Guild Wars - Balthazar's Realm, The Fissure of Woe | Lore Refresher, Menzies Vs Mingus & Story 

I know, I know, it's 50 minutes again - but I swear there is lots of cool information in here! Have fun guys and more feedback on what you want to see next is always wanted!

I bet you, when they finally mention how to pronounce his name, Anet's going to include an NPC somewhere questioning the pronunciation.

Menzies all the way. Mingus sounds too much like dingus.

So, talked to a Scottish friend, it's pronounced Mengus, but g is silent, more like a y. such as Lasagna ... so Menyus

I'm playing through LWS3 for the first time in 2024, and listening to this playlist along as I go. It's so interesting to hear you speculate that ArenaNet might roll out legendary Obsidian armor back in 2017, when that has now come to pass! And more generally, it's fascinating to hear you speculate with perspective from the present day about the direction the game took, what did and didn't come to be, etc. You've mentioned before in some videos that you think a lot about the evergreen nature of your content, how maybe a news video or a prediction video isn't relevant once the content has come out and the community has moved on. But I think in a macro sense, this entire channel serves as a kind of time capsule into the state of the game at various points in its lifespan, a temperature gauge on how the community felt about certain decisions, or a snapshot of how exciting maps/metas/story beats were on release, that are now considered routine. For example I really liked watching your Searing Ascent video, having just done it for the first time myself yesterday. The community had since found new routes and strategies, but to see what it was like when everyone was on the map, when all the strategies and routes hadn't been optimized - I found it really cool, and I think that's really valuable. Or seeing what Dragon's Stand looked like before everyone had a Skyscale, I'll never get to experience that as a player but I can watch you experience it. So all that is to say I've been using your channel to see what all this content that is new to me now was like back when it was new to everyone. And I think that's really valuable! So thank you for that.

Imagine if the Fissure of Woe is the Final Battle Meta map for 2nd expansion like Dragon's Stand for HoT. It will be great as a means for a full on War in the map now if they turn Fissure of Woe in to a Final battle Meta map and give the feel being part of a army fighting their way into the heart of the enemy base to defeat the Final boss. That feeling we never got in GW1 because the player and his or her group was a "Spec Op" group sent in to retake vital locations Balthazar's Eternal Army lost to Menzies Shadow Army.

Maybe Menzies got teased at school and all the other kids called him Mingus the Dingus so now he insists that his name is pronounced Menzies but Balthazar still calls him Mingus he gets super triggered and thats why they were at war

Imo Heroe's Ascent is the greatest form of PvP I ever saw in a MMO. That favor of the gods feature made you feel like you are really fighting for your continent and you can achieve more than just some loot and Balthazar points. I remember I saw a few members of a team that had recently won Heroe's Ascent standing in that temple outpost and people started gathering around them and suddenly you had a big crowd. Must have felt like superstars.

A little off-topic here :P I know you probably heard it many times but I just want to thank you for all the hard work You put in the video's. I play the hell out of GW2 and was big fan of the GW. But thank s to You this game is so much better :D All the little bits of lore and speculations is just fantastic and make me want to play more, and more. Thank You again and keep the good work :D

Featuring my 142months old Monk - Meister Badelatsche :D Bonder in the Clips :) Was a fun run, much nostalgia :) TY for having me WP!

In terms of Menzies, the different pronunciations are familiar to me. I live and grew up in the central belt of Scotland, and in the 80s and 90s there was a high-street chain of stationers called 'John Menzies'. Some people pronounced it as Menzies, but often it was pronounced Ming-us or Ming-ies where the G is not heavily focused on. Ming is pronounced like the vase type. The way you pronounced it in the video sounded more like ming-gus, which isn't how I remember it. But yeah, the pronunciation like that isn't just for old scottish language, but was used by the general populous. Perhaps it originated historically different, and is indeed the way it used to be pronounced in certain regions, but I know at least in Glasgow, many people used it like that. Once the high-street chain closed down, the use of the pronunciation has faded I think, because it is not in general common use.

