Holy Crap I Finished The Story | Path of Fire Lore, Reactions & Initial Thoughts [ HEAVY SPOILERS] 

I think the utter happiness and fanboy geekout mode has pretty much hit it's peak on this one. I'll be back with more such story videos soon enough where we take a *much* closer look at how things are handled - good and bad! Two mount spotlights and my final VoD to go. Sooo yeah, what did we think about this one?

I think the part where Balthazar kills us was one of the highest points in the story for me. Balthazar KILLS us, it is the FIRST time in GW2 where an enemy talks about how they could easily crush us, and he DOES IT, just, plays with us, and right before we kill him, he just takes us out! Labeling us as a Lost Spirit till we get our name was a really nice flavorful touch, the recap in the Underworld of our story actually kind of... inspired me? Like it got me immersed in the idea that I am THE Commander, and a badass. I think having the Judge explain that he can't just bring us back to life, but by killing the Soul Eater we could absorb that light to reanimate was a good way to explain that we can't just keep coming back. I also REALLY liked The Judge being portrayed not as some angry spirit that is common with the realm of death, but being shown as a very caring Shepard of souls that was there to care for the dead.

Not sure if you heard or saw, but in the "death" instance, the game automatically puts you in offline mode so people can't whisper you while you are still dead!

At the end, just before he dies, Balthazar curses the other gods one by one: Dwayna, Melandru, Grenth and Kormir. He never mentions Lyssa. And after we learned that he has her mirror too...

Vlast dies to save the hero who later dies anyway and finds his own way back. Poor Vlast lol

All my old friends from GW1 have come back to play the new expansion! Feels like the old days again :)

Some things that stood out for me in the main story: 1. In the instance where Vlast dies, the line where the Commander begs him to stop: If you're playing as a human who was blessed by Balthazar you mention he blessed you when you were a baby and you served him your whole life. That was a nice touch! 2. It really upset me that the God's left. Kormir mentions that if the Gods stayed it would lead to conflict with the Elder Dragons, but they weren't on Tyria; they were in the Mists and had left all humanity wondering where they were for years. If they loved Humans so much then why did they just leave, without explaining the situation to the Millions of people worshiping them in Tyria? Now that they are gone, will all the shrines stop providing blessings? In Kormir's journal she says that Tyria is doomed and there are more important things happening in other "worlds", what could be so important that they left all their people? No explanation there. 3. I loved that you almost died in Act 1 and actually died in Act 2, think it reinforced the fact that you were fighting someone who was vastly stronger than you. I think Balthazar was a good villain; he represented perfectly his role within the God's: Fire, War and Challenge. 4. Kormir said that he is no longer "ONE OF THE 6", so who replaced him?? (slightly contradicting above statement there) 5. I don't fully understand how he used Aurene to try kill Kralky; According to the Forgotten Kralky's weakness is that all his creations are linked back to him, thus making him vulnerable through the branded. As Vlast and Aurene were basically the children of a former Branded, do they resonate at the same frequency as Kralky, allowing the War Beast to hurt it? 5. I also loved the way they used Joko. 6. I don't know if Kralky destroyed Amnoon, or if the storm was just due to him moving. I think he flew west; if he had flown East then the devs would have added more on the East of the world map. Interestingly though there is a NPC you need to talk to in the Brand Storm regarding the Griffon collection that says Kralky has just "flown off somewhere". 7. I noticed in the final little clip of Aurene she is a different colour; has Kralky turned her? It could be an interesting story arc finding that out and having to use the same forgotten ritual on Aurene that turned Glint. 8. I was surprised to find many little references to Cantha, and interestingly the final verse of your speech (playing as a human) you mention how all humans; Tyrian, Elonian and Canthan can accomplish anything together. 9. In the Epilogue If you speak to Rytlock after Canach he gets salty that you spoke to Canach before him, and even more upset if you come to him last. I loved that!! 10. I absolutely adored all the dialog both in and out of the story. It made the entire world feel alive and lived in! My favorite piece of dialog is at the party where a noble won't stop complaining about Sand Sharks. Other Npc's will praise you and this noble will downplay your killing a GOD and say the real problems are sand sharks, how someone needs to deal with them.

