Game updates/2013-09-03

September 3, 2013

Previous

August 27, 2013

Next

September 5, 2013

Update 2 - September 03, 2013

Balance, Bug-fixing, Polish

• Super Adventure Box of Fun is now giftable from the Gemstore.
• Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the loading screen to drop prematurely.
• Fixed various crashes.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 23,106

Update - September 03, 2013

Living World

Super Adventure Box: Back to School

Moto is back with the next installment of his hit entertainment-education hybrid. Find him in Rata Sum and hop into his newly renovated hub map to party up and party down! This time, players will explore three sprawling zones in the Mountain World. Get ready to get wet in the rough and tumble Rapids! Learn the way of the assassin in ancient temples precariously perched on the Pain Cliffs! And prepare to be challenged while venturing through the puzzles, traps, and inclement weather of Storm Top, where players will find their toughest foe yet: the STORM WIZARD!

But for those who find all of that too easy, Moto has devised the most heinously difficult challenge the world of Tyria has ever seen. For players swimming in extra lives and continue coins, activate Tribulation Mode and try to defy Moto's capricious and unfairly invisible instant-kill traps—but be prepared for death around every corner! Tribulation Mode will be available for both worlds, and special color variants of the Super skins await those who have the skill and tenacity to overcome.

And finally, for those who don't enjoy jumping challenges, there's Infantile Mode, which allows players to easily traverse Moto's world by walking over beautiful rainbow bridges.

Achievements

• All World 1 achievements have returned, and all-new World 2 and Tribulation Mode achievements have been added.

Rewards

• Collect Bauble Bubbles to complete the blue Super skin weapon set. Gather ingredients in World 1 Tribulation Mode to create green Super skins or World 2 Tribulation Mode to create yellow Super skins.
• Also available from Moto: Mini Moto! And keep a lookout for Princess Miya outfit pieces randomly dropped in the world. Who knows…maybe putting the pieces on Mini Moto in the Mystic Forge will make Mini Princess Miya!
• Players can only receive rewards from dig spots and the reward chests found at the end of each zone once per account per day.

At the Gem Store

• A new trio of minis is available: Super Yeti, Super Raccoon, and Super Banana. Combine them with a continue coin in the Mystic Forge to create the magical Mini Assassin.
• Back by popular demand: the Super Adventure Box o' Fun! Players can now bring the spirit of SAB with them wherever they go.
• The Super Explosive Finisher has been upgraded to be permanent. Players can now keep the warmth of this bombastic PvP fun close to their hearts forever.
• Tired of scrounging baubles to buy continue coins? The Infinite Continue Coin is the perfect solution. Never worry about running out of lives in SAB again!

New Features And Content

Changes to Crafting

• Weaponsmith, Huntsman, and Artificer can now be leveled to a rating of 500.
• Crafting experience for all disciplines has been updated to accommodate leveling to a rating of 500. As part of this, the total amount of leveling experience that comes from leveling a crafting discipline now requires leveling all the way to a rating of 500.
• New ascended material refinement recipes now unlock at a rating of 450.
• Ascended inscription recipes are available for purchase at all master craftsmen and require a rating of 500 to craft.
• Ascended weapon recipes are available for purchase at all master craftsmen and laurel vendors and require a rating of 500 to craft.
• Crafting discoveries for exotics have been reset to allow for rediscovery that gives bonus experience and facilitates leveling to a rating of 500.
• Some of the new crafting recipes, including those for Ectoplasm Refinement, have cooldowns that must elapse before they can be crafted again.
• There is a new collection in the bank that holds ascended crafting materials.
• The wood cost on crafting staff shafts has been reduced from 6 to 4.

Changes to Rewards

• Drips of Liquid Karma from champion loot bags have been replaced with Piles of Bloodstone Dust.
• Open world bosses, temple bosses, WvW keeps, and castles now drop Dragonite Ore in addition to their regular loot, which can only be earned once per day per location.
• Dungeons, minidungeons, jumping puzzles, WvW camps, and towers now drop Empyreal Fragments in addition to their regular loot, which can only be earned once per day per location.
• Daily and monthly achievement rewards now include Essence of Luck. To offset this, the amount of karma earned from daily and monthly achievements has been reduced.
• Event failure no longer rewards karma in order to encourage players to succeed at events.
• Liquid Karma dropped from dungeon end chests have been replaced with Empyreal Fragments.
• Ascended weapons can now drop anywhere ascended materials or other ascended items can be found.
• Loot dropped by the Karka Queen has been improved; she also has a chance to drop Settler's inscriptions.
• Sentinel's inscriptions can now be purchased from the guild vendor.
• Salvaging exotic items now produces Globs of Dark Matter.
• Salvaging fine and masterwork items now produces Essence of Luck.
• Salvaging Globs of Ectoplasm now produces Essence of Luck.

Changes to Account Magic Find

• There is now a luck progress bar for account magic find in the Achievements panel. Consuming Essence of Luck will incrementally fill the progress bar. When the bar is filled, the player's account bonus to magic find will be permanently increased by one percentage point.
• All existing players have been sent mail with enough Essence of Luck to increase their account magic find to 20%.
• Weapons, armor, and trinkets that had a magic find stat combo have been flagged as account bound and will now allow double-clicking to permanently change the stat combo. This is a one-time ability, and the options are dependent on where the item was acquired. All trading post listings for these items have been cancelled and the items returned to the poster.
• Infinite Light, Immobulus, The Crossing, The Mad Moon, Arachnophobia, Cooguloosh, and Seasatchel will all allow their stats to be permanently chosen as a one-time ability but not become account bound.
• All existing crafting recipes that produced items with Explorer's stats now produce Assassin's stats (Precision, Power, Critical Damage).
• All existing crafting recipes that produced items with Pillager's stats now produce Hunter's stats (Precision, Power).
• All existing item drops with Traveler's stats now drop Dire stat items (Condition Damage, Toughness, Vitality).
• The Wayfarer's stat combo has been retired from the game and is no longer available.
• Copper, silver, gold, and platinum doubloons now give boon duration instead of magic find.
• Rune of the Pirate now grants power instead of magic find.
• Rune of the Traveler now grants all stats, condition duration, boon duration, and movement speed.
• Rune of the Noble now grants condition damage and might duration.
• Rune of the Scavenger now grants condition damage and life steal.
• Sigil of Luck now grants a random boon on kill.

