Game updates/January 2019

January 2019 updates
Thursday, 24 January 2019 Wednesday, 23 January 2019 Tuesday, 22 January 2019 Friday, 11 January 2019 Wednesday, 9 January 2019 Tuesday, 8 January 2019
← Prev • Next →

Update - January 24, 2019

Bug Fix

• Players who completed the Chasing Tales: Torrent of Magic achievement but did not receive progress toward the Chasing Tales: Asaliea the Channeler collection achievement can now purchase the Chasing Tales: Torrent of Magic item from Forge Master Hilina at no cost to repair their progress.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 94,892

Update - January 23, 2019

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a client crash.
• Fixed a bug in which player and creature models would permanently become invisible.
• Increased the radii of the charging crystals in the "Repel invading Branded, and kill them near the charging crystals to fill the resonance crystal" event. Creatures killed outside of the charging crystals' radii will no longer drop loot, and Branded creatures will cease dropping loot after a certain number of kills.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Janet Fawn—the Diviner's insignia recipe vendor and weaponsmith—from appearing in the Deldrimor Ruins area of Thunderhead Peaks.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 94,865

Update 2 - January 22, 2019

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug in which player and creature models would permanently become invisible.
• Fixed an issue in which some containers in Thunderhead Keep could award Difluorite Crystals.
• Fixed a bug with the portraits for the Festive, Glowing and Fortunate mini lanterns.
• Fixed a bug in which Heroic Dragonsblood weapons did not have infusion slots.
• Updated the attribute selection for Envoy armor pieces to include Plaguedoctor's and Diviner's attributes.

Additional Late Note

• Domain of Istan: Chest contents have been improved for Palawadan and the Mordant Crescent Great Hall. Players are limited to 30 chests in Palawadan and 12 chests in the Mordant Crescent Great Hall per day per account.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 94,829
• Changes to the reward chests in Palawadan and Mordant Crescent Great Hall:
  • An extra random piece of loot has been added, and Volatile Magic drops have been reduced to about a third of their previous amounts.
  • Chests no longer spawn only for players that participated in the events; they now spawn per map and may be looted by everyone regardless of participation level.
  • A bug in which the chests would sometimes not be lootable appears to have been fixed.

Late Notes - January 22, 2019

Living World

• Fixed an issue with the "Chasing Tales: Asaliea the Channeler" achievement in Thunderhead Peaks in which the third deed, "Chasing Tales: Torrent of Magic," wasn't giving the correct reward.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the chests for the "Defeat the Wrathbringer" and "Defeat Sulypix before it drains your reclaimed oil" events from being available after the daily reset.
• Increased the rewards in the boss chests of the "Defeat the Wrathbringer" and "Defeat Sulypix before it drains your reclaimed oil" events.
• Changed reward chests for the "Defeat the Wrathbringer" and "Defeat Sulypix before it drains your reclaimed oil" events to be awarded once per character per day instead of once per account per day.
• Moved the Light of Deldrimor Plate halves out of the boss chests and into event bonus chests, which are available once per account per day.
• Fixed a bug in which the graveling in the dwarven catacombs would only award one plate at a time.
• Changed Pepperseed's indicator to be visible on the map, and doubled the broadcast radius for the "Escort Pepperseed back to the Zephyrite Docks" event in Thunderhead Peaks.
• Increased the broadcast radius of events in Thunderhead Peaks to improve visibility of events on the map.
• Fixed a bug in Thunderhead Peaks in which Sayida's conversation regarding the supply lines happened at the wrong time. The conversation now happens when players complete the renown heart for the area.
• Players now have more time to resupply Sunflower after the second ambush in the "Help Pepperseed deliver Zephyrite supplies to the Forge" event.
• Players can now resupply Sunflower during and after the third ambush in the "Help Pepperseed deliver Zephyrite supplies to the Forge" event, but not after the event completes.
• Sandswept Isles: Fixed an issue that could cause beetles in the ranch events to stay hidden, stalling the events.

World Polish

• Frostgorge Sound: The end of Magellan's Memento is once again guarded by a giant blue ooze (with a chest!).
• Straits of Devastation: Fixed a rare stall in the hero challenge event near the Cathedral of Glorious Victory.
• Tangled Depths: Fixed a bug that could cause Agent Zildi to become unresponsive and refuse to speak to players.
• Logging out or changing maps while using a pipe organ will no longer leave the pipe organ permanently in use.

Update - January 22, 2019

Living World

Lunar New Year

Another year dawns on Tyria—join the festivities in Divinity's Reach! The Year of the Boar 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 boar lantern back items!

• A second course has been added for the Firecracker Lighting adventure. Players can now test their navigation skills across the grand edifices of Divinity's Reach!
• Friendly celestial dragons have appeared in the various capital cities to whisk adventurers to the festival in Divinity's Reach.
• Lucky envelope rewards have been updated with new items for the Year of the Boar, and the rarity of exclusive Lunar New Year foods has been decreased.
• The New Year's Benevolence achievement has been updated to allow contributions of any Lunar New Year food. Items can now be given to a quintet of celestial pigs that are hungry for different festival treats.
• Players' maximum hit points and skill damage have been increased in the Dragon Ball arena to reduce the effects of food items on the battle.
• The Dragon Ball skill Ice Blast has had its cooldown reduced from 10 seconds to 3 seconds.
• The Dragon Ball skill Dragon Kick has had its collision area increased to make it easier to land hits.
• Upon renting a mount through the Festival Mount Rental vendor, players are now given a temporary horn bundle to allow them to quickly resummon their mount if they are dismounted.
• Out-of-season festival reward vendors have been moved to share a location in Hooligan's Route in Lion's Arch.
• The Watchknight Statue previously available from the Sovereign Weapon Vendor is now available from the karma merchant in Crown Pavilion.