Kralk goes immediately out of his way to do a loop da loop on top of lions arch to destroy it again, then back to the crystal desert/elona area

Something I took away from the relationship between Sohothin and Balthazar was when Balthazar was chained up by the other gods they also took away his DIVINITY. So when he re-lights Sohothin that is some of his of the last divine power. What we face in Path of Fire is an incredibly weak Balthazar who had to absorb the power of the bloodstone to be a threat. Remember when we go to the library Kormirs very existence is enough to stun and perma blind us, and she is not even hostile. So that is my theory and understanding of how the 1v1 fight was able to work.

Sohothin is so OP that it can kill a god. Yet, Rytlock seems to still be useless as ever in every other fight.

In the mission where you command the awakened against the forge, if you dance the entire lines up squad dances with you doing the thriller dance.

I think they should have expanded on Balthazar's rage. He's a "cartoon villain" because he's freaking PISSED. He's lost everything. His realm, his power, even Lyssa; I'm pretty sure he was in love with her. Then, he was trapped in the mists, chained down like a common human criminal. That is a lot of loss and humiliation for a GOD.

WP: "This will be my greatest challenge yet to not speak for far far far too long" Me: *immediately checks video length*

If you wait around before killing Balthazar with Aurene, he cries out to all of the gods... except Lyssa. He doesn't blame her for his demise. Also Kormir says that Lyssa laughed at her for staying behind longer. And they still didn't explain why Balthazar had Lyssa's mirror!! Future story? Did Balthazar have an ally amongst the gods? I thought that was the coolest implication of the story.

I was playing with a new player that I got the expansion for so they could play with me. Their reaction to dying in the story was pretty funny to me because it is a bit confusing. "I've died so many times and I've never seen this place! How does this make any sense?"

I know that Sohothin was already a "divine weapon" of sorts, but when Balthazar reignited the sword was the fire part of his soul? Also Balthazar's motives were clearer to me than they were for you. To me i gathered that Balthazar was the only God that wanted to kill the Elder Dragons, and the other Gods not wanting to fight he saw as a betrayal. We got another tiny detail as well in regards to the mists and "placement" of Tyria. If you do the Griffin mission you see Kormir's realm after she left, it begins to fall apart as Abbadon's influence comes back. This tells us that the mists we know are attached to Tyria. My theory is this: Tyria is a planet like a bit of cereal in a bowl of milk. The bits of cereal are the planets, the mists being the milk so the gods simply jumped to another frosted flake.

what I understood was that the gods left because if they stayed in tyria there would be an unavoidable conflict with the dragons and that would fuck tyria up. same reason why they fought with balthazar because he wanted to stay.

When you get the sword, skill 2 (at least), is class specific! My mesmer/mirage had a skill that summoned 3 swordsmen, blinked a little and had distortion or so. And for this ONE instance, no? I mean, thats detail and care. So good.

I feel that having one added instance with Vlast so we have some level of interaction with him before he sacrifices himself for us. It also would have let them set up Kesho much better, by having Vlast give us the info we need to find it, rather than having us be magic archeologists who can find ancient lost cities in a single day of talking to random people.

Since I was playing as a human, I could not resist the temptation of doing the nastiest thing at the end. When he was less than 5% health, I let Balthazar to be killed by his own hounds. ^^

re the direction Kralkatorrik is flying, we see him head into the setting sun so west. Maybe a LS4 map west of the Desolation?

Was I the only one who was confused by the sylvari going to the underworld sylvari are ment to return to the dream when they die

Small detail that I loved. If you deliver a somber speech at the end of the epilogue, the councilwoman says something to the effect of that the party was a mistake and, "Please, at least take some hummus." And I don't know why the line about hummus just tickles me endlessly. It's so incongruous with everything else going on. I love it!

So been waiting for this video WP! Love your discussions on story and always enjoy your thoughts. Thanks.

From what I understood from Kormir told in the library, the human gods abandoned Tyria because of the Elder Dragons. The dragons feed on magic, and the gods are quite magical. Didn't Kormir say that a confrontation between the gods and the dragons would have been inevitable, and would lead to at least another great extinction of sentient races but probably even the destruction of Tyria? The gods could not find a way to defeat the Elder Dragons and save Tyria at the same time, so they retreated into the mists. It sounded harsh when they said that the humans are on their own, but the human gods coming back to help would only make things even worse.

