05/06/2025—May 6 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Open World

General

• Fixed an issue that caused the final checkpoints for skiff races in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons to display an incorrect map marker.
• Fixed an issue that caused some jade mechs to display a kill marker while going haywire but before they became hostile.
• Fixed an issue that caused cargo crates in the "Help the sailors deliver their goods" event to have incorrect states for the Towing Crates and No Gliding effects.
• Fixed an issue that caused a pile of rubble in the "Stop the Speakers from stealing Kurzick relics" event to display its defend marker in an incorrect location.

Items

• Added alternate Enduring versions of the Fiery Dragon Sword, Icy Dragon Sword, and Infinite Light sword skins that do not extinguish their effects when stowed. These will be unlocked when the skin is added to the wardrobe and will be unlocked automatically for players who already own these skins.
• Fixed an issue that caused Moto's Unstable Bauble Infusion: Blue to be sold for less than its intended bubble bauble price.
• Homestead decoration recipes for racetrack decorations are now available from race prizes vendors.

Homesteads

• Fixed an issue that prevented party members visiting a homestead from placing decorations in some locations.

Player vs. Player

• Seasonal achievements have been streamlined with repeating achievements. Old achievements have been moved to the Legacy PvP Seasons category. 

Profession Skills

Guardian

• Hail of Justice: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from being recharged by Restorative Virtues.
• Jurisdiction: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from being affected by quickness and slow.

Ranger

Untamed

·        Deft Strike: Increased the size of this skill's hitbox area. This skill is no longer affected by movement speed or animation speed modifiers.

Revenant

• Abyssal Fire: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.45 to 0.3 in PvP only.
• Abyssal Force: Increased the cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds and reduced the Abyssal Raze cooldown reduction from 10 seconds to 5 seconds in PvP only.
• Abyssal Blot: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Resolute Evasion: Reduced the strike damage reduction from 10% to 5% in PvP only.
• Determined Resolution: Reduced the strike damage reduction from 10% to 7% in PvP only.

Thief

• Cunning Salvo: Reduced the initiative gained on hit from 2 to 1 in WvW and PvP.
• Spinning Axe: Reduced the bleeding duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in WvW and PvP.
• Venomous Volley: Reduced the poison duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in WvW and PvP.
• Recall Axes: Increased the initiative cost from 4 to 5 in WvW and PvP.
• Orchestrated Assault: Increased the initiative cost from 5 to 6 in WvW and PvP.
• Harrowing Storm: Increased the initiative cost from 5 to 6 in WvW and PvP.
• Shadow's Rejuvenation: Reduced the initiative gained on entering stealth from 2 to 1 in PvP only.

Deadeye

• Malicious Cunning Salvo: Reduced the initiative gained on hit from 2 to 1 in WvW and PvP.

04/15/2025—April 15 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Super Adventure Festival

Moto's world-renowned Super Adventure Box returns again! Explore two worlds (and one test zone) of excitement, peril, and educational entertainment to earn holographic weapons and a variety of loot. Travelers can visit the Super Adventure Box in Rata Sum—temporary portals have been placed in each major city to facilitate easy travel to the scenic hub of asuran culture!

• Complete the Super Adventure Festival's meta-achievement, (Annual) Super Adventure Box Nostalgia, to earn the new Powered Boots armor! Last year's reward, the Powered Shoulders, is now available from the Super Adventure Box traders.
• Newcomers interested in beginning their super adventure should seek out Moto's latest systems test, the Super Ooze Kitchen! Accessed from any of Tyria's level 1–15 maps, the Super Ooze Kitchen is a small bonus event where you'll face the box's deadly ooze enemies, including a brand-new super yellow ooze. Willing testers will be rewarded with baubles and even starter items for their adventure, including the Slingshot and Bombs weapons, plus the new Mini Super Yellow Ooze!
• The new Super Rainbow Cloud weapon set is now available! You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the Super Adventure Box Nostalgia meta-achievement, and you can earn additional choices through weekly Super Adventure Festival achievements.
• New weapons have been added to the Retro-Forged series! You can purchase these weapons directly from a festival vendor or find them as rare drops in Super Loot Bags.
• New Super Adventure Box-themed guild decorations have been added! Turn your hall into the auspicious hilltop getaway of your dreams
  • Super Pagoda Arch
  • Super Pagoda Deck
  • Super Pagoda Door
  • Super Pagoda Floor
  • Super Pagoda Pond
  • Super Pagoda Roof
  • Super Pagoda Long Roof
  • Super Pagoda Wall
• Special objectives are available in the Wizard's Vault to earn extra astral acclaim as you enjoy the festival.
• Vendors will now sell extra copies of Moto's Unstable Bauble Infusions to players who have earned the necessary achievement to unlock their first copy.
• A number of Super Adventure Box-related bugs have been fixed to ensure a safe education for all heroes.
• Festivities begin on April 15 and continue until May 6 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7).

Open World

General

• Repaired the name and icon of the Mini Super Blue Ooze.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Angler Sense skill from being used while piloting skiffs.

Raids

• Added additional time to the event timer when Godscream Ura's armor is shattered at 1% health during Ura's legendary challenge mode encounter in Raid: Mount Balrior.

World vs. World

• Replaced the Recruit Patrol upgrade for all objectives with a static guard group to protect the objective. Additionally, a trading post merchant will become available in keeps and Stonemist Castle at this upgrade level. This change is part of an ongoing investigation into performance issues.

Profession Skills

Below are additions and changes to the balance preview notes we previously shared. The changes below supersede the preview notes. In response to feedback, some changes were not implemented. Those unimplemented changes are noted as, "This skill is unchanged." You can see the original balance notes shared here.

General

• Relic of Thorns: Reduced the condition damage bonus per stack from 50 to 30 in PvE only.
• Sigils that stack on kill can no longer be stacked with the death of an ally.

Elementalist

• Molten End: This skill is unchanged.
• Rain of Blows: This skill is unchanged.
• Crashing Font: This skill is unchanged.
• Cleansing Typhoon: Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds. This skill's damage is unchanged.
• Shock Blast: This skill is unchanged.
• Ground Pound: This skill is unchanged.
• Aquamancer's Training: Reduced the outgoing healing modifier from 20% to 15% in PvP only.

Tempest

• Elemental Bastion: Reduced the healing-power scaling from 0.8 to 0.7 in PvP only.

Engineer

• Magnet: This skill now plays an additional sound effect on its target.

Guardian

• Helio Rush: Reduced the maximum ammunition from 2 to 1 in PvP only.
• Symbol of Luminance: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.

Mesmer

• Imaginary Inversion: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 18 seconds, reduced the base healing from 1,610 to 900, and reduced the empowered healing from 2,890 to 2,000 in PvP only.
• Mental Collapse: This skill now only stuns with the first impact when empowered. Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.

·        Singularity Shot: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.

• Time Warp: Reduced the duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• Illusionary Defense: Reduced the base protection duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.

Virtuoso

• Phantasmal Blades: This trait is unchanged.

Necromancer

• Spectral Grasp: This skill is unchanged.

Ranger

• Falcon's Stoop: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.15 in PvP only.
• Owl's Flight: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.65 to 1.5 in PvP only.
• Warclaw's Engage: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.4 to 1.3 in PvP only.
• Predator's Ambush: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.4 to 1.3 in PvP only.

Untamed

• Ravager's Abandon: This skill now requires line of sight to strike an enemy. Reduced the power coefficient from 1.0625 to 0.8 in PvP only.
• Forest's Fortification: Reduced the damage reduction from 50% to 33% in PvP only.

Revenant

• Abyssal Blitz: This skill no longer inflicts weakness and slowed in WvW and PvP. Reduced the power coefficient from 0.67 to 0.25 in PvP only.
• Abyssal Blot: Reduced the poison duration from 6 seconds to 5 seconds and reduced the power coefficient per strike from 0.225 to 0.1875 in PvP only.

Vindicator

• Forerunner of Death: Increased the power coefficient of Death Drop from 3.75 to 4.2 in PvE only.

Thief

• Harrowing Storm: Fixed an issue that could cause this skill to have a longer range than intended.

Warrior

• Valiant Leap: Increased the cooldown from 8 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP only.
• Defiant Roar: Reduced the initial base healing from 1,000 to 680 and healing-power scaling from 0.7 to 0.5. Reduced the block's additional base healing from 310 to 234 and the healing-power scaling from 0.15 to 0.1 in PvP only.
• Path to Victory: Reduced the healing-power scaling from 1.33/1.67/2.0 to 0.6/0.9/1.2 in PvP only.
• Vigorous Shouts: Reduced the base healing from 1,000 to 808 and reduced the healing power modifier from 1.15 to 0.9 in PvP only.

Bladesworn

• Blooming Fire: Fixed an issue that could cause this skill to miss its target.

03/25/2025—March 25 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Commanders who ordered a Café Console during Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons will be receiving it in the mail. Get your homestead set up for next week!
  • You remember ordering this.
• Reduced Decima's and Greer's health by 25% during the Of Mists and Monsters world boss event.
• Improved map marker visibility for the "Eliminate the titanspawn your warclaw has found" and "Eliminate the foe that your warclaw located" events.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Wildfarer achievement from registering completion of the "Explore all areas in Mistburned Barrens" objective if the player completed the Mistburned Barrens Explorer achievement.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Yagon's defiance bar from scaling properly during the "Defeat Yagon and the captured jade construct" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Agony Flood Incoming bar from being properly displayed when the "Defeat Yagon and the captured jade construct" event restarted.
• Fixed an issue that caused Rhianwyn and Alya to experience pathing issues after the "Defeat Yagon and the captured jade construct" event failed.
• Fixed an issue that allowed coalesced Mists energy to be repeatedly picked up from the same source during Survey: Into the Valley of Agony.
• Throwing coalesced Mists energy will now damage enemies it strikes during Survey: Into the Valley of Agony, including the champions during the "Keep the jade construct alive by throwing coalesced Mists energy into it as it fights the titanspawn" event.
• The jade armor construct will now be granted 2 seconds of swiftness when coalesced Mists energy is thrown into it during the "Escort the jade construct through the Valley of Agony by throwing coalesced Mists energy into it" event.
• The jade armor construct's base speed has been increased during Survey: Into the Valley of Agony.
• The amount of enemies in the bottom of the valley has been reduced during the "Escort the jade construct through the Valley of Agony by throwing coalesced Mists energy into it" event.
• Fixed an issue that caused enemies to be weaker than intended during the "Escort Priory Scholar Ciana to the southern ruins" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented all conversation options from appearing for players at the field survey coordinator in Mistburned Barrens.

Convergences

Mount Balrior

• Thunder strikes on Mount Balrior will no longer reference Decima when she is not on the map.

Raids

Mount Balrior

• A legendary mode encounter with Ura is now available.
• Decima's challenge mote will no longer appear until the legendary sentient conduit is defeated.
• Respawn locations are now correctly updated when engaging and defeating Decima with the challenge mote active.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes allowed a standard or deadly beam attack to pierce a conduit and hit players taking shelter behind it in Decima's challenge mode.
• Updated Decima's movement behavior during the first and second phases of her challenge mode to reduce cases where she fails to move to a new position.
• Fixed an issue that caused one of Decima's beam attacks in the second phase of her challenge mode to fire in the wrong direction.
• Fixed an issue in Decima's normal and challenge mode encounters that prevented Fluxlance Fusillade target indicators from properly disappearing. The skill will now fire a beam attack and the target indicator will disappear, even if the targeted character is dead.
• Fixed an issue in Decima's normal and challenge mode encounters that could cause dancing sparks to begin moving again even when enough players were within range of a spark's damage aura.

Personal Story

"Repentance"

• Fixed an issue that caused dialogue to replay at the end of the Into the Valley of Shadow story chapter.

Items

• The April Fools off-season vendor in Lion's Arch has been updated with new inventory for the year, including the Invisible Cat Cape, the Chatoyant Infusion, a secret new equipment item (discerning commanders will wait for a week to see if they can get it for free), and the Golden Sink homestead decoration recipe (caveat emptor).
  • The Chatoyant Lens's vendor cost has been updated to be slightly cheaper and slightly funnier.
• The April Fools items Fool's Dog Treat, Fool's Tall Tonic, and Serious Potion can no longer be sold to merchants.
• Fixed an issue that caused the forest wisp accessory's stats to be lower than expected.

World vs. World

Reward Tracks

Reward tracks in World vs. World and structured PvP are being condensed to lower the total number of repeatable tracks. All final reward choices from the old tracks can be found in the new ones.

The following reward tracks will each be condensed into a single track per category:

• Living World Season 3 reward tracks
• Living World Season 4 reward tracks
• Region-based reward tracks (the Silverwastes Reward Track's final reward will be included in the final reward choice for the condensed track)
• Dungeon reward tracks
• Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons reward tracks
• Triumphant Armor, Hero Weapon, and Legacy Armor reward tracks

The old tracks will be available for one-time completion for any players still working on them. These will be removed at a later date.

Map currencies and materials needed to craft generation 2 and 3 legendary weapons have been added to the Heart of Maguuma Reward Track, the Crystal Desert Reward Track, and the Canthan Reward Track.

• The Heart of Thorns Currency Choice that gives a choice of Airship Parts, Lump of Aurillium, or Ley-Line Crystals can now be traded in bulk to skirmish supervisors.
• The (Weekly) Stonemist Castle Conqueror achievement can now be progressed by capturing Stonemist Castle once or defending it three times.
• The Emblem of the Conqueror achievement can now be progressed by successfully capturing or defending objectives.
• The time required to hold an objective before tactics can be added has been lowered from 10/30/60 minutes to 10/15/20 minutes for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 tactics respectively.
• Tier 3 tactics (Emergency Waypoint, Airship, and Siege Dampener) in keeps and Stonemist Castle can now only be activated while the objective is under attack. Tier 3 tactics applied to towers are unchanged.
• ·Keep lords' base health has been lowered by 12.5%, and tower lords' base health has been lowered by 25%. Maximum scaling for objective lords in towers, keeps, and Stonemist Castle has been lowered by 16%.
• The drop rate for siege equipment from the Unsealed Mist-Hardened Lockbox has been increased.
• Piles of recycled siege can drop from objective lords in towers, keeps, and Stonemist Castle, as well as from defeating players. Additionally, these items are now tradeable.
• A new Kurzick weapon set now has a rare chance to drop from objective lords in towers, keeps, and Stonemist Castle, as well as from players. The item will be a tradeable chest containing a selection of account-bound exotic weapons.
• The warclaw mount's ability to detect damaged walls and gates when using the Sniff skill has been split into its own skill. Detect Vulnerabilities will appear on the heal skill slot when mounted in WvW.
• Some additional test golems have been added to the Armistice Bastion lounge.

04/01/2025—April 1 Release Notes, April Fools Only (no build)

Cozy Café

With Janthir getting wilder than ever expected, the commander finds themselves in need of a break. Hope arrives in the form of a long-awaited overseas package that they definitely remember ordering. Could this be the wayfinder's big chance to realize their long-held, heretofore-unmentioned dream?

Break out your decorations and construct the slow-life homestead shop of your dreams in the Cozy Café weekly experience—starting now and open for business until April 8.

But wait, there's more! For this limited time period, you can also experience fond memories of previous April Fools releases, including Heights of Glory, Future Fashionable, Dog Days, Choya Carnival, Missive from the Sunbeam Throne, and Seats of Power.

• The Mists have been updated to establish Seats of Power as the official 2018 April Fools release, despite the content going live on March 27, 2018.

General

• Fixed an issue that caused content in the Janthir Isles to have more bear jokes than cat jokes.
  • But only just bearly.
• Fixed an issue that caused Convergences to become the same over time.
• Fixed a time-zone issue that caused it to always be Evon Gnashblade's birthday somewhere.
• Fixed an issue that caused the act of conjuring a homestead doorway while inside the homestead to create a recursive loop, trapping the commander eternally in the stead between steads.
• Due to game-format changes, Janthir is no longer considered "wild." Its use is now similar to that of other face cards.
• Updated word-choice variety for interactive item prompts:
  • Speaking to NPCs now offers Talk, Chat, Inquire, and Slide into Holographic Communicator Messages options to give players insight into the initial tone of conversations.
  • Gizmos in the world now include Use, Manipulate, Reuse, Kick, Lever, Finagle, Turn, and Overturn options.
• Fixed an issue that caused interaction text for various Spider Egg Sac objects to display Use instead of Consume options.
• The /age command will now prompt veteran player characters to remark that it can't have been that long since they began their adventures, bright-eyed and eager.

Items

• A new item, Essence of Bad Luck, is now available from salvaging certain rare items.
• Mail that includes advertisements for in-game events can no longer be salvaged or sold to vendors.
• Deployed feast items can now be eaten by certain hostile creatures, depending on the food type.
• Players with an excess amount of unfulfilled listings in the Black Lion Trading Post over a year old will be charged a small records-keeping fee per item.
• Players who have run out of "é" characters to use when searching the homestead decoration menu for their café decorations may use one of the following extras: é é é é é

Personal Story

• Certain Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds story instances have been rewritten as interpretive dance performances.

Profession Skills

General

To provide more tools for setting up your homestead café decor, each profession now has a new Professional Homesteading trait, which is applied automatically. See specific profession sections for details.

• Being stunned, knocked back, lifted, dazed, or transformed by Signet of Humility will temporarily disable the target's Professional Homesteading trait in PvP only.
• Reverted an increase to finisher damage from a previous update.
• Smoke combo fields now additionally put Janthiri bee pets to sleep.

Elementalist

• Professional Homesteading: Geomancer's Landscaping: While attuned to earth, you may add and remove the base terrain as if it was a decoration. Changes may be reverted after switching attunements.
• Elemental Attunement: Attunements can now be set to automatically swap.
• Deploy Jade Sphere (Earth): This skill now creates an earth combo field.

Engineer

• Professional Homesteading: Photonic Building Module: You may place holographic copies of decorations you have not crafted.
• Jade Mech: If multiple mechanists are in a party or squad, up to five jade mechs may now combine to form a single, more powerful jade mech.
• Aim-Assisted Rocket: This skill may violate the terms of use in PvP only. Please exercise caution while we figure this out.

Guardian

• Patience is now a Virtue. Passive: Your skill cooldowns are increased, but you gain the perspective to realize that it isn't a big deal. Active: When the time is right.
• Professional Homesteading: Hunter's Decoration: Allows the placement of trophies from big game that the guardian has dragon-hunted over their long career.
• Glacial Heart: Updated this skill's tooltip to note that your guardian remains kind and warm toward their friends in spite of it all.

Mesmer

• Professional Homesteading: Phantasmal Workforce: Your summoned phantasms will handle homestead decorating for you. Their own tastes will reflect yours.
• Illusions: If foes perform a successful healing power check, they will no longer take damage from illusionary sources.
• Psychic Blades : Updated this trait's tooltip to clarify that both you and the blades are psychic.

Necromancer

• Professional Homesteading: Decor Perception: Marks nearby homestead decorations that just aren't working for the overall vibe. The range is increased while in shroud.
• Minions: Following the popular phantasm updates, you may now name your minions for the duration of their summoning.

Ranger

• Professional Homesteading: Decorative Symbiosis: As you place decorations, your pet will also place decorations or drag small decorations from place to place.
• Short Bow: This weapon can now be wielded in the off-hand slot.
• The Juvenile Janthiri Bee pet's fuzziness has been increased by 7%.

Revenant

• Professional Homesteading: Versed in Stoneworking: Allows the addition of engravings and embellishments to certain decorations.
• Legends: Revenants can now rename their legends if they don't pipe down for a minute and let them finish this story objective in peace.

Thief

• Professional Homesteading: No Quarters: Allows additional decorations to be removed from the base homestead, including all buildings, rooms, and beds.
• Steal: Removed the added functionality to steal the target's wardrobe style in PvP only. This functionality is now available in all game modes; see the following note.
• Cosmetic Inspection: Now additionally steals the target's style by emulating their wardrobe selection and dye choices.

Warrior

• Professional Homesteading: Cleaning Ire: Your burst skill now additionally dusts all homestead decoration surfaces within range.
• Kill Shot: Increased the critical hit-chance improvement when landing shots out of a twirl without using the action camera or when attacking at an improbable distance.
• While in combat, all professions are warriors, in a sense. We're going to work through the mechanics of this a little bit at a time.
  • Realistically, everyone should have adrenaline, we guess.

World vs. World

General

• Added snowman and ice wall siege equipment.
• Population caps are now based on the total number of players on all maps rather than being calculated per map.
• Players may now construct and lay siege to homesteads in the Edge of the Mists.

03/11/2025—March 11 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

"Repentance"

Although the titan threat has been dealt with, Ura was confident to the end, mocking the commander and their allies with an agonizing quandary: "For the door we came through sits wide open." Led by the commander, the Tyrian Alliance, the Astral Ward, and our new allies from Harvest Den team up to survey one of Janthir's northern isles as the specter of Ura's last words still looms. In order to solve the mystery, they'll need to hunt down clues and confront foes from Janthir's past.

Release Highlights

• The second Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ story update.
• A new map has been added. Explore the treacherous gloom of Mistburned Barrens, the long-abandoned outskirts of Bava Nisos.
• A new Mastery track has been added. Unlock tiers from the Mursaat Shadowcraft Mastery line and wield the arcane magic that still clings to the barrens.
• Challenge motes have been added for the Mount Balrior raid, allowing players to activate challenge mode versions of the Greer, Decima, and Ura boss encounters.
• Twelve new relics have been added based on rune bonuses that were formerly available in the core Guild Wars 2 game.

Wizard's Vault

The Wizard's Vault has been updated for the new season! Last season's unique rewards are now available in the vault's Legacy Rewards panel.

• New special objectives for the season have been added, and more will appear over the course of the season, including special objectives associated with bonus events and festivals.
• When it is possible to purchase more than one of a Wizard's Vault reward item, the UI now displays an adjustable range that will allow you to specify how many of that item you wish to purchase. The number can be adjusted by scrolling up or down with your mouse wheel.
• Legendary Weapon Starter Key—Set 7 is now available with options for two new legendary weapon starter kits and two returning kits.

Trading Post

Quantity input has been updated to match the new Wizard's Vault UI behavior:

• The quantity of an item you wish to purchase can now be adjusted by scrolling up or down with your mouse wheel over the input field, arrows, or quantity range.
• The maximum price for purchasing items and the minimum price for selling items can be adjusted by scrolling up or down with your mouse wheel over the input fields, arrows, or coin images.

General

• To improve client performance, the number of whirlwinds created by the Mistburned valravn's Tempestuous Dive skill have been reduced. The whirlwind visual effects have been adjusted.

Homesteads

• Fixed an issue that prevented the Binding of Ipos from being displayed properly on weapon display case decorations.

Convergences

Mount Balrior

• A new version of Greer, the Blightbringer, will now automatically replace Decima on alternating weeks.
• Increased the interaction range for the Convergence: Mount Balrior brazier in Harvest Den.
• Titan Stench will now display matching icons on the compass and in the game.
• Turning in a single calibrated essence will now give 7 seconds of Wizard's Blessing instead of 6.
• Red circles on the map will now follow the bosses in the Convergence.
• Titanspawn in the "Defend the Maw of Balrior thumper" event will now spawn on the correct side of the breakable wall.
• Dig site markers will now appear after the base camp has been set up.
• Decima's dancing sparks will no longer display a raid marker on the map.
• Ropes will now break at 4 stacks of Rope Tension instead of 3.

Raids

Mount Balrior

• Three challenge motes have been added, allowing players to activate challenge mode versions of the Greer, Decima, and Ura boss encounters.
• Fixed an issue that could cause players to sometimes be teleported into Decima's arena while the encounter was resetting.
• The visual effects for Decima's Fulgent Fence skill have been updated to reduce visual noise.
• Entry to the Mount Balrior raid is now consistent with previous raid instances. If the first player to enter the instance has defeated the final boss since the most recent weekly reset, a fresh instance will open instead of a cleared instance.

Rewards

New rewards have been added:

• Story:
  • Woodland Kodan Leather Gloves
• Mistburned Barrens:
  • Salmon of Knowledge Backpiece
  • Mini Barbed Vale
  • Mini Yagon
  • Mini Janthir Warg
  • Mini Rhianwyn
  • Endless Yagon Tonic
  • Scavenged Obsidian weapons
  • True Sight Armor
  • Bloodstone Infusion
• Raids:
  • Bloodstone Infusion
• Master Crafters:
  • 12 core relics, available to all players
• Masteries:
  • New Mursaat Shadowcraft Mastery
  • New Homesteading Mastery tier: Master Handiworker Crafting

Deft Lahar now sells four new resource nodes that can be unlocked for your homestead and home instance:

• Honey Flower
• Lowland Pine Sapling
• Charged Titan Ore
• Rotted Titan Amber

New Homestead recipes have been added with two forms of acquisition:

• Players can complete the respective Home Sweet Homestead achievements found under the Janthir Wilds: Janthir achievement category.
• Players can purchase the recipe from Deft Lahar at a premium instead of completing the achievements.

Six new titles have been added to the game. Players will be able to display the following titles if they have already completed the achievement requirements:

• Snaff Savant: Title from the Legacy Code achievement.
• Warband Legionnaire: Title from the Bloodying the Past achievement.
• Hero of Shaemoor: Title from the Family Reunion achievement.
• Slayer of Issormir: Title from the Things Best Left Behind achievement.
• Valiant of the Wyld Hunt: Title from the A Season of Growth achievement.
• Pact Commander: Title from the Savior of Tyria achievement.

Items

• The Portable Wizard's Tower Exchange no longer closes the conversation window when the player selects Gharr Leadclaw's inventory from different regions.

World vs. World

General

• The guild roster UI has been updated to display members who have selected your World vs. World guild in a WvW Guild column.
• Fixed an issue that would sometimes allow players to enter a WvW map on the wrong team or on no team at all.

Profession Skills

General

• Relic of the Stormsinger: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.36 in PvP and WvW.

Mesmer

• Mind the Gap: Increased the cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP only.
• Mental Collapse: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 25 seconds and reduced the power coefficient per hit from 0.6 to 0.4 in PvP only.

