.

[Sigerk.2897]

Mordremoth, playing as a Sylvari, the build up around it was really well done. 

 

Kralk too. His ending was okay though. Not sure yet if I like what they did with it or not. On the one hand, this primordial force of nature really worked for me. But the mental isolation/madness of him that they showed was sort of interesting too. A being so vast and ancient and different from us that they appear to be this incomprehensible force, but then when you find a way inside his mind, you find something unexpectedly familiar. 

 

Jormag was awesome in the early chapters. Rushed to end too soon. 

 

Zhaitan was okay. Bit underwhelming at the end. Good build up tho.

 

Primordus. Eh. Needed his own x-pac. On that note IBS needed more chapters and a bigger emphasis on the psycho-horror aspect of Jormag to do it justice. Less Disney, more mature story telling. 

 

Hope bubbles won't disappoint. 

[Dondarrion.2748]

On 8/16/2021 at 8:02 PM, Sigerk.2897 said:

Hope bubbles won't disappoint. 

Judging by how little we've seen or heard of the water dragon, and Kuunevang's reappearance in the EoD trailers, this is how I feel Kuunevang is about to treat "Bubbles"

https://i.imgur.com/qzmwwkV.gif

As for favourite Elder Dragon storyline, it has to be the Mordremoth story.. entering an increasingly dense and dark jungle with Mordrem minions all around and that eventual battle.. felt like an oppressive environment and challenging encounters.

Zhaitan for the continuous build up in the personal story, but lacking a bit in the final mission, but first impression of the elder dragon confrontations was generally good.

Kralkatorrik had some of the same but annoyed me with the on&off in how we repeatedly thought we were about to kill it, then it slipped away and everything was hopeless, then suddenly some glimmer of hope and another shot, then back again and eventually finding a way after all...

Jormag was terrific in the build up, nothing more needs to be said about the conclusion... Primordus an even sorry tale.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Dondarrion.2748
Reasons!

[Ehecatl.9172]

Modremoth definitely. I feel like he was the most unique take on an elemental dragon creature I've seen. He wasn't just some big dragon at the heart of the jungle. By the time we arrive he WAS the jungle, and he was spreading.

 

He was able to creep across all of Tyria and reach the far side of of the continent many, many miles away from him that made him a threat to enemies that weren't geographically close, something we'd only really seen Primordus do and that was because his geographic location was just "down".

 

He was also smart enough to target out waypoints and destroy our means of easily traversing Tyria to stop him. His understanding of our methods of war culminated in what is probably the most memorable and iconic moment in GW2 so far; the total destruction of the Pact in a single coordinated strike.

 

Fighting through Maguuma really felt like Modremoth was around every corner every step of the way. Every root and every tree was potentially a part of him and his minions were omnipresent. We had to make quick allies of the forest's native creatures (of which I desperately wish Itzl or Nuhoch were playable, love those guys) and fight a truly uphill battle through what is easily the deadliest jungle on Tyria.

 

His minions were also really cool. The Sylvari obviously, but also the entangled dinosaurs and massive plant creatures. I also liked how he basically had cloning facilities for his minions that allowed him a steady stream of his most powerful champions. His champions were even harder to permanently put down than the Dragon of Death's because whenever we destroyed one he could just make another with the same knowledge and experience if given time.

 

His fight in Dragonstand is also the first time I truly felt tiny compared to an enemy in GW2. They did a good job making him feel absolutely massive and deadly and I really bought that it'd take a full military force to bring him down. But even that wouldn't have been successful without Trahearne, first of the Firstborn, sacrificing himself to give a small but elite team a chance at taking Modremoth's mind.

 

There were a lot of things in HoT I felt was rushed and I really wish we'd gotten to explore more of Modremoth and the Sylvari while we had a chance (like Malyck's tree and its fate) but overall I really liked what we did get from him. He's a great example of what the power of nature can be if wielded by an amoral creature that wants only to grow its influence across the entire world.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Ehecatl.9172

[JekthAvid.1408]

As a salad... mordremoth

[Naxian.9823]

On 9/3/2021 at 9:54 PM, Ehecatl.9172 said:

-snip-

I agree with everything he said. Nothing more to add.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I already wrote a post on this up above, but I want to summarise my feelings:

I think Mordremoth is the most interesting as  Sylvari, otherwise Kralkatorrik had the most well-presented ending.

Jormag and Zhaitan both had a good storyline but a bad ending.

Primordus is.. a thing.

 

All we can hope for now is during the replay of IBS they'll change it up a bit.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Daishi.6027]

Was a bit disappointed in the hammerhead design, but Kralk.

[Wintermute.5408]

Mordremoth, winning just by concept alone.

Back then I still had my mind blown by Zhaitan's design - an undead amalgamation instead of a classic "dragon" that's been teased in the artworks. Having the next dragon be a literal plant, omnipresent, silently spreading under the surface was extremely promising. From design and concept standpoint, It made me expect other dragons to be something more than what they ended up as. I mean, sure, they are called dragons in this world, but do they really need to be winged reptiles? After the first 2, the possibilities seemed endless. And yes, I was disappointed by the next 3.

[genjonah.1253]

Kralk then Mordremoth
 

I used the ‘return to ____’ stuff to go from beginning to end on one character, so part way through lws4 at the moment. I didn’t care for HoT the first time through, I remember being far happier with the masteries in the rest of the world than the entirety of the actual HoT content, including the story, but playing it all through at once, it flowed a loooot better than I remember

 

That being said, I still loved PoF more- not only mounts, but frankly it made Kralk into my favorite, such a terrifying force, as well as the madness of Balthazar as he went through (which full fledged turned my character into a New Margonite, going off of the thread they left in LWS3 finale, but I digress…)

 

and then to have him not only wreck the physical world, but absolutely ravage the Mists themselves, and then to have a new, different peace when finally killing him? They did well, IMO

 

what everyone else said about Primordus and Jormag, though. Incredible build up for Jormag, only to have Primordus completely thrown under the bus without any character development whatsoever

 

Zhaitan was decent. Probably, though, the best design- the final model was frankly disgustingly brilliant

[adormtil.1605]

Speaking of which was it not out of character for Primordus to have a organic champion herald? I do not get why he had one.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

[This message is unwelcomed and was removed.]

Edited September 30, 2021 by Dean Calaway.9718

[DaZeeHero.5210]

Kralkatorrik becuase of the fact he was just senile and sick in his old age and had a serious magic tummyache from balthazar.

[Gibson.4036]

Bubbles. AKA Steve.

No explanation needed.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Gibson.4036