Game updates/May 2016

May 2016 updates
Monday, 23 May 2016 Friday, 20 May 2016 Thursday, 19 May 2016 Wednesday, 18 May 2016 Tuesday, 17 May 2016 Wednesday, 4 May 2016 Tuesday, 3 May 2016
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Update - May 23, 2016

Bug Fix

• Fixed a bug with the vendor value of Cow Pies.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 62,081

Update - May 20, 2016

LFG

• Fixed a bug that would allow non-commander players in a commanded squad to unlist an LFG posting.

General

Items

• Rune of Vampirism: Fixed a bug that disabled the leeching aspect of this rune from dealing damage. Fixed a bug that added healing power contribution to this item.
• Rune of Scavenging: Fixed a bug that disabled the leeching aspect of this rune from dealing damage. Fixed a bug that added healing power contribution to this item.
• Sigil of Leeching: Fixed a bug that disabled the leeching aspect of this rune from dealing damage. Fixed a bug that added healing power contribution to this item.
• Sigil of Blood: Updated this sigil to correctly display in the combat log.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• No patch was distributed for this update.
• Build: 61,972

Update - May 19, 2016

Bug Fixes

• Players will once again be teleported to their team starting locations on match countdown in PvP to prevent players from starting matches from improper locations.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the installer from working properly.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 61,972

Update - May 18, 2016

Bug Fix

• Fixed a bug that prevented Activity Lead Cassi from letting players join Crab Toss.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 61,902

Update - May 17, 2016

Balance, Bug-Fixing, Polish

World Polish

• Cursed Shore
  • Adjusted the collision detection on Risen Andarzbad. He will now be easier to select.
• Adventure leaderboards will now show millisecond precision on player entries.
• Queensdale
  • The "Escort Moa Trainer Kappa and her pygmy moas to Beetletun" event now broadcasts its activity from farther away in the map.

General

• The 64-beta client is no longer in beta. The 32-bit client will now automatically switch to the 64-bit client if the conditions appear favorable.
• The Hero's Choice Chests in Heart of Thorns maps have returned. They can now only be earned once per day, but previously earned additional copies will stack.
• The drop rates for Ley Line Sparks, Piles of Auric Dust, and Bottles of Airship Oil from some chests have been adjusted to be more equal between maps.
• Lost Arms and Recovered Chests earned from events in Heart of Thorns maps now drop loot specific to your character's level when it is below level 80.
• Players no longer require the Auric Backplate, awarded from completing the Auric Weapons collection, before collecting many items in the Luminate's Backpack collection.
• Reports of banditry have increased in Kryta.

Legendary Journey

• The tiger cubs in the Chuka and Champawat IV: A Nontraditional Family collection can no longer be taken outside of the tiger den unless players have the correct collection progress for this journey. Players may still temporarily place tiger cubs on their back while within their friends' tiger dens. If a player already has a tiger cub on their back but doesn't have the correct progress, the tiger cub will go back to the den.
• The Soul Battery Fragment in the HOPE IV: The Catalyst collection can now be double-clicked after collecting Risen High Wizard Soul Energy, Risen King Soul Energy, Risen Knight Soul Energy, and Karas the Undying's Soul Energy to charge the fragment and obtain the Energized Soul Battery Fragment.

Guilds

• Fixed a bug in which guild siege equipment sometimes wouldn't enter the assembly queue.
• Fixed a bug that caused incomplete guild missions to appear complete when launched.
• Fixed a crash that could happen when players purchased the Dragon Banner upgrade from the War Room.
• The discount prices for basic decorations sold by Guild Hall Decorations Merchants 1, 2, and 3 will now be observed by master scribe Cullen. If Douglas Bird is selling a basic decoration for 24 silver, Cullen will match his price.
• A "Clear Decorations" button has been added to the Arena category within the storage tab of the guild panel for guild members with the rank permission "Remove All Decorations." Guild members with this permission will now be able to remove all arena obstacles when they click this button.

Profession Skills

General:

Elementalist

• Normalized the Conjurer trait's aura duration by decreasing it from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
•   "Feel the Burn!": The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 20 seconds to 25 seconds.
•   "Flash-Freeze!": The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.

Guardian

•   Spear of Justice: This skill no longer hides the off-hand weapon when cast.

Mesmer

•   Echo of Memory: The recharge of this skill will now begin when Time Echo's effect ends.
•   Persistence of Memory: The cooldown reduction of this trait has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
•   Mental Defense: The recharge of this trait has been increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.
•   Well of Calamity,   Well of Action,   Well of Recall, and   Well of Precognition: The visual effects of these skills have been restored to their original state for the player. The previous effects are now used as the lower level-of-detail versions.