I absolutely loved the story and delivery of it - I've very rarely felt SO engaged and taking my time as in sections like the Library / Mists / Vlast's death / and some of the bigger fights! :) Also enjoying the PoF maps so much, I seem to take much more time to explore them and find them more intriguing then before ^^

Actually, I found Balthazar's development very interesting. All the gods considered fighting the elder dragons- but all of them except Balthazar chose not to. Mostly because it would probably destroy Tyria. Balthazar saw it as cowardliness on the god's part, because you know, he's the god of war. He didn't want to back down! he would do it on his own! and the others were like no! and he was like FINE I'll declare war on you too! And what started out as a noble endeavor turned into bitter revenge for imprisonment. Also that last boss fight with him and Kral.....I literally almost passed out haha

just finished my story, went strait for this video. Yep, all this...loved it!!! And this beautiful map design. What are these freaking huge pots, these are amazing.

in the underworld memory part, you’ll see the person who died at claw island (tybalt for me as order of whispers)

WP!! In relation to 24:31, in that recap of the story while you're dead, you actually see the scene of your mentor's death! Not merely the dialogue they had with you, but you actually see them and the last couple of lionguards around them, being charged at by risen and Blightghast. That was one of the highpoints of the story for me and considering your character was new I don't know if you got to have that. Seeing Sierran die again proper traumatized me, and I imagine seeing Tybalt would have done the same to you :D

100% agree Minionmancer with skills like we had in the Awakened Recruit mission. That instance was the most fun I had in the expansion. I loved it!

I really really love seeing your videos after I've finished the maps and stories as well. Especially for the story it's sort of a post mortem for me. To again reiterate all I've been through and experienced and also catch some things that I might have missed. I also thought the story of POF was exceptionally good and well written, it was only after I finished it that it occurred to me the story itself was actually quite basic. But in the end it doesn't matter because I had a really awesome and fun time and enjoyed every moment of it. Speaking about some of the last things you said, yesss the party at the end was awesome. Every expansion of the original Guild Wars had a party in the end and so I really liked seeing that. And the speech, an absolute highlight. I think I actually got the best choices coincidentally. Started vague, Canach saying "Good start", then speaking the truth about Kralkatorrik being supercharged now with people getting scared and Rytlock saying "You're all welcome by the way" and then I ended with upbeat. So after telling everyone how screwed they are I ended with "So by all means, eat, drink, party" blablabla. And one of the guys in the crowd was like "But didn't you just say...." and after you completely finished the speech "So are we safe now or.... " I actually laughed out loud there. The only thing I couldn't quite imagine even after seeing the name of the last story instance is that we were actually going to kill Balthazar. He was such an important and prominent part of the franchise since Prophecies and I always imagined it would end in some different and more unexpected way. But of course we've killed another god before and also fought Dhuum in the Underworld so I guess even though they're praised throughout Tyria by all humans the gods are still exchangeable or even disposable. Still though thinking back to all the Zaishen on the Battle Isles and stuff, thinking that Balthazar is gone just like that, it's definitely gonna be interesting to see how Anet is going to deal with it.

There's one big problem with quoting Sothothin as the way we were able to kill Balthazar. The "Who needs a magic sword?" achivement. You can kill him without it!

Also worth mentioning is, that it was balthasar himself who reignited sohothins flame, so we in fact attack him with a part of his own power

Thank you so much! I randomly decided to re-watch the original GW1 playthroughs (good times, loved them), saw your latest vids on the new expansion (which i had no idea was coming) - started playing again a few days before the expansion released, now i've bought both expansions (mount envy) and am slogging my way through the whole game with brand new characters (shiny new revenant class!). Having so much fun with the return to the game and seeing whats new! So much to catch up on - what happened to LA? when did they fix the under construction area of DR? Canthan district would have been better :P Now we're 2 elder dragons down, a baby dragon ally and were fighting Balthazar? seriously, what did i miss!? Really looking forward to seeing the crystal desert, especially Vabbi (Nightfall was my first GW game). Your bright bubbly enthusiasm has always been enough to capture my interest and im having tons of fun! I'm sure Anet appreciates the £43 too :P keep em coming :)

It was a bit funny how casual the team was about the commanders death. They didn't show a lot of emotion towards the commander coming back to life. By the way, does dying complete and invalidate the Shining Blade death pact? Asking for a friend. Also what the hell Rytlock, Sohothin is OP and you never used it like that.

