Guild Wars 2 Game Release Notes

Game Update Notes – September 20, 2016

09/20/2016 – September 20 Release Notes
Living World
Rising Flames
After memorializing Eir, the commander returned to Rata Novus to discover that Taimi had been hard at work digging into dragon research and performing an “interesting” experiment on a chak organ. The commander then left to meet Canach in the northern Maguuma jungle and hunt down the human minister Caudecus, who had escaped from the queen’s protective custody. Upon arriving on the scene, they were greeted with a violent explosion of one of the Bloodstones—which curiously reversed itself before taking them with it. While the commander worked to track down the culprit, Minister Caudecus revealed himself as the leader of the nefarious White Mantle, but his plans for the organization were thrown into disarray when a mursaat called Lazarus reappeared and accused him of being a heretic. The two rivals escaped, leaving only a cloud of speculation that it may have been Lazarus who soaked up the Bloodstone’s power. And the tumult on Tyria burns even hotter with the discovery that Primordus, the fire dragon, is stirring once again. Will we be consumed by the flames?
World Polish
Fields of Ruin:

  • Fixed a bug in which Captain Carbins dying during his conversation with Lieutenant Dorrett would prevent the “Rescue the villagers and defeat harpy kidnappers” event from beginning, blocking progress on earning the Hawke Liberator trophy.

Fireheart Rise:

  • Fixed a bug in which the Pact researchers’ Flame Grenade in the Icespear’s Shelf task-region kit did not cause burning.

New Legendary Mace: Eureka
A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to learn how to craft the new mace precursor, Endeavor, and forge the new legendary mace, Eureka.

General

  • Fixed several bugs and gameplay issues with the Bashing Bauxite Alchemicals event chain in Malchor’s Leap.

Targeted Alerts
There is now a new key binding under the Targeting category called “Alert Target.” Using this key binding while a target is selected will play an effect over their head that is visible to party and team members.

  • The default key binding is Shift + T.
  • Effect changes based on the state of the target:
    • Alive Ally
    • Alive Enemy
    • Downed Ally
    • Downed Enemy

When players teleport, the default behavior of the camera will now be to quickly move to its new location instead of teleporting instantly with the player. The option “Enable Camera Teleportation,” found in the Options panel, will make the camera act as it did before.
The “Mute Player Alerts” option has been added to the Sound Options tab. When this check box is enabled, UI alert sounds such as targeted alerts, map pings, and special action-button notifications will be muted.
Fractals
Mistlock Instabilities
We are making many changes to Mistlock Instabilities in order to make them more interesting and fun to play.

  • New Instabilities:
    • Toxic Trails: Enemies leave a trail of toxic sludge behind them as they move around.
    • Flux Bombs: You are periodically afflicted by the Anomaly’s flux bombs.
    • Adrenaline Rush: Enemies become enraged for a time when low on health.
    • Mists Convergence: The Fractals of the Mists are blurring together…
  • Updated Instabilities:
    • Social Awkwardness: Greatly reduced the radius of this instability but increased the penalty for being hit by it. Added a new visual effect to clearly show how far away players should stay from allies.
  • Removed Instabilities:
    • Lethargic
    • Boon Thieves
    • Sluggish

Toughness and Health Scaling Rebalance
Until now, as fractal scale has increased, creature toughness has also increased. Default toughness reaches as high as 2,384 at scale 100. This huge increase in toughness has made power builds much less viable than condition builds. Ideally, power builds and condition builds should be fairly equally viable at all scales.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, creatures in low-tier fractals have health and toughness that is disproportionately lower, such that parties can fly through these fractals without even having an opportunity to see many of the mechanics.
The purpose of this rebalance is to make condition and power builds viable and also increase the duration of low-tier encounters without making them any more difficult. Overall, low-tier fractals should progress at a slower, more reasonable pace, and high-tier fractals should progress a bit faster for parties of mixed composition.

  • Toughness scaling has been removed.
  • Default toughness has been slightly increased to 1,475.
  • Health has been slightly increased for all creatures to compensate for lost toughness.
  • The low end of health scaling has been increased for bosses to ensure that encounters do not progress too quickly at low tiers.
  • Fixed a bug in which veterans would have too much health for their archetype.

Mistlock Observatory
The Mistlock Observatory has been updated to allow room for new vendors as well as a Trading Post Representative and a Golem Banker. Additionally, there is now an instability test area where players can get accustomed to how the various instabilities work.

  • Added a Laurel Merchant, Golem Banker, and Trading Post Representative to the merchant area.
  • Added BLING-9009 to the merchant area. This vendor has many rare and exceptional items available…for a price.
  • Dessa’s Alchemist has received a unique merchant marker to help her stand out from her taller companions.
  • A Fractal Instability Trainer has been added to the test area.
    • This golem can turn different instabilities on and off within the Mistlock Observatory.
    • This golem can spawn dummy golems to be used for training purposes.