Mirage

• Fractured Glass: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.3125 to 0.285 in PvP only.

Virtuoso

• Bladesong Harmony: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.55 to 0.45 in PvP only.

Ranger

• Instinctive Engage: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.0 in PvP and WvW.
• Falcon's Stoop: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.375 to 1.25 in PvP and WvW.

Untamed

• Neurotoxin Burst: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 in PvP and WvW.

02/11/2025—February 11 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Added jade bot merchants, jade bot workbenches, charging stations, jade bot defensive protocols, and jade bot offensive protocols to all lounge passes. Effects provided by the protocols will remain limited to their intended game modes.
• Updated the mysterious gate in the Thousand Seas Pavilion to include fishing teleport locations in the Horn of Maguuma if the player owns the Secrets of the Obscure expansion and Janthir locations if the player owns the Janthir Wilds expansion.

Profession Skills

Below are changes to the balance preview notes we previously shared. You can see the original balance notes shared here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/155265-february-11-balance-update-preview/

Guardian

Dragonhunter

• Pure of Sight: Increased the minimum damage from 5% to 7% in PvE only.
• Heavy Light: Increased the damage modifier against disabled enemies from 15% to 20% and the damage modifier against defiant enemies from 10% to 15% in PvE only.

Mesmer

• Stretched Time: This trait no longer causes Flow of Time to affect nearby allies. It now causes shattering to apply a boon to other nearby allies. This trait now applies might instead of alacrity in WvW only.
• Nomad's Endurance: This trait no longer grants additional condition damage. It now increases outgoing strike and condition damage when you have vigor.

Ranger

Untamed

• Multishot: Missiles from this skill can now only strike a target once with the trait Lead the Wind.

Revenant

Renegade

• All for One: Increased the damage bonus from 10% to 15% in PvE only. Increased the duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds and increased the maximum duration from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.

Warrior

• Daring Dragon: This trait no longer applies alacrity and now applies might and fury in WvW only.

2025/01/28—January 28 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Lunar New Year

Another new year dawns on Tyria—join the festivities in Divinity's Reach! The Year of the Snake is once more upon us, and the Lunar New Year festival returns with new rewards. Collect and open lucky envelopes to earn essences of luck, delicious foods, fireworks, valuable items, and a chance to find the new Lucky Snake Lantern and Lucky Great Snake Lantern backpacks!

• The Lunar New Year annual meta-achievement, Lunar New Year Customs, has been updated with a new reward, the Snaketail Breeches! Last year's meta-achievement reward, the Dragon Descendant's Helm, can now be purchased from the Lunar New Year rewards vendors.
• The new Lantern weapon set is now available!  You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the (Annual) Lunar New Year Customs meta-achievement, as well as the (Weekly) Lunar Festivities achievement.
  • The Fortunate weapon set is now available from the weekly Lunar New Year vendors.
• Three new Jade Serpent weapons are now available as a rare drop from Divine Lucky Envelopes. They can also be purchased from Sparking Stone in Divinity's Reach.
• Lucky envelope rewards have been updated with new items for the Year of the Snake, including a new backpack to celebrate the Year of the Snake in style.
• A new mini, the long-awaited Mini Snake, has been added to the festival reward vendors.
• Deft Lahar is visiting Divinity's Reach for the festival and has a variety of homestead recipes for your favorite Lunar New Year decorations.
• New guild decorations have been added to commemorate the Year of the Snake:
  • Snake Statue
  • Golden Snake Statue
  • Plain Red Lantern
  • Plain White Lantern
• The offseason Lunar New Year vendor in Hooligan's Route now stocks a greater amount of Lunar New Year items to enjoy throughout the new year, including the recipes for homestead decorations.
• Special objectives are available in the Wizard's Vault to earn extra astral acclaim as you enjoy the festival.
• The area to light each firecracker during Firecracker Lighting adventures has been adjusted to more accurately reflect the firecracker's position and reliably detect players.

Celestial Challenge Updates

• Using Lucky Aura to open extra treasure chests now also advances the (Weekly) Lunar
  Festivities achievement.
• Added several jump platforms to make it easier to navigate up to terraces.
• Improved the responsiveness of the race checkpoints in the "Horse's Challenge: Race to the gates!" and "Rabbit's Challenge: Race to the gates!" events.
• Updated bundle skill names and icons in the "Boar's Challenge: Deliver the celestial tributes!" and "Rat's Challenge: Deliver the celestial tributes!" events.
• Attempting to pick up a second bundle while already carrying one during Boar's and Rat's challenges will now cancel the attempt rather than consuming the second bundle.
• Fixed an animation issue with the Monkey's Firework skill and shortened its cooldown.
• The Ox's March skill now pulls enemies toward the player in addition to its current effects.
• Extended the Ram's Advance dash to better match its marker and increased its damage to targets.
• The Snake Tunnel skill no longer requires a path, enabling teleportation up to the terraces. It now also grants superspeed after use.

Lunar New Year will be active until February 18 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8). See you in Divinity's Reach!

General

• Improved the precision of frame-timing calculations for the Frame Limiter graphics option.
• Added 120 and 144 FPS options to the Frame Limiter graphics options.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the deadeye Malice user interface from rendering correctly in some environments.
• Fixed UI interactivity while mouse-looking and zooming.
• Updated the days remaining in the Wizard's Vault Special Objectives tab.

01/14/2025—January 14 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Fixed a terrain issue in Lowland Shore that prevented some wisps in the Tales of the Lowland Wisps collection from reaching their destination, blocking progress.
• Fixed an issue in Lowland Shore that prevented some wisps in the Tales of the Lowland Wisps collection from being interacted with when their objective was unlocked but still incomplete, blocking progress.

Dragon Response Missions

Dragon Response missions have been updated in preparation for the Return to Icebrood Saga bonus event. These changes allow the preparation phase objective to scale properly for group size; the number of objectives to clear the phase for a group of five players will be slightly reduced from the previous state, while the number for solo players will be greatly reduced.

• Removed the five-minute timer for the preparation phase events and replaced it with a progress objective that fills as players participate in the event's subobjectives. Progress is still gained if the individual subobjective has been completed. Morale boosts can still be gained if the three subobjectives are completed; the requirements for these objectives do not scale and have been significantly lowered.
• Fixed various pathing issues that could leave characters in awkward positions.
• Cleaned up a number of marker display issues and inaccurate skill text for events.
• Fixed a number of small NPC issues to improve event performance.

12/10/2024—December 10 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here. 

Wintersday

Come join us in celebrating Wintersday—Toymaker Tixx has made his annual visit to Divinity's Reach to spread seasonal cheer and festivity! Bring the cheer of Wintersday to the distant north in the Secret Lair of the Snowmen encounter, complete daily achievements to earn fanciful holiday weapons, save Wintersday for the orphans located around Divinity’s Reach by giving them wrapped gifts, test your snow-throwing skills against other players in Snowball Mayhem, experience the joy of jumping in Winter Wonderland, defend against waves of toys in Toypocalypse, and help keep Tixx’s airship, the Infinirarium, in order! You will also find Wintersday gifts appearing all around Tyria.

• The (Annual) Wintersday Traditions achievement has been updated with a new Winter Mittens armor reward to keep your sword hand free of frosty shivers! Last year's meta-reward, the Winter Fur Shoulders, can now be purchased from festival rewards vendors.
• A new Plush weapon set is now available. You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the (Annual) Wintersday Traditions meta-achievement or the (Weekly) Wintersday Festivities achievement.
• The (Weekly) Wintersday Festivities achievement—along with corresponding weekly achievements available during other festivals—now award their weapon boxes before their festival materials.
• The Sacred Solstice weapon set is now available from weekly Wintersday vendors.
• Four new weapons are now available as rare drops from Wintersday gifts. They can also be purchased from Sparking Stone in Divinity's Reach.
• An adorable new Mini Plush Fox is available from Wintersday vendors.
• Deft Lahar is visiting Divinity's Reach for the festival and offers a variety of homestead-specific recipes for your favorite Wintersday decorations.
• New winter-themed guild decorations have been added:
  • Jolly Bow
  • Icicle
  • Star Light String
  • Sparkle Light String
• The offseason Wintersday vendor in Hooligan's Route now stocks a much larger selection of Wintersday items for customers who find themselves with excess snowflakes after Tixx has closed up his workshop for the year, including the recipes for homestead decorations.
• A number of festival-related issues have been fixed to ensure a happy holiday for all heroes.

To ensure that festivalgoers have ample time to enjoy the holiday, Wintersday will be active until January 2 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7).  See you in Divinity's Reach!

General

Guild banners have been updated to improve quality of life and reduce effect icon clutter.

• Benefits granted by the Guild Heroes Banner have been consolidated to display a single effect icon for reward boosts and an icon for the swiftness boon.
• Guild banners that provide the same benefits as the Guild Heroes Banner at a lower percentage, such as the basic Guild Karma Banner's 5% boost, will now provide the same percentage as the Guild Heroes Banner.
• Interacting with a lesser banner while under the effect of a Guild Heroes Banner will now refresh the effect's duration if that duration is lower than what the banner would provide.
• Guild commendation traders will now only offer Guild Heroes Banners, since the other banners were extremely inefficient for the price. 
• Reduced the recharge time of guild banners and feasts when deployed from the guild storage.  

Other

• Several books have been added to story instances in the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds chapters Trial and Error, Battle's Eve, and Balrior Peak.
• Players who have acquired the four gifts needed to make Klobjarne Geirr and have unlocked the legendary spear's skin can talk to Unending Tribute to fully complete the Legendary Weapon: Klobjarne Geirr Gifts achievement. This is to help players who obtained some of the components prior to the achievement's introduction and did not retroactively check progress. 
• The Mini Blue Cuckoo Hatchling and Mini Orange Tigris Cub are now available from Black Lion Chest merchants for 5 Black Lion Statuettes each.
• Fixed an issue that prevented bonus chests awarded after Decima's defeat from containing a guaranteed reward of charged titan ore.
• Purchasing the Standing Stones Timepiece and Bearkin War Helm Remnants award credit for obtaining the respective items in the Legendary Spear: Klobjarne Geirr achievement. Players can also enter Lowland Shore to retroactively check if they have completed the Lowland Shore Mastery or Janthir Syntri Mastery achievements

Homesteads

• Updated the centering and alignment of many weapon skins on the Weapon Display Case decoration.
• A cuddly new homestead decoration is available for players who have completed the Build-a-Quaggan collection.

Raids

Mount Balrior

Decima

• Focused Fluxlance now requires only three players in the beam instead of five. Because base damage is divided among players, the base damage was also reduced to keep final damage numbers consistent.
• Fixed an issue that caused players to be miscounted by Focused Fluxlance. The mechanic will now fail consistently if too few players stand inside the beam.
• Decima's defiance has increased by 25%. However, the channeling for Flux Nova is now shortened when Decima's defiance is broken and she gains Fractured Armor.
• Peal of Harmony is now gained for every 5% of damage taken instead of every 3% of damage taken. This will reduce the number of dancing sparks generated overall.
• Fixed an issue that caused the telegraphs for Decima's various fluxlance attacks to be invisible to some players.
• When Decima is defeated, any telegraphed fluxlance attacks will be interrupted and vanish immediately.
• To provide players with additional time to position themselves for Focused Fluxlance, all fluxlance attacks in the encounter's third phase now have an extra half second of warm-up time before they fire.
• Players standing directly under Decima during Earthrend and Seismic Crash will now enter the downed state and be knocked away.
• Fixed an issue that prevented fluxlance attacks in the encounter's first phase from targeting downed characters.

Greer

• Greer no longer has permanent resolution.
• Enfeebling Miasma's attack region now matches its warning areas, and lingering gas clouds have area warning circles.
• Greer's projectiles can no longer be reflected back at him. Those projectiles will instead be destroyed, keeping the protective utility of the affected skills.
• Surviving Empowering Beasts will now be removed when Greer is slain.
• Blob of Blight now correctly stays in place after it hits a targeted player, and smaller projectiles are now properly destroyed on impact.
• Greer: Greer's first two stomp attacks in his Stomp the Mould skill are now blockable and dodgeable.
• Greer: Greer should now attack pets less often.

Ura

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Sulfuric Acid effect to persist after defeating the boss.
• Added additional telegraphing for players targeted by Ura's Eruption Vent ability.

General

• Players will now be properly notified about the new raid via an alert.
• Fixed an issue that caused dialogue to repeat upon reentering the raid after players had progressed beyond the point where it is intended to play.
• Fixed an issue that caused unintended scaling for events that require the defeat of a legendary titanspawn.
• Fixed an issue that could cause events that require the defeat of a legendary titanspawn to stall.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to leave Greer and Decima's arenas midfight.

General

• Fixed an issue that prevented some profession and elite specialization cooldowns and resources refreshed and reset at the start of an encounter if the player was mounted at the time.

Profession Skills

Elementalist

• Volcano: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from creating explosions on certain terrain.

11/19/2024—November 19 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here. 

"Godspawn"

Greer and Decima narrowly escaped defeat at the commander's hands when Ura, the titan imperatrix, finally revealed herself as a threat. Now that Ura's steam wall has dissipated, the commander and their allies must climb to the top of Mount Balrior to chase down and challenge the titans, uncovering more about their origins—and hopefully putting a stop to their noxious trajectory and blight over the lowlands once and for all. 

Release Highlights

• The first Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds story update is now available.
• A new Mount Balrior raid with bosses and unique rewards is now available. 
• A new Convergence is now available. Travel from Harvest Den to a squad-based instance on Mount Balrior.
• A new legendary spear, Klobjarne Geirr, is available for crafting. After completion of the Balrior Peak story chapter, players can speak to a new NPC in Lowland Shore's Maul Boneyards to start their legendary journey.
• A new Mastery tier, Adept Handiworker Crafting, has been added to the Homesteading Mastery track. 
• New homestead decorations can be learned and crafted.
• Six new relics have been added.
• Woad armor can be purchased in Lowland Shore. 
• Updates have been made to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure map rewards. 
• Updates have been made to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure Convergence challenge mode rewards. 
• New utility stations are available for crafting.
• Quality-of-life improvements have been made to World vs. World.

World Polish

• Moon Camp Covert in Lowland Shore now has a charging station, jade tech offensive protocol, jade tech defensive protocol, and jade bot workbench.
• Increased the renown heart progress received from kills, successful events, and the Janthir Syntri: Warclaw Run adventure for the Old Hutment Site renown heart in Janthir Syntri.
• Fixed an issue that allowed champion oni in "Defeat the Oni" events to be constantly interrupted and unable to attack.
• Fixed an issue that could cause players to get stuck during the "Stop the enraged jotun from crushing the Bear shrine" event.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to complete certain hero challenges that they had already completed.
• Fixed an issue that prevented enemies in the "Escort the C.L.E.A.N. 5000 golem while it absorbs clouds of chaos magic" event from awarding experience points or loot. 
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from gaining gliding skills during the "Defeat the unchained wyvern" event in Siren's Landing.
• Fixed an issue that could cause parts of the White Mantle Control: Noran's Homestead meta-event in Lake Doric to stall.

General

• Players can now use handiwork workbenches in other players' homesteads. Crafting results will be added to the crafter's decoration storage.
• The Jadeite Fossilized Hippocampus consumable item's name has been corrected to Jadeite Fossilized Phyllopteryx.
• The icon for the Lowland Expertise effect obtained from renown heart vendors in the Janthir region has been updated.
• Fixed lighting issues in the eyes of some player character face options.
• Dungeon item collections no longer reference legacy currencies and now refer to Tales of Dungeon Delving in their description text.
• Creator Zee no longer offers items for sale before his renown heart is complete.  
• The dungeon historian in Lion's Arch now lists dungeon information in the correct order.
• Fixed an issue in the Battle for Lion's Arch instance that caused markers to guide players to an empty reward location when the objective to defeat the assault knights failed. 
• Fixed an issue that could prevent players from using the Become the Wolf special action during the Wildfire story chapter if they activated it while under the effects of other transformations, such as Death Shroud.
• Fixed an issue that caused an eligibility icon for the Ceremony Survivor achievement to be displayed during the Ceremony and Acrimony story chapter after the achievement was already complete.
• Lion's Arch: Fixed an issue that caused reward chests for the Troll's Revenge jumping puzzle in Lion's Arch and the Troll's End jumping puzzle in Memory of Old Lion's Arch to share completion credit, allowing only one to be looted per day.
• Fixed an issue in the Connecting the Pieces story chapter that caused quest markers for Taimi's golem parts to persist after players had collected them.
• The Megadestroyer world boss has had its nameplate display updated to reflect its legendary status. This change is cosmetic only and does not affect its strength.

Wizard's Vault

Wizard's Vault rewards have been updated for the new season. Last season's unique rewards are now available in the Legacy Rewards tab.

Objective Updates

• New special objectives for the season have been added. More will become available over the course of the season, including special objectives associated with bonus events and festivals.
• The daily objectives to defeat 10 enemies while under a nourishment effect and defeat 10 enemies while under an enhancement effect have been updated to award progress for kill assists and returned to the objectives roster.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some Crystal Oasis bounties from awarding progress in the Complete 5 Bounty Missions in Crystal Oasis or Group Events objective.

Inventory Updates

• Ascended armor and weapon chests available from the Wizard's Vault have been renamed to Wizard's Ascended Armor Chest and Wizard's Ascended Weapon Chest. These offer the same selection of ascended-quality equipment, but items now offer selectable attributes rather than a series of choice boxes. The range of available attribute prefixes has increased.
• The legendary starter kit system has been updated. In place of the starter kits, the Wizard's Vault shop now offers a Legendary Weapon Starter Key, beginning with this season's sixth set. This key allows the player to travel to the Mists Vault, a special reliquary of the Wizard's Vault, and redeem the key for their choice of four legendary starter kits. The Mists Vault also offers a basic explanation of the legendary weapon creation process and previews of the legendary weapons that can be claimed.
• Legendary starter kits now offer the player a choice between the Gift of Might or Gift of Magic.

Rewards

New rewards await you in this release.

Story Reward

• Woodland Kodan Boots

Raid Rewards

•  Sea-Glass Wave Weapon Set
• Mini Rot Strider, Mini Sentient Conduit, and Mini Ventshot
•  Greer's Blighted Touch Backpiece and Glider Combo
• Decima's Gloves, including two variant skins

Convergence Rewards

• Blood Moon weapon set
• Four Mini Warclaw Cub variants
• Two Mini Hot Springs Bearkin variants
• Endless Mystery Bearkin Combat Tonic

 

Event Reward

• Mini Bog Queen

General

• Increased the amount of ursus obliges, Janthiri gear boxes, pieces of rare unidentified gear, and thimbles of liquid karma available from Janthiri renown chests. 
• Charged titan ore, honey flowers, lowland pine logs, and rotted titan amber are now available from Janthiri renown chests.
• The following items can now be selected from hero's choice chests:
  • Verdant Brink: Hero's Choice Chest—Jungle Grass Seed
  • Auric Basin: Hero's Choice Chest—Coastal Lumber Core
  • Tangled Depths: Hero's Choice Chest—Palm Lumber Core
  • Dragon's Stand: Hero's Choice Chest—Giant Mushroom Spore
  • Crystal Oasis, Elon Riverlands, The Desolation, and Domain of Vabbi Hero's Choice Chests—Rare Flower Seed 
• Rift extractions obtained from weekly rift hunting in Lowland Shore and Janthir Syntri now additionally award two renown tokens for the associated map.
• Six new utility stations can now be crafted. Recipes for these can be acquired from master artificers, huntsmen, and weaponsmiths: 
  • Bountiful Maintenance Oil Station
  • Demon Slaying Station
  • Karka Toughness Station
  • Magnanimous Maintenance Oil Station
  • Magnanimous Tuning Crystal Station
  • Toxic Tuning Crystal Station

Lowland Shore

• An essence exchange vendor at Moon Camp Covert now offers Woad armor boxes in exchange for amalgamated rift essence and gold.
• A new Mini Bog Queen is a possible reward from the "Defeat the Bog Queen before she floods the area with maggots" event.

Janthir Syntri 

Updated the rewards for successfully completing the Of Mists and Monsters world boss event: 

• Added Janthir Syntri renown tokens.
• Increased the amount of loot rewarded from magnificent chests. Added karma consumables and a chance for an ascended weapon or armor chest. 
• Increased the amount of loot rewarded from other chests. Chests now contain either charged titan ore or rotted titan amber if the chest is opened in Stricken Plains or Moldering Greenwood.
• The Pale Branch Spear now drops as a tradeable weapon with selectable attributes. 

Secrets of the Obscure 

• Added map reward tracks to Skywatch Archipelago, Amnytas, and Inner Nayos, granting map currencies, experience, and fine rift essence.
• Increased the experience gained from the following events:
  • The Defense of Amnytas 
  • Defeat Nourys, the Eyes of the Abyss 
  • Defeat Ignaxious
  • Defeat Knaebelag the Terror 
  • Into the Spider's Lair 
  • Defeat Eparch, the Consumed King
• Increased the amount of map currency rewarded by repeatable event collection achievements.

Convergence: Outer Nayos (Challenge Mode) 

• A new weekly achievement has been added to successfully complete unique encounters in Convergences: Outer Nayos with challenge mode active. Rewards include a new container with gold and a chance at exceptionally rare items.
• Introduced stacking rewards based on the legendary enemy reaching health thresholds. Includes experience, karma, coins, and loot bags. 
• Updated the Convergence Challenge Mode: Bronze, Silver, and Gold chests to each award fine, masterwork, and rare rift essences.
• Convergence Challenge Mode: Gold chests give different amounts of rewards based on the legendary enemy. 

Raids and Strikes

Strike Mission: Cosmic Observatory

• Dagda's abilities that instantly defeat players who fail to perform mechanics can no longer be avoided by applying invulnerability.
• Charging Constellation can no longer be avoided by standing on top of Dagda.

Bastion of the Penitent

• Fixed an issue that caused strobing visual effects to occur during the Samarog encounter.

Hall of Chains

• When the challenge mote is active, players returning from Dhuum's Harvest are now briefly immune to being captured by Ender's Echo.

Strike Mission: Kaineng Overlook

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Enforcer and the Mindblade to fixate on the same player.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Sniper to become friendly and fail to disappear when reaching 1% health.

Personal Story

Fixed an issue that could cause players to get stuck in the Secrets in the Earth chapter of the sylvari personal story if Riannoc was downed by enemies. 

Items

• The Toxic Focusing Crystal consumable item has been renamed to Toxic Tuning Crystal.
• Potent Potions of Demon Slaying and Powerful Potions of Demon Slaying now apply their bonuses to Kryptis and titanspawn in addition to demons. Text has been updated for each potion's effects.
• The Portable Wizard's Tower Exchange gizmo has been updated to include access to Gharr Leadclaw's daily exchange tabs from the Crystal Desert and Cantha.  
• Adjusted the prices of the Gift of Skywatch Archipelago, Gift of Amnytas, and Gift of Inner Nayos sold by Gharr Leadclaw and the Portable Wizard's Tower Exchange gizmo.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent transmutation charges purchased from the Wizard's Vault from being delivered properly while inside the Super Adventure Box.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Fiery Dragon Sword and Icy Dragon Sword's elemental effects to display the incorrect state when drawn or stowed. 
• The Demolisher prefix is now available for gear with selectable attributes in PvE and WvW.

Relics

New relics have been added. These relics will need to be unlocked before they are selectable options for a legendary relic.

• Relic of the Beehive: After using an elite skill, release a wave of pheromones that cause bees to swarm enemies struck.
• Relic of Geysers: Restore endurance to allies when you grant them vigor.
• Relic of the Mists Tide: Cleanse a condition from yourself when you successfully combo a combo field with a leap or blast finisher.
• Relic of Mount Balrior: After using an elite skill, create an area underneath yourself. Standing in this area increases your outgoing strike damage.
• Relic of Reunification: Gain frost aura and light aura after using a healing skill.
• Relic of the Steamshrieker: Burn nearby enemies when you successfully combo a water combo field with a blast or leap finisher.

World vs. World

• The siege equipment blueprint system has been simplified.
  • Guild siege blueprints have been renamed to siege blueprints.
  • Basic and superior siege blueprints are no longer usable.
  • Players who have basic and superior siege blueprints can exchange them for siege blueprints by either double-clicking the items in their inventory or exchanging them in bulk at siege vendors in WvW.
  • New infinite siege equipment gizmos have been added for each type of siege equipment. These can be earned by completing each siege weapon's respective collection, found in the new WvW Collections section under the WvW Achievements tab in the Hero panel.
  • Siege equipment blueprints can be converted to other types of siege equipment blueprints by purchasing a pile of recycled siege equipment from siege masters in WvW and combining it with the desired blueprint in the Mystic Forge.
•  Siege golems (formerly omega golems) can now swap between ranged rocket autoattacks and melee fist autoattacks. Siege golem health has been reduced by 25%, and the cost of building them has been reduced to 125 supply.
• Damaging enemy players and siege equipment will now grant participation for "Repel the enemy attackers" events.
• The (Weekly) Tower Guardian and (Weekly) Keep Keeper achievements have been replaced with two general objective achievements. These will be progressed by defending Stonemist Castle, keeps, and towers.
• The respawn timer for dolyaks that successfully reach their destination has been increased to 5 minutes.
• The dolyak requirements for towers have been reduced to 15 for secured, 30 for reinforced, and 50 for fortified.
• The dolyak requirements for camps have been reduced to 15 for secured, 30 for reinforced, and 60 for fortified.
• The dolyak requirements for Stonemist Castle have been increased to 40 for secured, 70 for reinforced, and 100 for fortified.
• New sentry turrets have been added to the traps and tricks vendor and the Portable Provisioner vendor. They have the same functionality as Edge of the Mists sentry turrets, but players may only have one active at a time.
• Tower and keep lords have had their base health increased to match the Stonemist Castle lord.
• The Healing Mist tactic has had its cooldown decreased from 20 minutes to 15 minutes and now grants protection to allied players with each pulse.
• Poison has been removed from Toxic Unveiling Volley (arrow cart skill 4) and added to Fire Barbed Arrows (arrow cart skill 3) at all Arrow Cart Mastery levels.