Love the WP lore videos!! Can't wait for the in depth story reviews!

I was totally happy with the death story. I enjoyed following our purpose and seeing all the people and our past. Literally the ONLY issue I had was when we come back I feel like maybe our guild should have been a little more upset? Lol I was a little peeved that Kasmeer wasn't crying.

The Spear - Surprised you didn't mention this one. I was with Rytlock when he said that destroying it is a bad idea. It's not like we can use it to kill Big K, but this could have been a really important ace up our sleeves and now it's dust. Being dead - Lots of people from what I saw on Reddit had a problem with the boss in that instance, the Eater of Souls. Showing screenshots of being naked cause their armor broke. I didn't have any problems with him, so I was a bit surprised. People also had a problem with finding their weapons because there's no marker and you have to look through several boxes. I, just like you, liked having no markers, no minimap. I was lost and confused and IT WAS GREAT! It really enforced that part of the story. Minion Mancer mission - This mission was pretty much like playing the game Overlord. And that game was kind of a dark take on Pikmin. Look up a gameplay video from Overlord for a few minutes. I also really liked this mission cause Overlord was cool :P PS: Now you have to do the Griffon. There is actually a surprising amount of story in it. You'll like it :P

For the past 3 days I've been clicking this video, then watching 10 seconds, then deciding I don't want to be spoiled anyway. Gosh, was it hard to constrain myself, haha! But today I finished the story, unspoiled, and now I've watched this vid. Very cool and I agree with most of the observations made. I loved The Departing, the Library, Kesha and Glint's Lair. Desert Highlands is my absolute favourite zone in the whole of GW. Even though I've only been playing GW for 2 months now (yes, I'm one of those newcomers, thanks to PoF), I feel I have a pretty good handle on what's going on, all thanks to you, WoodenPotatoes. If it hadn't been for your awesome vids, most of the story would have been *moves hand over head, making a whooshing sound*. So thank you!

Great overview! Overall loved the story and the expansion so far. Gahh your idea of Sohothin belonging to Balthazar is so cool. Would have loved to see that. I also don't think that was Amnoon getting destroyed. I think Kralkatorik is moving into new territory.

I was blown away by the story in PoF, the bit where you meet Kormir and enter the library made my jaw hit the floor! Obviously there are things to pick at but overall I was really impressed with the way the story was delivered - it's really great to see the story finally reach the potential the amazing lore of the guild wars franchise gives it. Very excited for LW Season 4 and to see what happens next! :D

Wp! Kormir explains that because Balthazar lit the sword sohothin, because it was a part of him, it could kill him. Just as the spear to kill kralkatorik was made of his blood

I also noticed that the city folk of Amnnoon talk about your decision. And different dialogue onthe different decisions :D

I loved the death instance. It had such a great feeling, and going through our story and finding ourselves was really really cool

I'm almost a year late but I just finished Path of Fire and oh my was it so good!!!!!! Thanks for all your videos.

if you look closely at the finishing cutscene with kralkatoric flying off, it is defnetly NOT the Amnoon Oasis he is flying over. he starts in vabi at the basar of kodash (you see the specific towers there and already branded crystals. and then he flys over ruins deeper into the desert.

About the last instance, not sure if you know yet, but you can freely swap between your standard build and sohothin. If you weapon swap when wielding it you gaina special action key to re-equip it

I think it's also important to note that Kralkatorrik appears to fly overhead in the courtyard that's facing the ocean. That means he's flying from the east out over the ocean heading westward. In my mind, there's only one place Kralk is heading - to Cantha (and possibly DSD (which also might be in/under the Jade Sea))

I immediately thought of you during the Library scene and the secret room. I found it right away and I figured you would too! My logic was well its a secret room, Kormir took Abbadons power, Abbadon was the God of Secrets but also of water (this is where I heard you in my head, accent and all) so I right away dived in and badda boom nailed it :).

Yes! I noticed the flying books almost immediately! Loved it!!!

"We're gonna become a god slayer" God Stomper, please.

On the library instance, they DID mention why the gods are leaving, it's because in a war between the gods and the elder dragons they knew Tyria would be destroyed either way no matter who won.