I'm eagerly awaiting the Scooby Doo double mask pull. It's actually Menzies pretending to be Balthazar pretending to be Lazarus. All that stuff with being deceitful, gathering an army of cronies, and having his light abated (I.e. Shadows) makes more sense than I would have thought.

As one of those who never played gw1 i love these lore bits!

God I miss GW1 :'( FoW was amazing, so many good memories and hours spent grinding.

Didn't know Keanu Reeves had his own corner of the mists :3

Seeing GW1 Assassin gameplay makes me sad. :< GW2 Thief doesn't even come close to gameplay type Assassin offered in first game. Building long combos, trying to execute them AFAS before mob dies. Thief is just using one most powerful skill with it's stupid initiative system. No combos, no energy managment with Critical Strikes. Closest to Gw1 Assassin probably is FAstaff Ele.

What if Deimos is part of the shadow army? A demon from the mists in a raid where you find Balthazars dagger? Maybe it shows that Menzies was winning for quite some time, since the disappearance of Saul or even before. I find this is a way to add current things together and would love to see some speculation on this idea. Other far stretches, what if Samarog is a minion of melandru? Relation of the Musaat and the mists? What if centaurs teaming up with the white mantle against the humans might hint at menzies/Balthazar vs Jennah (who might be dwayna). Maybe that's what caudicus knows? What is the relation of abaddon kormir, Dwayna and Menzies? Maybe the fall of abaddon powered up Menzies (secrets) or maybe kormir who absorbed the power teamed up with Menzies against Balthazar and dwayna?

When balth said "they dimmed my light" was in reference to the Shadow Army. Maybe Balth needed to consume magic because he's losing the war against Menzies.

I have a good friend with the surname Menzies pronounced Mingus, it's what I first thought of when I heard you talk about him in an earlier vid.

If an obsidian armor would ever come back to GW2, I really hope it would be tied to achievement and map currency kind of like the armor you can obtain in silverwaste

This video makes me really REALLY angry with GW2, because I can't play as a Protection Monk... I miss my GW1 main. Maybe one day Guardian will get an Elite Spec that's sort of like Druids but based around damage mitigation with some heals.

I actually remember cheering at the announcements that used to float in chat that our team was winning when we were waiting to farm:)

Great work!

To be honest, I think that the coolest way to introduce FoW into GW2 now would be something like a hardcore Dungeon.

Lord Taeres was an Eternal who has a shadowy blade named after him in GW2, and The Fate of Menzies is a flaming torch that gives off light. Hmm...

Great vid, I really like these overview vids of GW1. I can't remember the last time I actually took the time read all the dialogue in FoW. Let alone considered it and the possible ties it may have to GW2. How's Arena coming? wink wink nudge nudge

As some one who lives in rural Scotland I will agree that more people call it Menzies than call it Mingus, also it's pronounced "Ming - us" not "Ming - gus", but it's very common knowledge that people know it means both. But menzies sounds better and is more common.

Could the Mystic Forge tap into the the forge here in the Fissure of Woe? And that's the reason we build legendary weapons and armor in the mystic forge?

I remember Priest of Menzies because the name sounded cool and he was a bugger to get down in hard mode. The glory days of BHA ranger.

Please do some more lore videos! I know you keep it fresh, and up to speed with what happens RIGHT NOW in GW2, but as someone who is just.. a bit too lazy to read tons of pages, I thoroughly enjoy videos such as these. And I would LOVE to hear everything you know about the Underworld and Grenth / Dhuum. Also, seeing as humans go blind when looking at a god, how the fuck (excuse my language) did a -human- manage to screw Dwayna and get her pregnant with Grenth...? Just.. how did you manage that without some defect?

Seeing the gw1 stuff really made me miss the amount of emotes we were able to do.

I love your videos

very nice vid , subed

Makes me miss my Main Monk so much!

