Guild Wars 2 Game Release Notes

Game Update Notes – March 28, 2017

03/28/2017 – March 28th Release Notes
Super Adventure Festival Begins March 30

  • Moto’s famous Super Adventure Box opens again with the Super Adventure Festival!
    • Play World 1 and World 2 on Normal, Infantile, or Tribulation Modes.
    • Earn holographic weapon skins from the new Crimson Assassin set by completing festival daily achievements.
    • Seek out hidden furniture shops and collect Fancy Furniture Coins to purchase new decorations for your guild.
  • Festivities will begin on March 30 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC -7) and are scheduled to end April 19 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC -7).

Live Test Event: Basket Brawl

  • Basket Brawl is returning to Lion’s Arch for a limited engagement to test new Activity features.
  • Matches ending will no longer trigger a map load and will reset the current map.
  • Work has been done to show preference for parties and guilds when finding a match.
  • The ball carrier now has overhead and map markers.

General

  • Updated the rapid water in Super Adventure Box World 2 to smoothly push the player downstream rather than repeatedly knocking them around.
  • Updated the dart traps in Super Adventure Box World 2 to deal damage and knock back players rather than instantly killing them.
    • Dart traps in Tribulation Mode still deal fatal damage.
    • Some dart traps have been disabled in all difficulty modes.
  • The Havoc’s Heir has been retrofitted with new Silent Steam technology, allowing Captain’s Airship Pass holders to visit in peace and quiet.

Fractals
Mistlock Instability Fixes

  • Fixed an issue in which the Jade Maw Tentacles would sometimes not despawn for the Mist Convergence instability.
  • Last Laugh will no longer knock back pets and will apply reduced damage to them.

Progress Bug Fixes

  • Solid Ocean Fractal: Fixed issues in which progress was sometimes blocked.
  • Volcanic Fractal: Fixed an issue that could cause a stall if players succeeded at the first event too quickly.

Miscellaneous Fixes

  • Breaking an Assault Knight during its Explosive Impact skill will no longer fail to stun it in Nightmare challenge mode.
  • Breaking Captain Ashym in the Urban Battleground Fractal will now cancel his Meteor Shower ability.
  • Certain missiles, such as the guardian’s Deflecting Shot, will no longer fall through the floor on the final Thaumanova platforms.
  • The exit button may now be used before completing the event at the second console in the Thaumanova repulsor lab.
  • The cultists in the Cliffside Fractal will now emote at the closest player instead of the same player every time.
  • Added a Volcanic checkpoint and slightly moved an existing one.

Miscellaneous Quality-of-Life Improvements

  • Four Ascended Salvage Kits (5) can now be combined in the Mystic Forge for an Ascended Salvage Kit (20).
  • Moved the third Chaos Mistlock Singularity to a more convenient location.
  • Cliffside Fractal: Chains will no longer transform players and kill their minions.
  • Uncategorized Fractal: Falling on the final jumping puzzle will now teleport you to the end as long as one player has reached the end.

Raids
Salvation Pass

  • Fixed an issue in which bloodstone shards were consumed by invulnerable targets standing in Matthias’s hit box.

Hearts and Minds

  • “Extreme Mode” has been renamed “Challenge Mode” for consistency with fractal and raid content.
  • Removed the sylvari-player intro scene of the Mordremoth encounter on challenge mode.
  • Moved the checkpoint locations on all platforms as far to the edge as possible to prevent the exit-instance dialogue from interfering with combat.
  • Replaced all instances of an iconless invulnerability enhancement with Determined, in order to improve messaging.
  • Added an adrenal mushroom to each penalty box.
  • Channeling Reality Rifts will no longer cancel on damage taken.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug in which the NPCs in the initial tunnel did not consistently follow the instance owner.
  • Fixed a bug in which Trahearne always had a “Greet” interact prompt.
  • Fixed a bug in the Blighted Eir encounter that prevented her from becoming stunned if she was using an ability when she was defeated.
  • Fixed a bug in which no icon appeared for the Exposed condition caused by breaking Blighted Eir, Blighted Garm, or Mordremoth.
  • Fixed a bug in which Blighted Canach did not gain the Exposed condition when breaking his defiance bar.
  • Fixed a bug in which the Exposed condition did not increase condition damage taken.
  • Fixed a bug in which Mordremoth might not use skills.
  • Fixed a bug in which the updrafts on the Mordremoth encounter would not consistently launch players into the air.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players in groups to restart the Mordremoth encounter with the enhancements they gained on previous attempts.
  • Fixed a bug in which allied NPCs would not engage Mordremoth before directly taking an attack from him.
  • Fixed several bugs that caused Reality Rifts to fail at converting Blighted Mordremoth minions.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the third Blighted Mordremoth minion to become friendly if spawned right before the “Take to the skies” phase.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the final Reality Rift to close without breaking Mordremoth, stalling the encounter.
  • Fixed several bugs that caused encounters to enter broken states due to condition damage.
  • Fixed several bugs in challenge mode that caused bosses to target player pets and minions with abilities.
  • Fixed a bug in challenge mode that caused defiance bars to scale in addition to having base values designed for five players.