The presentation of the story definitely was better this time around. I love how the sun is so bright after you come back from the dead to emphasize the difference between those two states of being, which seems to be the main theme of PoF. There are the awakened who are dead, living beside the vabbians, there are many lost dead cultures out in the desert, and killing elder dragons seems to be a sure way to our own death. It shows an inevitability of death and really makes the conflict of the elder dragon balancing act that much more tense.

Hey WP! I just wanted to say that I agree with you on not understanding why the Gods left... Kormir tells us that the Gods don't want to mendle because last time they did there were desastrous consequences for the living, but... if they don't help us, giving the fact that we have no idea how to defeat Balthazar, and even less the Elder Dragons, aren't they leaving us to a very probable extinction anyway...? And the way she told us we have to seek for the "thing" that will help us in the fight was ridiculous...! She knew what it was, yet she didn't tell us anything... it's like she wants us dead or something. We litterally went out of the mist more confused than before entering; "now, we know we have to find something to beat Balthazar". That... that was almost parodic.

I quite enjoyed the story, one of my main hopes now is that we see the effect that Balthazar's death on the Forged and Zaishen. It seems every time a big bad dies we never hear from their faction again; the Mordrem are going insane offscreen, the Aetherblades went into the Mists, and all of the White Mantle are dead I guess. The only faction we've seen since their boss was killed is the Risen, which while interesting was just turning zombies with a leader into mindless zombies, unlike Balth's guys that all had some degree of free will if the Herald was anything to go by. On a completely unrelated note, I really hope at some point we get a properly difficult Balthazar fight. They could easily set a raid in something like a simulation or have a Fractal-esque fight where you fight Balthazar again but without stuff like Sohothin that evened the field the first time, that way the hardcore players get a proper fight and the casuals don't miss out on the main story.

I know this is like a super specific thing that you mention for only a couple of seconds but what you said at like 24:27 is something I've always wished was a part of the game. Ever since I first started the game I really liked the idea of being a part of one of the orders and it does suck that because we're the commander now, no one treats us like we were ever a part of an order. Especially because my main is a whispers agent I feel like I could have had extra dialog with the shadows in PoF. It would have been really nice for the devs to have added to order specific things for the players for sure.

About Sohothin, I think they kind of explain the fact that it is capable of destroying Balthazar when we see that Balthazar is the one to put fire on it again in the Mists. So we kill Balthazar with his own fire, even if they didn't go back to its origins, we know where the fire comes from this time

About library - we visit it later if you happen to do secret achievement line and place is a little different since Kormir left ;)

I don't think you mentioned it but I enjoyed having fewer characters in the story - we learn more about them and I care more about their story. It also helped that Canach and Rytlock are my favourite of the bunch ( and no Braham). Also great video as always!

Two things I think you missed with Sohotin (probably mentioned already but I'm not reading 400 comments to find out): You can unequip Sohotin and go back to your regular build with the drop bundle key. Then you get a special action to draw it. Different classes get different skills when using Sohotin. Not all of them, but I think the 2 and 3, maybe just the 2, vary based on your class. I found that that was super cool. We always see NPCs do super charged class abilities in story instance, like Marjory's exploding minions in season 2, or the permanent guardian bubbles every single time a guardian shows up anywhere. Giving out character a super-powered class ability felt great.

As a GW1 veteran, I was also constantly geeking out at the nightfall references and general GW1 appreciation I honestly missed in GW2 until now. We met Dunkoro, Tahlkora and Devona. we saw Mhenlo...so...awesome! I wonder what else is in PoF we never even touched upon. So hyped right now!

Best of any expansion stories I have played on my 13 year MMORPG experience. Just loved it, actually got some huge wtf moments in some parts. Damn you Rytlock. Also now I look everything as a jumping puzzles since got the mounts.

I really like how the skill 2 on Sohothin is profession specific. Also I didn't get the impression that Kralkatorrik moved towards Amnoon, but that remains to be seen.

I think one of my favorite small things they add in PoF is the fact that the members of dragons watch are actually given something to "do" while your running around in the open world. Whether its scouting a camp or splitting up to search for clues, it feels more convincing that they are actually in the world when you aren't around.

my first run through this was with an almost five year old ranger and i enjoyed sooooo much the lost spirit instance it made me think back 2012 and how it was playing the first hours with my dear ranger and all. i seriously almost cried.

taimi was trying to contact us during the baltha chase, but when she came she did not tell what she was talking about.