I think he was tricked by menzie who took his throne and when he asked the other gods for help they refused him. And thats why he had to trick us in order to get some of his power back. And also from the dialog in the volcano you can see that he is '' sad '' that his way of life was proven wrong.

makes me want to replay the original game again, I really need to try and finish underworld, it's the only elite area I never finished

Besides the weapons you mentioned there's also an exotic torch called "The Fate of Menzies" (mystic forge recipe with Mystic Coins and stuff). Looks like a head with horns on a stick. Was this his fate? Maybe he was defeated? Hard to say. Also, about the FoW map in GW2: Like you said it was made by some new person. He made it as practice with ArenaNets map tools. I doubt any of that would be usable at this point really :/

@WoodenPotatoes When I heard "They have abated me" I interpreted they as in the ED. Did Balth say something else to point to a conflict with his fellow gods?

I would have been more accepting of the Mingus pronunciation if the "source" wasn't a fan-edited page.

We've been lead to think that Balthazaar vs Menzies was the true battle, but really it was "Menzies" vs "Mingus"

The bad guy from Moana??! WP are you my Twin Flame?? ❤️ that movie

I would not be surprised if "Balthazar" turns out to be Menzies. It just looks too out of character for Balthazar to give up on "honor in war." Menzies is, as you said, "The Great Deceiver." It doesn't seem too out of character for him, Menzies, to try and steal power from the Elder Dragons to get an upper hand in the war for the Fissure of Woe. Since they are both brothers they could look similar. Similar enough that Malchor's sculptures have enough variation to make them look the same, hence why he looks so much like the Krytan version of him. I have no explanation for the dogs. And I know this theory is pretty slim but it could be a very interesting twist. The real Balthazar comes out and we have to follow his brother to where ever the new expansion takes us. We find Menzies working with, or fighting, another Elder Dragon to stake claim to the unbound magic. All in all, this could be an interesting idea that probably won't happen.

WoodenPotatoes, you said Dungeons and I started to drool. We've needed new dungeons for soooo long. The classic 9 are 4 years past due for additions. Please lead the way! Help the community advocate for more dungeons! You have a voice, where many of us simply have forum posts that get buried beneath posts complaining about balance patches to x and y. MOAR DUNGEONS! :D

Lyssa made Blath a mirror for his deception, he probably learned the deception from his half-brother some how. That means perhaps the other gods want him back, or at least Lyssa does, maybe he is Lyssa's lover?! I hope new legendary items have a narrative to them, as an example the HoT legendary greatsword could be that sword balthazar had and you craft it by doing tings to earn his favour in the mists and with all these obby shards and ecto... but with some flavorful story like the chuka and champawat! It looks fantastic, add some cool effects and boom the new legendary greatsword, with in game flavour like your earning something you see around (note that even twilight was in possession of a orrian champion!- and the mercenaries in the blimp place have them too!). If you look at the racial introduction cutscenes for new characters, you can get a grasp of the total situation and more detail than you thought as you clicked skip time after time. Regarding the "dimming" part, the vast prayers to the 6 gods ceased, especially after the fall of orr and as WP stated Balth required a lot of help (to mention it, the god always needed mortals help (probably why Abaddon was eager to give mortals magic). In gw2 the gods are silent as the human intro states, the charr states that they killed their titans, the norn states they are against the dragons champions (as they were introduced in gw1 with the icebrood/nornbear and destroyers...).

Someone on reddit suggested to me, what if Zhaitan or Mordremoth have gone to the FoW in the afterlife and it is them or one of them that has claimed the realm for themselves? Pretty weird but cool too

I really hope if they do add it, it won't end up being a raid. I think a 5 man dungeon would be perfect with tokens, achievements and 'quests' that you would have to do to receive sets of armor that would be nostalgic for gw1 players.

Menzies. There's a building at my university called that and everyone says Menzies. Because if you wanted it to sound like Mingus, you would spell it Mingus.

If we get to go in the FoW in GW2, I think that would be cool if we can enter it the same way Nimros the Hunter did. Like imagine: we need to reach Balthazar's realm (to stop him or find out what his goal is?) and so we try to investigate, search for a trace, HOW this random guy entered it first, using 'his own way' instead of the favor of the Gods. That could calm down GW1 players and fans of lore in general who didn't see how we can access the FoW as it's in the Mists! ^^

Would be nice to see obsidian armour come as an ascende d collection connected to FoW. Also as far as I know there is nothing stating that Balthazaar has fallen only that he has lost some of his power. Which could be related to the dragons and who knows maybe Menzies made a pact with one of them in order to try take down Balthazaar?