Aetherblade

  • Adjusted the underwater-mines segment of the fractal by disabling the mines from reappearing after exploding, reducing the trigger radius, increasing the number of mines, and providing an effect to indicate when the mines are triggered.
  • Captain Kiel will now revive downed players in the laser floor and spinning laser sections of the fractal.
  • Disabling the laser floor section is now required to be able to interact with the control panels used to disable the spinning lasers.
  • The control panels in the spinning laser section are now spaced farther apart.
  • Removed the stack spot in the cannon room and changed the encounter to use floor patterns instead of just firing shots at a random player.

Chaos Isles

  • Falling near journal entry 5 will now place characters back on the wall rather than at the Chaos Anomaly checkpoint.
  • The laser flooring during the Brazen Gladiator encounter will no longer apply confusion to pets and minions.
  • Once the Brazen Gladiator encounter begins, characters located at the boss checkpoint will now be teleported to the boss platform.

Molten Boss

  • Moved the Mistlock Singularity to a more convenient location.

Molten Furnace

  • Fixed two bugs that could stall the instance before the weapon chamber.

Swampland

  • The Onslaught Phase is now a kill count and should progress faster.
  • Onslaught creatures are stronger and spawn slightly faster.
  • Onslaught creatures and oakhearts are less likely to focus on minions, pets, and clones.
  • Bloomhunger will only cast Poison Rain when vulnerable.
  • Bloomhunger will not use Pound and Poison Rain back-to-back.
  • Bloomhunger’s ring attacks now properly line up with the effect.
  • The hit box for Bloomhunger’s charge attacks has been shrunk to more accurately match his model.
  • Champion oakhearts no longer have Spirit Ward.
  • The champion oakheart’s Thump skill now has an area-of-effect warning indicator and does more damage.
  • Stun duration has been doubled when breaking Bloomhunger’s defiance bar.
  • The frequency of some of Bloomhunger’s attacks has been slightly reduced.
  • The knockback from Bloomhunger’s basic swipe attack has been removed.
  • Bloomhunger will not become invulnerable while he is stunned from breaking his defiance bar.
  • The 25% massive attack phase now has a timer.
  • Bloomhunger will now teleport to the middle for the massive attack phase.
  • Massive attack charge time has been increased by 4 seconds.
  • Bloomhunger’s poison Shoot attack projectiles have slower velocity.
  • Bloomhunger’s Poison Rain projectiles have slightly slower velocity.
  • Increased the brightness of the center circle for Bloomhunger’s ground-pound attack.
  • The number of poison stacks applied by the poison blooms has been reduced, but the duration has been slightly increased.
  • The outer ring of blooms will only spawn during the final phase.
  • Traps no longer use player condition damage and duration.
  • The cripple scaling on traps has been reduced.

Thaumanova Reactor

  • Fixed an issue in which players could stand too close to the Thaumanova Anomaly.

Uncategorized

  • Falling off the harpy platforms will now do 75% damage to the player instead of 100% damage.
  • The health and toughness of the ettin and Flame Legion Shaman have been reduced.
  • The electric pulses at the deadly stairs will no longer hit minions, clones, or pets.

Underground Facility

  • The health of the two bosses has been normalized.

Volcanic

  • The boulder and shaman cinematics can now be skipped.
  • The health and toughness of the Champion Grawl Shaman has been reduced.
  • The health of veteran grawl pushers has been slightly increased.

Aquatic Ruins

  • Fixed a bug that allowed the achievement Flawless Fins Foil Foes to be completed during the dark path.

Cliffside

  • Fixed a bug that could cause additional hammers to lose their pick-up icon if players picked them up too fast.

General

  • The elementalist downed-state skill Vapor Form will no longer spawn an additional fractal avenger.
  • Added the Gold Fractal Master achievement, awarded for collecting all Gold Fractal weapon skins, which will award the title “Grandmaster of Golden Arms.”
    • Enter the new Mistlock Observatory to unlock the progress for any Gold Fractal weapon skins that players already own.

Raids
Stronghold of the Faithful

  • Some achievements will now allow for a player to die and still receive the achievement if the event succeeds.

Items
Legendary Weapons

  • The three legendary bows—the Dreamer, Kudzu, and Chuka and Champawat—have all received custom bow strings.
  • The Minstrel has received an update to its effects.
  • Howler III: Malchor’s Devotion can now be obtained from the “Protect the Cathedral of Zephyrs” event.
  • Hope III: Protoype—Goemm’s Lab Proximity Test: Fixed a bug that restricted the area in which players could receive this collectible.

Decorations

  • Added 14 new fractal guild decorations that can be crafted by scribes out of Fragments of the Solid Ocean.
  • Fragments of the Solid Ocean can be purchased from the Guild Decoration Trader for fractal relics.