Profession Skills

Guardian

• Gleaming Disc: Reduced the damage multiplier from 1.0 to 0.8 in PvP only.
• Sanctuary: Increased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 50 seconds in PvP only.

Dragonhunter

• Shield of Courage: Reduced the duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in WvW only. 
• Bulwark: Reduced the additional shield duration from 2 seconds to 1 second in WvW only.
• Hunter's Fortification: Reduced the base healing from 453 to 357 and increased the cooldown from 1 second to 2 seconds in PvP only.

Willbender

• Whirling Light: Reduced the damage multiplier from 0.6675 to 0.575 in PvP and WvW.

Mesmer

• Journey: Reduced the damage multiplier from 1.1 to 0.87 in PvP only.
• Abstraction: Reduced the damage multiplier from 1.35 to 1.0 in PvP only.

Thief

• Cunning Salvo: Reduced the damage multiplier from 1.0 to 0.8 in PvP and WvW.
• Spinning Axe: Reduced the damage multiplier from 0.5 to 0.35 in PvP and WvW.
• Venomous Volley: Reduced the damage multiplier from 0.4 to 0.3 in PvP and WvW.

Deadeye

• Malicious Cunning Salvo: Reduced the damage multiplier from 1.0 to 0.8 in PvP and WvW.

Release Notes:

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Improved mouse-drag behavior when playing Guild Wars 2 on a remote machine connection, such as the Windows Remote Desktop application.

Homesteads

• Fixed an issue that could prevent players from entering a party member's homestead by selecting "Join in Homestead" from the party menu.
• Stabled mounts in the homestead and open world will now display a portrait when selected. 
• Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented homestead collection boxes from gathering from all nodes when used in rapid succession. 

Structured Player vs. Player

• Fixed an issue that caused the Tournaments & Special Events panel to display incorrect live match scores. 

World vs. World

General

• Fixed an issue that could cause a crash in WvW maps when using armor with special effects, such as Nightfury or Winter's Presence, while standard models were enabled. 

10/15/2024—Shadow of the Mad King Release Notes

Release Notes:

Halloween

Once again, the gates of the Mad Realm have opened, and Kryta's most infamous monarch, Mad King Thorn, has returned to hold court in Lion's Arch! Loyal vassals of the king are strongly encouraged to enjoy the festivities: meet the denizens of the Mad Realm in events across Kryta; tour the Mad Realm itself in the Mad King's Labyrinth and the fearsome Clock Tower; compete with your fellow mortals in Lunatic Inquisition, Reaper's Rumble, and the Mad King's Raceway; attend to the king's whims in his notorious pastime of Mad King Says; or match wits and blades against royalty in Ascent to Madness.

The Lion's Arch Captain's Council wishes to remind the populace that they are not affiliated with the Krytan monarchy and cannot guarantee the safety of any citizens who choose to dabble in dangerous realms, mad or otherwise.

• The (Annual) Halloween Rituals meta-achievement has been updated with a fashionable new reward, the Clawing Shadow Plate! Earn this spooky new armor piece by completing a variety of Halloween activities and show your allegiance to the Mad King's court with pride. Last year's meta reward, the Clawing Shadow Greaves, can now be purchased from Halloween vendors if you missed it.
• A new Candy Core weapon set is now available! You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the (Annual) Halloween Rituals meta-achievement or the (Weekly) Halloween Festivities achievement.
• The Grim Machine weapon set is now available from the weekly Halloween vendors.
• Three new weapons are now available in the Courtly Weapon Chest, which is rarely found in trick-or-treat bags. They can also be purchased from Sparking Stone in Lion's Arch.
• An unsettling new Mini Pummel Spider has been added to Halloween vendors.
• Deft Lahar is visiting Lion's Arch for the festival and is offering a variety of handiwork recipes for homestead versions of your favorite Halloween decorations.
• New Halloween-themed decorations have been added:

• • Haunted Bell, suitable for trick-or-treating in your guild hall or homestead
  • Antique Bell, for a less spooky announcement of visitors to the guild hall or homestead
  • Gargoyle
  • Flame-Bearing Gargoyle
  • Warclaw Rental Post

• The Wizard's Vault has been updated with special objectives for participating in Halloween activities.
• The Halloween vendor in Hooligan's Route now stocks a much larger variety of Halloween items for customers who find themselves with excess candy corn after the doors to the Mad Realm close for the year, including the recipes for homestead decorations.
• The (Annual) Raceway Regular achievement now receives additional progress for laps completed within the gold-medal time for their race.
• Checkpoints in the Mad King's Raceway have had their visual size increased to more consistently match their collision area.
• Many small bugs have been polished to ensure a more fun festival than ever for all visitors to the Mad Realm.

The gates to the Mad Realm will be open for three weeks, from October 15 until November 5. Have a happy Halloween!

Game Update Notes: October 8, 2024

10/08/2024—October 8 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Fixed an issue that prevented the Is This a Scratching Post? achievement from updating properly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented jade bot workbench decorations from recognizing users who placed a workbench nearby and immediately attempted to interact with it.
• Description text has been added to the Thesis on Speed effect tooltip.
• The conjured doorway can now be summoned in Dry Top, the Silverwastes, Arborstone, Verdant Brink, and Lion's Arch Aerodrome.
• The "Keep the troll party from getting out of hand" events in Lowland Shore are no longer group events. The events' completion timers have been increased.
• Refined the criteria for the away-from-keyboard timer to prevent it from counting noncombat damage sources such as falling or self-inflicted damage as entering combat.
• Improved the precision with which decoration placement checks for valid decoration space near areas where no decorations are allowed, such as the waypoint in Hearth's Glow.
• Relic of Rivers: Reduced the alacrity duration from 2 seconds to 1 second and the regeneration duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.

Warclaw Mount

• Players are now able to dismount the warclaw in midair in all game modes.
• Fixed an issue that caused combat mounting to fail when autoattack was enabled.
• Updated the Feral Fury Mastery's text to indicate that only the Lance and Battle Maul (Engage) skills gain increased crowd control.
• Reduced Lance's knockdown time in PvE from a baseline of 2.5 seconds to 1.25 seconds.
• Updated Battle Maul (Engage)'s description to indicate its current functionality. This skill delivers a double strike to enemies within a radius of 180 and stuns them for 2 seconds, reduced from 3 seconds. Updated the skill facts for this skill. This skill is now affected by Feral Fury's control increase. Updated the skill's visual effect to help identify the different attack regions.

Items

• The off-season Halloween vendor in Hooligan's Route now stocks a much larger assortment of Halloween items for players who wish to purchase items with candy corn after the event has ended, including recipes for homestead decorations.
• Added Wings of the Sunless and Endless Fractal Challenge Mote Tonics to Zotturrikk's shop inventory in Hooligan's Route in Lion's Arch.
• The birthday vendor in Lion's Arch will now also sell the Dragon Decade Spear Skin to players who have finished ten objectives in the Decade of the Dragons achievement, in addition to players who have completed the Birthday—Year 10 achievement.

World vs. World

General

• To reduce confusion, the Join Team button on the World Restructuring - BETA tab of the World vs. World panel is no longer displayed for players who are already on a team.
• Objectives will now remain contested and the "Repel the enemy attackers" event will restart if the objective's lord is dead when the event finishes.

Profession Skills

Below are changes to the balance preview notes we previously shared. You can see the original balance notes shared here.

Engineer

Mechanist

• Barrier Burst: Increased the might duration from 15 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only.
• Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits: This trait now applies might instead of alacrity in WvW only.

Guardian

• Solar Storm: This skill now deals reduced damage on subsequent hits to a target. Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.8 to 1.5 in PvE only.

Mesmer

• Restorative Illusions: Reduced the healing power scaling from 0.46 to 0.3 in PvP only. Reduced the base healing with no clones from 360 to 219.

•  Illusionary Inspiration: Reduced the outgoing healing increase from 15% to 10% in PvP only.

• Temporal Enchanter: Reduced the resistance duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP. Reduced the superspeed duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP and WvW.

• Journey: Reduced the base healing from 719 to 527 and reduced the regeneration duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.

• Signet of Inspiration: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.

Mirage

• Split Surge: Reduced the might per hit from 2 to 1 in WvW only, and reduced the damage coefficient per hit from 0.45 to 0.36 in WvW only.
• Phantom Razor: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to daze when used by a clone.

Necromancer

• Locust Swarm: This skill now grants swiftness to nearby allies in addition to its previous effects.
• Perforate: Increased the number of targets from 3 to 5.
• Extirpate: This skill no longer inflicts Extirpation in WvW and PvP. It will continue to apply Extirpation in PvE.
• Ritual of Life: Increased the revive percentage from 2% to 3.5% in PvE only.
• Transfusion: Increased the revive percentage when the scourge elite specialization is equipped from 1% to 2% in PvE only.

Scourge

• Trail of Anguish: This skill now grants its initial boons to nearby allies in PvE only. Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvE only.

Revenant

• Abyssal Raze: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to inflict torment for a longer duration than intended. Increased the torment duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvE only.

• Song of the Mists (Call of the Centaur): Reduced the base healing from 1920 to 1300 and reduced the healing power scaling from 1.0 to 0.5 in PvP only.

• Generous Abundance: Reduced the base healing when using a Legendary Centaur skill from 463 to 271 and reduced the base healing when using another legend skill from 197 to 152 in PvP only.

• Purifying Essence: Increased the cooldown from 5 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP only.

• Energy Expulsion: Increased the energy cost from 35 to 50 in PvP only.

• Natural Harmony: Reduced the healing power scaling from 1.75 to 1.0 in PvP only.

Vindicator

• Balance in Discord: Reduced the base healing from 810 to 522 and reduced the regeneration duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.

Warrior

• Maiming Spear: Reduced the initial-hit damage coefficient from 1.2 to 1.1 in PvE only. Reduced the shock-wave damage coefficient from 1.2 to 0.75 in PvE only. Reduced the shock-wave damage bonus from 50% to 20% in PvE only.
• Spearmarshal's Support: Reduced the damage coefficient from 0.6 to 0.4 in PvE only.

• Harrier's Toss: This skill no longer evades and now applies vulnerability to enemies it hits.

• Defiant Stance: Increased the casting time by approximately 0.5 seconds.

• Balanced Stance: Increased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 50 seconds in PvP only

• Wild Throw: Fixed an issue that occasionally prevented certain on-hit traits such as Building Momentum or Sundering Burst from activating properly

Spellbreaker

• Cull the Weak: Reduced the weakness duration from 3.5 seconds to 1.5 seconds when the spellbreaker elite specialization is equipped, in PvP only.
• Full Counter: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 14 seconds in PvP only.

09/10/2024—September 10 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here. 

World Polish

• Adjusted health and scaling for the Mushroom King during the "Subdue the Mushroom King" event in Lowland Shore.
• Fixed an issue that caused Distant Thunder to appear sooner than intended in the Star-Crossed Lovers collection.
• The endurance cost of the "Dash!" skill in the Salmon Run race events and adventures has been reduced to grant additional dashes in Lowland Shore.
• Added an additional 15 seconds to the gold medal times for the Lowland Shore Salmon Run adventures. The time needed has increased from 1 minute and 30 seconds to 1 minute and 45 seconds for the Moon Camp Covert adventure and from 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 2 minutes and 45 seconds for the Harvest Shore adventure.
• Made some general improvements to salmon cannon functionality for the Harvest Shore Salmon Run event and adventure in Lowland Shore.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the collection NPC marker to appear above player characters' heads in Lowland Shore.
• Fixed an issue that caused the heat-tracking bar from the Denning Forge renown heart activity to persist if a player left the forge before using the bellows.
• Added additional creatures around Forager's Hunt that grant renown when killed.

General

• Updated the error message that appears when players who have not unlocked the Heart of the Obscure Research Mastery line attempt to interact with content that requires it. For content within Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds maps, the text now directs players to unlock the Heart of the Obscure via the Janthir Wilds story, instead of through Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure.
• The Wizard's Vault objectives for participating in rift events now refer to them as rift hunts rather than Kryptis rifts.
• Fixed an issue that caused champion warclaws to improperly try to perform valravn attacks after their defiance bar was broken.
• Reduced the health and defiance bars of Eparch, the Consumed King in the Into the Spider's Lair meta-event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the effect indicating which glyph is equipped to a homestead collection box from displaying a proper name.
• Fixed an issue that prevented ground targeted skills from working when trying to summon a conjured doorway in an invalid location.
• The handiwork workbench in Hearth's Glow can now only be accessed by the homestead owner to prevent an issue that caused decoration crafting to consume the guest's materials but create the decoration for the homestead's owner.
• Fixed an issue that prevented accounts that have only been upgraded with Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds from being granted access to the raptor mount.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some infusions' visual effects from stacking when switching maps.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to summon the warclaw mount in unintended combat scenarios.

Lowland Shore

• Increased the event-cycling time following completion of the "Defeat the rotling before it razes the area" event.
• Fixed an issue with the event UI for the "Escort Winding Kant as he looks for his lost spear" event.
• Fixed an issue that caused creatures in the "Defeat the rotlings to save the Astral Ward scout" event to scale improperly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some players from interacting with bowls in the "Keep the troll party from getting out of hand" events.
• Fixed animation issues that occurred when using cheer skills while sitting in the Sleuth Brawlfields stands.
• The "Pet" interaction text for many of the animals in Lowland Shore is now properly the verb rather than the noun in non-English languages.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the All the Queen's Men achievement from displaying numbers correctly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented markers in the "Destroy the pollutants, and cover yourself in rot and get examined by the ward" event from being removed.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the rot effect from being removed from all players upon completing the "Destroy the pollutants, and cover yourself in rot and get examined by the ward" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Bog Queen from vanishing after the "Defeat the Bog Queen before she floods the area with maggots" event failed.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Bog Queen's name to vanish from the UI during the "Defeat the Bog Queen before she floods the area with maggots" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the energy beams from vanishing after the maggot-squishing phase concluded during the "Defeat the Bog Queen before she floods the area with maggots" event.
• Lowered the scaling for the maggot-squishing phases during the "Defeat the Bog Queen before she floods the area with maggots" event.
• Fixed a server crash that could occur during the "Defend the kodan from the bog bodies while they gather peat" event.
• Warclaws and warclaw cubs at the Journeykin Outpost now play an animation when petted by players completing renown heart activities.
• Fixed an issue that caused warclaw scat at the Journeykin Outpost to float.
• Fixed an issue that prevented hiding titanspawn from respawning in Coursing Upland.
• Fixed an issue that caused a conversation in Roaring Falls to loop on itself.
• Fixed an issue that caused corrupted ice shard bundles for the Star-Crossed Lovers achievement to have an incorrect respawn time.
• Fixed an issue that prevented multiple players from turning in warclaw cubs simultaneously during the "Get warclaw cubs back in their pens before they eat the cabbages" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the post-completion UI timer from appearing during the "Get warclaw cubs back in their pens before they eat the cabbages" event.
• Fixed an issue that caused only eleven out of twelve kodan cubs to be available during the Lowland Shore: Hide and Seek adventure.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented the fish transformation from being removed from players who had not completed the Salmon Run race event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the scoreboard from updating with the latest completion time for the Lowland Shore: Hide and Seek adventure.
• The endurance-refreshing orbs in the Salmon Run race events and adventures now also refresh the player's Flop! charges.
• Fixed an issue that prevented rangers from summoning their pets after completing the Salmon Run races or adventures.
• Fixed an issue that prevented a wisp from crossing the stream while completing the "Search below the lake near the shore that's home to drakes" hint in the Tales of the Lowland Wisps collection.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Autumn's Vale renown heart NPC, Shading Willow, to take a shaderock salamander when players chose the option to turn in a mohawk bream.
• Fixed an issue that allowed the Savant of Dance achievement to be awarded early during the "Dance among the kodan" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some players who unlocked the Cryptid Chase collection from earning progress on other characters.

Janthir Syntri

• Fixed an issue that caused a fishing node in Janthir Syntri to spawn outside the map boundaries.
• Fixed an issue that caused resource nodes in Janthir Syntri to spawn outside the map boundaries.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused bloodstone elementals in Janthir Syntri to revert to their default pose when killed.
• Fixed lurking and unlurking animation issues that affected several of the ghost animals in the "Assist Ekto's paranormal research" event.
• Fixed an issue that caused the failure announcements for the "Stop Greer from draining the bloodstone" and "Stop Decima from draining the bloodstone" events to play twice.
• Added an announcement to the "Stop Greer from draining the bloodstone" event to clarify that Greer's titanspawn must be eliminated to expose his defiance bar.
• Updated Greer and Decima's warclaw checkpoints to indicate the next checkpoint in the sequence.
• Reduced the radius of Greer and Decima's warclaw checkpoints to more closely match their visual effect.
• Slightly increased the spacing of Greer and Decima's warclaw checkpoints to reduce overlap.
• Fixed an issue that prevented warclaw checkpoints from recognizing the player if they were standing in one when first using Chain Pull on a titan.
• Fixed an issue that caused interactive plants in the "Help the kodan gather foraged plants and animal meat" events to remain interactive after the required amount had been turned in.
• The map portal to Lowland Shore now correctly displays its name.
• It is no longer possible to trigger the concerned researcher's conversation again after their dialogue completes in the "Rescue the storm chaser" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Don't Drop That achievement from requiring participation in the "Collect and turn in debris from the shore and enemies" event.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to leave and reenter the "Collect and turn in debris from the shore and enemies" event radius to regain eligibility for the Don't Drop That achievement.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the expedition members' combat behavior to stall the "Follow Guiding Star and their team on the expedition" event.
• The Firewatch achievement now indicates which events still need to be completed.
• Boss cameras have been standardized across several events.
• Fixed an issue that caused dialogue heard when approaching any of the "Help the kodan gather foraged plants and animal meat" events to repeat excessively.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the boss enemy in the "Follow Guiding Star and their team on the expedition" event from despawning correctly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some enemies in the "Clear Rising Bloom's garden of Mistburned flowers" event from being aggressive toward players.
• Fixed an issue that prevented animals in the "Help the kodan gather foraged plants and animal meat" events from consistently dropping meat when defeated.
• Fixed an issue that caused some enemies in the "Help Gleaning Copse clean up rotting plants and clear out rotting enemies" events to display incorrect lurking animations.
• Fixed an issue that caused Curious Remedy's dialogue during the "Collect affected flora samples for Curious Remedy's research" event to come from the wrong location.
• Disabling a mursaat relic mine no longer awards double progress toward the Hero of the Woods achievement.
• Rising Bloom no longer retains the Poetic Justice achievement eligibility notice after the "Clear Rising Bloom's garden of Mistburned flowers" event ends.
• Fixed an issue that prevented "Clear the Infestation of Greer Grubs" events from granting renown heart progress on completion.
• More events in and around Festering Basin in Janthir Syntri now grant renown tokens.

General

• Added a keybinding option for the conjured doorway Mastery skill.
• The Lowland Kodan Expertise effect can now be purchased once per character each day rather than being limited to once each day per account.

PvE Warclaw

• Uncover: Added a slight cooldown between uses to prevent some adverse effects. Fixed an issue that caused skill 3 to flash endlessly.

Homesteads

• Fixed an issue that caused several glyphs to grant fewer bonuses than expected when applied to the harvesting collection box.
• Updated the handiworker crafting level unlocked at each tier of the Homesteading Mastery to match the Mastery descriptions. This change will retroactively affect players who have already unlocked Homesteading Mastery tiers.
• Unlockable rooms and decoratable zones will now use the proper Homesteading Mastery levels.

Decorating

• Fixed an issue that prevented placed decorations from being edited when the Instant ground targeting mode setting was enabled.

Convergences

• Reduced the damage and bleeding stacks of Umbriel's Rending Storm.
• Reduced Umbriel's maximum health.

Personal Story

• Fixed an issue in the norn version of the Prologue: The Tyrian Alliance story chapter that could prevent the map marker indicating Skarti's location in Hoelbrak from being displayed properly.
• Relocated the Shining Blade guard who directs players to speak to Countess Anise during the human version of the Prologue: The Tyrian Alliance story chapter farther from the Queen's Throne Room instance entrance to avoid confusion.
• Fixed a rendering issue that affected interactive books in the Unknown Territory story instance and Lowland Shore.
• The doors in Moon Camp Covert in the Unknown Territory story chapter instance now have visible names to identify them as interactive objects.
• Fixed an issue in the Unknown Territory story chapter that caused the captured warclaw's rope lead to become improperly detached if the player transformed.
• Corrected text in the Unknown Territory story chapter that swapped the names of the Bonfire Lodge and Journeykin Pens points of interest.
• Fixed an issue in the Unknown Territory story chapter that prevented dogs from being petted.
• Fixed an issue in the Diplomacy and Discovery story chapter that could cause Malice to interrupt her own dialogue.
• Fixed an issue in the Home Sweet Home story chapter that allowed destructible objects in the first story instance to be damaged prior to being tasked with cleaning up the homestead, which could stall the instance.
• Corrected text in the Home Sweet Home story chapter that used outdated terminology in a hint directing players to a particular area of the crafting tab.
• Extended the instance boundaries of all story steps that take place in the homestead environment to allow players to reach the portals to other maps, preventing them from becoming stuck in the instance.
• Fixed an issue in the Strangers among Lands story chapter that prevented Councillor Ludo and asura players from having an appropriate view from their podiums during the Tyrian Alliance emergency meeting instance.
• Fixed an issue in the Strangers among Lands story chapter that prevented certain conversation options with Livia in the Tyrian Alliance emergency meeting instance from being logged in the chat box.
• Fixed an issue in the Strangers among Lands story chapter that caused the optional step to speak to Tyrian Alliance delegates in the emergency meeting instance to complete before everyone could be spoken to.
• Added an occasional pop-up hint to the Storm Clouds over Janthir story chapter to inform players who drop the bow bundle used during the "Index Sickly Wildlife Health in Slithering Outskirts" step where to get a new one.
• Corrected text in the Storm Clouds over Janthir story chapter to reflect the correct map sector Poised Arrow can be found in.
• Corrected text in the Storm Clouds over Janthir story chapter that directs players to talk to Arid Esker and referred to Storm Research Camp in Janthir Syntri by an outdated name.
• Fixed an issue in the Against the Wall story chapter that caused Poised Arrow to become stuck inside collision boundaries.
• Fixed an issue in the Against the Wall story chapter that caused a warclaw race checkpoint to reappear during subsequent uses of Chain Pull on the boss.
• Added additional failsafe measures in the Against the Wall story chapter to prevent the bosses from being killed prematurely and blocking progression.
• Added an achievement eligibility effect for the Electrical Interference achievement when the player is in the story instance.
• Fixed an issue that caused eligibility for the Seed Savvy achievement to be removed by manually dropping the seed bundle rather than upon taking damage.
• Fixed an issue that prevented conductive mineral deposits from displaying story markers in the Storm Clouds over Janthir story chapter.

Items

• Increased the amount of rift essence awarded when using fine, masterwork, and rare motivations.
• Adjusted the Bearkin War Helm's default dyes.
• Updated the name of the Janthir Wilds: Hero's Choice Chest to Janthir Syntri: Hero's Choice Chest.
• Zotturrikk in Hooligan's Route in Lion's Arch now sells unique rewards from previous bonus events. These items may be offered again as achievement rewards in the future, but we cannot guarantee that the associated bonus events will occur again or that these rewards will be offered when and if they do. New items will be added to Zotturrikk's inventory once a sufficient amount of time has passed since their associated event.
• Updated Mini Mr. Ribbington's item icon to properly display his hat.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Heat Core Infusion to display incorrect values for its power and agony resistance attributes.
• Reduced the rarity of the Falling Star Quest License from legendary to ascended to match the rewards it grants.
• The Falling Star spear and Meteor-Wielder's Glove acquired from the Falling Star Quest License now have selectable attributes.
• The birthday vendor in Lion's Arch will now reward players who have celebrated their 10th birthday in Guild Wars 2 with the Dragon Decade Spear Skin, which has the same appearance as the Dragon Decade Staff Skin.
• The birthday vendor in Lion's Arch will now reward players who have celebrated their 5th birthday in Guild Wars 2 with the Luminous Partisan Spear Skin, which has the same appearance as the Luminous Pillar Staff Skin.
• Adjusted the description text for the Lowland Shore and Janthir Syntri renown tokens to provide more information on their usage.
• Fixed the attribute prefix selection and attributes given on the Knotted Rope Ring, Ring of the Crustacean, and Wood Rune Ring.
• Fixed an issue that caused several raid homestead decoration recipes to be listed for the wrong price.
• Recipe: Sigil of Demon Slaying no longer drops if the player knows the recipe.
• Updated items that can be deployed to provide beneficial effects, such as feasts, to display a preview of the effects they provide.

Structured Player vs. Player

• The beta event for the new Push game mode starts today! The beta map will be active during the miniseason that starts today at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) and runs until 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time on September 23. The map will also be available in custom arenas. Learn more about the event in this blog post .
• New tiers of the Path of Victory achievement have been added to the new PvP Champion Series panel. The new tiers award an enumerated version of the "Champion of Champions" title.

World vs. World

• The Mists-Charged Jade ascended trinkets that can be purchased from the skirmish supervisor merchant now have access to all attribute options. Their attribute selection can be reset with a Mist Capacitor.
• The skirmish supervisor and Permanent Portable Provisioner merchants now offer items in exchange for Canthan Crafting Material Coffers and Desert Crafting Material Coffers.
• Hero weapons are now available from the skirmish supervisor as a one-time purchase for players who have unlocked the associated skin.
• Woad armor skins are now available from the skirmish supervisor.
• Fire Shattering Bolt: Increased the power coefficient from 5.6 to 6.4.
• Fire Reinforced Shot: Decreased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 32 seconds.
• Increased the warclaw's Chain Pull skill damage to 1,000.
• Decreased Chain Pull's cooldown to 1 second.

Profession Skills

Spear

• Fixed an issue that prevented the appropriate impact animation from playing when a character lands at high velocity.