All or Nothing

• Removed an effect that Bivor Darkheart's Branded tornadoes applied to players in the "Defend the Zephyrites from the Branded" event.
• Amira's name is now correctly displayed as "Amira" instead of "Jaynes" in "The Crystal Dragon" story instance.
• Fixed an issue in which some creatures and objects appeared on top of each other.
• Replaced Flame Legion characters with Ash Legion characters in the barracks in Thunderhead Peaks.
• All players now receive credit for destroying Branded crystals in the "Take back the Deldrimor Ruins" event in Thunderhead Peaks.

General

• Time-based adventures will now display the player's final time on the leaderboard and in the chat log.
• Profession descriptions have been updated to provide more in-depth explanations of each profession when players create characters, including keywords that describe each profession's gameplay role and play style.

Raids

• Better audio cues have been added to Nikare's Aquatic Detainment skill. An alert chime will play for the targeted player, and a charge-up sound will play for all players within the trap's area of effect.

Items

• Dragon's Revelry Starcake: Fixed a bug that caused this food to increase attributes by 40 points instead of the intended 45 points.

Profession Skills

General

•  Alacrity: Fixed a bug that removed this boon from players in a downed state.

Engineer

•  Toss Elixir U: Fixed a bug that caused a Smoke Screen tooltip to appear when Toss Elixir U was linked in chat.

Guardian

•  Ray of Judgment: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to strike an extra time. Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to fail after the first hit if the caster was interrupted.
•  Symbol of Vengeance: Fixed a bug that applied fury around the firebrand instead of at the symbol's location.

Mesmer

•  Chaos Storm: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from applying boons and conditions to players in a downed state.

Ranger

•  Winter's Bite: The weakness effect applied to the pet's next attack will now be removed if an attack fails to hit.
•  Crippling Shot: The pet's next three attacks will now only apply bleeding for each successful strike.

Thief

•  Swindler's Equilibrium: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to set its steal recharge time to a specified value instead of reducing it by that amount. Fixed a bug that caused this trait to have a longer internal cooldown than the listed value.
•  Dagger Training: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to retain its old 5% damage modifier.

Warrior

•  Forceful Greatsword: Fixed a bug in which the previous version of this trait was still working in the background. Removed an unused skill fact. Fixed an issue that could cause the stats granted by this trait to update incorrectly.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Djinn's Dominion: Players affected by Corrupted Essence can no longer contest capture points. Additionally, there is now a 3-second cooldown for using the portal to the Lamp.

Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store

New Items and Promotions

• The new Staff of Fortune Skin is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 600 gems.
• For a limited time, the Zodiac Weapon Collection returns to Black Lion Weapons Specialists for a reduced cost of 3 Black Lion Claim Tickets.
  • Black Lion Claim Tickets are dropped from Black Lion Chests. Keys for these chests are available in the Utility category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
• For a limited time, the Blue Shift Dye Kit, Frost Dye Kit, and Taimi's Dye Kit return to the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each. More dye kits will return to the Gem Store for purchase throughout this week.
• The Aetherblade light, medium, and heavy armor skins return to the Style category of the Gem Store as part of the seasonal inventory swap, which will continue throughout this week.
• For a limited time, the following categories of miniatures are available when using Black Lion Miniature Claim Tickets: Lunar New Year, Asura, Dragon Minions, Living World Season 2, and Maguuma Series 1.
  • Black Lion Miniature Claim Tickets are dropped from Black Lion Chests. Keys for these chests can be found in the Utility category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.

Black Lion Chest

• The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Fortune's Favor Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.
  • The Evon Gnashblade Lucky Envelope returns as the guaranteed item in the Fortune's Favor Chest.
  • The new Exalted Shoulders Skin and the returning Roaring Dragon Glider are available as uncommon drops for the duration of the Fortune's Favor Chest.
  • The Crimson Lion Weapon Collection and the Dragon's Jade Weapon Collection are now available as uncommon and rare drops respectively for the duration of the Fortune's Favor Chest.
  • Unused versions of the Glyph of the Tailor and Glyph of the Leatherworker are available as rare drops for the duration of the Fortune's Favor 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 one at any of the Black Lion Chest Merchants located in every major city.
  • A new selection of back-item skins has been added.
  • The exclusive Exalted Gloves, Fire-Breathing Package, and Mini Celestial Rooster have been added.
  • Additional items including a different selection of quaggan backpack sets and the Molten gathering tools have been added.

Bug Fixes

• The tooltips for the skills on the Fancy Winter Crystal Scepter and the Frying Pan costume brawl toys have been updated to reflect their actual functionality.
• Novelties: Unequipping a costume brawl toy will now properly remove the player from the costume brawl activity at the same time.
• The audio and effects of the Riding Broom toy will now end properly upon switching novelties.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• The use of "-email" and "-password" command line arguments has been disabled.
• Build: 94,812

Update - January 11, 2019

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.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 94,619
• Flame Legion Saboteurs have been replaced with Blood Legion Soldier, Ash Legion Scout and Ash Legion Spy NPCs in the Grotto area of Thunderhead Peaks.

Update - January 9, 2019

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.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 94,588

Update 2 - January 8, 2019

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.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 94,559

Update - January 8, 2019

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.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• An option for Slippery Slope was added to the Fractal Console guild hall decoration.
• Build: 94,535