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razieltwelve · 5 years

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Terror (Final Effect/Gate AU Snippet)

When not one but two gates into other worlds had opened, the Saderan Empire had been convinced that the gods were on their side. It didn’t take them long to realise how wrong they were. Alnus Hill soon fell to the enemy, but even worse news was to come from the other gate. At least their opponents at Alnus Hill were human. The same could not be said of the beings that came through the other gate.

Not a single soldier had returned from the other gate. All twenty thousand of them had been lost. The empire had mustered a further forty thousand to try to hold the gate. They had died in less than an hour, overrun by a swarm of monstrous creatures that poured out of the gate in numbers beyond counting.

By the end of that first disastrous day, the entire area around the gate was coated in a strange purple slime and pulsing, quivering structures made of flesh were rising up toward the sky. Late that night there was an explosion. The gate itself had been destroyed - something that should have been impossible. Yet from the ruins, the strange creatures constructed a gate of their own, and from it emerged still more of the foul beings.

Within a week the entire province had fallen. The creatures slew any who dared to oppose them, and it wasn’t long before the empire began to notice disturbing similarities between new breeds of the creatures and the war beasts the empire had deployed against them. These… these things were assimilating the war beasts and taking the best characteristics of each to increase their own power.

Worse, the creatures had demonstrated the ability to counter magic. Not all of them could do it, but amongst them were powerful beasts capable of bending reality and unleashing storms of psychic lightning that could slaughter entire formations of troops in a few moments of horror. Soon, the skies and even the seas were full of the creatures, and the empire’s forces were annihilated time and time again.

For centuries, the Saderan Empire had prided itself on the discipline and skill of its troops. But against these creatures that combined brutal and unrelenting fury with unnatural cunning, they found themselves rendered all but helpless. At the forefront of the assault were titanic creatures so large that they could simply trample entire legions beneath their feet. They seemed immune to even the heaviest bombardment, and the great blades they wielded could cleave entire buildings in half with ease. Not even the empire’s mightiest fortresses could resist them, and a single such creature was responsible for levelling a renowned fortress that had stood unchallenged for more than a thousand years.

As the Saderan retreat turned into a complete rout, their fleeing troops were ruthlessly run down by packs of swift, nimble creatures that could cover ground at speeds that put even the fastest horses to shame. Worse, these creatures were even faster on the strange purple slime their fellows constantly spread, making any attempt to ambush the creatures impossible. They would strike with impunity, ripping and tearing into vulnerable groups of soldiers, only to retreat when help arrived. If the soldiers tried to form into larger groups, they would find themselves boxed in by the swifter creatures while stronger, more heavily armoured foes crushed them without mercy.

In less than a month, the Saderan Empire had lost more than half of its territory with military losses placed in excess of two hundred thousand legionnaires and more than double that number of militia and emergency levies. The creatures were tireless and fearless, and each battle only further refined their tactics. Grimly, the Saderans realised that the creatures did not behave as individual soldiers. Instead, they fought as though they were all part of one gigantic organism, every one of them fighting in perfection harmony and unison.

With nothing left to lose, the collapsing empire turned to its other foes for help, to the ‘green men’ who hailed from a country they called Japan. The creatures paused for the first time when they encountered the Japanese. From amongst their number came one of the inhumanly intelligent creatures that served as a leader. It reached out with psychic powers far beyond the understanding of either the Japanese or the Saderans, and the message it sent was simple.

Stay out of our way.

And with the words came visions of a swarm numerous beyond counting and of massive starships that could smash solar systems and turn planets into dust.

The Japanese retreated.

And then creature spoke again, this time to the Saderan Empire.

We are the Imperial Zerg. Surrender or be consumed. You thought to attack one of our colonies. You failed. Surrender or be consumed. Mercy will be offered only once. Resistance is futile. Surrender or be consumed. You have three days to decide. What can you hope to do against us? You are fools, and we are the children of an empire that has conquered universes. Surrender or be consumed.

On the second day, the Saderan Empire offered its unconditional surrender.

X X X

The Dia-Farron frowned. “I think we might have a situation here.”

“Oh?” Her superior raised one eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“You know how we sent that punitive force through the gateway after some dimensional anomaly appeared near one of our Imperial Zerg colonies?”

“Yes…?”

“Well, we wouldn’t normally wait a month before asking for a formal report, but things were going so smoothly after the initial engagement that we decided to let them handle things themselves. We have been meaning to test how capable the new Coordinators are, but I think they might have gone overboard.”