General

• Relic of the Stormsinger: Fixed an issue that prevented this relic from working with certain skills.

 

Thief

• Shattering Assault: Fixed an issue that could prevent this skill from canceling autoattacks when it applied stealth to the player.

Engineer

• Roiling Skies: This skill can now strike downed targets.
• Amplifying Slice: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to unintentionally evade.
• Devastator: This skill now evades.

Guardian

• Solar Storm: This skill now displays red warning rings instead of orange when used by an enemy player.
• Symbol of Luminance: Fixed an issue that occasionally prevented this skill's audio from playing.
• Helio Rush: Fixed an issue that occasionally prevented this skill from granting the Illuminated effect, even if an enemy was struck.

Mesmer

• Phantasmal Lancer: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from summoning a phantasm when used on an evading enemy.
• Echo of Memory: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from summoning a phantasm when used on an evading enemy.

Revenant

• Abyssal Blot: Updated damage skill facts to be accurate in PvP and WvW.
• Abyssal Strike: Reduced the torment duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds and the Abyssal Raze cooldown reduction from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.
• Abyssal Force: Reduced the Abyssal Raze cooldown reduction from 10 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only.
• Abyssal Raze: Reduced the torment duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only.

Warrior

• Heightened Focus: Fixed an issue that prevented this trait from functioning with spear burst skills.
• Path to Victory: Reduced the attack range from 450 to 240.
• Valiant leap: Reduced the base heal from 975 to 655 in PvP only.
• Line Breaker: Reduced the base heal from 1,320 to 840 and the healing power scaling from 1.75 to 1.0 in PvP only.
• Defiant Roar: Reduced the base heal from 1,320 to 1,000 and the healing power scaling 1.0 to 0.7 in PvP only.
• Harrier's Toss: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.2/1.5/1.8 to 1.0/1.25/1.5 based on adrenaline, in WvW only.
• Maiming Spear: Reduced the cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in WvW. Reduced the initial hit damage coefficient from 0.9 to 0.8 in WvW only.
• Spearmarshal's Support: This skill now performs an initial attack. This attack must hit a target for the follow-up attacks to occur. Reduced the damage coefficient from 0.4 to 0.25 in PvP and WvW.
• Spear Swipe: This skill is no longer unblockable. Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only. Reduced the cooldown refund on successful evasion from 6 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.
• Defiant Stance: Reduced the duration from 4 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.

08/20/2024—August 20 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds

While the commander fought back against the treacherous Midnight King in the Realm of Dreams, the threat of the Kryptis didn't go unnoticed by the rest of Tyria. Their villages and cities were attacked and countless lives were lost, and yet the world had no idea where their assailants originated from.

Just as the commander emerges from their journey into the Secrets of the Obscure, some of Tyria's most pivotal world leaders have formed the Tyrian Alliance—an organization that seeks global collaboration in the healing years following the end of the dragon cycle. Being a figure of hope to those they've helped throughout time, the commander must navigate the delicate tides of international affairs while also being enlisted to keep an eye on other enigmatic developments.

When their first mission is to venture into the dangerous stretches of Janthir to befriend a long-sequestered society of kodan, the path forward seems clear. That clarity will be quickly challenged when the lowland kodan begin whispering of strangers and abnormal events arising throughout their deltas. How long can the commander maintain the state of respite before it is lost? How will the Astral Ward react to global developments as their existence becomes harder to conceal? The commander must walk a fine line between diplomacy and action as they make allies with the lowlanders and uncover the bloodied history of the Isles of Janthir. Storm clouds thicken by the hour.

Homesteads

Players can now obtain their own personal homestead by playing through the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds storyline! Homesteads are an account-wide personal housing instance that provides you with an area of land and a permanent structure to cultivate, decorate, and share with your friends.

• Players with a homestead can place a conjured doorway in open-world maps, which they can use to bring their party into their homestead.
• All resource nodes (and cats!) unlocked in home instances will also be available in the homestead.
• A new account-wide handiworker crafting discipline is available, allowing players to craft decorations for their homestead.
• Unlocked mounts will appear in the homestead.
• Characters that were logged out while inside the homestead instance will visit the homestead as NPCs.

Land Spears

All professions can now use spears on land. This is unlocked via a WvW vendor purchase or by playing the first few chapters of the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds story.

New Masteries

Homesteading

Once a homestead has been obtained, you will begin to master the crafting of homestead decorations without the need for a crafting discipline. As this mastery grows, your access to recipes and space to work in will increase, and you will gain bonuses within your homestead, such as rested experience and automated gathering of resources.

Lowland Kodan

As you meet the lowland kodan in the Janthir region, you will gain access to their techniques, such as learning to use the spear on dry land, gaining power from local honey, and harvesting resources more efficiently.

Warclaw

If you've not yet bonded with a warclaw, Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds will make doing so easier and allow you to use its skills outside of World vs. World. As you progress your Warclaw Mastery, it will become immune to falling damage, leap further into the air, and gain enhanced stamina regeneration, which is shared across all of your mounts.

Decorating (General)

A new hotkey has been added for entering and exiting decoration mode, and specialized skills are available while in decorating mode. You can change which set of these is displayed using three sub-mode buttons above your skill bar: Place New Decorations, Modify Existing Decorations, and Erase Decorations.

Place New Decorations

• Place: Begin placement by choosing a location on the ground to put the decoration, or by enabling the manipulator skills for more control over how the decoration is placed. If you use this skill before having chosen a decoration from your decorations inventory, it will open your decoration list to prompt you to do that first. If you're not using a manipulator skill to refine the placement, you can right-click to cancel placement. Otherwise, to cancel, press a different skill button or the Esc key (if you have an open panel, Esc will close it first). Also, if you're not using a manipulator, you can change the decoration's rotation by holding and dragging the mouse button when choosing the location to pivot the decoration around that point.
• Move: Once you begin placement, the Move skill becomes available; press it to activate a manipulator gizmo. Click and drag a manipulator axis to move the decoration along that axis, or drag one of the squares to move the decoration across the corresponding plane. Once you're done using the manipulator, you can change it to another type or press the Place skill again to finish placing the decoration.
• Rotate: Similar to Move, but the manipulator rotates the decoration. Click and drag a ring right or left to rotate the decoration around the corresponding axis. Hold Shift when you click the ring to drag it, and the rotation will snap to 45-degree increments. Pressing the skill again will toggle a spherical manipulator that you can click and drag to freely rotate the decoration in any direction.
• Scale: This works much like Rotate and Move and allows uniform changing of the decoration's scale. Drag any of the boxes to scale the decoration up and down. There are practical limits on how much a decoration can be scaled, and those may be specific to the decoration you're placing.
• Toggle Manipulator Alignment (Local/Global): While using one of the manipulators, you may use this skill to align the manipulator with either the map's coordinate system or with the decoration that's being placed.

Modify Existing Decorations

• Select Decoration to Modify: Once you have some decorations placed in the world, this skill lets you select one of them and refine its placement using the Move, Rotate, and Scale skills. After you're satisfied with the changes, press this skill again to confirm them.

Erase Decorations

Most of the erase skills are unchanged from the existing guild hall decoration system. You can target a single decoration to erase and return to storage, or you can erase all decorations within the radius of a small, medium, or large targeting cursor.

• Toggle X-Ray Vision: This skill helps in retrieving decorations that have been placed in unreachable or obscured locations, such as beneath the terrain. While X-Ray Vision is active, the targeting of erase skills can penetrate terrain and other obstacles. It's also useful for distinguishing decorations from the rest of the environment.

Common Decorating Skills

• Reset Scale and Rotation: This skill is available when placing or modifying a decoration. It will remove all rotation changes and restore the item's original scale.
• Use Last Scale and Rotation: This skill is available when placing or modifying a decoration. This matches the decoration's rotation and scale to that of the most recently placed decoration.
• Flying Mode: Toggles a flying movement mode to help you reach high places while decorating. Note that this counts as a skill, so using it will cancel any placement in progress.
• Select Decoration: Opens a list of decorations that are available for placing in the instance.
• Stop Decorating: Puts away the decoration skills and restores your combat skill bar.

The Decorations panel has been updated with the following features, which are saved per decoration mode (homesteads, guild halls, and guild arenas):

• A Favorites category of up to 16 decorations.
• A Recently Placed category, which tracks the last 8 decorations placed by the player.
• Filtering options for decorations and categories.
• Categories will remain expanded or collapsed when closing and reopening the Decorations panel.

Decorating (Guild Halls)

• Decorating in guild halls has been updated with the new Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds decorating capabilities.
• The size and shape of interaction boundaries on interactable decorations has been changed.
• A slight rotation change of up to a degree may be noticeable in the placement of some large guild hall decorations.
• The Kournan Brazier guild hall decoration now correctly has a flame.
• Attempting to place a decoration in an invalid location will now highlight the decoration in red. Previously, this functionality only worked in the Gilded Hollow guild hall.
• Entering decoration mode while in the guild arena will now allow direct placement of arena decorations, without needing to interact with the Arena Obstacles Coordinator.

Wizard's Vault

The Wizard's Vault's inventory has been updated for the new season! Last season's unique rewards are now available in the Legacy tab.

This season's new, unique rewards now require Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds ownership to purchase. Legacy rewards will continue to require their associated expansion.

Objective Updates

• New special objectives for the season have been added, and more will appear over the course of the season, including special objectives associated with bonus events and festivals.
• New daily and weekly objectives have been added for adventuring in the Janthir region, as well as the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure release "The Midnight King."

Inventory Updates

• A new item type in the Wizard's Vault this season, the Falling Star Quest License, invites players on a short adventure in the newly available Janthir region. Your efforts will be rewarded with an ascended spear and gloves, as well as a series of achievements to track the quest's progress.
• Legendary Starter Kit—Set 5 is now available, containing two new weapon kits and two returning weapon kits.

General

• Cats in the home instance can now be petted, unless they are otherwise occupied.
• Cats and other pets associated with 2023 Extra Life charity donation incentives have appeared across Tyria. They are visible only while under the effects of the Chatoyant Elixir or Chatoyant Lens.
  • Animals from 2023 donations are present in a core Tyria town, as well as the Lowland Shore map in the Janthir region.
  • Extra Life charity pets can now be petted.
• Scribe crafting stations now have unique background art, rather than reusing the art from weaponsmith crafting stations.
• The Tools of the Luxon Hunters and Energized Tools of the Luxon Hunters collections have been moved to the Rare Collections category.
• Fixed an issue that caused progress in the Tools of the Luxon Hunters collection to stall if a player unlocked the requisite weapon skins without owning Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Visiting Lion's Arch will allow progress to resume.
• Fixed an issue that allowed the Delve into the Haze achievement category to be viewed and accessed by players who do not own Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons.
• Updated the damage types of generation 3 legendary weapon variants:
  • Kralkatorrik: Lightning
  • Primordus: Fire
  • Jormag: Ice

Several updates have been made to the currency and materials exchange vendor Gharr Leadclaw:

• Adjusted the currency costs in the Essence Exchanges tab.
• Updated the variety of items to exchange for weekly astral fluctuating masses.
• Updated the variety of items to exchange in the Heart of Maguuma: Bulk Exchanges and Crystal Desert: Bulk Exchanges tabs.
  • Adjusted the costs of those items the player exchanges for currencies or materials.
• Gharr now appears in several new locations. No Masteries are required for players to see him or use his services in these areas:
  • Dragon's Stand, east of Pact Base Camp Waypoint, offering Heart of Maguuma bulk exchanges.
  • Eye of the North, near Snargle Goldclaw, offering Crystal Desert bulk exchanges and 2 new daily exchanges.
  • Arborstone, near Kestrel Zuru, offering Cantha bulk exchanges and 5 new daily exchanges.

World Polish

• Fixed an issue that caused Kryptis rifts to spawn too slowly in certain areas of Thunderhead Peaks.
• The beach resort at Southsun Cove will no longer automatically transform players into an armorless state. For guests wishing to take a swim, a nearby tent has been repurposed as a changing area.
• Skywatch Archipelago: Fixed an issue that prevented shrine guardian chests 32, 33, 34, and 35 from being properly tracked for progress in the Rise and Shrine achievement.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the water bucket near the Aid Fort Salma renown heart from being accessible.

Relics

• Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds relics will need to be unlocked before they are selectable options for a legendary relic.
• New relics have been added.
  • Relic of the Claw: When you disable an enemy, gain a strike damage bonus for a duration.
  • Relic of Sorrow: After using an elite skill, create an area that destroys missiles and heals and reduces incoming damage for allies.
  • Relic of the Blightbringer: Build stacks when inflicting poison on an enemy. At 5 stacks, the next time you inflict poison also inflicts a burst of poison, weakness, and cripple on nearby enemies.
  • Relic of the Stormsinger: After using a movement skill, your next attack performs a chain-lightning strike.
  • Relic of Atrocity: Your lifesteal damage and lifesteal healing is increased.
  • Relic of Rivers: Gain alacrity and regeneration when you dodge.

World vs. World

The warclaw has received updates to its skills with the release of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds:

• Sniff will now identify damaged and destroyed gates and walls for players.
• Chain Pull can now also be attached to walls and will apply Weakened Frame, an effect similar to Structural Vulnerability.
• Lance now has 2 charges.

Additionally, the warclaw will now be unlocked for any player who enters WvW if they own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire or Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.

Additionally, the warclaw will now be unlocked for any player who enters WvW if they own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire. 

Players who have previously completed the warclaw collection to unlock the mount will receive a War Machine Weapon Skin Selection and WvW skirmish tickets in their mail upon logging in.

The increased stamina and Warclaw's Blessing have been removed from the Warclaw Mastery ability line and are now inherent benefits to owning the warclaw in WvW. Finally, the WvW ability point costs to fill out the WvW Warclaw Mastery line have been greatly reduced.

Profession Skills 

Elementalist

• Increased all etching durations from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.
• Etching skills will now put their corresponding lesser skill on a short cooldown to prevent unintentional usage.
• The visual effects of Jökulhlaup, Derecho, and Haboob will no longer be replaced by legendary effects.
• The beneficial effects applied by Seethe and Energize will no longer be consumed by slot 1 skills.
• Flame Spear: This skill now strikes up to 3 enemies.
• Blazing Barrage: Increased the power coefficient from 2.15 to 2.5 in PvE and from 1.3 to 1.5 in PvP.
• Volcano: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.26 in PvE only.
• Ice Beam: Increased the power coefficient per strike from 0.33 to 0.4 in WvW and from 0.33 to 0.45 in PvP.
• Ripple: This skill is now ground-targeted and also heals the user in addition to its other effects. Fixed an issue that caused Ripple's movement speed to be affected by quickness, slow, and movement-speed modifiers.
• Undertow: This skill will now always pull enemies that it strikes and will slow enemies within the inner radius.
• Fulgor: This skill now also strikes enemies in addition to the damage-over-time effect. Fixed an issue that allowed Fulgor's damage-over-time effect to be applied to WvW walls.
• Reduced the damage-over-time effect from 3 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.
• Derecho: Increased the power coefficient from 4 to 5 in PvE and from 1.4 to 1.6 in WvW.
• Earthen Spear: This skill now pierces. Increased the power coefficient from 2.2 to 2.6 in PvE and from 1.25 to 1.45 in PvP.
• Harden: Increased the dazed duration from 0.25 seconds to 2 seconds in PvE only.
• Fissure: Increased the power coefficient from 1.9 to 2.1 in PvE, from 0.9 to 1.0 in WvW, and from 1.3 to 1.5 in PvP.
• Haboob: Increased the power coefficient from 3.5 to 4.25 in PvE and from 1.2 to 1.33 in WvW.
• Fixed issues that prevented several skills from being affected by skill retargeting.
• Fixed an issue that caused multiple Volcano or Lesser Volcano skills cast in short succession to be affected by each other's damage falloff.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the flipped version of spear slot 5 skills from being available when swapping out of a double-attuned state as a weaver.

Engineer

• Puncturing Jab: Increased the angle of this skill's hitbox.
• Rending Strike: Increased the angle of this skill's hitbox.
• Amplifying Slice: Increased the angle of this skill's hitbox. Reduced the casting time by 0.2 seconds. Reduced the bleeding and vulnerability durations from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Increased the bleeding and vulnerability stacks from 1 to 2.
• Conduit Surge: Added visual effects to help engineers identify their focused targets. Updated this skill so that Focused can only affect one target at a time. Successfully applying Focused now applies a Focusing effect to the engineer to help indicate time left on the focused target. Increased the burning stacks from 2 to 3 in PvE and from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW. Reduced the focused burning duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds and the unfocused burning duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only. Reduced the cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Lightning Rod: Increased strike damage per hit on focused targets from 0.25 to 0.3. Increased the strike damage per hit on unfocused targets from 0.15 to 0.17.
• Electric Artillery: Reduced the casting time by 0.24 seconds. Increased the range from 600 to 900. This skill no longer requires you to face your target. Increased the burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Devastator: Reduced the casting time and aftercast by 0.25 seconds. Increased the range from 450 to 600. Increased the damage coefficient from 1.75 to 2.0. Increased the burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Boiling Point: Reduced the internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 1 second.
• Modified Ammunition: Reduced the damage per condition from 2% to 1.5% in WvW only.

Holosmith

• Photon Blitz: Increased the total damage coefficient from 1.6 to 1.84 in PvP and WvW.
• Prime Light Beam: Reduced the field's number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only.
• Laser's Edge: Reduced the maximum damage bonus from 15% to 10% in WvW only.

Guardian

• Permeating Wrath: Reduced the number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only.
• Daybreaking Slash: This skill will now heal the player as well as other allies. Increased the base healing multiplier from 0.03 to 0.06. Increased the healing power multiplier from 0.03 to 0.06. Increased the target cap to 5 for both allies and enemies.
• Helio Rush: This skill is now a targeted area-of-effect skill and will heal the player as well as other allies. Increased the movement speed by 15%. Reduced the power multiplier from 1.25 to 0.8 in PvP and WvW. The illuminated version of this skill now additionally deals bonus damage to enemies and inflicts weakness on them.
• Gleaming Disc: The non-illuminated version of this skill now has a visual effect. The illuminated version of this skill now does more damage to enemies on the follow-up shock wave.
• Solar Storm: The illuminated version of this skill now has a higher limit on the number of strikes per target and additionally heals for each condition removed from allies. Reduced the power multiplier from 2 to 1.8 in PvE only.
• Symbol of Luminance: Resistance granted by this skill can now stack with other sources of resistance, but the symbol can only grant resistance once per interval to each affected target.

Dragonhunter

• Dragon's Maw: Increased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only.
• Test of Faith: This skill's passthrough strike now deals additional damage to disabled targets. Reduced the passthrough damage coefficient from 2.5 to 1.88 in PvP only.
• Procession of Blades: Reduced the total damage coefficient from 4.4 to 3.6 in PvP only.

Mesmer

• Mind the Gap: This skill's visual effect has been improved to better outline the outer edge. This skill now always grants Clarity on hit. This skill's outer edge will now always deal critical damage when it strikes an enemy. Increased the damage coefficient from 1.4 to 1.54 in PvP only.
• Imaginary Inversion: This skill will now cleanse conditions at the start of the cast, regardless of whether you have Clarity. This skill no longer requires hitting an enemy to heal, and this healing is now increased with Clarity.
• Phantasmal Lancer: This skill's phantasms no longer dash at the target and now launch their spears toward the target, inflicting damage in an area. This skill now grants swiftness to the player. Increased the damage from 0.4 to 0.6 in WvW and PvP.

Mirage

• Fractured Glass: Increased the damage per hit from 0.25 to 0.3125 in WvW and PvP.
• Phantom Razor: This skill now inflicts crippled for 1.5 seconds instead of dazing the target.
• Mirage Mantle: Fixed an issue that prevented Sharp Edges from stacking duration properly.

Necromancer

• Soul shard damage and healing information is now visible when viewing the Perforate tooltip.
• Soul shard duration now refreshes when gaining new shards.
• Deadly Slice: This skill now grants one soul shard if it strikes an enemy.
• Perforate: Increased the power coefficient per strike from 0.46 to 0.5 in PvE only.
• Isolate: Increased the power coefficient from 1.8 to 2.4 in PvE only.
• Addle: Reduced the number of soul shards required to inflict immobilized from 4 to 3. This skill now always grants its bonus effects when striking a defiant enemy. Increased the base number of soul shards generated from 1 to 2. Increased the power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.9 in PvE only.
• Extirpate: This skill now grants 12% life force and 5 might upon striking the first enemy, plus 2% life force and 1 might for each additional enemy struck. Increased the power coefficient from 3.4 to 3.8 in PvE only.
• Signet of Vampirism: Reduced the casting time by 0.4 seconds.
• Vile Blast: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 18 seconds in PvP only.
• Dread: Reduced the internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 1 second.

Reaper

• "Suffer!": Increased the cooldown from 16 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.
• "Nothing Can Save You!": Reduced the duration of unblockable stacks from 10 seconds to 6 seconds in all game modes. Increased the cooldown from 16 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP only.

Ranger

• Drake's Swipe: Increased the power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.9 in PvE only.
• Bee's Sting: Increased the power coefficient from 0.7 to 1.2 in PvE and from 0.466 to 0.6 in WvW and PvP.
• Mongoose's Frenzy: Increased the power coefficient per hit from 1.0 to 1.25 in PvE only.
• Wolf's Onslaught: Increased the power coefficient per hit from 1.0 to 1.25 and the follow-up damage coefficient from 2 to 2.5 in PvE only. Reduced the casting time of the follow-up attack by 0.267 seconds.
• Falcon's Stoop: Increased the power coefficient from 1.8 to 2.2 and reduced the cooldown from 10 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only.
• Owl's Flight: Increased the power coefficient from 2.16 to 3.25 and reduced the cooldown from 10 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only. Improved the tracking of this skill when you have a target.
• Warclaw's Engage: Decreased the size this skill's visual effect. Increased the power coefficient from 2.64 to 3 in PvE only.
• Predator's Ambush: Decreased the size of this skill's visual effect. Increased the power coefficient from 2.64 to 4 in PvE only.
• Panther's Prowl: This skill now grants Hunter's Prowess when used. Hunter's Prowess allows the use of a stealth skill, even if the player is revealed. Reduced the number of charges from 2 to 1 in PvP only. Increased the stealth duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Spider's Web: This skill no longer shares its cooldown with Panther's Prowl. Increased the cooldown from 10 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE and from 15 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• The pet selection panel now displays more pets per row.
• Flourish: Reduced the power coefficients from 0.75/1.0 to 0.6/0.9 in PvP only.
• Thistleguard: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP only.
• Wild Strikes: Reduced the total damage from 2.4 to 2.0 and reduced the dazed duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvP only.
• Healing Spring: Reduced the duration of regeneration per pulse from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Smoke Cloud (Juvenile Smokescale): Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Stalk (Juvenile Jaguar): This skill will no longer apply stealth to downed players. Increased the cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds in PvP only.
• Moment of Clarity: Reduced the daze and stun duration increase from 50% to 10% in PvP and WvW.

Untamed

• Ravager's Abandon: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.0625 in PvP only.
• Rampant Growth: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.91 to 0.75 in PvP only.
• Relentless Whirl: Reduced the total power coefficient from 1.7 to 1.5 in PvP only.
• Enhancing Impact: Reduced the quickness duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP only.

Revenant

• The first spear skill slot's melee and ranged autoattacks have been separated to give each its own tooltip. Each attack now inflicts 1 stack of vulnerability for 6 seconds in addition to applying torment.
  • Abyssal Fire: This skill's casting time has been slightly reduced. This skill now attacks up to 3 targets in a radius of 180 upon striking a foe. This attack is a 20% projectile finisher.
  • Abyssal Strike: The casting time has been reduced from nearly 1 second to slightly over 0.5 seconds. Increased the attack radius to match other melee skills.
• Abyssal Force: Reduced the energy cost from 5 to 4. Reduced the casting time to 0.5 seconds. This skill now inflicts 1 stack of burning for 8 seconds instead of inflicting torment.
• Abyssal Blitz: This skill now drops a maximum of 3 mines, and the distance at which they are created has been slightly increased. Blitz mines now inflict weakness in addition to slow and chill effects.
• Abyssal Blot: This skill now pulls enemies on its first damage pulse instead of its last. Each pulse now inflicts poison for 6 seconds.
• Abyssal Raze: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 1.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds. This skill now inflicts torment without requiring Crushing Abyss, and it inflicts 2 stacks of torment per stack of Crushing Abyss. Increased the bonus strike damage per stack of Crushing Abyss from 20% to 33% in PvE and from 10% to 17% in PvP and WvW. Reduced the energy cost of this skill from 10 to 8.
• Crushing Abyss: Reduced the maximum stacks from 5 to 3.
• Coalescence of Ruin: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.45 to 1.3 in PvP only.
• Phase Smash: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only.
• Field of the Mists: Reduced the field duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.

Renegade

• Orders from Above: Reduced the alacrity duration per pulse from 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds in WvW only.

Vindicator

• Angsiyan's Trust: Reduced the energy granted from 25 to 10 in PvP only.
• Death Drop: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.335 to 0.75 in PvP only.
• Empire Divided: Reduced the power bonus from 240 to 120 in PvP only.

Thief

• Using a lead attack skill will now always enable follow-up skills unless the skill is interrupted.
• Using a follow-up skill will now always enable finisher skills unless the skill is interrupted.
• Mantis Sting: Reduced the bleeding from 2 stacks for 6 seconds to 1 stack for 4 seconds in PvE only.
• Unsuspecting Strike: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to be affected by movement speed.
• Entangling Asp: Reduced the poison stacks from 2 for 6 seconds to 1 for 2 seconds in PvE only.
• Falling Spider: Increased the number of targets struck from 3 to 5. Reduced the bleeding and poison stacks from 2 for 7 seconds to 1 for 3.5 seconds in PvE only.
• Shattering Assault: Increased the number of targets struck from 3 to 5.
• Ashen Assault and Malicious Ashen Assault: Increased the attack range from 170 to 240. Reduced the bleeding and poison stacks from 4 for 8 seconds to 3 for 7 seconds in PvE only.