It would be great to be able to chose whether you're in normal Amnoon or branded Amnoon in season 4. Anet pretty much stoped to bring large scale transformations to existing maps after season 1 because it means that all the previous content is changed for ever. Now with different versions of the same map they could bring back the idea of a changing world without erasing what they have done before. It would be an easy way to deliver big expansion sized maps in season 4 by just transforming a map that already exists. Going back and forth between two versions of the same map could also be a nice technology to bring back season 1.

in the epilogue, did you go near the back where all the mount npcs are boasting about their mounts

I loved how you couldn't "fall to your death" in the underworld, cuz if you could then what a immersion breaker that would be.

I loved POF so much. I did feel that they should of advertised living world season 4 at the end of the last instance with a coming soon type of thing to get new players into the loop.

Hey WP, at the end when Kralkatorrik is flying and leaving behind Brand, he doesn’t destroy Amnoon. If you look at the architecture, it’s clearly Vabbian in design.

I honestly thought the story would end on a cliffhanger, until Season 4. I'm incredibly happy that it didn't. I laughed with the story, I cried with the story, I screamed at my monitor, and I thought the bit where we died was so cool!!!!! I've never played the original Guild Wars, so that part was a complete shock to me! Best story ever!!! I wanted to pace myself, try not to rush through everything, but the story kept leaving me wanting more and more. I can't wait until season 4!!! I love the story, but I don't think I've ever been THIS excited for the story. Gorgeous maps, excellent writing (I loved the comedic dialogue from Rytlock, Canach, and as always Taimi), and all around a lot of fun. I was shocked, sad, and angry about Vlast's quick appearance and demise, but it was so good! I could talk about how much I loved it all day long. lol I was really surprised to see Kralkatorrik as well! Edit: Argh! And my heart melted when we listened to Vlast talking about his life, and to Aurene! Hit me right in the feels. Tears for days! lol And Joko! Ahahahahaha I loved his dialogue! "The torture! Oh-ho-ho-hooo yes! I have plotted it out!" Oh! What you said about re-working minion-mancy!!! YES!!!! Rangers get new pets, Necromancers should get new minions or new ways to use the minions they have at least! They're Necros! Shouldn't they reap the souls of those they kill? lol

I do think there is still more about Rytlock trip to the mists. Because when he free's Balthazar is just him leaving the mists. He mentions finding glint too but there sounds like there is more because he said it's classified. Meeting glint and getting freeing someone that helps him get the sword that he says didn't realize was Balthazar until the death of Vlast. I think we may have rytlock giving out need to know basis info and serve to not having all stuff come from Taimi

Oh finally, was been waiting for this. I FREAKING LOVE THE DAMN STORY, EVERY BEAT ON POINT, ALL THE LACKLUSTER HOT STORY AVOIDED. ANET REDEEMED THEMSELVES.

You need to watch that end scene again, based on Kralkatorik origin being just southeast of Vabbi and he's heading towards the rising sun means he was heading away from Amnoon, keep in mind the moon was up during the party and Kral heads towards the sun just rising over the horizon...so east of Vabbi. Aurene absorbed some of the power that was released by Balthazar's death but Kralk absorbed even more...and I'm not so sure that "look" we got after Balthazar'd death might not have been one of...thanks?(which would be real odd coming from an Elder Dragon).

And here it goes. I'm prepared for all the mistakes the developers did storytelling and lore wise that WP is going to point out thus destroying my love for the story :c What I REALLY loved about the story were the scales of everything. Like Kralky is so damn huge and when he flies over us in the end the entire sky is covered and holy fuck, that was amazing! And the boss fights were pretty amazing and challenging :D

I do feel like there were some very subtle hints at Cantha throughout the expansion. The most in your face one for me, was in the epilogue when giving the speech, I ended on a positive note and the commander made an inspiring comment and said something to the effect of, "...we're Elonians, Tyrians, Canthans..." It felt very pointed to mention Canthans here since there's been so little story attention to anything Canthan in so long.