“…” Her superior sighed. “Please tell me they haven’t exterminated the locals. I know they started the fight, but extermination seems a bit extreme considering they inflicted about, what, a hundred casualties before we wiped out their expeditionary force?”

“It was a hundred and five casualties,” the Dia-Farron replied. “And we just got the first formal report back. Have a look.”

The older Dia-Farron read through the report. “Oh… crap.”

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”

“You think? They’ve basically conquered most of the world, wiped out just about anything even vaguely resembling a military force in this ‘Saderan Empire’, and they’ve also encountered what appears to be people from an unmapped alternate version of Earth.”

“On the upside, the Coordinators did offer the Saderans a chance to surrender, and they were smart enough to take it. They didn’t just go nuts and wipe out the Japanese either.”

“That would have been awkward considering a decent proportion of the people who live in this sector are descended from Earth. Sure, it’s a different Earth, but I doubt they’d have been happy if they got wiped out.” The older Dia-Farron sighed. “At least we know the Coordinators are capable if a bit aggressive. The tactics and strategies are all sound if not necessarily subtle. But we’re still going to have to explain this.”

“Technically, we were within our rights to launch a counterattack.”

“I know, and by all accounts, the Saderans are a nasty bunch who seem to believe they can pillage, murder, loot, and whatever else they feel like doing without consequences. However, the Imperial Zerg aren’t exactly known for their restraint, especially if we’re not around to keep an eye on them. For crying out loud, they’ve been assimilating mages and using them to create Imperial Zerg who can use magic.”

“In fairness, those variations do seem very handy to have around. Sure, we’ll need to test them and review their genetic sequences more closely, but I’d give them high marks for the modifications. If nothing else it shows that the Imperial Zerg are more than capable of performing genetic alteration without our assistance although it’s far less sophisticated and way more instinctual than it would be if we were involved. It’s a bit blunt too - like trimming a hedge with a bazooka.”

“Yes, we’ve collected a lot of useful data, but we need to think about how we’re going to explain this.” The older Dia-Farron grimaced. “I might have to call in a few favours. Still, the current emperor is a quarter Dia-Farron. We might actually be able to make this work if we can just frame it correctly.”

“Let’s hope so.”

X X X

Author’s Notes

This is a little snippet detailing what might happen if a gate from Gate opened on a world occupied by Imperial Zerg. After annihilating the invading force, the Imperial Zerg were given free reign by the Dia-Farron to execute a counter attack, so they could test the competence of a new form of Imperial Zerg. These coordinators are much like cerebrates in that they function as tacticians and strategists in command of the Imperial Zerg forces. Note that the Coordinators are heavily socialised. Indeed, they are reared in basically the same way as children to ensure their loyalty to the Empire. And much like children, they are eager to prove themselves to their parents, which is what led to the Imperial Zerg getting a bit overenthusiastic against the Saderans.

In practical terms, there was nothing the Saderans could have done. The Imperial Zerg have been genetically enhanced to fight the worst the Grimm can offer, along with nightmares and power-mad species from countless other universes. They have faced technologically advanced species with firepower comparable to the Grand Empire Alliance and proven their worth, and they have faced biological horrors that make even the Tyranids look like cuddly puppies and emerged victorious. A bunch of people in Roman-era armour with a bit of magic aren’t even a speed bump.

Still, the whole campaign is actually extremely important since it provides the Dia-Farron with a data on how the Coordinates behave when unsupervised. They are, in typical Imperial Zerg fashion, prone to aggression toward those they view as enemies, which means it is likely necessary for Coordinators to be supervised by Imperial personnel throughout their campaigns in much the same way that titanolisks are generally personally hand-reared and supervised as well.

You can find me on fanfiction.net, AO3, and Amazon.

#final effect #gate #fanfiction

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mapplestrudel · 5 years

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OT3 Headcanons

So here are some purely self-indulgent domestic headcanons nobody asked for with my crackship OT3 consisting of Ruth van de Graaff (Mass Effect OC), Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor.

(Tagging @john-cousland @spaceborn--vagabond and @soerdinan just for fun ^_^)

Sarah, Ruth and Jim have a house and everybody has their own apartment on a floor. Jim has his mancave in the basement, Ruth has the ground floor, and Sarah got the loft under the roof. So they can visit each other or keep to themselves as they like.

One day Kerrigan brings her Zergfriends for dinner. And Ruth has to say things like "no creep in the living room!"

Zagara: My Queen, aren't we going to strike and devour them?