• Fixed an issue that prevented some spear skills from generating shadow force.
• Tactical Strike: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.33 to 1.1 in PvP only.
• Infiltrator's Return: Increased the initiative cost from 2 to 3 in PvP only.

Deadeye

• Mercy: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 45 seconds in PvP only.
• Malicious Tactical Strike: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.33 to 1.1 in PvP only.

Warrior

• Mighty Throw: This skill now produces four spear shards regardless of range. The initial spear projectile deals more damage, and the follow-up shard projectiles deal less damage. This skill now counts as an explosion.
• Maiming Spear: Reduced the casting time by approximately 15%. Increased the aftershock damage coefficient from 0.6 to 1.2 in PvE only. The aftershock now occurs in a radius of 240 regardless of range, deals bonus damage to the enemy closest to the epicenter, and counts as an explosion.
• Disrupting Throw: This skill has been moved to the third skill slot. This skill now immobilizes at all ranges. This skill additionally dazes the first target struck by the projectile. Reduced the total casting time by 33%. Decreased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Spearmarshal's Support: This skill has been moved to the fourth skill slot. Reduced the damage multiplier from 0.7 to 0.6 in PvE. The target now takes increased damage from this skill. Spears now spawn over the target without delay, regardless of its distance from the player. Increased the radius from 90 to 120. Decreased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Spear Swipe: This skill has been moved to the fifth skill slot. Players can now move freely while casting this skill. The movement portion of this skill now occurs at the same time the projectile fires. Increased the power coefficient from 1.5 to 2.0 in PvE. This skill's projectile is now unblockable, reflects missiles, and counts as a projectile finisher. The first enemy struck by this skill's projectile is launched instead of knocked back. Increased the evasion duration from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds. Increased the cooldown from 10 seconds to 20 seconds. The cooldown is decreased if an attack is evaded or at least one enemy was struck by the projectile.
• Harrier's Toss: Reduced the casting time by approximately 33%. This does not affect the evade duration. Players leap higher and can now move freely while casting this skill. This skill now does more damage to the target closest to its epicenter.
• Wild Throw: Reduced the total casting time from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds; the total number of spears thrown remains the same. This skill now deals more damage to the first enemy it strikes. This skill is now a projectile finisher and can no longer be used on targets behind you.
• Path to Victory: This skill no longer inflicts weakness. Reduced the damage coefficient from 0.91 to 0.5 in PvP only.
• Snap Pull: Increased the cooldown from 18 seconds to 22 seconds in PvP only.
• Impale: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2 in PvP only.

Gem Store Improvements

 The following changes have been made to categories and tabs in the Gem Store to aid in item searchability and to fix an issue that caused text to overlap under certain circumstances:

• The Toys tab is now named Novelties.
• The Mounts category and Skiff Skins category have been merged into the Mounts and Skiffs category under the Style tab.
• The Jade Bot Skins category, Emotes category, and Fishing Rod Skins category have been merged into the Miscellaneous category under the Style tab.

 

Game Update Notes: July 30, 2024

07/30/2024—July 30 Release Notes

Festival of the Four Winds

On behalf of Queen Jennah of Kryta and the Captain's Council of Lion's Arch, you are cordially invited to participate in the return of the Festival of the Four Winds!

High atop the Labyrinthine Cliffs, our Zephyrite friends have been working in tandem with Lion's Arch to host an incredible variety of fun vendors and events to entertain visitors from all across Tyria. This celebration of unity and peace between our cultures is more important than ever before, and we hope that you will join us in the festivities.

In this spirit of cooperation, Queen Jennah has personally overseen the reopening of the Crown Pavilion, featuring a variety of challenges for Tyria's finest to test their mettle!

Transportation to the festivities couldn't be easier! Special hot air balloons are now stationed in each nation's capital city. Visitors can also sail directly on the ship from Lion's Arch.

We look forward to seeing you at the festival!

—Captain Ellen Kiel

• Complete the (Annual) Four Winds Customs meta-achievement to earn the Beach Trunks, a new leg armor piece appropriate for seashore fun.
  • Last year's meta-achievement reward, the Zephyrite Headband, can now be purchased from the festival reward vendors.
• A new Sandswept weapon set is now available. You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the (Annual) Four Winds Customs meta-achievement and the (Weekly) Four Winds Festivities achievement.
  • Last year's Sun-Grown set can now be acquired from the weekly festival rewards vendor.
• The long-awaited Zephyrite short bow, torch, and warhorn are now available from Blessing of the Four Winds containers. Once you've unlocked one of these weapon skins, you can also acquire its upgraded Sun-Blessed form from a Zephyrite Weapon Enchanter.
• Contents of the Zephyrite Supply Boxes have been updated, including three new weapons crafted by a traveling weaponsmith.
• Added a new Mini Sea Turtle to the festival reward vendors in Labyrinthine Cliffs and Crown Pavilion.
• A new event[AI1]  has been added to the Labyrinthine Cliffs seaside. Help the Zephyrites prepare for the treasure hunt by filling water balloons at the shore and sending them to the upper docks by kite basket.
• Updated the trading prices at the Bazaar of the Four Winds.
• Added new festival guild hall decorations:
  • Krytan Garden Column
  • Elonian Bazaar Shade
  • Beach House Spiral Stairs
  • Skimmer Rental Post
• Various issues have been fixed to ensure a safer and more pleasant festival for all participants.

The Festival of the Four Winds will be available for three weeks, from July 30 to August 20. Enjoy the festivities!

07/16/2024—July 16 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Updated the behavior of the away-from-keyboard timer that returns players to the character-select screen after extended periods of inactivity. In open-world maps, the time remaining before a player who has not manually moved their character or performed any skill inputs is returned to character select is now reduced to 5 minutes if the player enters combat.
• Removed rocks that were blocking access to mursaat tokens 19 and 31 in Ember Bay.

Items

• Fixed an issue that prevented some legendary armor pieces from becoming invisible under the effect of thief stealth skills like Shadow Refuge.
• Updated the Communal Boost Bonfire with the following changes:
  • The spawn radius of the wood has been reduced.
  • Players can now place the Communal Boost Bonfire, select its boost, and interact with it, even if they are already under the effect of one of its boosts.
  • A Locked Bonfire status will now apply to Communal Boost Bonfires for the first two minutes after they are placed, and only the owner will be able to select a boost during that period. When it expires, it will be replaced by a Public Bonfire status, and any player can select a boost if one has not already been selected.
  • Players can now interact with a Communal Boost Bonfire multiple times to refresh the boost, up to a maximum of 60 minutes. The boost will not be refreshed if the maximum time limit has already been reached.

Structured Player vs. Player

Automated Tournament Updates

• The frequency of daily automated tournaments has been reduced from 8 to 4 per day.
  • All EU server tournaments will occur during their standard prime-time player activity period.
  • On North American servers, 3 tournaments will occur during NA's standard prime-time player activity period. One tournament is timed to occur during Oceanic (OCX) prime time.
• A new weekly automated tournament has been added. This tournament happens every Sunday at the following regional times:
  • EU: 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7)
  • NA: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7)
• A new monthly variety automated tournament will happen every second Saturday of each month at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7).
  • This tournament will alternate between 2v2 and 3v3 modes.
• Tournament of Legends will occur every 6 months on the third Saturday of each month at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7).

Structured PvP Titles

• The "Champion Brawler" title awarded for winning 10,000 rated arena games is now colored pink.
• Added a new colored tournament title, "Champion of Champions," for consistent high placement in the Kormir's Clash monthly automated tournament. Players accrue points by placing in the top 4 teams. First place awards 30 points, second place awards 15 points, and third and fourth place both award 10 points. The title is earned upon reaching 120 points.

Djinn's Dominion Objective Update

• The lamp map objective has received several updates:
  • The objective now requires channeling, rather than being awarded by standing within a capture circle boundary.
  • The special action skill is no longer granted to the entire team. Only the player who channeled the lamp will gain access to it.
  • Leaving the lamp arena now causes subsequent uses to apply Weakened Soul for longer durations. The maximum penalty lasts for 30 seconds, refreshing when you enter or exit the lamp.
• Special action skills have been updated:
  • Giant Meteor is no longer ground targeted, and it is now unblockable and requires a targeted enemy. The meteor will be attached to the target upon casting.
  • Disenchantment Field has been replaced by Waters of Life, a ground-targeted area of effect that revives allies and finishes downed enemies within its radius.
  • Waxing Doom has been replaced by Starfall, which damages and launches enemies in a radius around the player. Using Starfall on an enemy capture point will instantly neutralize it.
• Fixed an issue that prevented jumping players from being counted as present in the Market (middle) capture circle.

World vs. World

General

This update focuses on changing some aspects of WvW scoring, as well as some siege updates and various WvW quality-of-life improvements.

These next few changes are part of an effort to make scoring feel healthier and to make fighting for structures feel more valuable. We will monitor the impacts of these changes and adjust as needed to maintain healthy scoring as play patterns evolve.

• The victory point values from skirmishes will now be weighted based on player activity during the skirmish.
• The war score awarded for capturing objectives has been increased and will additionally increase based on the objective's tier when it is captured.
• The war score awarded for defeating an enemy player in WvW is increasing from 2 to 3.

These changes are focused on making gameplay in and around sieging structures feel healthier, paying particular attention to the tools defenders have available. We continue to strive to make both attacking and defending feel good for players.

• Objective-contesting conditions are changing. Objectives will now become contested if the lord is put into combat or if a gate or wall is damaged below 98% health.
• The Emergency Waypoint tactic now spawns 3 waypoints in various locations near the lord's room in Stonemist Castle and keeps.
• Alacrity can no longer be applied to players using siege equipment and will be removed from players when activating siege equipment.
• Boons other than swiftness can no longer be applied to siege golems.
• Flame ram health has been lowered by 50%. Iron Hide will be applied to flame rams when they are operated.
• Guild siege golem supply cost has increased from 50 to 75.
• Arrow cart supply cost has been reduced from 40 to 25.
• Superior arrow cart supply cost has been reduced from 50 to 35.
• Trebuchet supply cost has been reduced from 100 to 50.
• Superior trebuchet supply cost has been reduced from 120 to 60.

Rewards

• Added a new Corrupted Hero weapon set to WvW.
  • Exotic versions of the weapons have been added to the Mist-Hardened Lockbox.
  • Ascended versions of the weapons can be acquired from a new Mystic Forge recipe utilizing rare Hero weapons, which are acquired from the Hero Weapon Reward Track.
• Added varietal seeds to herb synthesizers.

06/25/2024—June 25 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Land Spear Beta Event

The land spear beta event begins this Thursday! The event runs from June 27 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) until June 30 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7). Every Guild Wars 2 account in good standing, including Play-for-Free accounts, will automatically get character slots marked "Beta" when the beta event begins. Clicking on one of these slots will allow you to create a character using any of the nine Guild Wars 2 professions.

General

• Added an option to hide or unhide aquabreathers in the equipment panel.
  • When the aquabreather is hidden and the player's equipped head armor is not hidden, the head armor will be shown when underwater.
  • The aquabreather's attributes will still be used when underwater.
• Fixed an issue that caused some vendors' interfaces to scroll down when purchasing items from them.
• Updated the Sunken Treasure Hunter content in anticipation of an upcoming weekly event:
  • Sunken chests have been added to the end of the Aquatic Ruins fractal and Siren's Reef fractal.
    • Deadly piranhas will now subside after the Siren's Reef boss encounter is completed.
  • In addition to resetting when the Master Diver achievement is completed, sunken chests will now also reset upon logging in or your first time entering a map after the weekly reset.
  • The locations of some sunken chests have been adjusted within the map they are located in, primarily where they overlapped with quaggan villages.
    • Hint cinematics for the chests have been updated.
  • Ornate rusted keys can now be double-clicked to show a hint cinematic for the next available sunken chest in the Master Diver achievement.
  • Dive Master Astora's merchant inventory has been updated.
    • Swim-speed infusion upgrades have been condensed to encourage upgrading in increments of 5; single-point upgrades are still available.
    • An account-based swim-speed infusion is now available. This infusion begins at +15 increased swimming speed and can be permanently improved for all characters on your account by purchasing upgrade items from Dive Master Astora.
    • Infusable, exotic-quality aquabreathers are now available so that players can enjoy their swim-speed infusions before they have earned an ascended aquabreather.
    • A limited number of extra ornate rusted keys can be purchased for karma each week, and excess keys can be exchanged for karma.
    • Some of the new items will be available as prizes in an upcoming weekly event.
  • Made various functionality improvements to opening and resetting sunken chests.
• Lowered the difficulty of the "Help Lucretia get back to Garenhoff" event to make it easier for one player to complete.
• Fixed an issue that caused players to become trapped in the catapults near Garrison Waypoint.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the rockslides encountered in the Missing Brood collection from being in the proper animation state.

Fractals

Lonely Tower Fractal

• Reduced the boon corruption Eparch causes with Envy Empowerment.
• Eparch's Consume skill will only absorb emotion globules that are 5 or more seconds old.
• Reduced Eparch's health.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Wave of Envy from hitting enemies if they were standing too close to Eparch.
• Reduced the boon corruption dealt by Wave of Envy. The skill no longer corrupts boons on players who evade the attack.
• Reduced the health of the rift guardian champions summoned during the encounter in challenge mode.

Strike Missions

• Some balance adjustments have been made to the Temple of Febe challenge mode encounter to make it more accessible. These changes do not apply to the legendary version of the encounter.
  • Reduced the duration of the Insatiable effect applied by Empowered Insatiable Hunger to 3 minutes.
  • Reduced the number of stacks of Empowered that Cerus gains from Empowered Smash to 2.
  • Reduced the health and toughness of Malicious Shadows.
  • Reduced the penalty for failure during Empowered Crushing Regret. Failure to have enough people to absorb an attack will cause players to be downed instead of defeated, as will being hit by two of the attacks. Multiple failures or being hit by the skill more than two times will still cause players to be defeated.

Player vs. Player

• The number of ascended shards of glory required to purchase ascended gear from PvP vendors has been decreased.
  • The cost for a set of ascended armor has been lowered from 1,200 ascended shards of glory to 800 ascended shards of glory.
  • The cost for a two-handed ascended weapon has been lowered from 400 ascended shards of glory to 200 ascended shards of glory.
  • The cost for a one-handed ascended weapon has been lowered from 400 ascended shards of glory to 100 ascended shards of glory.
• The following changes will apply to ranked reward tracks starting with the next PvP league season, Season 42, which begins on July 2.
  • The total number of boxes of grandmaster marks obtainable from the reward track has been increased from 3 to 9. The repeatable byzantium chest also contains a box of grandmaster marks.
  • Instant reward track potions have been added to each tier at a rate of 3 potions per 10 pips.
  • Vials of karma have been added to each tier at a rate of 3 vials per 10 pips.

Personal Story

Secrets of the Obscure

• Additional messaging has been added to chapter 18, The Eleventh Hour, to recommend completion of the Into the Spider's Lair meta-event in Inner Nayos before proceeding into the story instance.
• A new achievement, True Ending: The Eleventh Hour, has been added to "The Midnight King" story achievements. Successfully completing the Into the Spider's Lair meta-event with The Eleventh Hour as your active story step before entering the instance will award the achievement.
  • This achievement has been added to the list of achievements that award progress toward completing the Secrets of the Obscure: The Midnight King Mastery meta-achievement.

Items

• Players who misplaced their Saga's End Draconic Core or would like extras can now purchase additional copies from Sarettokk in Lion's Arch after completing all requirements to earn the item.
• Suffused Obsidian armor skin consumables' rarity has been updated from legendary to exotic to prevent the deletion confirmation from requiring players to type out the name.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Eparch's Empowered Greatsword and Eparch's Empowered Sword skins from being unlocked in the wardrobe.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Saryx Backpiece, the Midnight King Backpiece, and the infused versions of both to grant exotic attribute values instead of ascended attribute values.

Profession Skills

Below are changes to the balance preview notes we previously shared. You can see the original balance preview notes here.

Elementalist

Catalyst

• Elemental Celerity: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to fail when the user was holding a conjured weapon in WvW and PvP.

Guardian

• Leap of Faith: Increased the radius from 180 to 240.

Firebrand

• Mantras now automatically charge in combat in PvE only.
• Mantra of Solace: Increased the arc angle from 60 degrees to 160 degrees.
• Mantra of Lore: Increased the arc angle from 60 degrees to 160 degrees.
• Mantra of Potence: Increased the arc angle from 60 degrees to 160 degrees.
• Mantra of Liberation: Increased the arc angle from 60 degrees to 160 degrees.

Willbender

• Rushing Justice: Increased the Justice effect duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only.

Necromancer

Reaper

• Blighter's Boon: Increased the base healing from 85 to 101.

Ranger

• Stalk (Juvenile Jaguar): This skill now applies stealth to the ranger in addition to the pet. Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 35 seconds in WvW and PvP.

Revenant

Herald

• Facet of Darkness: Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.
• True Nature (Legendary Dragon): This skill now cleanses 3 conditions from nearby allies when used.

06/04/2024—June 4 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Prepurchase Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds

Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds arrives on August 20! Preorder the Standard, Deluxe, or Ultimate Edition of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds before release to unlock the Whispering Serpents Pauldrons Skin, a Serpent's Wrath weapon skin, and a new title, "Homesteader." You can learn more about our latest expansion here.

Dragon Bash Festival

It's time for Dragon Bash! It wouldn't be a proper celebration without your attendance. Join me in Hoelbrak for another moot for the ages! There will be tests of strength, racing, food, song, and—most importantly—ale.

I'll see you there. Unless, of course, you don't enjoy fun.

—Knut Whitebear

• Join the celebration in Hoelbrak! Celebrate Tyria's resistance against the Elder Dragons while engaging in a variety of festive games, including:
  • Dragon Arena: Show off your dragon-fighting prowess against lifelike holograms in the Dragon Arena, or challenge a more difficult gauntlet in Dragon Arena Survival.
  • Hologram Stampede: The fighting continues in the Hologram Stampede, a map-wide scramble to clear the Hoelbrak countryside of deadly enemies.
  • Piñata Bashing: Master the tradition of destroying dragon piñatas in the Piñata Bashing adventure.
  • Dragon Bash Rally: Speed around Hoelbrak in the Dragon Bash Rally mounted race.
  • Moa Race: Tigg's famous racing moas return in a moa race event. Put your zhaitaffy on the line and cheer on the winner!
• The festival meta-achievement, Annual Dragon Bash Feats, has been updated with a new reward, the Holographic Dragon Cuisses. Last year's reward, the Holographic Dragon Plate chest armor, can now be purchased from the Dragon Bash Merchant [Prizes].
• A new Sacred Crystal weapon set crafted by the Crystal Bloom is now available! You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the Dragon Bash Feats meta-achievement, and you can acquire additional weapons from the Dragon Bash Festivities weekly achievement. Last year's weapon set, the Dragonrender weapons, are now available from the Dragon Bash Weekly Trader.
• Three new Bonfire weapons are now available as a rare drop from Dragon Coffers. They can also be purchased from Sparking Stone [Weapons], a Dragon Bash vendor in Hoelbrak.
• A new mini, the Mini Mystical Blue Orb, has been added to the Dragon Bash rewards vendor.
• New guild decorations have been added:
  • Wrought Iron Dragon Statue
  • Wrought Iron Dragon Body
  • Wrought Iron Dragon Tail
  • Skyscale Rental Post
• The Dragon Arena has been updated with a sixth round and new champion to face, the holographic saltspray dragon!
• Dragon Arena Survival has been changed to Dragon Arena (Private), with a selectable difficulty modifier rather than needing to play through each difficulty in order.
• The (Annual) Going the Distance achievement now awards extra credit for finishing the full race event, reducing the number of race laps needed to complete it.
• Braham and Myrun are now updated with new conversations in the festival for players who have completed the Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons story.
• Tidied up small issues to ensure a friendly atmosphere for festivalgoers.
• The party rages for three weeks, from June 4 until June 25 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7). Get bashing!

General

• The Master of Masteries: Secrets of the Obscure achievement now properly updates progress when players log in.
• The Tier 2 Legendary Armor: Suffused Obsidian achievement has been updated to count completion of the Road to Heitor and the Fangs That Gnash event chains.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Tier 2 Legendary Armor: Suffused Obsidian achievement tracking effect to incorrectly display the number of world bosses defeated.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the "Defeat the enraged grawl rampaging through Martyr's Woods" event in Plains of Ashford from restarting.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the event UI from displaying the boss's name in the "Defeat the Risen and free Agent Raia from her broken battlesuit" event in Straits of Devastation.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the map from properly revealing in the Temple of Febe Strike Mission.
• One-Handed Skyscale Weapon Box: Fixed an issue that caused the Skyscale Shield skin to continue to appear as an option after the player had already unlocked the skin.
• What Was Before Achievement: Fixed an issue that caused players who hadn't started the achievement's collection to see visual effects relating to it. Fixed an issue that prevented players from receiving the special action skill needed to locate relics if they were defeated while the collection was active.

Amnytas

• Fixed issues in the "Help Lyhr bring order to the debate hall" and "Engage the avatars and free the Bastion of Balance" events.
• Fixed an issue that caused two ley lines in the Amnytas Supply Run adventure to ignore the "Disable Ley-line Riding" effect.
• Fixed an issue that caused players to get stuck between two intersecting ley lines.

Inner Nayos

• A new achievement, Inner Nayos Explorer, has been added. Completion of this achievement will progress the Skyfarer achievement.
• Adjusted the balance of the "Defend the turrets from being destroyed" event.
• The Fangs That Gnash: Added a voice-over callout when the colosseum begins to fall under enemy control.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Malignant Fog effect from being properly applied after revival if a player was still inside of Eparch's barrier.
• Updated the processing of voice-over dialogue at the end of the Into the Spider's Lair meta-event.
• Fixed an issue in the "Disrupt Apprentice Scyllan's ritual" event that caused the Temple of Charybda roof to prevent players from accessing top floor via the stairs.
• Fixed an issue that caused players to be suddenly teleported when navigating outside the Lost Altar.

Skywatch Archipelago

• Fixed an issue in which Ward Technician Ranald's voice over did not have proper processing during the "Burn grubs and insects with your skyscale" event.

Echovald Wilds

• Fixed an issue with the Forever Tree event chain.
• Adjusted the Temple of the Dredge event and the Igne Mossheart event chains to not depend on each other for restarting in order to allow easier access to the Temple of the Dredge mastery point.

Fractals

• The Lonely Tower: Added an in-world chest for completing the Cerus and Deimos encounter on both normal and challenge modes.
• The Lonely Tower: Essence orbs spawned during the final encounter will now display their names when moused over and will no longer be targeted by player skills as if they were hostile.

Personal Story

• Added limited skyscale access in chapter 19 of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure for players who don't have skyscales unlocked.

Items

• Guild weaponsmiths and guild armorers now sell Guild Kites. Guilds need to have Guild Armorer 1 or 2 or Guild Weaponsmith 1 or 2 to access this exchange.
• Fixed an issue in which the legendary relic was not using the legendary relic icon when selecting relics from Secrets of the Obscure Set 3.

World vs. World

• The World Restructuring beta will be activated as the full-time World vs. World team creation system beginning with WvW Resets in each region on Friday, June 14. Be sure to choose your guild before 11:45 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on Thursday, June 13 to be sorted into your desired team. You can do this by using the "Set as WvW Guild" option in the Guild Panel.

05/21/2024—May 21 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Release Highlights

• The final major release of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure is here, bringing the commander deeper into the world of Nayos, to the Citadel of Zakiros, where the indomitable Midnight King himself resides.
• The Wizard's Vault has been updated with new rewards and objectives.
• A new fractal dungeon has been added: the Lonely Tower.
• A challenge mode difficulty tier for Convergences has been added, as well as a new Convergences boss.
• A new Mastery tier, the Wayfinder Mastery, has been added to the Astral Ward Mastery track.
• New events and adventures have been added to Inner Nayos and Amnytas.
• A sixth guild slot has been unlocked for all accounts.
• Six new relics have been added.
• The second tier of the legendary Obsidian armor set has been added.
• Quality-of life updates have been made, including custom reticles for the action camera.
• A new ranger pet, the juvenile spinegazer, is now available.
• Updates have been made to World vs. World.

The Midnight King

After Peitha's failed gamble at the coliseum, turmoil grips Inner Nayos. Eparch hunkers in the spires of Zakiros, amassing unfathomable power. Isgarren has yet to commit the full might of the Astral Ward, but the time for Peitha's forces to strike runs short. Shoulder to shoulder with an unlikely alliance of soldiers, wizards, and demons, the wayfinder spearheads a desperate attempt to overthrow the Midnight King and take the throne of the Realm of Dreams.

Wizard's Vault

• The Wizard's Vault's inventory has been updated for the new season! Last season's unique rewards are now available in the Legacy shop.
• New Special Objectives for the season have been added, and more will appear over the course of the season, including Special Objectives associated with Bonus Events and Festivals.

Shop Inventory Updates

• The Legendary Weapon Starter Kit has been updated to set 4, with two new kits and two returning kits available.

Fractals

The Lonely Tower

Immediately following the foundation of the Astral Ward, Eparch finally returned to Tyria to strike back against Isgarren's "betrayal"—this time with a full entourage. Help Isgarren, Mabon, and Dagda navigate the crumbling halls of the Wizard's Tower and push the Kryptis back to where they came from.

• In order to make room for the new fractal, the fractals found on the following levels have been adjusted: 21, 25, 43, 50, 66, 75, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, and 100.