After hearing Bahamut as BaHOOmat, I'm willing to embrace any pronunciation of Menzies

i loved hall ho heros and the fact that only one region got favour of the gods it mad me feel like players had more agency in the universe

You know, you could just walk with the group when escorting the griffons and be the only player pinging targets. By doing that the griffons will stay next to you, just stay right out of aggro range of the enemies.

I just watched your vid from 2 years ago commenting on this xD Well guess I am behind lol

The way you described the Fissure of Woe, it screamed WvW map to me - taking towers, defeating the lords. What if this was implemented as a new area to access where the portal would open in the big center castle when your world took it? Or a new map (rotating out Edge of the Mists?) that the enemy teams all looked shadowy and the pve mobs were more plentiful and HoT-level difficult? I could easily see this added as a guild squad mission map - what if it was put in as a guild vs guild map? I think that would be interesting, and I don't even play WvW much at all.

Anytime I watch a new WP video, I always imagine Anet devs are writing down notes about info to include in future updates lol

I wish you would upload in 1440p again! those vids looks so much better on my monitor

boozey theory: Menzies is actually some kind of charr incarnation. balthazar and menzies war represents the wars between humans and the charr. we have seen, at great self cost, the charr slowly beat back humans since the gods left tyria, could be reflected between the brothers and so balthazar has been overthrown. Would be interesting also to see rytlock finally tell us what happened in the mist. perhaps the reason he has been so quiet is that he saw (perhaps had a hand in) the defeat of balthazar to menzies, and he is apprehensive to return to the black citadel because he will have to go back to proclaim that the human gods are real, but not limited to human worship, and could help the charr the defeat humans once and for all. or something to that effect....someone who is better at the lore tell me im wildly off/ make it sound better

I hope that it is actually "Mingus" since in Australia at least, "Menzies" sounds like "mensies" which is slang for your period. So, the Greatsword called Menzies Agony was amusing to my fiance and I.

what do you think about nimros being the specialization for the revenant, still rooting for pyre my lovely mouse charr though

360 squad i feel your pain

The only solid evidence to Menzies pronunciation I've found is Sylvari names, many of which are also old Welsh/Scottish/Irish names like Niamh. Sylvari names are always pronounced as written, as such, Menzies is likely also pronounced as written. But it's ultimately up to the devs how it's pronounced.

How would a map from the mists (FoW) suddenly appear on Tyria somewhere? Not sure I like the idea of it being an open world map

i actually reallyappreciated the favour of god mechanic, it made everything much more special and intense. or maybe it's just nostalia, who knows.

Would it be possible that Balthazar loosing his powers has anything to do with Rytlock coming back as a revenant ?

On the debate of the pronunciation of "Menzies" I believe it is pronounced as it looks because Arena net doesn't even pronounce Jormag or Jotun the way that they should be pronounced. Which is with a Y sound instead of J by the way. Like Yormag and Yotun.. I doubt they'd pronounce some obscure Scottish word properly.

Men Zee's is how I've always imagined it.

Maybe in Janithir Wilds we can see it return as a raid? Maybe even Menzies

what if when the fissure of woe came back there is a change that we fight balthazar with the help of menzies but he can betrail us

Honestly, at this point I don't even think we'll be getting the FoW. As much as I'd like to see it in GW2.