Changes to Legendary Weapons

• Legendary weapons now have increased stats to keep them in line with the new ascended weapons as "best in slot" items.
• Legendary weapons now have functionality to allow their inherent stat combo to be changed to any other stat combo when out of combat.
• The Bifrost: Updated the effects and texture to be more detailed and vibrant, enlarged the footfall effects, and added a new projectile.
• Adjusted the position of the golden arrow on Kudzu and updated the effects on the Kudzu projectile.
• Meteorlogicus: Updated the texture, effects, and animations; added a day/night cycle for the effects; and added a new footfall effect.
• Frostfang now has larger, more impressive footfall effects.
• The Juggernaut, Bolt, Incinerator, and Rodgort now have larger footfall effects.
• Quip now has more impressive footfall effects.
• Updated the texture and effects on The Moot.
• Updated the effects on The Minstrel to be larger, more impressive, and more frequent.
• Updated the pommel on Eternity and added a unique footfall effect.
• Added a new footfall effect to The Dreamer.
• Added a new projectile to Frenzy.
• Added a new skill effect to Howler.
• Updated the effects and texture on Kraitkin.

Balance, Bug-Fixing, Polish

General

• The amount of karma granted from consumable karma items has been increased. Karma boosts no longer affect the amount of karma gained from consumable items.
• Training manual text descriptions have been updated to be clearer.
• Fixed a bug with Tears of Itlaocol mini dungeon that would prevent one of the puzzle patterns from displaying.
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect artwork would display when previewing armor that had been transmuted.
• Fixed a bug where confirming a transfer to an overflow shard opened the currency wallet.
• Optimizations in the audio engine have been made which reduces the issues of audio loading slowly at map load and audio drop outs during scenes involving many players and sound effects.

Living World

• Several Clockwork creature invasion locations have been adjusted so creatures do not spawn in the terrain.
• Fixed an issue where Twisted Watchwork Portal Devices failed to work properly when the player only has one.

Personal Story

• "Retribution": Reduced difficulty of the Risen Plaguebearer.
• "Critical Blowback": Reduced difficulty of Admiral Feiste Bakkir.

Items

• The Mystic Forge recipes for The Mad Moon, Arachnophobia, and The Crossing have been temporarily disabled. They will be updated and return at Halloween.
• The Miniature Yellow Moa is once again only available via Moa Racing.

Profession Skills

Guardian

•   Protector's Strike: This skill will now trigger if an attack is blocked while the guardian is in midair.

Necromancer

•   Grasping Dead: This skill now applies two stacks of bleeding instead of three (PvP only).

Ranger

• All spirits can now be launched, knocked down, and knocked back.
•   Storm Spirit,   Frost Spirit,   Sun Spirit,   Stone Spirit, and   Spirit of Nature will now begin their recharge when the spirit dies instead of when the spirit is summoned.
•   Storm Spirit,   Frost Spirit,   Sun Spirit, and   Stone Spirit: Recharge has been reduced from 60 seconds to 25 seconds.
•   Spirit of Nature: Recharge has been reduced from 240 seconds to 180 seconds.
•   Solar Flare: Fixed a bug so this skill no longer applies a duplicate infinite duration blind.

World vs. World

• The WXP Booster has been changed to be account bound rather than soulbound.

Gem Store

• Mini Hylek Amini from set 2 is now the advertised red skin color instead of green.
• Corrected Mini Hylek Cuicani from set 2 to look like Cuicani instead of Amini.

Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store

New Items and Promotions

• A three-pack of minis from Super Adventure Box World 2 is available in the Minis category for 500 gems. Players can get their own Super Raccoon, Super Yeti, and Super Banana minis. Combine them with a continue coin (purchased from Moto outside the Super Adventure Box) in the Mystic Forge to receive the special Mini Super Assassin. Available until September 30.
• The Infinite Continue Coin is now available in the Upgrades category for 600 gems. This super-useful coin can be used an unlimited number of times to gain 10 lives at the Super Adventure Box "Game Over" screen. Available until September 30.
• Permanent Super Explosive Finisher is now available in the Upgrades category for 600 gems. This finisher creates a Super Bomb explosion to be used in PvP and WvW. Available until September 30.
• The Transmutation Splitter is now available in the Consumable category for 300 gems each, 5 for 1350 gems, or 25 for 6000 gems. Transmutation Splitters will return the two current source items from any transmuted item and will also return an applied upgrade separately. All items returned from splitting a transmutation are soulbound. Items using a skin will return a base item with the original appearance. Another Transmutation Stone will be required to reapply the skin.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Targets can now be called without being in a party.
• Clones now show the mesmer's equipped off-hand.
• The monthly achievement has been reset. This was unintentional but will not be corrected .
• Spineguards can now be salvaged.
• Items related to crafting equipment with Magic Find have been removed from the game. This includes the following: Pillaging Steel Plated Inscription, Explorer's Hard Inscription, Explorer's Darksteel Plated Inscription.
• Build: 23,057