General

• A new ranger pet, the juvenile spinegazer, is available to tame inside of Inner Nayos.
• Squad messages under a certain length can now be viewed on the minimap by hovering over a commander tag icon.
• The maximum number of guild membership slots has been increased from 5 to 6 for all players.
• Reduced the number of correct channels required to open both lesser and greater arcane chests.
• Fixed an issue that prevented charge time from being properly reduced if a player with both Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire and Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure skyscale Masteries unlocked held the key to charge the Wall Spring ability before clinging to a wall.
• Kryptis rifts will now attract more enemies than before, and when enemies are defeated, reinforcements will arrive sooner. This change applies to all Kryptis rifts except those found in Inner Nayos.
• Fixed an issue that caused the list of active rifts accessed by using Scan for Rift to display Mount Maelstrom's map when viewing rift activity in Seitung Province and Seitung Province's map when viewing rift activity in Mount Maelstrom.
• Fixed an issue that prevented certain tier 2 Kryptis rift events from scaling properly.
• The bird whistle required to complete the Skyscale Toys collection is now available for purchase from Ohtrogg, Bird Whisperer, who is in Grostogg's Kraal near Ebbing Heart Run in Iron Marches.
• The Rising Spirits Mastery now activates upon entering most ley lines outside the Horn of Maguuma region.
• All lounge passes available for purchase from the Black Lion Trading Company now provide an option to teleport to the Wizard's Tower. To see this option, players must first unlock access to the Wizard's Tower by completing the sixth Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story chapter, Tower of Secrets.
• Fixed an issue that could cause progress toward completing the Defeat the Fire Elemental World Boss or Complete Events in Metrica Province objective in the Wizard's Vault to be awarded when events in Iron Marches were completed.
• Chapters 4 and 8 of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story will now properly award credit toward completing rift events in the following maps: Desert Highlands, Bloodstone Fen, Jahai Bluffs, Straits of Devastation, Auric Basin, Fireheart Rise, Dry Top, Amnytas, Inner Nayos, Frostgorge Sound, Cursed Shore, Bitterfrost Frontier, Iron Marches, Ember Bay, Crystal Oasis, Southsun Cove, Verdant Brink, Seitung Province, and New Kaineng City.
• Fixed an issue that prevented multiple updrafts in Skywatch Archipelago, Amnytas, and Inner Nayos from properly recognizing Mastery progression.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Qinkaishi Falls point of interest icon on the Echovald Wilds map from flashing when a player who had not discovered it moved their mouse over it.
• Unified the icon colors used in the Skyscale Target Practice adventures.
• Jade tech offensive and defensive protocols' effect cooldowns have been reverted to 30 seconds, down from 90 seconds. Note that the issue that allowed these effects to trigger more frequently than every 30 seconds remains fixed. This is in line with the original intent of these effects—to provide a temporary boost of power at the start of combat—and prevents the unintended behavior of using them to permanently maintain boons.
• Sons of Svanir in Bjora Marches will now count toward the Sons of Svanir's Bane achievement and the Defeat 100 Void Enemies or Sons of Svanir objective in the Wizard's Vault.
• Sons of Svanir enemies in the Dragonstorm event will now count as Sons of Svanir instead of icebrood for achievement progress.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Lady Shamshir bounty event in Domain of Istan from restarting properly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Ballistician Dexa from moving, halting progress in the "Collect scrap metal to help Ballistician Dexa build her siege weapon" event in Cursed Shore.
• Fixed an issue that caused an enemy in the "Clear Broken Spit of the Risen sea creatures replicating themselves" event in Straits of Devastation to be inaccessible, preventing event completion.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Captain Fa to become stuck during the Battle for the Jade Sea meta-event, halting event progress.
• Ramses and Arina will now display markers to indicate that optional conversation dialogue is available during chapter 11 of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story, Duress.
• In chapters 11, 12, and 13 of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story, party members will now be able to see conversations when the instance owner initiates them.
• A new achievement for collecting minis from Secrets of the Obscure has been added. Entering the Wizard's Tower or Lion's Arch will retroactively update progress.

Action Camera Reticle Settings

The ability to customize the shape and color of action camera targeting reticles has been added. This feature can be found in the General Options tab of the Options panel, below Cursor Contrast settings. This setting applies to all action camera uses, including aiming the skyscale's Fireball skill.

Skywatch Archipelago

• Lowered the difficulty of the "Protect the injured Rift Hunters" event to make it easier to complete with one player.

Amnytas

• Additional events and adventures that can be completed solo have been added to Amnytas.
• Decreased the number of ritual moves needed to complete the "Mimic Dagda's ritual moves to lend power to the summoning" objective during the "Defeat Nourys, the Eyes of the Abyss" stage of the Defense of Amnytas meta-event.
• The starlight lantern previously located in Cellar of Arcana in Amnytas has been moved outside, west of the point of interest, to make it available even when players cannot access the cellar.
• The Great Debate Hall's point of interest radius has been adjusted, and it can now be unlocked by standing near the main gate while it is closed.
• Fixed an issue that caused Forro's dialogue to play from their character model instead of the player's communication device during the "Help Forro purge corruption from the animals and return them home" event in Amnytas.
• Fixed an issue that caused the creatures in the "Help Forro purge corruption from the animals and return them home" event in Amnytas to display odd pathing behavior when moving into their kennels.

Inner Nayos

• The Road to Heitor and the Fangs that Gnash event chains have been rebalanced to allow shorter overall run times with the introduction of the Into the Spider's Lair meta-event.
• Inner Nayos map completion rewards have been updated to standard map completion rewards. The Gift of Inner Nayos is not included in this reward.
  • The number of starlight lanterns that must be lit to complete the Illuminating Inner Nayos achievement is unchanged and will persist regardless of map completion progress.
• The Inner Nayos explorable zone's first waypoint will now be unlocked upon entering the map for the first time if a player has access to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure and has completed chapter 11 or has started chapter 14 or chapter 17 of the story on any character.
• Added a fishing supplies vendor to the Astral Ward camp.
• New fishing holes will appear in bodies of water around Nyedra Surrounds and the Citadel of Zakiros following successful completion of the Into the Spider's Lair meta-event.
• Added a cooldown to the hint that appears when running out of loose vegetation during the "Use your skyscale to pick food and deliver it to the starving Kryptis" event.
• Fixed an issue that caused loose vegetation to remain visible after completing the "Use your skyscale to pick food and deliver it to the starving Kryptis" event.
• Reduced the cooldown of the Throw Food special action skill from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in the "Use your skyscale to pick food and deliver it to the starving Kryptis" event.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Frode and Emund's dialogue from playing properly over the player's communication device during the Fangs That Gnash event chain.
• During the "Defeat the Champion Avatar of Envy" event, encounters with Nereidum, Chosen of Charybda or Vespera, Scribe of Charybda will now alternate instead of the chance to encounter them being randomly determined.
• Reduced the frequency of dialogue lines heard while destroying Kryptis turrets in the "Use your skyscale to intercept magic around the extractor" event.
• Fixed an issue that caused some moving Kryptis turrets to have higher health compared to other turrets in the "Use your skyscale to intercept magic around the extractor" event.

The Wizard's Tower

• A laurel vendor, guild bank, and Black Lion Chest merchant have been added northeast of the Empyrean Plaza point of interest.
• Jade tech offensive and defensive protocols, a charging station, and a jade bot workbench have been added west of the Empyrean Plaza point of interest.

Items

• Stealth now correctly affects players wearing Perfected Envoy armor.
• The World Boss Portal Device available from the Black Lion Trading Company now includes notifications and teleporting options for Convergences. To access this option, players must first unlock the Wizard's Tower by completing chapter 6 of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story.
• Purchasing the Saryx Backpiece or Possession Infusion from Nikki the Lost in the Wizard's Tower now correctly requires completion of the Legendary Temple of Febe achievement.
• Drakkar's Hoard containers are now stackable.
• Fractal Weapon Crate containers are now stackable.
• The recipe components for the following enhancement stations have been updated:
  • Sharpening Stone Station
  • Tuning Crystal Station
  • Maintenance Oil Station
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from teleporting back to their previous map from the Noble's Folly lounge.

World vs. World

• Attack and defend events will now display the health bars of tower, keep, and castle lords.
• Siege disruptors are now unblockable.
• The Chilling Fog tactic has been renamed Healing Mist. This tactic will now deploy a healing mist throughout objectives that pulses healing to allied forces inside the objective for the duration.
• The amount of supply provided by the Supply Drop tactic has increased from 100 to 200.
• Keeps' base supply amount has increased from 400 to 450. Their supply increase at tier 3 has increased from 200 to 250.
• The capture boundaries for Stonemist Castle and the northern camp in Alpine Borderlands have been slightly increased.
• A new one-time purchase container has been added to Legendary Commander War Razor's Titles tab. This container will allow all players to select a title representing the current WvW world names in preparation for their retirement with World Restructuring.
• Added the Next Team Creation Lockout timer to the Guild Panel UI. Once the countdown timer is complete, players will be unable to change their WvW guild membership until the next WvW reset for their region.

Profession Skills

Engineer

• Holosmith: Fixed an issue that caused some players to use the engineer version of certain sword weapon skills instead of the holosmith version, even when the holosmith elite specialization was equipped.
• Surprise Shot: Increased the cooldown from 8 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP only.
• Particle Accelerator: Increased the cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only.
• Aim-Assisted Rocket: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to begin its internal cooldown when a missile struck an ally.
• Flashbang: Reduced the dazed duration from 1 second to 0.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Lock On: Reduced the revealed duration when striking a stealthed target from 6 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only. Reduced the revealed duration when disabling a target from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only.

Mesmer

• Mantra of Recovery: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP only.
• Time Warp: This skill no longer inflicts chilled.
• Effervescence: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to be easily cancelled early.

Ranger

• Force of Nature: Reduced the damage bonus from 15% to 10% in PvP and WvW. Reduced the stability stacks from 5 to 1 in PvP only. Reduced the mace-skill recharge reduction from 100% to 20% in PvP only.
• Rampant Growth: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.0 to 0.91 in PvP only.
• Heavy Shot (Juvenile Siege Turtle): Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 in PvP and WvW.

Revenant

• Coalescence of Ruin: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.75 to 1.45 in PvP only. Increased the height of the damage hit box.
• Field of the Mists: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.35 to 1.1 in PvP and WvW.
• Urn of Saint Viktor: Reduced the strike damage reduction and the condition damage reduction from 50% to 33% in PvP only. Increased the cooldown from 2 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP only.

Thief

• Venomous Volley: Reduced the poison duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvE only.
• Harrowing Storm: Reduced the torment duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds in PvE only.
• Cunning Salvo: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to restore profession-mechanic resources when reflected by a non-thief player.
• Malicious Cunning Salvo: Reduced the bleeding stacks from 2 to 1 in PvE only.

 

Game Update Notes: April 16, 2024

04/16/2024—April 16 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: Due to possible incompatibilities, the game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

Super Adventure Festival

Moto's world-renowned Super Adventure Box returns again! Explore two worlds (and one test zone) of excitement, peril, and educational entertainment to earn holographic weapons and a variety of loot. Travelers can visit the Super Adventure Box in Rata Sum—temporary portals have been placed in each major city to facilitate easy travel to the scenic hub of asuran culture!

• Complete the festival's meta-achievement, (Annual) Super Adventure Box Nostalgia, to earn the new Powered Shoulders armor! Last year's reward, the Powered Gloves, are now available from the Super Adventure Box traders.
• The new Golem Buster weapon set is now available! You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the Super Adventure Box Nostalgia meta-achievement, and you can earn additional choices through weekly festival achievements.
• New weapons have been added to the Retro-Forged set! You can purchase these weapons directly from a festival vendor or find them as rare drops in Super Loot Bags.
• The (Annual) Super Adventure Box Nostalgia meta-achievement has been updated with additional goals, including the box's prototype level, the World 3 Test Zone!
• The weekly Super Adventure Festival achievements have been combined into a single achievement, (Weekly) Super Replay.
• New updates have been added to the Test Zone:
  • Shops!
  • Blue oozes!
  • Secret caves!
  • A coin-collecting adventure!
  • And new achievements to go along with them. Delve into the caves of the Test Zone, aid the miner choya, and gain never-before-seen tools for your super adventure!
• The Mega Bomb has been updated to use ammunition charges rather than consuming baubles on use.
• New Super Adventure Box-themed guild decorations have been added! Turn your hall into the cavernous level of your dreams.
  • Super Grand Gate
  • Super Owl Statue
  • Super Red Crystal
  • Jackal Rental Post
• Special objectives are available in the Wizard's Vault to earn extra astral acclaim as you enjoy the festival.
• A number of super adventure-related bugs have been fixed to ensure a safe education for all heroes.
• Festivities begin on April 16 and continue until May 7 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7). 

Cosmetic Inspection

• The new cosmetic inspection feature has been added. You can use it to view a targeted player's equipped outfit, armor skins, weapon skins, and dyes.
  • You can bring up the inspection option by right-clicking on a player's portrait or by typing "/inspect" with a player targeted. If no player is targeted, you'll see your own character's information.
  • Weapon information is hidden in competitive maps.
• Many skins will now include information about the primary source for obtaining them when viewed in the Wardrobe or Inspect panels.
  • Due to the number of weapon and armor skins in the vast world of Tyria, the source descriptions are a work in progress that will be completed over time.

World Polish

• Jade Tech Offensive Protocol and Jade Tech Defensive Protocol have received the following updates:
  • Increased the duration of jade tech offensive and defensive overcharge effects per activation from 15 minutes to 45 minutes.
  • Increased the maximum stack duration for jade tech offensive and defensive overcharge effects from 2.25 hours to 3 hours.
  • Removed the time-out period for applying additional jade tech offensive and defensive overcharge effects and shortened the duration of interactions.
  • Increased the internal cooldown for jade tech offensive and defensive overcharge application when entering combat from 30 seconds to 90 seconds.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Defeat the Claw of Jormag World Boss or Complete Events in Frostgorge Sound weekly objective in the Wizard's Vault to only progress by one point when the Claw of Jormag itself was defeated, rather than instantly completing.
• Fixed a client crash in Convergences.

Items

• Hero's choice chests will now appear in a clickable pop-up UI chest instead of being manually obtained from a chest object in the world.

World vs. World

The following changes are part of an ongoing effort to make fighting for—and in—objectives feel better for attacking groups, as the defenders' advantage inside their own structures was previously too strong. While we don't want to swing that advantage completely in favor of attacking groups, we also want to encourage player interaction so that large portions of attacks against structures don't feel like a slog with little payoff. We feel that these changes will help to incentivize more player vs. player interactions while still allowing for defensive tactical gameplay. We will continue to monitor how these changes affect sieges and structure attacks.

• Across all objective tiers, walls and gates will now be rebuilt when 50% of their health has been restored.
• Several objectives' capture boundaries have been resized in all four maps:
  • Resource camp capture boundaries are now the same size in all four maps, with two outliers: Rogue's Quarry (the green world's northern camp in Eternal Battlegrounds) and Hamm's Lab (the northern camp in Desert Borderlands) remain unchanged. Generally, this is a reduction in capture boundary size for Alpine Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds camps and an increase for Desert Borderlands camps.
  • Capture boundaries in O'del Academy, Crankshaft Depot, and Parched Outpost (northwest, southwest, and southeast Desert Borderlands towers) have been reduced.
  • Stonemist Castle's capture boundary has been reduced and centered.
  • Capture boundaries for Green World Keep, Red World Keep, and Blue World Keep in Eternal Battlegrounds have all been reduced.
  • Capture boundaries for garrisons in Alpine Borderlands have been reduced and centered.
  • Capture boundaries for Dreadfall Bay and Ascension Bay in Alpine Borderlands have been reduced and now match those of Shadaran Hills and Askalion Hills.
  • Synthesizer and tactivator locations have been moved in most camps to ensure that they are still inside the capture boundaries.
• Presence of the Keep and Guild Objective Aura bonus effects now provide +25 power, precision, toughness, and vitality instead of +100.
• The Empower healing skill that was added to keep lords in Alpine Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds will now grant stability to allies it affects.
• Siege golems no longer cause capture objectives to be contested in WvW.
• Flame rams' Iron Will skill now shares a cooldown between players.
• The Siege Disabled effect marker has been removed from siege weapons affected by siege disruptors.

The next few changes continue from a recent update that added new bag options with grandmaster mark shards included in the price. Our goal for this, and for updates from last year, is to give WvW players more options for spending their WvW currencies and improve quality of life for currency exchange in WvW. We felt that a surplus of memories of battle, specifically, brought the price down too far and that there were not enough opportunities to spend them. We will continue keeping an eye on this vendor and other new purchase options to determine whether we need to make further updates.

• Proofs of heroics and testimonies of desert heroics can now be traded to heroics notaries in exchange for testimonies of jade heroics. All items offered by heroics notaries have been updated to require testimonies of jade heroics.
• Memories of battle are no longer available for purchase from Dugan, and some of the merchant's purchasing options have been updated.
• An option to exchange boxes of grandmaster marks for grandmaster mark shards has been added to the skirmish supervisor.

Profession Skills

Engineer

• Gleam Saber: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to reduce the recharge time of Radiant Arc by 3 seconds when the holosmith elite specialization was not equipped.
• Photonic Blasting Module: Reduced the damage coefficient from 3.5 to 2.5 in WvW only.
• Prime Light Beam: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to strike 10 targets instead of the intended 5.
• Essence of Animated Sand: Reduced the barrier healing power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 in WvW only. Reduced the initial might from 5 stacks to 2 stacks in WvW and PvP.
• Essence of Living Shadows: Reduced the initial conditions cleansed from 2 to 1 in WvW only.
• Essence of Liquid Wrath: Fixed an issue that caused the tooltip to display longer durations than intended in WvW only.
• Bulwark Gyro: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in WvW only. Reduced the base initial barrier from 1,620 to 1,140 and the base pulsing barrier from 810 to 560 in WvW only. Reduced the initial barrier healing power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.5 and the pulse barrier healing power coefficient from 0.4 to 0.25 in WvW only.

Guardian

• Symbol of Protection: Reduced the symbol damage coefficient from 0.4 to 0.25 in WvW only.

Mesmer

• Fixed an issue that prevented the shimmering visual effect from appearing on the skill bar for characters using the mirage elite specialization.
• Chaotic Transference: This trait no longer shares chaos aura with nearby allies. It now grants regeneration to nearby allies when you apply chaos aura to yourself.
• Mender's Purity: Lesser Power Cleanse no longer triggers Restorative Mantras.
• Journey: Reduced the base healing from 911 to 719 and reduced the healing power coefficient from 0.67 to 0.4 in PvP only.
• Abstraction: Reduced the base healing from 1,930 to 1,610 and reduced the healing power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.8 in PvP only.

Ranger

• Live Vicariously: This trait is no longer activated by pulsing healing effects, such as regeneration.
• Flourish: Reduced the base healing from 970 to 509 in PvE only. Reduced the healing power coefficient from 0.4 to 0.25 and reduced the regeneration duration from 4 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• Invigorating Bond: Reduced the base healing from 1,020 to 820. Reduced the healing power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 and reduced the protection duration from 4 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.

Revenant

• True Nature: Fixed an issue that could cause this skill to be accidentally cast immediately after activating Facet of Nature.

Warrior

• Path to Victory: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.25 to 0.91 in PvP only. Reduced the base healing from 975/1,950/2,925 to 559/1,742/2,925 based on adrenaline level in PvP only. Increased the healing power coefficient from 1.0/1.25/1.5 to 1.33/1.67/2.0 in PvP only.
• Line Breaker: Reduced the base healing from 2,203 to 1,320 and increased the healing power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.75 in PvP only.
• Snap Pull: Increased the casting time by 0.15 seconds.
• Bullet Catcher: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Scorched Earth: Reduced the number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only.

03/19/2024—March 19 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Added new custom postprocessing options to the Graphics Options menu. This allows new, finer control over what postprocessing effects are active.
• Optimized loading times between starting the game and getting to the character selection screen. Load times are improved by approximately 3 seconds, depending on your hardware configuration.
• Updated 11 item converters to use the vendor interface, allowing these to draw directly from players' banks in addition to their inventories:
  • Candy Corn Gobbler
  • Herta
  • Mawdrey II
  • Princess
  • Star of Gratitude
  • Sentient Aberration
  • Sentient Anomaly
  • Sentient Oddity
  • Shards of Glory Converter
  • Memory Gobbler
  • Spearmarshal's Plea
• Fixed an issue that could cause fashion prompts during the April Fools' fashion shows in Lion's Arch to end if the show went for long enough.
• Prospective contestants will now be moved to the audience area between fashion shows.
• Cheering skills in fashion shows now grant the contestant on stage an escalating amount of approval from the judges based on the skill used.
• The Noblesse Oblige Mastery, which increases revive speed and removes downed penalties on a successful revive, will no longer remove downed penalties in Strike Mission and raid challenge mode encounters. This will help maintain the intended difficulty level of these encounters by reinstating some penalties for ignoring encounter mechanics.

Amnytas

• Moved the Starlight Lantern from inside the Great Debate Hall to outside the Great Debate Hall.
• Removed the experience and karma consumables from the silver map meta-event progress chests awarded during the Defense of Amnytas meta-event. The rewards have been adjusted to compensate for this change.

Inner Nayos

• Moved a Greater Arcane Chest in Nyedra, Dreamer's Sanctum, to a location where players would not get stuck.
• Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause hylek to join the Kryptis.

Strike Missions

Temple of Febe Challenge Mode

We reduced the overall enemy health of the Temple of Febe Challenge Mode to make the fight accessible to more players. We will be monitoring the Strike Mission to ensure that this brings it to the desired level of challenge, and we are ready to make more changes if it still remains more difficult than intended. To give players the ability to experience and try to defeat the fight in its original form, we have added an option to the challenge mote to activate a legendary challenge. Players who had defeated Cerus before this change, or players who defeat him with the legendary challenge mode active, will earn a new Legendary Conqueror of Cerus title to demonstrate this feat.

• Changed the empowered Envious Gaze skill to not steal quickness and alacrity.
• Fixed an issue that could cause projectiles to be obstructed when attacking an embodiment in the split phase if that embodiment was active during the phase transition.
• Fixed an issue in which selecting an option from the challenge mote did not reset the encounter if the event was already in progress.

Cosmic Observatory Challenge Mode

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Precision Anxiety achievement to be rewarded even if the entire party did not meet the requirements.

Structured Player vs. Player

• A new achievement category, Profession Achievements, has been added to the PvP section of the Achievements panel.
• New tiers of champion Profession Achievements have been added to the Profession Achievements category in the PvP section, each with a new title. Players can progress these achievements with their current PvP ranked wins by traveling to the Heart of the Mists.
• A new achievement named True Dragon has been added. Players who are PvP Rank 469 or higher will complete this achievement upon entering the Heart of the Mists.

World vs. World

• Nine new tiers of the Realm Avenger achievement have been added to the WvW section of the Achievements panel. Each tier comes with a new variant of the Ultimate Dominator title that reflects the number of players that you've defeated (e.g., Ultimate Dominator II). Players can progress these new achievements with their current kill counts by traveling to Eternal Battlegrounds, Alpine Borderlands, or Desert Borderlands maps.
• The Siege Disabler trick has been updated and renamed to Siege Disruptor. Siege Disruptors will now reduce outgoing siege damage by 66%, and they will cause affected siege devices to take 66% increased damaged for the duration. Golems will still have their skills disabled for the duration.
• We're modernizing the loadouts of keep lords with the addition of a new healing skill that aids objective defenders in combat, giving the lord a more active role in battle. Keep lords in Alpine Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds will now have a channeled healing skill at 75% and 25% health thresholds. Their defiance bars will only be available at these health thresholds and can be broken in order to prevent the skill from being fully channeled. We will be closely monitoring player feedback to determine if the skill should be introduced to castle and tower lords as well.
• New 24, 28, and 32 slot bags can be purchased from outfitters in WvW. These bags have also been added to the Ascended League Vendors in PvP.

Items

• Removed the April Fools' event requirement from the Chatoyant Elixir.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Expedition Cape to not have an upgrade slot.
• The items needed to progress the Astral Ward Arsenal achievement sold by the Heroics Notary vendor no longer require the player to type out the name of the items to safely discard them.

Profession Skills

General

New Changes

• Relic of Fireworks: Fixed an issue that could cause some projectile skills to not trigger this relic.
• Relic of Ice: This relic can now only strike the intended missile targets. Reduced the power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 in WvW only.

Elementalist

This release includes some updates to arcane skills. Arcane Blast and Arcane Wave have a bit too much overlap with each other, and we wanted to give Arcane Wave a more unique identity by adding a movement component. We've also reworked and renamed the Elemental Surge trait, giving it some more powerful bonuses to individual skills instead of all of them inflicting bonus conditions.

New Changes

• Pistol: Fixed an issue that caused skills to not properly use legendary weapon effects. Elemental bullets are no longer lost when using a conjured weapon or while gliding.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Water Trident: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.25 in PvP and WvW.
• Updraft: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to display a warning area for allies.
• Flame Uprising: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to inflict less burning than intended in PvP and WvW.
• Polaric Leap: Reduced the cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Earthen Vortex: Reduced the cooldown from 18 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Rust Frenzy: Players can now move while casting this skill.
• Arcane Brilliance: This skill now grants additional healing when used as a combo finisher.
• Arcane Power: This skill no longer grants bonuses to allies. This skill now grants a flat amount of ferocity for 5 seconds instead of the ferocity bonus being linked to the critical-strike stacks. Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Arcane Wave: This skill now leaps to the targeted area before dealing damage and now dazes enemies that it strikes. Reduced the range from 900 to 600. Reduced the attack radius from 360 to 240. Increased the power coefficient from 0.6 to 1.7 in PvP and WvW. Reduced the ammunition recharge time from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvE only.
• Elemental Surge: This trait has been renamed to Arcane Lightning. This trait no longer causes arcane skills to inflict conditions and instead enhances each arcane skill as follows:
  • Arcane Brilliance: Grants protection to the user.
  • Arcane Wave: Immobilizes enemies that it strikes.
  • Arcane Shield: Grants stability to the user when the shield expires.
  • Arcane Power: Grants additional critical-strike stacks to the user.
  • Arcane Blast: Blinds enemies that it strikes.
• One with Air: Increased the superspeed duration from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP. This trait still grants a reduced superspeed duration in PvP when the Fresh Air trait is equipped.
• Aquamancer's Training: Increased the outgoing healing modifier from 15% to 20%.

