Guild Wars 2 Game Release Notes

Game Update Notes: January 8, 2019

01/08/2019—January 8 Release Notes

Living World

Living World: “All or Nothing”

As her allies fortify themselves for the final confrontation with Kralkatorrik, Aurene prepares to face her greatest fear: her role in Tyria’s future.

New Legendary Weapon: Pharus

Call down pillars of cosmic energy and conjure arrows made of pure light with Pharus, a new legendary longbow with mysterious origins. Its creator claims they were guided in the weapon’s construction by a previously undiscovered entity, but it seems more likely that this bow has humbler (if no less unconventional) beginnings.

Fractals

New Fractal: Siren’s Reef

Shipwrecked and surrounded by an army of ghost pirates, players must work with a crew to break the curse that grips the isle of Siren’s Reef.

Mistlock Instabilities

We have overhauled Mistlock Instabilities and added new ones in order to promote a more positive gameplay experience. In addition, the frequency of certain instabilities has been adjusted.

Existing Instabilities

  • Adrenaline Rush: When enraged, enemies deal 150% increased damage while they’re low on health. Enemies deal 20% less damage when not enraged.
  • Afflicted: Outgoing resistance duration is increased by 50%. Enemies apply random conditions.
  • Flux Bomb: You are periodically afflicted by the anomaly’s flux bombs. Flux bombs apply to both allies and enemies.
  • Hamstrung: Low health increasingly slows your movements. Endurance regenerates 33% faster.
  • Last Laugh: Enemies explode upon dying if not stunned. Stunned enemies apply protection and stability to nearby players.
  • No Pain, No Gain: Enemies receive boons when hit. Stripping an enemy boon will steal their life.
  • Social Awkwardness: Players will be pushed away from one another.
  • Toxic Trail: Enemies leave a path of poison behind them. Blocking a toxic-trail attack will absorb it and cleanse the condition.
  • Mists Convergence: Repeated spawns have been eliminated, and two new possible spawns have been added: an ally, and an abomination that will attack ally and enemy alike.

New Instabilities

  • Boon Overload: Each boon on a player increases incoming strike damage by 5%. Outgoing boon duration is increased by 20%.
  • Frailty: Players are smaller and have 30% less health, but they move 25% faster.
  • Outflanked: Foes within a range of 300 do 300% damage when attacking from behind, but only 75% damage when attacking head-on.
  • Slippery Slope: All surfaces are slick. Outgoing stability duration is increased by 20%.
  • Stick Together: Take 60% increased damage when not within a range of 300 of an ally. Take 20% reduced damage when within a range of 300 of an ally.
  • Sugar Rush: Increases player movement speed and attack speed by 15%. Elite and lower enemies’ movement speed and attack speed increases by 35%.
  • Birds: Birds of prey periodically assault players. Dodging transfers the birds to nearby enemies for 4 seconds.
  • Vengeance: When enemies die, they enhance nearby foes with multiple boons; does not apply to elite foes. Strip any enemy boon to inflict them with weakness.
  • We Bleed Fire: Enemies create flaming missiles when damaged. Incoming condition damage is reduced by 20%.

Aetherblade Fractal

  • The number of consoles used to disable the grid traps now aligns with the number of consoles used to disable the spinning laser traps.
  • Adjusted the activation threshold on the laser traps.

Deepstone Fractal

  • Added warning rings to the Deepstone Sentinel’s tornadoes.
  • Reduced the defiance-bar time for the Deepstone Sentinel’s wind sprites on tier 1 and tier 2.
  • Falling or being dropped from the platform at the Deepstone Sentinel will now put fractal tier 1 and tier 2 players into a downed state instead of killing them.
  • Adjusted the functionality of the Voice’s Shadow Siphon skill. The defiance bar now scales with tiers, and the barrier will drop when the defiance bar is broken.
  • Reduced the number of safe falls that are available in the Voice’s chamber. Tier 4 of the fractal has been reduced to 1 (from 3), tier 3 has been reduced to 2 (from 4), and tier 1 and 2 have been reduced to 4 (from 5).