Sarah: (in her gentle voice that she always uses when she teaches her Zergs) No, Zagara, these are my friends.

Zagara: Friends? What are friends?

Ruth: (cheerfully chimes in from the kitchen) Friends are people you don't kill and eat that's what they are.

Sarah: Yes. You thrive from their life presence, not their essence when they're dead.

Dehaka: (upon seeing Ruth) This one has strong essence. Want to collect.

Ruth: (stirring tomato sauce in a "License to grill" apron, produces a gun out of nowhere) Yeah I'll fight ya!

Sarah: Dehaka, Ruth, stop! No fighting indoors!

Dehaka and Ruth: (growl at each other, Ruth puts away her gun. They have a stare-down.)

Ruth: (dips her head to the side) Nice goatie. Could use a trim though....

Dehaka: (clicks his mandibles)

Ruth: (gets some scissors) May I?

They continue to stare at each other, Dehaka's mandibles twitching, Ruth with ready scissors. After a moment he bows down a bit and lets Ruth trim the goatie.

Ruth: (whispers) She said only no fighting indoors...

Dehaka: (looks at her and "smiles")

Ruth: (loud again, taking a step back in an artist’s pose, looking at her oevre) There, better.

Sarah: I can actually hear your thoughts, you know...

Jim: (comes up from the basement, indignant) Sarah, get those Zerglings out of the garage, they're eating the motorbikes!

Sarah: They're not eating them!

Jim:

Sarah: I have them on a healthy diet of freerange organic meat.

Jim continues to stare at her. She calls them back. They're now in the livingroom. Ruth starts to play with them bc everything is a puppy to her. There’s creep now all over the carpet.

Somebody at some point: Why is there a hive cluster in the garden?

#ot3 #sajiru #crackship #last year i decended into ocxoc hell #and this year i continue my fandom trip with a crackship ot3 #fitting ^_^#sarah kerrigan #jim raynor #ruth van de graaff

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oyeerps · 5 years

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what are your characters relationships to others OCs? do you have a canon and OC pairing?

My dear child, are you in for a loooong story. Because I have like a shit ton of chars and I hoarded like 2-3 dozen RPs while I had more time to be active around these parts.

Here is a quick run down on my more frequently used chars. However if you’d like to hear more on others you’ll have to go in the OC master list and pick a specific OC for the ask. It also has a quick run down on relationships with other OCs. (unfortunately a lot of peeps I used to rp with had their rp-blogs deactivated or deleted mostly because of the recent purge… It’s really dismaying because a lot of RPs happened under read mores and now I literally can’t read back anything on my new laptop.)

Mi'Nerra - She is the alpha witch of these parts. She has a brother Aias and keeps 3 Probes as “cats”/personal assistants. Xonav and Min are exes and tolerate each other. Min is on a pretty good rapport with a bunch of Tal'darim. She is BFFs with Arashnul and lets her crash in her place. She is also okay with Ari’s boyfriend, Mazkalar, and kinda adopted their family. She is also on very good terms with Neveux (and I ship them, they are not together tho) and they work a lot together. Also, because Tremanix and Arsurus belong to her immediate social circle she looks out for them, because damn, are those 2 like to lost puppies/bunnies. She is mostly on neutral terms w other OCs who are mentioned here.

Xonav - He is a Shadowguard nerazim. He goes between sarcastic broody a-hole and goofie chill a-hole. He is dating Azuna and they have a doggo son named Prince Fluffers. He is BFFs with Aias and Immardar. Immardar is his go to prank-bread buddy in crime. He likes to bother Neveux, but otherwise he tries to stay neutral with him. He (prolly) knows a lot of Specs OCs and he is protective towards Arsurus and Tal'Shar (they live in his neighborhood).

Aias - is a good boy. A giant puppy who also happens to be a Zealot. Mi'Nerra is his big sister. He is BFFs with Xonav and I assume he is on good terms with Immardar and Azuna. He likes to be on good terms with people and be generally nice. He is Tremanix’s boyfriend and they are diabetes inducingly cute together. Because Xonav technically adopted Aias as a brother he also knows about Arsurus and co and as such feels protective about them. (I think there was something about him taking on Tal'Shar as an apprentice?) He doesn’t really mix with Tal'darim but he tries to stay on neutral terms with them.

I also have to mention Hedrak. He is a wierd, not so well made Protoss-Zerg hybrid. He is wolf papa to Arsurus because the kid once wandered off into the wilderness and ran into him and that’s when Hedrak’s Protoss part kicked back in. He protecc.

