01/14/2020—January 14 Release Notes

Lunar New Year

As another new year dawns on Tyria, join the festivities in Divinity’s Reach! The Year of the Rat is upon us, and the Lunar New Year Festival returns with new rewards and activities. Collect and open lucky envelopes to earn essences of luck, delicious foods, fireworks, valuable items, and a chance to find the new Lucky Rat Lantern backpacks!

• A new Lunar New Year activity has been added, the Celestial Challenge! Complete a variety of events in this group activity to earn the favor of the celestial animals. Rewards increase in quality and quantity with the number of events you complete before opening the final chest. Visit the pavilion in the center of Divinity’s Reach to join the fun! New achievements have been added for completing the Celestial Challenge, and its annual achievement has replaced the Sparking Celebration firework achievement in the Annual achievement category.
• The Lunar New Year annual meta-achievement, Lunar New Year Customs, has been updated with a new reward, the Fireworks Spaulders shoulder armor!
• A new daily meta-achievement, New Year’s Fortune, has been added. Complete three Lunar New Year daily achievements in a day to receive extra rewards, as well as progress in the repeatable achievement Best Wishes for the New Year.
• A new festive weapon set has been added for the new year! Modeled on traditional local weaponry, the Shining Aureate set can be obtained by completing the Best Wishes for the New Year achievement.
• Two new minis, the Mini Lunar Rat and Mini Essence of Luck, have been added to the Lunar New Year rewards vendor. The Mini Essence of Luck is also available as a rare drop from the Celestial Challenge.
• The number of Divine Lucky Envelopes that can be purchased per day has been reduced from 16 to 8; however, the 8 additional Divine Lucky Envelopes can be purchased at a reduced price by earning Tokens of the Celestial Champion, which drop from the Celestial Challenge and from completing Lunar New Year daily achievements.
• The race event in Divinity’s Reach has been updated with new checkpoints and its own adventure.
• Lucky envelope rewards have been updated with new items for the Year of the Rat, including a new backpack to celebrate the Year of the Rat in style.
• A new guild decoration has been added to commemorate the Year of the Rat.
• A new festival invitation, Invitation to Lunar New Year, will be included in the festival announcement mail for easy travel directly to the celebrations. If you misplace your invitation, it can be repurchased from Sarettokk in Lion’s Arch.
• A new weekly vendor has arrived in Divinity’s Reach for the festival, trading limited supplies of rare goods for exotic-tier Essences of Luck.
• For ease of use, a new festival merchant has been added to handle selling festival reward items, while Phaedra continues to offer lucky envelopes.
• 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 4 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8). See you in Divinity’s Reach!

General

• Fixed a bug that caused guild banners and Spirit Banners to persist indefinitely. They will now remain in the world for one hour.
• Fixed a bug that allowed any number of ascended feasts to be placed in close proximity to each other.
• Spirit shards will now be earned when experience cannot go to other forms of progress, such as Masteries or gaining levels.
• Slightly improved load times on some NVIDIA graphics cards.
• Fixed a bug that caused Dragon Bash decorations to appear in Hoelbrak story instances.
• Fixed a rare crash that could happen when entering instances.

Profession Skills

Guardian

• Shield of the Avenger: The tooltip for this skill has been updated to note that this skill blocks missiles.
• Portent of Freedom: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to put friendly targets in combat.
• Unhindered Delivery: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to put friendly targets in combat.
• Dragonhunter Traps: Traps now disappear without activating if their skill is unequipped.

Ranger

• Glyph of Equality: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to put friendly targets in combat.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

New Items and Promotions

• The new Celestial Rat Cape is now available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 500 gems.
• For a limited time, the Staff of Fortune skin returns to the Gem Store at a discounted price of 450 gems—a savings of 25%.
• For a limited time, the Celestial Rooster Glider and the Flying Boar Glider return to the Gem Store at a discounted price of 350 gems each—a savings of 30%.

Black Lion Chest

• The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Year of the Rat Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.
  • The Evon Gnashblade Lucky Envelope has been added as the guaranteed item for the duration of this chest.
  • The new Black Lion Exclusive Mount Selection is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of this chest.
  • The Fire-Breathing Package returns as an uncommon drop for the duration of this chest.
  • The Starlight Wings Backpack and Glider Combo returns as an uncommon drop for the duration of this chest.
  • The Crimson Lion and Zodiac weapon collections are available as uncommon and rare drops respectively for the duration of this chest.
  • Unused versions of the Glyph of Alchemy and Glyph of Industry are available as rare drops for the duration of this chest.
• The items available in exchange for Black Lion Statuettes have been updated. Black Lion Statuettes are redeemable by using the statuette itself or by redeeming them at any of the Black Lion Chest Merchants located in every major city.
  • The exclusive Roaring Dragon Glider, Mini Celestial Rooster, Watchwork Wings Package, and Springer Kit Backpack are currently available.
  • The bonus collection has been updated to a selection of backpack skins including the Fire Quiver Backpack, the Replica Job-o-Tron Backpack, the Plush Baby Aurene Backpack, and more.

Improvements and Updates

• For a limited time, the Lunar New Year miniatures have been added to the Black Lion Miniature Claim Ticket Vendor. Black Lion Miniature Claim Tickets are dropped from Black Lion Chests.