Twilight Oasis Fractal

  • Reduced the health of Sunspear veterans by 20–30%.
  • Removed one of the Sunspear sandbinders that’s required to open the gate to High Priestess Amala.

Underground Facility Fractal

  • Creatures will no longer appear near the Mistlock Singularity once Rabsovich has been defeated.

World Polish

General

  • The default setting for music volume in Sound Options has been adjusted to match that of other category defaults. It is recommended that players click Restore Defaults in the Sound Options panel to update this setting.
  • Tooltips for items stored in Material Storage will now show how many of that item are in your Material Storage.
  • Tooltips for items also stored in your Bank will now show how many of that item are in your Bank.

Items

  • Fixed an incorrect description for racetrack guild-hall decoration items that said they could be crafted by scribes.
  • Fixed a lighting issue with the Racing Scarf shoulder armor.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

New Items and Promotions

  • A new Kralkatorrik Dye Kit containing six exclusive colors is available in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.
  • For a limited time, the new Shiverpeaks Mount Pack is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 1,600 gems.
  • For a limited time, the Digital Deluxe Upgrade, the Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns—Digital Deluxe Upgrade, and the Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire—Digital Deluxe Upgrade are 30% off in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store.

Improvements

  • The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Roaring Dragon Chest. It can be previewed to see the full list of the items available for the duration of this chest.
    • The Black Lion Material Bag: Thunderhead is now available as the guaranteed item.
    • The Iron Beast Greatsword skin and the new Roaring Dragon Glider skin are available as uncommon drops.
    • The Spectral Weapon Collection and the Pact Fleet Weapon Collection are available as uncommon and rare drops respectively.
    • Unused versions of the Glyph of Industry and Glyph of Flight are available as rare drops.
  • 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 one at any of the Black Lion Chest Merchants located in every major city.
    • A new selection of one-off weapon skins has been added.
    • The exclusive Sworn Zaishen Helm Skin, Feathers of the Zephyr Package, and Svanir Gauntlets have been added.
    • Additional items, including a selection of outfits with their matching gliders, have been added.

Bug Fixes

You’re not seeing double! As mentioned in the November 13 release notes, the Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock was going to receive a significant update, but a bug prevented the changes from happening. The bug has since been addressed and the previously scheduled update is now here. Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock changes include:

  • The maximum rarity for equipment skins has been increased to exotic, and many older exotic items have been added. Future updates to the wardrobe unlocks will continue to add older exotic items beyond this initial set.
  • Over 600 new items have been added—mostly weapon and armor skins, but new dyes, gliders, outfits, finishers, and minis have also been added.

Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed an issue in which the text for the Chasing Tales achievements referenced the wrong objectives.
  • Reduced the crafting material costs for the Diviner’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia and Diviner’s Orichalcum-Imbued Inscription.
  • Fixed an issue in which the Jahai Bluffs option in the Season 4 Portal Tome took players to Thunderhead Peaks.
  • Fixed an issue that made the home instance node for Thunderhead Peaks unavailable for purchase.

Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed a bug that caused the chains connecting the skritt and their resonance crystal to persist longer than intended in the “Repair defenses and place mines!” event.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented players from selecting Diviner’s stats for some ascended items.
  • Fixed an issue in which the Jahai Bluffs Portal Scroll unlocked Thunderhead Peaks in the Season 4 Portal Tome.
  • Fixed a bug in which Slippery Slope could be applied in the Cliffside and Underground Facility fractals.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the No One Was Using It Anyway achievement from progressing.
  • Fixed an issue that blocked progress in the Qadim encounter of the Mythwright Gambit raid.
  • Changed the time limit in the “Escort Pepperseed back to the Zephyrite Docks” event to 20 minutes.
  • Fixed an issue that caused dialog to broadcast map-wide in the “Help Tirabikkr look for the Light of Deldrimor” event.
  • Fixed a client crash.
  • Fixed a server crash.

Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed a bug that prevented Brand Crystals from appearing during the “Defend the Deldrimor Ruins from the mist rift attack” event, making the “A Different Kind of Shatterer” achievement much harder to complete.
  • Fixed a bug in which the Hammer’s Hoard point of interest could not be activated from outside of the gate.