Encounter Balance

  • Reduced Blighted Eir’s health by 25% on challenge mode.
  • Reduced the amount of crowd-control effects required to break Blighted Garm’s defiance bar on challenge mode.
  • Player pets and minions will no longer take damage from the persistent effects of Charged Shot or Endless Barrage in the Blighted Eir encounter.
  • Player pets and minions will no longer take damage from Draining Bramble or the ring attacks in the Blighted Pale Tree encounter.
  • Players picking up Canach’s shield will now gain access to his reflect bubble skill rather than the manually timed reflect ability that was previously on the bundle.
  • Blighted Canach’s standard grenades will no longer apply extra bleeding stacks if multiple grenades hit the same player.
  • Blighted Canach’s melee combo will now only knock back on challenge mode.
  • Removed Mordremoth’s permanent immunity to applications of life stealing, chill, and cripple.
  • Mordremoth will now gain Determined when he summons a Blighted minion until they are defeated.
  • Blighted minions will now remove their unique enhancements from themselves and Mordremoth when they become vulnerable to Reality Rifts.
  • Increased the cooldown on Mordremoth’s Ley Fire ranged attack from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
  • Standing in the ally shield during the “Take to the skies” phase will now make players invulnerable on normal mode. On challenge mode, the shield will provide no safety. Standing in the shield will remove qualification for Flights of Fancy as the achievement text indicates on normal mode only, as it provides no benefit on challenge mode.
  • Mordremoth now takes massively reduced damage during the “Take to the skies” phase.
  • Mordremoth’s Ley Storm ability will no longer deal damage to player pets and minions.
  • Added a locked defiance bar to Blighted minions on challenge mode, making them immune to crowd-control effects.

Items
Weaponsmiths and artificers can now craft:

  • Cured Thick Leather Squares
  • Spools of Thick Elonian Cord
  • Thin Leather Sections
  • Cured Coarse Leather Squares
  • Cured Rugged Leather Squares

Tailors and leatherworkers can now craft:

  • Lumps of Mithrillium
  • Iron Ingots
  • Steel Ingots
  • Darksteel Ingots
  • Mithril Ingots

Profession Skills
Engineer

  • Glass Cannon: Fixed a skill-fact bug that used base character health instead of the engineer’s maximum health.

Thief

  • Traps: All traps created by the thief will have a 1-second arm time before the trap can affect enemies.
    • Needle Trap: This skill now delivers a strike.
    • Tripwire: This skill now delivers a strike.

Structured Player vs. Player
Matchmaking

  • Matchmaking now expands profession count scoring penalties over time instead of being a fixed amount.
  • The number of desired professions per team before penalties are applied begins at 1 and will rise to 2 after two minutes.
  • Matches can now be restricted to never allow more than the desired number of professions, but this feature is subject to change as we review matchmaking quality.

Battle of Kyhlo

  • The Clock Tower has received some art updates.
    World vs. World
    General
  • Players who do not own Heart of Thorns™ may now buy Notarized Scrolls of Heroics.
  • Studded, Marauder, and Scale armor have been added to the Legacy Armor Reward Track for PvP and WvW.

Desert

  • Jump pads inside the Earth/North Keep will now function even if you own no shrines.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

  • The new Spring Promenade Outfit is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
  • For a limited time, a new set of Beastslayer weapon skins is available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists for 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket. Black Lion Chest Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
  • This is the last week of March Madness sales with a new one-day sale each day! The Bank Tab Expansion is available today in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 480 gems—a savings of 20%.

Updates

  • The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Spring Synergy Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.
    • The Dab of Destabilized Ectoplasm has been added as the new guaranteed seasonal item.
    • The Elemental Sword is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of this seasonal change.
  • Tarrktun has heard of the Black Lion Trading Company’s promotion and dispatched another apprentice to Lion’s Arch for more globby shinies.

Bug Fixes

  • Added subtle wing-flap audio to the Raven’s Spirit Glider.