Tempest

New Changes

• Tempestuous Aria: Lowered the condition-damage increase from 10% to 5% in PvE only.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• "Wash the Pain Away!": Increased the radius of the first pulse from 180 to 240 and the radius of the second pulse from 240 to 360.
• Lucid Singularity: This trait now applies might instead of alacrity in PvP and WvW.
• Elemental Bastion: Increased the healing coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in WvW only.

Weaver

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Bolstered Elements: This trait now causes stances to grant protection instead of barrier.

Engineer

In this update, we've made improvements to power-based holosmith builds in PvE to make them a bit more competitive, alongside some reworks of less-used traits in the inventions specialization and some minor improvements to rifle in PvP.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Glue Shot: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Increased the power coefficient from 1.5 to 2.5 in PvE only.
• Blunderbuss: Reduced the cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only.
• Jump Shot: Reduced the cooldown from 18 seconds to 16 seconds in PvP only.
• Gleam Saber: Reduced the cooldown reduction from 3 seconds to 1 second.
• Refraction Cutter: Reduced the cooldown from 9 seconds to 6 seconds in PvE only.
• Radiant Arc: Reduced the cooldown from 14 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only. Increased the power coefficient from 1.8 to 2.5 in PvE only.
• Med Blaster: This skill can now autoattack allies. Increased the angle of the skill.
• Bandage Blast: Increased the missile velocity and the angle of this skill. Fixed an issue that caused missile angles to be incorrect when shooting at allies with full health.
• Infusion Bomb: Fixed an issue that caused the boons from this skill to have a lower duration than intended in PvE.
• Grenade Barrage: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from triggering Relic of Fireworks.
• Automated Medical Response: This trait has been reworked. Grant regeneration to nearby allies when you use your healing skill's toolbelt skill.
• Mecha Legs: This trait has been reworked. Gain resistance on dodging.
• Bunker Down: This trait now triggers when disabling an enemy instead of when critically striking. The mine now spawns at the enemy's location instead of near the player. Reduced the internal cooldown from 4 seconds to 1 second. Increased the mine power coefficient from 0.77 to 0.95. The bandage now cleanses a condition, and its base healing has been increased from 502 to 598.

Holosmith

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Laser Disk: Increased the damage bonus when above 100% heat from 10% to 50% in PvE only.
• Blade Burst: Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only.
• Photon Wall: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvE only.
• Launch Wall: Increased the damage increase when above 100% heat from 10% to 50% in PvE only.
• Particle Accelerator: Increased the power coefficient from 0.7 to 1.0 in PvE only, and increased the damage increase when above 100% from 20% to 50% in PvE only.
• Prismatic Converter: This trait now triggers when swapping from Photon Forge to a kit.
• Solar Focusing Lens: This trait now triggers when swapping from Photon Forge to a kit.

Mechanist

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Mechanical Genius: Reduced the recharge penalty for Mech Command skills when far away from the mech from 50% to 20%. 

Guardian

The guardian changes for this update are focused on improving some underutilized skills and traits for both core guardian and willbender.

New Changes

• Symbol of Ignition: Reduced the burning duration from 2 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.
• Through the Heart: Increased the bleeding duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Zealot's Defense: You can now move while using this skill. Adjusted the projectile behavior to interact better with gaps in terrain.
• "Feel My Wrath!": This skill now grants superspeed in addition to its other effects.
• Vigorous Precision: This trait now triggers when dodging instead of when critically striking and no longer has an internal cooldown. Reduced the vigor duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Focus Mastery: Protection from this trait will now apply when Shield of Wrath expires instead of when it activates.
• Redemption: Increased the duration of Lesser Litany of Wrath from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Glacial Heart: This trait no longer chills and damages enemies that you disable and instead heals the user when disabling, immobilizing, or chilling an enemy.

Willbender

New Changes

• Flash Combo: You now gain access to Repose as long as you complete the skill, even if you do not land all five hits. Increased the power coefficient per hit from 0.3 to 0.4 in WvW and PvP.
• Repose: This skill is no longer an attack. This skill now heals and removes conditions from you after shadowstepping back to your original position.
• Heaven's Palm: This skill now evades attacks and finishes your targeted foe if they are downed and no other enemies are nearby. You can now move while using this skill.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Roiling Light: Increased roll distance from 300 to 450. Reduced roll duration from 0.75 seconds to 0.5 seconds. 
• Quick Retribution: Increased range from 300 to 450.
• Deathless Courage: This trait no longer removes aegis from Courage triggers, reduces the duration of courage, or causes enemy deaths to increase the duration of Courage. This trait now grants the guardian strike damage and condition damage reduction while Courage is active.

Mesmer

We made some adjustments to mesmer support builds in WvW in the January update, but it's clear that they're still a bit stronger than we'd like them to be, and we're making additional changes to reduce their effectiveness. We've also made some small improvements to power-based mirage builds in PvE.

New Changes

• Dazzling: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to not affect certain stuns.
• Dimensional Aperture: Fixed an issue that could allow multiple people to take the portal.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Null Field: Reduced the field duration from 5 seconds to 2 seconds in WvW only. Reduced the number of pulses from 6 to 3 in WvW only.
• Mantra of Concentration: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 25 seconds in WvW only.
• Power Break: Reduced the stability duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in WvW only.
• Desperate Decoy: This trait has been reworked. Gain vigor when you evade an attack.
• Master Fencer: This trait now gives increased personal fury duration.
• Chaotic Transference: Reduced the shared chaos aura duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds in WvW only.
• Temporal Enchanter: This trait no longer increases the duration of glamour skills.
• Sympathetic Visage: This trait no longer affects nearby allies and only pulls conditions from the player.

Chronomancer

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Well of Precognition: This skill now grants allies 3 stacks of stability for 5 seconds on its first pulse.

Mirage

New Changes

• Sand through Glass: This skill no longer creates a mirror and now grants Mirage Cloak at the end of the evade.
• Effervescence: Fixed an issue that prevented clones from healing with this skill.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Phantom Razor: Increased the power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in PvE only.
• Split Surge: Increased the power coefficient from 0.45 to 0.85 in PvE only.
• Mirage Thrust: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 3.0 in PvE only.
• Dune Cloak: This trait has been reworked. Gain Mirage Cloak when you shatter 2 or more clones.

Virtuoso

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Sword of Decimation: This skill now applies its bonus damage and inflicts additional defiance damage on defiant foes.
• Infinite Forge: This trait now refunds two blades after casting a Bladesong skill with 5 blades in addition to its previous effect.

Necromancer

Support scourge in WvW also received a hit to power in the January update with the change to Transfusion, but we feel that the build is still overperforming, so we're increasing the cooldown of some of its barrier sources to make them a bit less potent. We've also tuned up power-based harbinger builds in PvE to bring them more in line with other DPS builds.

New Changes

• Satiate: Reduced the health cost from 8% to 5% of base health in WvW and PvP.
• Gorge: Reduced the health cost from 12% to 8% of base health in WvW and PvP.
• Hungering Maelstrom: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to be unaffected by quickness and slowness.
• Gormandize: Reduced the health cost from 8% to 5% of base health in WvW and PvP.
• Consume: Reduced the health cost from 10% to 5% of base health in WvW and PvP.
• Lesser Spinal Shivers: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to deal more damage than intended in PvP.
• Transfusion: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from healing the user when they are a harbinger.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Plague Signet: This skill no longer passively transfers conditions from nearby allies to the user and instead grants reduced incoming condition damage to the user.
• Signets of Suffering: This trait now also causes signet skills to steal life from enemies they strike.
• Well of Power: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW.

Scourge

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Serpent Siphon: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in WvW only.
• Sandstorm Shroud: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 35 seconds in WvW only.
• Sand Cascade: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 18 seconds in WvW only.
• Desert Empowerment: This trait now grants vigor instead of alacrity in PvP and WvW.

Harbinger

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Vile Vials: This trait has been reworked. This trait now causes elixir skills to grant protection. This protection can be shared with Twisted Medicine.
• Wicked Corruption: Increased the damage modifier per blight stack from 0.5% to 1% in PvE only. Increased the critical-strike damage modifier from 10% to 12.5% in PvE only.
• Cascading Corruption: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.5 in PvE only.

Ranger

Condition-based druid has been overperforming in PvP, and we've brought down some of its defensive tools with the goal of making it a bit easier to take down. We're keeping an eye on the strength of Evasive Purity, but we want to see how the reductions to Healing Spring and Glyph of the Stars impact the build's susceptibility to conditions before making further adjustments. We've also made a few improvements to the wilderness survival specialization to make it a more appealing defensive option for power-based builds as well as condition-based builds.

New Changes

• Evasive Purity: This trait has been reworked. Cleanse a condition when you dodge. Heal if you cleansed a condition this way.
• Force of Nature: Reduced the outgoing damage bonus from 25% to 10% and reduced the outgoing healing bonus from 25% to 10% in PvE only.
• Flourish: Reduced the initial power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.85 and the delayed power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.275 in PvE only.
• Wild Strikes: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.85 and the final power coefficient from 2.0 to 1.7 in PvE only.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Wild Swing: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.5 in PvE and from 0.8 to 1.1 in WvW and PvP.
• Overbearing Smash: Reduced the casting time of the second hit by 0.2 seconds.
• Unleashed Overbearing Smash: Reduced the casting time of the second hit by 0.2 seconds.
• Savage Shock Wave: Increased the power coefficient per hit from 0.2 to 0.45 in WvW and PvP.
• Thump: Increased the radius from 180 to 240.
• Unleashed Thump: Increased the radius from 180 to 240. The first enemy struck by this skill will grant a greater number of boons.
• Healing Spring: Reduced the duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds and reduced the pulse interval from 2 seconds to 1 second. Reduced the number of conditions cleansed per pulse from 2 to 1 in WvW and PvP.
• Refined Toxins: This trait has been removed and replaced with Survival Instincts. Gain increased outgoing strike damage and reduced incoming strike damage. Increased outgoing strike damage when above 50% health and increased incoming strike reduction when below 50% health.
• Empathic Bond: This trait has moved to the master tier, replacing Shared Anguish. This trait now cleanses conditions when swapping pets instead of when using a Beast skill.
• Carnivore: This trait has been added to the grandmaster tier slot previously held by Empathic Bond. Steal health from enemies when you or your pet disables them.

Druid

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Grace of the Land: This trait now applies might instead of alacrity in WvW and PvP.
• Natural Balance: This trait no longer reduces incoming strike damage. This trait now grants boon duration.
• Glyph of the Stars: Increased the cooldown of this skill from 48 seconds to 60 seconds in WvW and PvP. Reduced the number of conditions cleansed per pulse from 2 to 1 in WvW and PvP. Reduced the revival percentage from 12% to 8% in WvW only.

Untamed

New Changes

• Rampant Growth: This skill now tracks the intended target better.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Unleashed Ambush skills will no longer be automatically used when autoattack is enabled.
• Unnatural Traversal: This skill now grants quickness instead of might. Increased the vulnerability stacks applied from 2 to 10.

Revenant

Our major initiative for revenant in this update is a rework for the legendary renegade stance. While the stance is actively used in PvE modes, it has struggled to exist in a healthy state in competitive modes due to the underlying mechanics. Our goal for this rework is to reduce some of the visual clutter and increase the counterplay of many of these skills, while still maintaining its viability in PvE. Soulcleave's Summit will still have a potentially long duration due to being an upkeep skill, but the other legendary renegade stance skills have all been adjusted to have more immediate impact, granting an immediate effect on summon and having quicker secondary skills instead of long channels. These skills can also quickly combo with a mechanic that we're calling Band Together: using a skill other than Soulcleave's Summit will cause your next renegade stance skill to activate instantly with a bonus effect.

New Changes

• Hammer Bolt: Reduced the casting time by approximately 0.4 seconds. Reduced the power coefficient from 1.35 to 0.9 in PvE and from 0.633 to 0.5 in WvW and PvP.
• Blossoming Aura: Reduced the final power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 in WvW and PvP.
• Otherworldly Bond: Reduced the initial damage increase from 10% to 5% and the bonus increase from 5% to 2.5% in WvW and PvP.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Energy Expulsion: Lowered the stability duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in WvW only. Increased the cooldown from 2 seconds to 15 seconds in WvW only.
• Serene Rejuvenation: Reduced the Energy Expulsion resistance duration from 4 seconds to 2.5 seconds in WvW only.
• Drop the Hammer: This skill now has a shorter casting time to summon the mist hammer, which still strikes after a delay. This skill now also recharges Coalescence of Ruin if it hits.

Renegade

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Legendary Renegade summons are no longer targetable.
• Soulcleave's Summit: Reduced the casting time from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. Reduced the energy cost from 10 to 5. Reduced the energy upkeep cost from 6 to 5. In addition to its current effects, Lieutenant Ofela Soulcleave will now strike nearby enemies and heal nearby allies whenever another warband member is summoned.
• Breakrazor's Bastion, Darkrazor's Daring, Razorclaw's Rage, and Icerazor's Ire have been reworked. These skills will now grant an initial effect when summoned, then they perform a new skill. Activating these skills also triggers Band Together.
• Band Together: Your next Legendary Renegade skill activates instantly and is enhanced. Activating a Legendary Renegade skill in this way does not trigger Band Together again.
• New skill behavior is as follows:
  • Breakrazor's Bastion: Grants resolution to nearby allies when summoned, then performs a skill that heals nearby allies with three small pulses and one large pulse. The final pulse grants resolution to nearby allies and additionally grants barrier to nearby allies when enhanced.
  • Darkrazor's Daring: Grants protection to nearby allies when summoned, then performs a skill that dazes nearby enemies. This skill also grants resistance to nearby allies when enhanced.
  • Razorclaw's Rage: Enhances nearby allies' attacks with bleeding when summoned, then performs an attack that inflicts bleeding on enemies in the area. This attack also inflicts torment when enhanced.
  • Icerazor's Ire: Inflicts vulnerability on nearby enemies when summoned, then performs an attack that throws three projectiles at nearby enemies, inflicting torment, vulnerability, and immobilize. These projectiles also inflict chilled when this skill is enhanced.

Vindicator

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Imperial Impact: This skill no longer extends boons on allies. Increased the protection duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE and from 0.5 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased the might duration from 9 seconds to 10 seconds in PvE and from 5 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased the might stacks from 2 to 3 in PvP and WvW.

Thief

Quickness deadeye was significantly overtuned when it was introduced but got brought down a bit too far from that point. This update includes a few tune-ups for the build's damage to hopefully bring it more in line with other options. We've also made usability improvements to some traits in the critical strikes and daredevil specializations along with some minor improvements to acrobatics.

New Changes

• Meld with Shadows: Reduced the superspeed duration from 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds when the Silent Scope trait is equipped in PvP only.
• Shadow's Rejuvenation: Reduced the initiative gain on enter from 2 to 1 when the Silent Scope trait is equipped in PvP only.
• Death's Retreat: Increased the initiative cost from 6 to 7 in PvP only.
• Death's Advance: Increased the initiative cost from 4 to 5 in PvP only.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Double Tap: This skill now pierces.
• Three Round Burst: This skill now pierces.
• Tactical Strike: This skill now dazes for 1 second instead of blinding when striking from the front. Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.33.
• Larcenous Strike: Increased the power coefficient from 1.3 to 1.4 in PvP and WvW.
• Shadow Portal: This skill no longer breaks stun.
• Keen Observer: Reduced the health threshold from 75% to 50% in PvE only. This trait now gives base critical chance that is increased above the health threshold.
• Twin Fangs: Reduced the health threshold from 90% to 50% in PvE only. This trait now gives base critical damage that is increased above the health threshold.
• Deadly Aim: This trait no longer reduces damage and now increases damage from pistol and harpoon gun attacks by 10%.
• Vigorous Recovery: This trait has been reworked and renamed to Pumping Up. Gain might when you dodge.
• Upper Hand: This trait now additionally restores initiative when you dodge.

Daredevil

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Havoc Specialist: This trait now gives a flat damage bonus when your endurance is not full instead of scaling with remaining endurance.

Deadeye

New Changes

• Malicious Tactical Strike: This skill now dazes for 1 second instead of blinding when striking from the front. Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.33.
• Malicious Cunning Salvo: This skill can no longer consume malice when recalled.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Stolen Skills: Increased the power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.25 in PvE only.
• Shadow Meld: Reduced the count recharge from 45 seconds to 25 seconds in PvE only.
• One in the Chamber: Increased the damage bonus from 10% to 25% in PvE only.
• Mercy: Increased the ammunition count from 1 to 2 in PvE only.
• Collateral Damage: Increased the damage coefficient from 1.5 to 2.5 in PvE only.

Warrior

In this update, we've tuned up a few of the warrior's lesser-used options in competitive modes. We'll also be keeping an eye on how support builds perform with the introduction of the staff and may rework some underutilized traits in a future update to give them additional tools if necessary.

New Changes

• Inspiring Whirl: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to center its attack around your target.
• Line Breaker: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to grant fewer unblockable stacks than intended.
• Bullet Catcher: Fixed an issue that could cause this skill to be canceled early.
• Path to Victory: Fixed an issue that could cause the level 2 and level 3 versions of this skill to heal for more than intended.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Arcing Slice: Increased the power coefficient from 1.213 to 1.36 in PvP only. The power coefficient when striking a low-health target is unchanged.
• Hundred Blades: Increased the power coefficient per strike from 0.35 to 0.4 in PvP only. Increased the final strike power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in PvP only.
• Rush: This skill now tracks moving targets better.
• Savage Leap: Increased the power coefficient from 1.15 to 1.35 in PvP and WvW. Reduced cooldown from 8 seconds to 7 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Final Thrust: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.5 in PvP and WvW. The power coefficient when striking a low-health target is unchanged.
• Last Stand: Increased the base barrier from 1,715 to 1,960.

Berserker

New Changes

• Slicing Maelstrom: Increased the power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.5 in PvP only. Reduced the aftercast of this skill by 0.9 seconds.

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Wild Blow: This skill is now unblockable and inflicts dazed instead of knockdown. Increased the power coefficient from 0.01 to 1.7 in PvP and WvW.
• Rupturing Smash: Increased the power coefficient from 1.14 to 1.3 in PvP only.
• Skull Grinder: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.33 in PvP and WvW.

04/04/2024—April Fools 2024

Heights of Glory

With pretty much every secret unobscured, the commander finds themselves facing a tall new order. Even if they defeat the nefarious forces at Tyria's doorstep*, have they made their own grim bargain with higher forces looming above in the process? A long-overdue reckoning begins when Tyria's loftiest hero receives a mysterious letter. Could a heretofore overlooked asuran professor really have uncovered the truth of those events two years ago?

Stand tall and shake the higherarchy of Tyria in the Heights of Glory weekly experience, starting now and extending until April 9 at noon.

General

• Removed all gathering nodes from Tyria for polishing.
• Diessa Plateau: Fixed an issue that caused NPC dialogue and event text around the village of Butcher's Block in Diessa Plateau to refer to nearby activities as "meata-events."
• Options for the character-select background have been expanded. Players may now choose from all future character-select backgrounds, as well as current and previous backgrounds.
• Added hint text to clarify that Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons should not impact dragon-like creatures such as wyverns.
• Players can now block NPCs who send them unwanted whisper messages.
• Rewards from roller beetle racing events have been decreased to fund repairs to streetlamps and other objects damaged by racers.
• Updated the name of Duchess Chrysthansisa  Chrysthsehe  Chrysthansysthea  Masked Duchess C during the Fashion Wars meta-event.

Raids n' Strikes

• Lowered the rate at which achievements and items are awarded after an encounter is complete to allow for a more leisurely appreciation of each player's individual rewards.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent Cerus from entering the talent demonstration phase of the encounter after his health is reduced to 1% in the Temple of Febe Strike Mission challenge mode.
• Updated instrument assignment during Cerus's talent demonstration phase to be randomized, rather than based on players' distance from Cerus when the phase initiated.
• To reduce the impact of start-up times for condition damage-based characters, all boon effects remaining on a raid boss when it is defeated will be transferred to the next boss in the map, if any remain.

Personal Story

• Characters speaking in languages that the player character has not yet learned (Canthan, Kryptis, choya, etc.) will now be subtitled or dubbed in your selected localized language to add immersion.
• Certain personal story instances have been rewritten and recorded as operatic performances.

Items

• Jade bots can now be remotely paired with compatible devices after installing the latest firmware update.
• Master chef trainers now offer recipes that incorporate Nayosian cabbages.
• Unused food items in player inventories will now have a chance per item to attract various animals.
• Walnuts in bulk have been added to various existing recipes as a required component.

Profession Skills

Elemen-tall-ist

• The Large Hydra Collider Krewe has announced that a new element has been discovered and can be attuned to: Fermmium.
• Deploy Jade Sphere: This skill is now categorized as a well.
• Unravel: This skill can now be used on bolts of cloth to convert them into scraps.

Engineer

• Grenade Kit: This skill has been reworked and is now named Nayosian Cabbage Kit.
• Turrets can now be named.
• Several engineer skills will now add leftover screws and bolts to the inventory when used.
  • Those probably weren't important.
  • We probably just gave you a few extra ones in case you dropped some.

Guardian

• The dragonhunter elite specialization, having fulfilled a lifelong oath following the final update for Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons, has retired to a well-deserved slow life tending the old family farm.
• Symbols are now categorized as wells.
• "Hold the Line!": This skill now has 50% increased effectiveness when used in combination with Line of Warding.

Mesmer

Virtuoso

• Chaotic Persistence: This trait is unchanged.
• Illusions can now name themselves.
• Chronomancer wells are now categorized as wells.

Necromancer

• "Rise!": Reduced the target cap from 1 to 0.9 (repeating).
• After saving Tyria at least seven times, social disapproval of the necromancer profession has been reduced in PvE and WvW.
• "You Are All Weaklings!": This skill has been renamed "Ur Weak!" to better match its casting time.

Revenant

• The herald elite specialization is now categorized as a well.
• Impossible Odds: This skill is now named Improbable Odds.

Ranger

Soulbeast

• Increased longbow range to 2,000 if the winds are favorable.
• Soulbeasts' pets can now form and represent their own guilds.

Thief

• Stealth: To reduce visual overlap with Steal, combat the increasing availability of stealth applied by other professions, and add new verbs to stealth gameplay, stealth has been significantly reworked:
  • The stealth effect has been renamed and is now the obscured effect.
  • Applying stealth as a thief is now a new gameplay verb: "secret."
• Well of Bounty: In addition to its current effects, this skill now increases gold find for allies within range.
• Lowered the number of thieves in PvP only.

Warrior

• Fixed an issue that prevented some bladesworn projectiles from manifesting their blue sword-spirit.
• Banner skills are now categorized as heraldic.

World vs. World

• Added additional purple, yellow, and silver team options.
• Map population caps have been temporarily removed to reduce server load.
• The alleged discovery of a dragon in the Mists has brought the dragonhunter elite specialization out of retirement for one last job.

*Stay tuned for the final release of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, fearless readers!

Release Notes:

The Realm of Dreams

Heitor's barrier has finally fallen, and Peitha's army prepares to march further into the heart of Nayos. But what dangers await beyond the veil, and how much attrition can her forces survive? Peitha and the wayfinder will need new allies to bolster their ranks if they hope to bring the war to Eparch's gates. But who will they be able to convince to step out from the shadow of the Midnight King?

Release Highlights

• New story chapters that take players deeper into the mysterious Inner Nayos have been added.
• A new region of the Inner Nayos explorable zone, Nyedra Surrounds, is now accessible.
• The Wizard's Vault has been updated with a new rotation of exciting rewards, including three new armor pieces. The Wizard's Vault has also received a number of quality-of-life improvements to address player feedback.
• A new weapon proficiency has been added for each profession.
  • Elementalist: Pistol (main hand)
  • Mesmer: Rifle
  • Necromancer: Sword (main and off hand)
  • Engineer: Short Bow
  • Ranger: Mace (main and off hand)
  • Thief: Axe (main hand)
  • Guardian: Pistol (main and off hand)
  • Warrior: Staff
  • Revenant: Scepter (main hand)
• The first tiers of the legendary Obsidian armor sets are available to craft for all armor weight classes. A second tier will be added as an optional upgrade in the next major update to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure.
• The legendary relic is now available to craft. More information about the legendary relic can be found here.
• Two new final bosses, the Dreadwing and the Hell Sister, have been added to Convergences. These two will cycle on a weekly cadence with Sorrow and the Demon Knight as the possible final encounters of a Convergence.
• A challenge mode option has been added to the Temple of Febe Strike Mission.
• The sky-chak striker has been added as a ranger pet.

World Polish

General

• Added new achievements for binding legendary runes and legendary sigils to the player's Legendary Armory.
  • Players with existing legendary runes and sigils can visit Lion's Arch or the Wizard's Tower to update their progress.
• Reduced the rank of training golems in the Special Forces Training Area from legendary to elite. Their attributes and performance are unchanged.
• Reduced the rank of the conjured weapons during the Conjured Amalgamate encounter from champion to elite. Their attributes and performance are unchanged.
• Reduced the rank of the Target Golem - Heavy training NPCs in the Heart of the Mists from champion to elite. Their attributes and performance are unchanged.
• A sky-chak infestation has been reported in Skywatch Archipelago.
  • A new ranger pet, the sky-chak striker, can be tamed after discovering its location.
• Meta-achievements now display progress bars in the list of sub-achievements to better track completion goals.
• Adjusted the Oneiros-Spun armor shader to optimize performance.
• Removed non-essential character equipment panel notifications, such as prompts to apply upgrades to empty slots, for characters below level 80.

Amnytas

• Reduced the number of silver map meta-event progress chests awarded during the Defense of Amnytas meta-event and adjusted rewards to compensate.

Inner Nayos: Heitor's Territory

• Added ley-looms and an updraft generator to Heitor's Territory in Inner Nayos.
• Inner Nayos faction provisioners now provide five provisioner tokens in exchange for Consecrated Saryx weapons instead of for Stormforged weapons.

Wizard's Vault

The Wizard's Vault's inventory has been updated for the new season! Last season's unique rewards are now available in the Legacy Rewards shop.

New special objectives for the season have been added, and more will appear over the course of the season, including special objectives associated with bonus events and festivals.