You asked about some theories on the Dragon Liches: Just a little preface for some context; I'm not a GW1 player however, I LOOOOOVE GW2. I'm also a big fan of the lore as well as dragons in general from the various places they've appeared in the fantasy genre. Now, this is the first time I've heard about dragon liches and it's kind of getting my mind turning quite a lot. Get ready for some tin-foil hat action(and possibly a wall). Dragons are, as far as we know, the oldest living beings in existence; possibly even outliving the human gods themselves(most definitely for some of the current ones). In fact, I can't recall a place where it's been stated that Tyria has existed without the presence of the dragons. Therefore, we can assume the dragons are as old as, if not older than, Tyria itself. What if(don's tin-foil hat) dragons, as a species, are the first ever Mist Walkers to exist in all of time? This idea would be similar to the Doctor Who Timelords where they're very first species to time-travel ever, in that continuity. To continue, what if the dragons, as the first species to become Mist Walkers, actually exist throughout the Mists at this point in the timeline, or existed throughout the past and are simply less abundant now? Think about it... Your video shows you fighting fallen, or undead, dragons in a realm where it's commonplace to find undead things. Where do living things go when they die in the GW2 universe? The Mists. Who's to say some of them don't wind up in the Fissure of Woe? Where are some of THE most powerful beings known to exist outside of the Elder Dragons? The Mists. After the exodus, the human gods went to the mists. The Mists War supposedly involves some of the greatest warriors to ever have been known. There's a lot we don't know about the Mists, but there's one thing we do know: There's some REALLY powerful shit in the Mists. I speculate the dragons, again as a species, are from some extremely, INCOMPREHENSIBLY old world or realm elsewhere in the Mists. What you're seeing in the Fissure of Woe are just dead dragons that either were sent, summoned, or chose themselves to go there. It's also possible those are just younger dragons of the same sub-species as Zhaitan that chose to inhabit the Fissure of Woe. So, what if, the Elder Dragons themselves are of one of the original generations of Mist Walking dragons? What if... They were traveling through the mists and found this world, our world, completely saturated beyond belief, with magic; their source of power and sustenance. Upon arriving at the dawn of Tyria, they found it so saturated that they simply never left for the Mists again. They'd found a Utopia. After so long they themselves became saturated with the magic they came for and fell into a slumber. Tens of thousands of years later(maybe hundreds, who knows?) upon waking, they found their Utopia overrun with power-hungry little bugs. Naturally they were not happy with this realization and acted out to restore what they had. Thus continued the cycle of what we know today and because this has been the way of things for sooooooo long, it drastically disrupted what had become the natural flow of magic when we started to fight back(and with which the manner we're doing so. I.e. BAM dead dragon. Very sudden.). With this theory, Taimi's simulation makes a lot of sense as well. Of course Tyria would straight up explode if you pumped TWO Elder Dragons worth of magic back into the system! I also think that would happen if we continued to simply murder them progressively, in a line like we've been doing. Putting Primordus "back to sleep"(I can't unhear that plot-hole you pointed out about his lack of magic not making sense to put him back to sleep) might have actually been a happy accident. This not only gave us more time to figure out this conundrum of malicious Elder Dragons vs. exploding Tyria, but it gave us some more insight as to what's good and bad when it comes to Tyria's magic; too much magic, too fast is having pretty dramatic effects on the world. We will need to come up with a solution if we are to remain the dominant group of species on Tyria and retain the world in its current state. ... Well those are my thoughts on the Dragon Liches and what could be some implications there. Yes, it was a bit crazy and definitely required the construction of a tin-foil hat, but I hope it was fun to read(I kind of got off-topic at the end there, sorry). I certainly enjoyed writing it. :) Love your videos btw! The long ones are the best!

Betting that the scrolls were a trap that B fell for. If M is a deciever, what better way to trick us than to throw in L's mirror. A double deception.

What if the Fissure of Woe was a full on raid, but open world style? So instead of being forced to linearly go through events you have multiple ones that you can complete in any order, that then lead to a raid boss. You could even make it so that the 3 bosses in the raid can also be done in any order

Gotta love the revamps they made to Ritualist, Dervish and Elementalist. I wish they had time to make changes at least to PAragon and Assassin before they stopped working for GW1.

What if we get m night shamalamadingdonged and balthazar is actually menzies which would explain the sneaky backstabbery and attempt to reach godhood. I doubt it but food for thought.

Does Balthazar state he is Balthazar? Could it be Menzies masquerading as Balthazar? Sorry if it's a stupid question, I haven't been able to play the recent episodes.