#anon #mi'nerra #xonav #aias #hedrak

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jeaneybean · 5 years

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Eventually we have a plan

Eventually. It takes a while though.

Zone back in on Anya continuing to run like the lone black man in Scotland as she tries to get the fuck away from the werewolves that have been set upon her. As she continues to run to the point where she’ll get fatigue damage, her wounded leg gives out. Pulling out her bag off tricks, she gets a boar to help her move. While she can’t ride him, she can lean on him. But before she can get to far she hears something behind her, a large black horse is sneaking behind her. Literally sneaking, she’s got good ears and he’s hard to find.

When her boar disapears and she falls, the horse comes up to her. Anya yells at it and calls it a were-horse and tells it that if it’s going to kill her, she’ll fight to the end. The wolves howl louder in the distance, and with some ‘stomp if you want to help’ action Anya realizes the unicorn is there to help. He kneels down sso she can climb on before getting the fuck out of dodge.

Flash back a few hours to the hall, with Juno being like ‘Find her. Bring her back alive, she needs to answer questions. I don’t care what shape she’s in as long as she can talk.” Deidric tries to get Nitahn to come with him, but that’s quickly shot down by Juno because she needs him to move. Deidric takes out a hunting party and all the wolves.

Juno goes into damage control mode after that, praising everyone’s calmness when the family turned into werewolves. Magnolia makes a faux paus by making a bad joke and Juno reacts basiccally like ‘why is that servant talking’ but a steward takes Magnolia out of the hall and recomends she spends her time not attracting attention from the Lady.

It’s at this point Jakes gets his ‘invitiation’ to stay in the castle, and Juno sends men down to get his things. Including that silver scythe he keeps. Y’know. Because things weren’t complicated enough. She also excuses Oz and Vera to their rooms after all the fuss and tells them that the person had been in their rooms likely looking for something nto steal, and again offers to let Nitahn stay in the castle, which he plays off by being a traveler unacoustomed to kindness.

Magnolia beats feet to the inn to try and beat the servants there, but she can’t beat them. She kills time in the bar, tipping deccently and pretending to drown her sorros that jake isn’t there. The servants return and deliver jake his belongings, but his scythe isn’t there.

Vera and Oz check their rooms and indeed they were tossed, but everything’s in place. They talk for a minute about what to tell Juno regarding why Oz is under vera’s protection and were like ‘yeah that was totally Anya, also Juno had her people go through our shit.’

NItahn goes back to his caravan and is joined much later by Vlad, who goes over the plan to punch him the next day so Nitahn can be a puppy. He also mentions that his mother doesn’t trust Vera and thinks she’s lying about being a paladin. Which, fair. The next morning he does as planned, waking Nitahn up and punching him into puppy.

Vera leaves the next morning only to have Juno invite herself along on Vera’s morning prayer. Vera warns her it’ll be boring, but can’t turn down such company They chat and Juno asks to see Vera’s sword. Vera hands it over with a warning of it’s silver nature, and oh no Juno cuts herself. Vera quips that she keeps it sharp in this country and heals her with lay on hands. Vera goes into her morning prayers and Juno’s like ‘it’s 5am and I have way better things to do’ and dips after watching Vera pray for like 45 minutes because that’s not creepy.

Meanwhile, Nitahn smelled Vera and was like ‘!!!!’ and tried to run to her, but Vlad smelled his mother and was like -TACKLE- and managed to keep him pinned for a good long time. Vlad is like ‘Why was my mother there?!” and Vera was like ‘It was very stressful’ before going to put a hand on Nitahn to cast on him, but doesn’t make it before he changes into a human again.

“You let me eat birds?!” He squaks, and Vera and Vlad are both like ‘oh fuck yeah, good job dude’. “You were enjoying them!” “Did you get that rock out of my mouth before I ate it?” “You threw it up later!” “You could’ve taken those snakes away from me! Those could kill me, Vlad!” “Yes, those could kill me: Vlad!” “What the fuck is in the river?!” “I have no idea.”

Meanwhile Anya wakes up and has no idea where the fuck she is. She’s back in Steve’s forest! But before she can figure that out, or Steve can deal with the situation, the necklace pulls her back in and spits her out with Vlad, Vera, and Nitahn. Nitahn gets pissed when he realizes she was the one who nearly got caught, because now half the group is out on the hunt and we have no idea where they are. Vera is like ‘Well< I did ask her to scout’ and Nitahn turns on her a bit. They all argue.