Infusions

  • Removed the level restriction on +1 – 30 Agony Infusions, allowing these items to be equipped in the various crafter’s backpacks.

Other

  • The Amber Quantic Dipole can now drop at Fractal Scales 1 – 100 instead of only scales 1 – 25.
  • The Azure Denaturizing Agent can now drop at Fractal Scales 26 – 100 instead of only scales 26 – 50.
  • Updated the Azure Denaturizing Agent’s icon to be blue instead of yellow.
  • Updated the Bloodstone Capacitor to function with infused and attuned versions of the Blood Ruby Band.

Profession Skills
Thief
Fixed the sound effect of the short bow’s arrow release for all thief skills.
Structured Player vs. Player
New Conquest Map: Eternal Coliseum
The doors to the coliseum are now open! Join your teammates to fight inside the coliseum. Destroy your enemies for the applause of the crowd and the glory of victory.
This new map features the traditional Conquest 3-point gameplay along with a secondary mechanic that centers around two periodically charged artifacts within the coliseum, located on the sides of the map. Obtaining the power of the two different artifacts gives your team either an offensive boost or a defensive boost for a short duration. The player that captures the power gains an additional bonus allowing them to either call upon a reaper to finish off players they’ve downed or automatically rally when they’re downed.

  • Eternal Coliseum is currently available to play in Unranked and Custom arenas.
  • The map will be pinned to the Unranked Map Selection screen for the duration of this off-season.
  • Have any thoughts on the map? Perhaps you have some suggestions for improvements, or maybe you’d like to see it added to the Ranked rotation? Head on over to the PvP Forums and let us know what you think!

New, Limited-Time PvP Achievements: Eternal Coliseum

  • Complete a new series of limited-time, Eternal Coliseum – specific achievements to celebrate the release of the map.
  • These achievements will only be available from now until the end of the next PvP League season.
  • These achievements can only be completed in rated matches (currently only Unranked Arena—not in Custom arenas).

Default Builds
Default Builds is a new feature for PvP equipment that allows players to select from a list of preconfigured builds. Selecting a default build from the new drop-down list on the Equipment tab in the PvP Build panel will automatically swap out weapons, upgrades, skills, and traits.

  • Each profession has two default builds.
  • Each build has notes to describe strengths, weaknesses, and play style.
  • Weapons are equipped from the inventory if available, otherwise free weapons will be created.
  • Any locked runes, amulets, or sigils will be offered for purchase upon selection.

Polish

  • Added a red alert to the PvP Build panel icon indicating when equipment or trait slots are empty.
  • Added a warning upon joining PvP indicating when equipment or trait slots are empty.

World vs. World
General

  • Reworked the Squad UI for clarity and added new features:
    • Changed the text on several options to better represent what those options are.
    • Commanders can now change their icons while in a squad.
    • Added a squad message option that appears when players join a squad.
  • Adjusted the Gift of Battle reward track to make it more legendary themed.
  • Leather and cloth synthesizer nodes have been added to WvW.
  • Objectives now have mouse-hover UI that shows how much war score an objective is worth, how much righteous indignation is left on the objective, which guild owns the objective, and the player’s distance from an objective.
  • Retired the Garnet Sanctum achievement, as the Red Alpine Borderlands is no longer in play.
  • Fixed a bug in which the Presence of the Keep was granting magic find instead of +5 supply.
  • Updated ruins so that their names are now displayed on the map.
  • Fixed a bug in which capture points could be attacked.
  • If a player’s only participation is capturing ruins, their WvW participation will decay faster.
  • Fixed the Power of the Mists—the world bonus that is granted based on WvW score (Artisan, Energetic, etc.)—to correctly show the war score for the match and not just the skirmish.

Edge of the Mists

  • Adjusted the points on capture in Edge of the Mists to be the same as the rest of WvW.

Guilds

  • New guild-hall upgrades have been added that allow guilds to unlock a leather and cloth synthesizer node in the guild hall.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

  • A new Mursaat Backpack and Glider Combo is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
  • The new Mursaat Robes outfit is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.

Improvements

  • Revive orb use now takes a consistent 10 seconds and returns the player to 50% health. Revive sickness no longer affects health or movement but prevents leaving combat for 60 seconds. The ghostly caretaker has been replaced with a circling orb vortex, and there is now the option Consume a Revive Orb alongside the usual return-to-waypoint UI options that appear when players are defeated. Revive orbs can be found in the Special category of the Gem Store for 250 gems.
  • Six new exclusive hair colors have been added and are available in Total Makeover Kits and Self-Style Hair kits, found in the Services category of the Gem Store.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug that caused episodes to display out of order on the Living World Season 2 package in the Gem Store.