You can also go back to the sanctum without replaying the story if you work towards the Griffin mount I think whenever you want? Not sure, cause I'm still working on it

At the end during the party make sure you choose at least one somber part of the speech and listen to rytlock right after you give that part of the speech. And did you happen to follow the NPC after she helps you in the underworld? her story has a bit of a happy ending.

Oh, how have I missed this video being up for a week!? D: *watches intently*

i totally agree with what you said about big snaff, but i still really enjoyed seeing the broken golem ingame, took me back :D

Was pretty interesting in the Departed mission when takling to Joko because i genuinly believe we'd side with joko or something then i realised wait, we dont need him. It was pretty funny to see us disguise to steal an army....exactly what balthazar did. Closing up loose ends was great. Rytlock and balthazar together, the explanation to how the forge were made tied in well with out previous exalted lore. Very great!

Been waiting for this video since last Saturday. LETS GOOO

Guild Wars has never been better than this. PoF is the pinnacle so far. There were so so many cool things in the instances/story, and the Griffon story is pretty great as well. I too loved the speech/party at the end. I did a compliment sandwich, Upbeat, [the negative one], Upbeat. Good reactions.

This expansion was great and kept me at the edge of my seat during the whole time. Can't wait for season four of Living World and what will happen next, cheers WP!

Your reaction to the story is heartwarming. After I finished the story, I went to the GW2 forums to read what others thought, and there were a few made by veteran GW1 players saying how much they hated Path of Fire and how it was just a rushed retelling of a GW1 campaign with Balthazar being Abaddon 2.0 and his character now isn't really Balthazar since he's not acting how he did back in GW1 and how there's no hope for GW2. Joko was a joke, Balthazar was Abaddon 2.0, Canach was just comedy-relief and he has no purpose, Rytlock went out of character when releasing Balthazar, Anet disrespected the established Lore, Dragon's Watch is emotionless, and how they just want to kill all the dragons, etc, etc. My friend was disappointed in the gods because their logic didn't seem to make sense about not fighting Balthazar. He questioned why couldn't they just take him somewhere else and deal with him away from the mortal plane of Tyria, or perhaps have an all out battle in the Mists. I just shrugged since I didn't have an answer. Anyway, I loved the story of Path of Fire, and though I never 100% geeked out since I didn't play GW1, I did geek out a little because I watched your video about what you expected to happen in this expansion. It was a thrill. There is a bit of a difference in the Departing scene if you're a sylvari; you get a purpose raven showing a fellow sylvari is struggling against Mordremoth and you convince him he doesn't need to succumb to Mordremoth's voice, which I thought was cool. I was in awe through the entirety of Path of Fire, but if I had too pick my favorite part, it would probably be the ending with the speech, only because it reminded me of the base story after we fought Zhaitan. I'm surprised we didn't see the thoughts and emotions of the sylvari after we killed Mordremoth, which was probably my greatest disappointment in regards to Heart of Thorns. However, I'm getting off topic. I chose the let Amnoon be a free city on my sylvari, and plan to choose Joko when I play through with my norn thief. The decision literally freaked me out because at first I thought something bad would happen because I didn't choose Joko and he'd attack Amnoon and force them to his will. I had never been so concerned about the implications of my choice until that very moment. The same feeling happened at the end of Path of Fire when giving the speech. I chose Upbeat, vague, upbeat. Of course Kralkatorrik has to show up right after I make the speech. Will this mean the people of Amnoon will hate and scorn my sylvari elementalist for not telling them the truth to begin with?? I guess only time will tell if anything happens. Thank you for your amazing videos. I can't wait for more.

19:58 Excitement levels at this stage burst through the roof!

I saw you dismounting and selecting another mount to quickly mount, in case ou dont know you can define a keybinding for each mount so you can quickly switch them without reselecting it in the skill bar (for example I have Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+3, Alt+4)

The libary feels like the one found in the previous domain of madness, just interior wise after post Kormir's ascension.

My favorite gameplay is where you fight the mouth of Balthazar where he sucks up souls, he looks like the mouth of zhaitan it’s blue, it took me some time to figure out the timing when he sucks you up. I love the temple of kormir. Maybe the hero from gw1 was ascended and visited the gods realm.