This is wehre things get fuzzy, because Vera, Nitahn, and Anya were in one conversation, Jake and Oz in another, and Magnola had a conversation with Sam as the DM. I didn’t catch much of Jake and Oz’s part, but Magnolia went back to the inn and found out the innkeeper had hidden the scythe because Jake had been such a good tipper he didn’t want him killed. She headed back to the caravan to toss the scythe there (as well as drop her own staff off).

A plan formed and was relayed to Oz through Veli, who would tell Jake. Vlad would catch some animals and put Anya’s blood on them to make a fresh trail for the hunting party to follow in case they came back, since they likely wouldn’t want to come back empty handed. He’d also go into the undercroft and make discreete marks on the doors where people are being held. The group plans to sneak in and zerg rush the tunnels, hopefully killing any werewolf guards before they can get info back to Juno, because while Vlad doesn’t mind killing her he seems cautious about the idea of trying. Not sure if that’s because she’s powerful, or because she’s his mother and she’ll always be nemesis. After that, we get the people back to the wagon and get the fuck out of dodge and into vampire country.

NItahn is very against Vera going into the tunnels, and Vera’s very much against staying outside, because she has bear and she has her sword, and she can deal a lot of damage. Nitahn’s like ‘Vera you are getting very pregnant’ and it takes a minute for Vera to realize that he cares about her and that’s why he’s insisting she not come, which she tells him she appreciates. But she’s not gonna stay at the cart.

#The idiots do a adventure

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bakuspoon-blog · 5 years

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20th anniversary of StarCraft - new Nova skin for Widowmaker

Blizzard is maintaining its custom of marking the anniversaries of important games. The first StarCraft is turning 20 on March 31st, and the studio is promising a ton of extras around its matches to mark the event, for instance, traditional real-time strategy name itself. You can log into StarCraft: Remastered and StarCraft II following March 6th to Acquire commemorative interface skins, also portraits and stickers if you register into SCII from April 6th. And if you are not especially big on these names, there are loads of different means to get perks -- you may even want them to those ones that you buy with StarCraft appropriate.

Overwatch gamers will have access to some particular Sarah Kerrigan Ghost skin for Widowmaker (see above) between March 6th and April 3rd, such as yours. You might even receive a Battlecruiser-themed puppy in Diablo III (from March 6th onward), among many StarCraft-themed pets in World of Warcraft (March 31st to April 6th), anniversary portraits in Heroes of the Storm (March 27th through April 7th) and play with a StarCraft-motivated Tavern Brawl (March 21st to March 25th).

It is also possible to anticipate anniversary Twitch flows on March 30th and 31st. The 31st will even see Blizzard launch StarCraft is Life: A Celebration, a brief YouTube movie touching the memories of this match's"biggest fans."

The very first StarCraft game appears to be favorably early at this stage (it had been released when Windows gambling and online multiplayer were comparatively young), but its influence on the sport industry could be felt to this day. It is not simply that has been a definitive game in the genre, having a memorable narrative and a substantial growth of the formulation seen in ancient Warcraftgames. In lots of ways, StarCraft was the name that put eSports in movement -- it turned into a happening in South Korea, together with sponsorships and live broadcasts nicely before Twitch streaming occurred off. Even in the event that you've never dealt with a Zerg rush, there is likely a game you perform which owes a debt to what Blizzard attained in 1998.

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xaeneron · 7 years

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On Path of Fire

I haven’t done one of these in a while (or rather I wrote them and then forgot to post them lel), so maybe I’ll actually post this one for the new GW2 expansion after spending the week running around.

Overall, I found the expansion to be pretty solid; the maps are beautiful, the mounts are hilarious and well-implemented, the story was interesting and decently paced, and I’m still experimenting with the new elite specs. Massive spoilers below the cut!

Questions on anything I wrote, thoughts of your own? Feel free to boop me; I know I wrote a lot.

But really, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There are a LOT of bullet points beneath that cut. xD

On the maps

Obligatory: they are huge. It’s fitting since they were designed against HoT’s verticality and more geared towards the use of mounts, so it’s more of an observation, less of a complaint. There’s a lot of detail and a lot of little things here and there, and it’s incredibly fun to see what you can get away with using mounts to get around the terrain.

That being said I do miss the verticality of HoT maps. Maybe a combination of both pls? :3

I kind of wish there were more large obvious meta events, but I haven’t gotten to see all of the sort of meta events that go on in the PoF zones. I do think the large metas add replay value, but again a balance is a good thing.