Additionally, a number of daily and weekly objectives have been updated. New options have been added to some objectives so they can be completed in multiple ways. Some objectives have been shelved for the time being. The intent of these changes is to improve the overall feel of the objective selection, reduce friction with required times for global-timer events, and reduce the number of expansion-only objectives that caused players to have different weekly objective lists.

Daily Objectives

• Retired activity participation from the daily objective rotation.
• Retired minidungeon completion from the daily objective rotation.
• Updated the ordering of some daily objectives to increase day-to-day selection variety.

Weekly Objectives

• Objectives to defeat 100 of a specific enemy type have had an additional enemy type added.
• Objectives to defeat a specific world boss now additionally award partial progress when events that occur in the same map that the world boss appears in are completed.
• Objectives to complete a specific meta-event now additionally award partial progress for any event in the same map, as well as partial progress from events in one alternate region in core Tyria.
• The Complete 7 Rift Hunts objective now additionally awards progress for any group event, with extra progress for group event rift hunts.
• Objectives to complete 3 bounty missions in a specific map now additionally award progress from any group event, with extra progress from group event bounties. The event requirements for these objectives have been raised from 3 to 5.
• Retired the Complete 3 Group Events, Complete the Highest Gear Jumping Puzzle, and Complete the Wind through the Walls Jumping Puzzle objectives from the weekly objective rotation.
• The Complete Meta Event: The Jade Crisis objective has been updated to require Gyala Delve's final meta-event, "Destroy the ravenous wanderer," as its main objective.
• Updated the ordering of some weekly objectives to increase week-to-week selection variety.

Shop Inventory Updates

• The legendary starter kit has been updated to Set 3, with two new kits and two returning kits available.
• Raised the astral acclaim cost of bags of coins (unlimited purchase) from 30 to 35.
• Lowered the astral acclaim cost of Build Template Expansions from 425 to 350.
• Added Black Lion Salvage Kits to the shop at a cost of 50 astral acclaim, limited to 3 purchases per season.
• Reduced the vendor sale value of Black Lion Mastery Coffers available from the Wizard's Vault from 1 gold to 10 silver.

Wizard's Vault API

• Endpoints have been added to the Public API for the Wizard's Vault:
  • Astral Rewards
    • /v2/wizardsvault/listings
  • Objectives in the Wizard's Vault
    • /v2/wizardsvault/objectives
  • Account's Daily Objectives (requires API key)
    • /v2/account/wizardsvault/daily
  • Account's Astral Rewards (requires API key)
    • /v2/account/wizardsvault/listings
  • Account's Wizard's Vault Special Objectives (requires API key)
    • /v2/account/wizardsvault/special
  • Account's Wizard's Vault Weekly Objectives (requires API key)
    • /v2/account/wizardsvault/weekly

Dungeons

• Lowered the respawn rate of the lava elementals in Twilight Arbor's explorable Aetherblade path.

Strikes

• Post-victory achievements will now be rewarded much faster in Icebrood Saga Strike Missions to prevent the achievements from being missed if a player left the map too quickly after receiving their first rewards.

Items

• The Recharging Teleport to Friend's cooldown timer has been reduced from 1 hour to 10 minutes.

Profession Skills

General

• Relic of Karakosa: Fixed an issue that caused this relic to heal less than intended in WvW.

Elementalist

• Mount skills that occupy profession skill slots (such as the ley-line riding toggle) will no longer start with a 10-second cooldown when used by elementalists.
• Active elemental bullets now display a corresponding effect on the player's effect bar.
• Active elemental bullets will now be restored after mounting and dismounting.
• Scorching Shot: Reduced the burning duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvE only. Reduced the power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.3 in PvE only.
• Raging Ricochet: Reduced the burning from 2 stacks for 7 seconds to 1 stack for 8 seconds in PvE only.
• Searing Salvo: Reduced the initial burning from 2 stacks for 8 seconds to 1 stack for 7 seconds in PvE only. Reduced the secondary burning from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvE only. Increased the missile velocity.
• Glacial Shot: This skill has been renamed to Frozen Fusillade. The explosion from this skill can no longer strike more than 5 targets.
• Dazing Discharge: Reduced the casting time from 0.4 seconds to 0.267 seconds.
• Piercing Pebble: This skill now pierces.
• Purblinding Plasma: This skill is now a projectile finisher.
• Enervating Earth: This skill is now a projectile finisher.
• Flowing Finesse: This skill now also grants stability.
• Elemental Unload: This skill has been renamed to Elemental Explosion.
• Fiery Frost: Fixed an issue that could cause this skill to fail in melee range.

Engineer

• Engineer's short-bow mechanics have been reworked. Arrows now explode on impact automatically, have a larger area of effect, and leave a chain-reaction field for a short duration. The next arrow that explodes in the chain-reaction field will consume the field, augmenting the arrow with a bonus effect.
• Essence of Animated Sand: This skill has been reworked. Fire an arrow equipped with a payload that explodes with enchanted sand on impact, granting barrier and might to allies. Chain Reaction: The next short-bow skill in the radius will grant additional might to allies.
• Essence of Living Shadow: This skill has been reworked. Fire an arrow equipped with a device that spreads shadow magic across the ground on impact, healing and removing conditions from allies with the initial detonation and healing allies with each pulse afterward. Chain Reaction: The next short-bow skill in the radius will remove additional conditions from allies.
• Essence of Liquid Wrath: This skill has been reworked. Fire a volley of arrows equipped with a payload that spreads magical flames across the ground on impact, granting protection and aegis to allies on the initial detonation and leaving a fire field. Chain Reaction: The next short-bow skill in the radius will grant additional protection to allies.
• Essence of Borrowed Time: Fire a row of arrows equipped with a device that envelops an area with chronal magic on impact, stunning enemies and applying superspeed to allies. Chain Reaction: The next short-bow skill in the radius will daze enemies hit.

Guardian

• Symbol of Ignition: This symbol now grants might every pulse.
• Hail of Justice: Increased the bleeding duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only.
• Jurisdiction: Adjusted the timing for charge level 2 from 1 second to 0.9 seconds. Adjusted the timing for charge level 3 from 1.6 seconds to 1.4 seconds. Adjusted the timing at which the skill automatically fires from 2 seconds to 1.6 seconds. Reduced the reactivation delay after casting charge level 3 from 0.25 seconds to 0.1 seconds.
• Fixed an issue that could cause new instances of a trap to refresh old instances' durations.
• Spear of Justice: Fixed an issue that caused this skill's reactivation window to sometimes be longer than intended.
• Renewed Focus: This skill now properly recharges all virtues underwater.

Mesmer

• Journey: Reduced the casting time from 0.9 seconds to 0.5 seconds. Reduced the time from cast to impact from 0.5 seconds to 0.2 seconds. This skill can now be re-aimed during the cast. Increased the cooldown from 8 seconds to 10 seconds in WvW only. Reduced the base heal from 1,800 to 1,295 in PvE only and reduced the healing power coefficient from 0.9 to 0.67 in PvE only.
• Inspiring Images: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds in WvW only.
• Abstraction: Removed the delay before the explosion. Reduced the conditions cleansed from 2 to 1 in WvW only. Reduced the base heal from 3,210 to 1,930 in PvE only and the healing power coefficient from 2 to 1.5 in PvE only.
• Phantasmal Sharpshooter: Reduced the phantasm's casting time from 1.2 seconds to 0.8 seconds. The phantasm's attack now strikes targets in a radius of 240 around the impact. This skill now has 2 charges in PvE only.
• Singularity Shot: Reduced the resistance duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in WvW only. Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in WvW only and reduced the cooldown increase from 100% to 33% in WvW only.
• Dimensional Aperture: Added a visual effect when the portal is opened.
• Effervescence: Increased the total base heal from 916 to 1,300 in PvE only. Increased the healing power coefficient from 0.2 to 0.3 in PvE and from 0.125 to 0.25 in WvW and PvP. Increased the power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.625 in PvE and from 0.25 to 0.3 in WvW and PvP.

Necromancer

• Enervation Blade: Reduced the aftercast of this skill and improved the projectile tracking. Increased the power coefficient from 0.9 to 1.1 in PvE only. 
• Enervation Echo: Reduced the aftercast of this skill and improved the projectile tracking. Increased the power coefficient from 0.9 to 1.1 in PvE only.
• Deathly Enervation: Sped up the casting time by 15% and improved the projectile tracking. Increased the power coefficient from 1.3 to 1.4 in PvE only.
• Ravenous Wave: Reduced the aftercast of this skill and increased the speed of the wave. Increased the life-force gain from 10% to 12%. Reduced the power coefficient from 1.4 to 1.2 in PvP only.
• Satiate: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 2.0 in PvE and from 0.8 to 1.2 in PvP. Lowered the low-health damage modifier from 100% to 50% in PvE and from 50% to 20% in PvP and WvW. Reduced the health cost from 15% to 8% in PvE.
• Path of Gluttony: This skill now begins movement immediately. Increased the power coefficient from 1.75 to 2.0 in PvE and from 1.0 to 1.25 in PvP. Increased the first-hit healing from 1,610 to 2,410. This skill is now a leap finisher.
• Gorge: This skill now begins movement immediately. Increased the power coefficient from 1.75 to 2.0 in PvE and from 1.0 to 1.25 in PvP. Increased the first-hit healing from 1,610 to 2,410. This skill is now a leap finisher. Reduced the health cost from 20% to 12% in PvE.
• Hungering Maelstrom: Sped up the casting time by 15% and reduced the aftercast of this skill. Reduced the time from casting to damage by 0.25 seconds. Increased the power coefficient from 1.5 to 2.75 in PvE only.
• Gormandize: Increased the power coefficient from 2.0 to 2.5 in PvE and from 1.0 to 1.33 in PvP. Reduced the heal cost from 20% to 12% in PvE only.
• Devouring Visage: This skill has been reworked. It now throws a projectile at your target that explodes on impact, inflicting fear on enemies hit.
• Consume: This skill has been reworked. It now siphons strength from targets hit by Devouring Visage, damaging them and inflicting weakness. Gain might for each target affected.

Ranger

• Oaken Cudgel: Increased the protection application radius from 240 to 360. This skill now applies a heal-over-time effect to your pet when used. This effect is reduced when merged as a soulbeast.
• Thistleguard: Reduced the casting time from 0.5 seconds to 0.34 seconds.
• Wild Strikes: Reduced the total power coefficient from 3.0 to 2.4 and reduced the dazed duration from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds in WvW and PvP. Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from working with the Quick Draw trait.
• Rampant Growth: This skill now heals nearby allies when cast. Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from interacting with the Let Loose trait.
• Nature's Strength: Increased the duration from 15 seconds to 25 seconds. Reduced the number of stacks needed to trigger Force of Nature from 6 to 5.
• Force of Nature: Reduced the damage bonus from 25% to 15% in WvW and PvP.
• Tapped Out: Reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Blood Moon: Fixed an issue that could cause this trait to affect the player when being dismounted.
• Fixed an issue that caused some spirits to have higher cooldowns than intended underwater in PvE.

Revenant

• Serene Slash: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.533 to 0.475 in WvW and PvP.
• Acerbic Cut: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.533 to 0.475 in WvW and PvP.
• Motivating Whirl: Reduced the base barrier from 476 to 251. Reduced the healing power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.3 in PvE and from 0.6 to 0.15 in WvW and PvP. Reduced the power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.667 in WvW and PvP.
• Blossoming Aura: This skill can now target allies. The amount of bonus barrier and damage granted by this skill are no longer tied to scepter auto-attacks; instead, barrier and damage increase the longer the aura is placed on the target. The aura can be detonated early with the new follow-up skill, Detonate Blossoming Aura. Increased the cooldown from 5 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE and from 7 seconds to 8 seconds in WvW and PvP. Reduced the healing power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.3 in PvE and WvW and from 1.0 to 0.4 in PvP. Increased the barrier per pulse from 20% to 33% in PvP only.
• Detonate Blossoming Aura: Allows the revenant to detonate Blossoming Aura manually.
• Otherworldly Bond: This skill no longer requires an upkeep cost. Bonus effects granted by this skill are no longer tied to scepter auto-attacks; instead, their effects strengthen the longer the target remains tethered. Interval ticks of boons and conditions decreased from 3 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the maximum tether duration from 100 seconds to 7 seconds. Increased the cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only; the cooldown will only begin once the tether is broken. Increased the vulnerability duration from 5 seconds to 8 seconds in WvW and PvP. Reduced the might duration from 9 seconds to 4 seconds in WvW and PvP. Reduced the fury duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in WvW and PvP.
• Otherworldly Attraction: Both the ally and enemy versions now cost energy to activate. Reduced the base barrier from 3,840 to 1,615. Increased the healing power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.0.

Thief

• Axe skills that cost initiative will now correctly trigger Lead Attacks and Assassin's Reward.
• Deadly Ambition: This trait will now function as expected with axe dual-wield skills. 
• Cunning Salvo and Malicious Cunning Salvo: Axes created by this skill will now properly gain bonuses when being recalled by dual-wield skills. Axes created by this skill will no longer always inflict revealed when being recalled by dual-wield skills. This skill is now a blast finisher. Reduced the bleeding stacks from 3 to 2 in PvE only.
• Malicious Cunning Salvo: Reduced the poison stacks from 3 to 1 in PvE only.
• Harrowing Storm: This skill will now recall axes to the targeted enemy instead of to the user. Reduced the inflicted torment from 2 stacks for 6 seconds to 1 stack for 4 seconds in PvE only.
• Venomous Volley: Reduced the poison duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Spinning Axe: Reduced the bleeding duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Improved missile-targeting behavior for all axe skills.
• Increased missile velocity for all axe skills.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent preparation skills from cleaning up properly at the start of a PvP match.

Warrior

• Valiant Leap: This skill is now a leap finisher and grants 5 adrenaline when it affects another ally.
• Line Breaker: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to be affected by quickness. This skill is now ground targeted. When arriving at the ground-target location, the user will weaken enemies and heal nearby allies while granting them stacks of protection, aegis, and unblockable.
• Snap Pull: This skill now displays a warning effect to enemies during the casting time.
• Bullet Catcher: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to be immediately interrupted when auto-attack was enabled. This skill no longer grants boon duration to the user while channeling.
• Defiant Roar: This skill now grants 5 adrenaline, plus an additional 2 adrenaline per attack blocked by Bullet Catcher (up to 6 bonus adrenaline).
• Rampart Splitter: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.25 to 0.5 in PvP and WvW.

01/30/2024—January 30 Release Notes

Lunar New Year

Another new year dawns on Tyria—join the festivities in Divinity's Reach! The Year of the Dragon is once more upon us, and the Lunar New Year Festival returns with new rewards. Collect and open Lucky Envelopes to earn Essences of Luck, delicious foods, fireworks, valuable items, and a chance to find the new Lucky Dragon Lantern and Lucky Great Dragon Lantern backpacks!

• The Lunar New Year annual meta-achievement, Lunar New Year Customs, has been updated with a new reward, the Dragon Descendant's Helm! Last year's meta-achievement reward, the Embellished Rabbit Vest, can now be purchased from the Lunar New Year rewards vendors.
• The new Fortunate weapon set is now available! You'll receive your choice of a weapon by progressing the annual Lunar New Year Customs meta-achievement, as well as the weekly Lunar Festivities achievement.
• Three new Lucky Dragon weapons are now available as rare drops from Divine Lucky Envelopes. They can also be purchased from Sparking Stone in Divinity's Reach.
• Lucky Envelope rewards have been updated with new items for the Year of the Dragon, including a new backpack to celebrate the Year of the Dragon in style.
• A new Mini Amnytas Stormscale has been added to the festival reward vendors.
• New guild decorations have been added to commemorate the Year of the Dragon:
  • Dragon Statue
  • Golden Dragon Statue
• Special objectives are available in the Wizard's Vault to earn extra astral acclaim as you enjoy the festival.
• A number of festival-related bugs have been fixed to ensure a happy holiday for all heroes.

Lunar New Year will be active until February 20 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8). See you in Divinity's Reach!

General

• New options to change the game-mode balance of guild halls have been added. In order to change which rule set you want to use, speak to Castor Shoutsman once you've unlocked the arena in the guild hall.
• A new NPC has been added to guild halls when the arena is unlocked. They will allow you to change which team you are on without entering the arena itself and keep your team while moving around the entirety of the guild hall.
• When receiving currencies, hovering over the tooltip will now display the quantity in your wallet.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the "Spar with Xunlai Jade's guard mechs" event in New Kaineng City from succeeding.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Growing Anxiety effect to persist in rare circumstances during the final fight in the Defense of Amnytas meta-event in Amnytas.
• Fixed an issue that caused Zizel to sometimes stay in the room and throw potions after players successfully completed the "Help Zizel prepare concoctions for the fight against the Kryptis" event in Amnytas.

Profession Skills

In this update, we're trying out a new process for the skills and balance update notes. Instead of combining new notes and preview notes into one continuous block and highlighting changes to the preview notes, we'll be separating the new changes into their own section. These new notes will be considered the most up-to-date version of the release notes, so if a change to a skill or trait exists in both sections, the new change will take precedent.

In some cases, the new note may say, "This skill is unchanged" to communicate that a proposed change from the preview was removed from the final update. Our goal with the new process is to make clearer what has changed between the balance preview and the final release while also streamlining the transition from balance previews to final release notes.

General

New Changes

• Relic of Resistance: This relic now triggers when using a healing skill instead of when using an elite skill. Reduced the resistance duration from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 10 seconds. The resistance from this relic is now only applied to the user instead of in an area around the user.

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

As with the November update, this update also includes improvements for some underperforming relics.

• Relic of Karakosa: Lowered the healing multiplier from 0.8 to 0.5 in PvE and WvW.
• Relic of the Flock: This relic now heals instead of granting barrier. Excess healing is converted to barrier.
• Relic of Resistance: This relic now triggers when using a healing skill instead of when using an elite skill. Reduced the resistance duration from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Relic of the Pack: This relic now also grants might and fury to affected allies.
• Relic of Durability: This relic now also grants resolution.
• Relic of the Weaver: This relic no longer has an internal cooldown.
• Relic of Dagda: The projectile fired by this relic now dazes enemies that it strikes. Reduced the warmup duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second.
• Relic of the Citadel: Reduced the warmup duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
• Relic of the Krait: Reduced the warmup duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
• Relic of the Nightmare: Reduced the warmup duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.
• Relic of the Wizard's Tower: Reduced the warmup duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.

Elementalist

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

The changes to hammer in November pushed condition builds for tempest and weaver a bit higher than we like to see, so we're making a few tweaks to bring those builds back in line.

• Singeing Strike: Reduced the burning duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvE only.
• Surging Flames: Reduced the burning duration from 9 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Ground Pound: Reduced the bleeding duration from 10 seconds to 6 seconds in PvE only.

Engineer

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

Condition holosmith and power scrapper are both a bit overtuned in PvE and are getting brought down in this update. We've also slightly reworked Bulwark Gyro to be more reliable for supporting allies, and Adaptive Armor has been reworked to be an effective grandmaster trait for support builds to prepare for the introduction of the short bow.

• Blowtorch: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to inflict more burning than intended.
• Bulwark Gyro: This skill no longer redirects damage from nearby allies to the user, and it now grants barrier to nearby allies upon activation and on each pulse.
• Adaptive Armor: This trait has been reworked. Your function gyro has two ammunition and grants barrier to allies when cast. Function Gyro no longer has an increased recharge when creating additional gyros but has a higher base recharge.
• Applied Force: Reduced the bonus power per might stack from 35 to 30 in PvE only.

Guardian

New Changes

• True Shot: Reduced the power coefficient from 2.0 to 1.7 in PvP only.
• Test of Faith: Reduced the pass-through power coefficient from 2.8 to 2.5 in PvP only.
• Hunter's Premonition: Fixed an issue that caused traps to grant aegis without this trait.

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

Support firebrand still isn't quite at the level we'd like to see in PvP, so we've made a few more improvements to it in this update. We've also reworked the Radiant Fire trait to be less dependent on always having a torch equipped to make room for condition builds to swap between off-hand torches and pistols.

• Radiant Fire: This trait no longer grants Zealot's Flame when critically striking an enemy, and instead it grants an additional ammunition to Zealot's Flame. This trait also causes Zealot's Flame to inflict additional burning to enemies in PvE only.
• Soaring Devastation: The movement speed granted by this trait is no longer removed when Wings of Resolve is on cooldown.
• Mantra of Solace: Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP only.
• Mantra of Liberation: Reduced the ammunition recharge time from 45 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP only.
• Chapter 3: Azure Sun: This skill now also heals affected allies. Increased the cooldown from 8 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Chapter 2: Igniting Burst: This skill is now a blast finisher. Reduced the casting time from 0.86 seconds to 0.68 seconds.
• Chapter 4: Shining River: Reduced the casting time from 0.86 seconds to 0.68 seconds.
• Merciful Intervention: Reduced the cooldown from 32 seconds to 25 seconds. Increased the radius from 180 to 240. Reduced the base healing from 2,344 to 2,024 in PvP and WvW. Reduced the healing coefficient from 1.1 to 0.8 in PvP and WvW.
• Reversal of Fortune: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from healing while in the air. Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from triggering on-heal effects.

Mesmer

New Changes

• Chaotic Persistence: This trait is unchanged.
• Imaginary Axes: Reduced the clone torment duration from 4 seconds to 3.5 seconds in PvE only.

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

Condition mirage's damage output is getting toned down after it landed too high with the changes in the November update. The November update also pushed mesmer support builds a bit over the top in WvW, and we're starting with some reductions to its alacrity and quickness access. We'll be keeping a close eye on the effectiveness of these builds once the rifle is available, and we will make additional adjustments as needed to bring them in line with other support builds. Supportive mantras are also getting minor usability improvements to prepare for the release of the rifle.

• Lingering Thoughts: Reduced the number of whirl finishers from 4 to 2.
• Lacerating Chop: Reduced the clone condition durations from 3 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.
• Imaginary Axes: Reduced the clone torment duration from 4 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Mantra of Pain: Increased the radius from 240 to 360. This mantra no longer requires a target.
• Mantra of Recovery: Increased the radius from 240 to 360.
• Mantra of Resolve: Increased the radius from 240 to 360.
• Mantra of Distraction: This mantra no longer requires a target.
• Split Second: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 15 seconds in WvW only.
• Illusionary Membrane: Reduced the condition damage bonus from 10% to 7% in PvE only.
• Chaotic Persistence: Reduced the expertise from 250 to 150 in PvE only.
• Restorative Mantras: This trait now triggers when using a mantra ammunition skill instead of when charging a mantra. Reduced the base healing from 1,640 to 820. Reduced the healing coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5.
• Escape Artist: Reduced the distortion duration from 5 seconds to 1.5 seconds in WvW only.
• Improved Alacrity: Reduced the alacrity recharge speed from 50% to 35% in WvW only.
• Flow of Time: Reduced the alacrity per clone from 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds in WvW only.
• Seize the Moment: Reduced the quickness per clone from 1 second to 0.75 seconds in WvW only.

Necromancer

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

Necromancer is currently in a pretty good spot in PvE. We considered some improvements for power harbinger builds, but we want to see where the build lands with the introduction of swords before making any additional changes. Transfusion is a trait that overperforms in support scourge builds in WvW, so we're making a change similar to what we did with Path of Corruption, in which the trait will increase the cooldown of its related scourge skill in WvW only.

• Transfusion: This trait now increases the cooldown of Garish Pillar to 60 seconds in WvW only.

Ranger

New Changes

• Lingering Magic: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to grant pets more boon duration than intended.

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

Condition-based quickness untamed is another build that's overperforming in terms of damage and is getting a few adjustments to bring it more in line. Quickness untamed builds can struggle with might generation for their allies, so we've added might to the Let Loose trigger in PvE to improve this. Greatsword is also getting a handful of tune-ups with the goal of making it a more competitive option for power builds.

• Slice: Increased the power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in PvE only.
• Enduring Swing: Increased the power coefficient from 1.4 to 1.6 in PvE only.
• Maul: Increased the power coefficient from 1.75 to 2.0 in PvE only.
• Swoop: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 2.18 in PvE only.
• Counterattack Kick: Increased the power coefficient from 1.3 to 2.25 in PvE only.
• Hilt Bash: Increased the power coefficient from 0.72 to 2.25 in PvE only.
• Barrage: Increased the ammunition count from 1 to 2 in WvW only.
• Twin Darts (Devourer Family): Reduced the power coefficient per hit from 0.25 to 0.15 in PvE only.
• Poisonous Cloud (Carrion Devourer): Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvE only.
• Sundering Volley: Reduced the bleeding stacks per hit from 3 to 2 in PvE only.
• Let Loose: This trait now grants 5 stacks of might for 10 seconds in addition to its previous effects in PvE only.

Revenant

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

In addition to toning down the damage of power vindicator in PvE, we've made some minor adjustments to axe to improve its usability for condition builds.

• Frigid Blitz: This skill no longer inflicts slow. This skill now also inflicts torment.
• Temporal Rift: Reduced the time the rift takes to collapse from 0.9 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
• Echoing Eruption: Reduced the number of blast finishers from 3 to 1. This skill now also grants might to the user.
• Leviathan Strength: Reduced the damage bonus from 15% to 10% in PvE only.

Thief

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

Deadeye has been growing in popularity in PvP over the last few months, and we've seen that it can be a bit too difficult to lock down for the damage it's capable of dealing. We're increasing the initiative cost of Death's Advance to require a larger resource investment for the survivability that it provides.

• Skirmisher's Shot: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.7 in PvP only.
• Death's Advance: Increased the initiative cost from 2 to 4 in PvP only.

Warrior

(January 30 Balance Update Preview)

Power-based quickness berserker is the final overperforming build that we're tackling in this update, shifting a bit more of the power away from Bloody Roar and into Blood Reaction to create a larger damage tradeoff for the quickness build.

• Blood Reaction: Increased the precision to ferocity conversion from 10% to 12% in PvE only.
• Bloody Roar: Reduced the damage bonus from 20% to 15% in PvE only.