I spent some time looking over the ending cutscene with Kralkatorrik and it is hard to judge exactly what happens. But the conclusion I came to is that you see him flying over Vabbi but only one of the domes, the southeast one, is branded and the rest of the city is untouched. I've seen other mention how he is flying into the sun which suggests he is going west, but I think his flight starts by going southwest, south of Vabbi, before turning back to the west. I also believe that the Vabbi map we have is after this happens and I have a few things to support this. The first is that the story doesn't show the brand, only Kralkatorrik near Vabbi. Second is that the southeast dome in Vabbi is branded and shattered in the map, which seems to be the same one as the cutscene. The third is that the brand extends to the bottom of the map, the same direction I suspect he flew after leaving his roost at Vabbi. And the final reason is that the stuff with the hidden mount in the brand is post-story, which once again suggests something about that area might occur post-branding. But as I said at the start, it is really hard to judge and I think it is something we'll need to wait for S4 to clarify. It does seem like it was trying to set up new maps south of Vabbi and the Desolation that are branded as we follow Kralkatorrik. Also, Aurene was seen in a branded area, so there is that. As for why you see the branded clouds over Amnoon, I guess that is just to show how powerful Kralkatorrik is now and how far his power extends, but the brand still only occurs under his flight path even if the aura is larger. Aside from the Kralkatorrik cutscene, I think the story was great and I'd say it is easily the best story ingame to date. I kinda wish it was longer and that isn't because it felt too short but because it was so good and I wanted more. That said, adding more could have messed up the pacing or ended up as more filler, so I think they made the right call to keep it the length they did. The biggest problem I have was chasing Balthazar in act 3. He starts the act by toying with and killing us, yet after we return we don't seek a way to defeat him and instead only focus on stopping the Forged... Last time we fought him we lost horribly, so why do we think this time will be different when we learned nothing new on how to stop him? Others have said it was because of Sothin being his weakness and that Kormir eludes to that when she talks to Rytlock, but if that is the case we should have addressed that much sooner, perhaps in the Exalted City when talking about weaknesses, instead of it being a last minute thing Rytlock decided to do. This was the first time I heard the idea that Aurene might have been the key to winning, which I hadn't considered, but I still wish we had just one line of dialog to explain why our character seems so confident to rematch Balthazar and what their plan was. I also wish there was a bit more dialog for smaller things like why Rytlock went to Amnoon since last we heard he was taken back to the legions and he was out of the loop with Balthazar and stuff, so it was a bit weird he beat us here. But that is just a minor thing and overall not that big of a deal. Though I really wish we got more from him about meeting Glint in the mists, especially when dealing with Glint's lair and stuff. It would have been neat if he reacted for Glint for parts like Vlast's death or spoke for Glint when deciding how to deal with the spear.

I would absolutely love to see Kralkatorrik going to Orr via the Scavenger's Causeway. While we've begun to see a little of one dragon's minions taking on the power of the fallen dragons, we've not really seen what happens to one elder dragon's territory when another dragon takes it over. A branded, crystalline Arah would be incredible to explore.

Hey, WP! I think the end-of-story cinematic suggests that Kralkatorrik is heading towards Kourna rather than Amnoon. If you look at the first shots, the architecture is clearly Vabbian with the domes and not the pyramid structures of Amnoon. The other shot that indicates he's heading for Kourna is the pass surrounded by cliffs that he flies towards. This suggests Jahai Pass to me as there's really no other place that comes to mind from that. What I can't explain is why the effects are felt so powerfully in Amnoon but I still don't think that's what they were going for. Pleeeaase give me your thoughts on this :)

played the departed mission with an SAB weapon and it only animated the hilt, was very amusing. The departed spirit effect would make a great infusion for a legendary trinket

In the final cutscene, there's no Amnoon structures, so I doubt Kralk went over it. Also he flies west, there's a setting sun in the background.

I'm glad you all had so much fun with the story, cuz I for one was yet again let down by the whole story of guild wars 2.

As a Guild Wars 1 veteran who never made the transition to Guild Wars 2 (mainly because I simply can't afford to invest any time in games any more these days, let alone invest time in an MMORPG), I would just like to say thank you for making such videos. I really appreciate being able to keep up with the Guild Wars lore even though I don't play it anymore. Thanks!

So glad I came back to this game. The story itself was worth the admission price.

Hey WP, I thought the tendrils in Kormir's library was actually Abbadon's head, where the center of the library stood.