We spur-of-the-moment yolo’ed the Ruptured Heart meta with 11 people. It was actually pretty fun. Also so many cannonades ;-;

Hearts feel like they take just a little bit too long. Some of them are amusing, but when trekking through zones doing map comp (or redoing hearts to get collection items) they drag on a bit. Guild chatter about hearts was fantastic though:

��These nobles are useless. What should I do with the chamber pot, throw it off the side or throw it at one of them?”

“I’m throwing flowers at people and making them happy?”

“Matchmaker heart best heart.”

Bounties are hilariously fun? Sometimes you get unfortunate bullshit combinations of modifiers (anti-stacking fleas + pls stack in the bubble to actually be able to hit the boss mob, I’m looking at you), but overall they’re quite fun. We spent a good few hours trekking through all five zones murdering things and getting murdered.

These actually look super promising for replayability; our goal/challenge as a group has always been to optimize and work together, so it should be fun to go track down bounties and see what kind of dumb shenanigans we can get up to.

I actually find these really fun in small groups of 5-10. Zergs sound...unfun. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The caffeinated skritt is...kind of annoying. Mostly because it doesn’t operate like the treasure mushroom in HoT and you have to be on the class you want the collection item on, and the maps are so large someone could trigger a chest and no one would be the wiser.

A tip though for people wanting to complete multiple collections: you only need to loot the last bag it drops. If you’re wandering around with friends and they’re nice enough to chill at the bag, you can reload with other characters and grab the bag again for another collection item (until it despawns). I have no idea if this was intended, but I burned a few TP to friends on this for the lulz.

I had a lot of GW1 feels running through these maps, especially going down to the Desolation and Vabbi. I appreciate that these places still exist but have changed with the years, and it’s nice to see what happened.

Although Vabbi is one weird-ass place now.

BUUUUUUT Zomoros’ lair was hilarious.

I haven’t explored for the sake of exploring in a very long time and it was really, really nice.

CHOYA PINATA.

On the elite specializations

I haven’t actually gotten to try all of them yet, but I’m also not super enthused about all of them (Spellbreaker, I’m looking at you). Also a gentle reminder that my opinions are mainly based on my background as a PvE player and moreso as a raider. Also they’re just initial opinions. Opinions change.

I started with thief (duh), and proceeded to do the entire story with Daredevil. I’m not particularly a fan of Deadeye; I appreciate the archetype but I don’t really see rifle having a place with a game designed more around active response in combat. Also as someone who still can’t shake the seaweed salad dance, rifle just feels really static and dull to me. But we’ll see. Maybe I’ll have to make the Predator hue. D/D Deadeye also felt strange, so idk. But we’ll keep fiddling with it.

Mirage still feels kind of odd but I need to get poor Naois the spec since he’s actually specced for condi, unlike Eet. It seems like an upgrade to condi mesmer, and the triple blink is hilarious.

I really hope Scourge ends up with some sort of place. Initial benchmarks look hilarious (but then, so did Soulbeast/Weaver/Firebrand ones), but I took out Richter again for Scourge and I’m actually really happy to play him again. It’s been so long ;-;

My brother told me, “do yourself a favor and put down a sand shade near some enemies, then press F4.” I tried it. I laughed pretty hard.

Weaver is so much button-pressing but it’s really fun? I’m still getting the hang of it but I do like it a lot. At least it’s more challenging than condi tempest. *grumbles eternally*

Soulbeast looks promising, although I hope it doesn’t lead to another “let’s use condi ranger/thief on absolutely everything” situation again. The new pets are also...interesting.

Although when it comes to ranger I’m a druid at heart, so we’ll see. Not that I’m usually conscripted for DPS roles anyway

Firebrand looks silly. And broken. I’m all for alternative sources of quickness (and alacrity in the case of other specs), but I don’t really want to see raid meta go to 2x PS 2x druid 2x chrono 2x firebrand (or something like that) with only 2 flex spots. That doesn’t sound fun at all.

Also I’m guessing Firebrand will be the first to get the nerfbat. The damage numbers people are getting are bonkers.

And hey look, they got the nerfbat. Down to 33-35k. At least that’s better than 50k? Ugh.

Renegade feels pretty decent. Revenant has always been in a weird “built around elite specs” class, and that hasn’t changed. I’m not sure how I feel about condi rev being more of a thing and less of a meme, but ayyy

Holosmith seems like it would be a lot more relevant if the transform wasn’t currently borked. Scaling damage to a level 76 fine weapon is...sad. If it’s fixed power Holosmith could be something legit? Maybe? Overall though I like the theme and look of it. Also lol lightsaber.