Is something wrong with the quality of the video? I can only see it in 360p..

I looked through the comments to see if anyone had pointed this out before, but I didn't see anyone saying so---You were somewhat incorrect about the creation of the FoW map in the AMA; it was said that its creation was the result of a newer developer or QA person teaching themselves the map creation tools, it was never meant for release. Of course, they could always polish it up and end up releasing it, but that was never its intended purpose.

i'm surprised your skillbar is that big in GW1. don't you usually like it minimal? ^^

Given that it was supposed to be an eternal battle, It would be interesting if the depowering was punishment for winning.

If they add FoW in GW2, I'd gladly play again. Spent well over 500 or so hours doing FoWSC across 4 different characters ( UA, 100b, MT, and MoP ). If it's half as good as it was in GW1, I could see spending another 500 in GW2!

Know if they make the Fissure of Woe like ToN that would be Awesome!!! i think i also would be a great place to get ppl to raid, with events showing mechanics for each raid boss just toned to a point where open world could do it, as for the Obsidian Armor i don't know might be something like bloodstone stuff which might be interesting.

Wait a minute, what if the Balthazar we saw actually WAS Menzies and he pretended to be Balthazar for some reason. (To try and mess up Tyria by using Taimi's machine?)

is minzies not a play on the word mimsy???

WP, have you ever heard of the Lib Dem MP, "Ming" Campbell? His name is Menzies, "Ming" for short. Probably the only person who is even vaguely "famous" in the UK with that name now, but that's how I found out about the name Menzies ha.

What if when Balthazar tried to use those "unholy texts," they backfired and somehow injured him or drained some of his power or something?

It is not working on my phone :( edit: it's not working on my mobile browser, but it is working on the yt app

I prefer the sound of Mingus. Maybe just because Menzeees sounds so fun in my language. Doesn't sound cool or threatening, or even serious on that matter. :P

If you listen to how people pronounce Sir Menzies Campbell's name you will hear them say Mingus.

Dragon Lich! THE IMAGE OF THE TEQUATL LIKE DRAGON!!!!

WHAT IF JUST WHAT IF, MENZIES HAS BALTHAZAR LOCKED UP SOMEWHERE IN THE FISSURE OF WOE BEACUSE BALTHAZAR LOST THE CONFLICT AND THE REASON FOR BALTHAZARS RECENT ACTIONS IS DUE TO THE FACT THAT "BALTAZAR" IS REALLY MENZIES.. that would be amazing because I for one love balthazars character I love how righteous was, I for one couldn't see Balthazar being defeated by your character, and besides when Abaddon was killed someone had to take his position however when Balthazar was killed no one took it, nothing really happened, well I guess krahlkatorik took the power it does this mean the dragon is a dragon and a god now? more lore please!

29:11 that voicecrack tho LOL

I have one MAYBE unpopular theory, and that is that ALL of the Gods are falling out of favor because of the continuous loss of magic through the Elder Dragons. In this sense, the fact that the Elder Dragons are draining all of Tyria's magic away from it, somehow weakens the Gods and all that Balthazar was doing was trying to get his power back. Even the Dragons fit there as well. This is the somewhat pessimistic theory, as I think that it is only likely because I don't believe the Devs thought this out that far... then again, they did an awesome job with the White Mantle and the Mursaat so maybe that pessimism is unwarranted.

Growing up, we sometimes used Menzies as slang for menstruation

i reasently and always will remember my fow runs as 4 warrior 2 monks caus of no 1 ever tryd and the search was funy too :D

Probably a very odd not well-thought opinion here: What if we have Fissure of Woe and Underworld as Elite Guild Mission/Challenge? With a multitude of quests and player cap 20~50.

the add I'm watching has a catchy music. ..

didnt see ppl running moebius in a while :D

I mean, they *could* just have Obsidian Armor be a unique type of ascended armor in the same vein as Caladbolg.

Europe and Asia controlled Halls all day long until the American teams got home from work/school and took it back. Fond memories!

1st time I'm this early to a video. wow