Spellbreaker I...idk. Thematically I like it a lot; I was a big fan of mesmer and shut down mechanics in GW1 and I like the idea of Spellbreaker, but from a mostly PvE perspective, it’s just kind of...eh? WvW and PvP I see it being incredibly useful but with limited boons to nom in PvE it doesn’t really look particularly great (especially with condi berserker getting tuned through the roof).

On mounts

I keep dyeing them funny colors. Yes Quill’s are all some shade of yellow.

I honestly think they were well done. I was never a supporter of adding them to the game (not against, but not for them either), but now that they’re here, I’m pretty okay with them.

I like that each mount is useful in some specific capacity - raptor for flat open stretches, springer for verticality, skimmer for no touchy floor, jackal for portals and evasion through high mob density areas, and griffon for the absolute lulz of flying.

I keep getting the “mount doesn’t render so your character model is riding away sunk in the ground while your camera remains in place” bug (I think it’s attached to trying to mount up before things are completely loaded), and while it’s funny, it’s kind of frustrating.

Mount swapping is a bit awkward, although binding each mount to its own key helps a lot.

I appreciate that the starting mount (the raptor) is still relevant even when you pick up the other three (four), as it’s definitely the fastest mount on flat ground and it’s improved leap is hilariously long.

Also it’s a giant scaly puppy so I have no problems with this.

The springer is hilarious. And super terrain-breaking. High cliff? No problem, bunny hop. Core and HoT map comp probably just got much, much simpler. Also JPs that don’t have mount restrictions.

The skimmer is adorable, and riding it around is strangely...calming? idk. Also as one of my guildies put it: “maybe this is Anet’s answer to underwater combat: glide right over it.” rip.

Of the four core mounts I think the jackal (blink doge) is my favorite. It has a gorgeous design and the blink/portals are super cool. Although the blink can get a bit titchy if you’re trigger happy with the jump button.

Of course I have the griffon.

IT’S SO FLUFFY.

I think it handles a little strangely (esp when you can’t dismount quickly, although you can divebomb), but it’s pretty solid. And adorable.

250g was entirely worth it.

Also that Tahlkora cameo hit me right in the feels.

On the story

I’d get here eventually! Eventually...;-;

All salad-shaped biases aside, the male sylvari VO is still my favorite and no one can convince me otherwise. There was a good amount of sass, seriousness, and everything inbetween. Ive is one to take everything with a “hahahaha you’re kidding what am I doing here help,” so overall the voice acting and dialogue fit him fairly well.

I’m a little disappointed by the lack of race-specific dialogue. Humans don’t seem to have any special dialogue with or concerning Balthazar, and everyone else doesn’t really have a chance to comment as an outsider. I know it’s more work and I still enjoyed the story as is, but it would have been a nice touch.

Like Ive would literally not give a shit about half of the things brought up. Not because he doesn’t care about others, but because he has no clue what anyone is talking about.

This was particularly funny with Joko in the Domain of the Lost, because his whole tirade about the PC not knowing who he is could quickly be shut down with “I’m a salad, I have no idea who the fuck you are.”

The “decisions” were interesting, although unsurprisingly they had very little impact on the game as a whole (maybe in the future? Doubt it). I did appreciate that depending on the order the “decide on Amnoon’s independence” steps are done in, the dialogue changes.

I admit that I’ve gotten a little less partial to Taimi as she’s edged closer to Deus Ex Machina territory, but her dialogue and conversations (both with the PC and with others like Phlunt later on) are quite funny.

I wish there were more Vlast/Gleam before he died. It’s sad that he showed up and just...died, but I can understand why they chose that path as well.

Although some of that was my own fault; the chapter with the Exalted and Vlast’s upbringing I got supremely distracted by the jumping puzzle and spinning around on my new skimmer.

Still. More Vlast!

RYTLOCK. RYTLOCK WHY. Nice job breaking it hero. Surely you would know better than to accept help in the Mists from a random shackled man who CONVENIENTLY knows how to relight your magic sword. Sigh.

I thought a lot about the Herald of Balthazar after finding the notes in Night of Fires. I went back to it after talking to my brother and came to a very similar conclusion as a theorizer on the GW2 subreddit. If that theory is true, that makes me very sad.

Pls say it’s true I like gut-punch feels.

Speaking of gut-punch feels, The Departing was amazing. It was super disorienting not having access to the inventory or the minimap, but it was a very well-done instance and I enjoyed it immensely. I appreciated that they stuck to the “you lost your name and purpose” thing to the point of replacing your character name (including in the hero panel) with Lost Spirit.

Balthazar murdering the PC was pretty neat.

Also Aurene showing up exactly on time was both cliche and NO BALTHAZAR BAD STAY AWAY FROM BABY DRAGON.

This, like a few other story missions later on, is super awkward to do as a group. It’s supposed to be rather personal, and so the not-instance owners are reduced to buffing wisps (like later on in the thrall party instance, not-instance owners are just awakened thralls), and idk I was lucky I was instance owner but that seems rather :|

Ive had a lot of feels hearing everyone’s voices again. Also the feels of him not exactly remembering everything and having to follow his purpose through his own memories and not quite remembering everything. Including Trahearne.

Also tfw the story mission is essentially Full Circle (as a sub-section of Closure) with a bit of bonus Balthazar.

Joko is being very obviously set up as a “you left me in a cage I swear vengeance rahhhhhh” villain. Or Anet is going to pull a fast one and he will never show up again, which would be hilarious.

Bonus feels for everyone else surviving and Ive being the only one dead (think Eet).

Backtracking slightly, I’ve never liked Kormir. I still don’t like Kormir. And the human gods are miserably terrible people. At this point there’s not much questioning as to whether or not they exist, but with the extent of their influence, their decision to just kind of peace is...rather appropriately god-like, for better or for worse.

Seriously though, gods pls. I can see some of the logic of “world will be destroyed anyway if god attempts to fight god,” but surely there are other things that need be maintained.

Also I like how Kormir notes that Balthazar had been stripped of his powers, and yet he still curbstomps the PC (unless it was entirely the imprisonment in the Mists that just locked his powers away, but Kormir’s dialogue suggests otherwise).

I would kill for a library like that. Seriously. So jelly.

The “let’s disguise ourselves as the Archon and go and convince Palawa Joko’s army to fight for us” part was so incredibly stupid that of course it worked. We spent the entire time laughing at how incredulous it was.

The battle at Kodash Bazaar was actually kind of awesome? There was stuff everywhere and my only inclination for the first part of the instance was “go hit things.”

It was incredibly weird to just have Sohothin for the entire instance. Yes I’m aware I could have dropped it. But it was hilarious in a Caladbolg sort of way. With less idiotic knockback, and more 300s cooldown skills.

AURENE. Balthazar stop hurting my dragon >:(

Also because he just yolo killed her other brother before she had a chance to meet him in person? rip.

Although now that I think about it, how would that meeting even go? Talking to the Exalted indicates that Vlast was isolated and not well-acclimated to the world around him, so by the time they realized he should be interacting with other races it was too late for him to form any empathy for anyone. His dialogue seems to imply that his motivation was simply the fulfillment of a goal; he seemed far more interested in fulfilling his legacy as Glint’s son than the reason why she needed him and Aurene to do anything in particular. He doesn’t really have a reason for what he’s doing, he just does.

Aurene is implied to have an empathic link with Vlast similar to her connection to the PC, but idk, it just seems like any actual meeting between the two of them would just be incredibly awkward.

I very much enjoyed both the penultimate and ultimate fight against Balthazar. Also because if you turned around, you could see Kralkatorrik’s massive face just chilling in the sky because oh shit angry elder dragon. It was...quite something.

I understand the PC’s current caution about killing elder dragons because of magic imbalance, and I also understand the need to stop Balthazar from being a total moron. I also understand that there’s not much you can do to stop a mad god besides killing him (since those with the means to imprison him decided to float on). But uh. I’m not sure what anyone expected would happen if you kill the god who absorbed two dragons’ worth of magic with another dragon just chilling nearby. Surely Kralkatorrik absorbing everything and flying off into the sunset while extending the Brand wasn’t a surprise.

Seriously though what did you think was going to happen.

Baby dragon absorb magik and is not quite so baby anymore. Aurene come back I miss you already ;-;

I commend you if you actually read all of that. xD

Overall, a solid expansion with quite a bit of content. We’ll see how replayable it ends up being as time goes on, but I am still quite amused by it and have plenty to do as it stands. The story was fairly solid (although sometimes strange with questionable logic, as always), and I’m looking forward to where they take it with LWS4.

#guild wars 2 #path of fire #path of fire spoilers #seriously all the spoilers #the artist rambles #a lot #that was really long #and still not all of it but ayyy #bullet points

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