Ranger

•   Seed of Life: The number of conditions removed by this skill has been decreased from 2 to 1.
•   Lunar Impact: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 5 seconds to 7 seconds. Daze duration has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
•   Ancient Seeds: Fixed a bug that allowed multiple triggers of this trait on a single target.
• Juvenile Smokescale—Bite: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 15%.
• Juvenile Smokescale—Takedown: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from being blocked.
• Juvenile Bristleback—Spike Barrage: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to fire more projectiles than intended and reduced the overall projectiles to 10. Fixed a bug that caused 33% of the projectiles to deal 33% less damage than intended. Increased all projectile damage by 10%. Missiles are now fired directly at the target instead of at slight angles in the target's direction. The missile launch point has been normalized, fixing a bug that caused some projectiles to fail if the creature was on an incline.

Revenant

•   Precision Strike: This skill no longer targets enemies using stealth effects.
•   Phase Traversal: The cost of this skill has been increased from 20 to 35.

Structured Player vs. Player

League Placement Divisions

We've added an automatic division-placement system to PvP Leagues for Season 3. A player's starting division for each new season will be determined by their performance from the previous season. This will help players face more equally skilled opponents from the very start of the season. It also allows them to reach their intended division quicker so that they can spend more time improving their skills in more even matches for a longer portion of the season. Division placement for Season 3 will occur as follows:

• Legendary and Diamond Division players will start the new season in Sapphire.
• Ruby and Sapphire Division players will start the new season in Emerald.
• Emerald and Amber Division players will start the new season in Amber.
• Players must have played at least one match during the previous season to qualify for automatic division placement in the new season.
• Rewards from skipped divisions will be awarded after players play one match in the new season.

League Matchmaking

Season 2 matchmaking was changed from Season 1 Ranked and Unranked matchmaking to help ensure league positions correlated more with skill instead of simply being based on the hours played. These changes saw a multitude of improvements for Season 2, but unfortunately they also spread out win rates further than we would have liked, as matches became a bit too uneven. We've created a new matchmaker for Season 3 that will strike a balance between the two previous seasons, accomplishing the same goals of accuracy from Season 2 but doing so with the evenness of matches that players experienced in Season 1.

Spectator

• Health bars, player outlines, target selection arrows, and ground indicators now match team colors.
• Neutral NPCs now all use yellow indicators.

Build Panel

• Removed the Mercenary's Amulet.
• The Viper's Amulet is now free to all players. Anyone who previously purchased the Viper's Amulet will receive a refund for their purchase.

General

• Improved the secondary mechanic messaging for Forest of Niflhel, Temple of the Silent Storm, and Spirit Watch maps by adding new event timers to the UI.
• Added basic season statistics to the Leagues tab of the PvP panel.
• Added tooltips to the Division panel to show individual tier rewards.
• Since the teleport was removed, the task bar will now flash and horn audio will play when the game is preparing so players are reminded of the match starting.
• Fixed an issue that allowed necromancers to acquire weapon skills while holding the Spirit Orb in Conquest mode in Spirit Watch.

World vs. World

General

• Collapsed guild camp upgrades into a single tier.
  • Tier II tactivators have been removed.
  • Assault Roller, Packed Dolyaks, and Speedy Dolyaks are now tier I camp upgrades.
  • Centaur Banner, Dragon Banner, Turtle Banner, and Iron Guards are no longer camp upgrades.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Heart of Maguuma reward track from unlocking after completing the Tangled Depths reward track.

Alpine Borderlands

• Fixed a bug that prevented the orange crossed-swords marker from displaying to indicate locations of heavy player combat.
• Capturing ruins now properly counts toward the Daily Master of Monuments achievement.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Heroics Notary vendor from spawning in citadels on the Alpine borderlands map.

Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store

New Items and Promotions

• A new set of Cavalier weapon skins is available from the Black Lion Weapons Specialist for 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket, for a limited time. Unlocking any Cavalier weapon skin in your wardrobe will automatically unlock another version that displays your active guild's emblem.
• Six new, exclusive hair colors have been added to Total Makeover Kits and Self-Style Hair Kits, which are available in the Services category of the Gem Store.

Improvements

• The Black Lion Trading Company has hired an aesthetician who allows players to preview new hairstyles, faces, and other appearance details without needing to own a Total Makeover Kit. In order to confirm any changes, players must have a Total Makeover Kit in their inventory. Aesthetician Kristina can be found in the front room of the Black Lion Vaults in Lion's Arch.

Bug Fixes

• The Cook's Outfit has returned to the Gem Store, found in the Style category for 700 gems.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• GW1 Hall of Monuments earned titles are not currently available for use
• Build: 61,800

Update - May 4, 2016

Bug Fixes

• Soothsayer Jacinda ran out of stationery and will no longer send mail to players entering Lion's Arch.
• Fixed a bug at the northeast tower in the Alpine Borderlands that caused the metal gate to show up at the wrong times.
• Fixed a bug in which double-clicked weapons would equip to the wrong weapon set.
• Fixed an issue in which the "Defeat the dragon minions before they absorb too much ley-line magic" event chain would occasionally stall.
• Fixed a server crash.

Late Notes

World vs. World

• Reduced rewards participation meter thresholds by 20%. This will allow players to reach higher tiers of participation faster.
• Increased reward track points granted by 25 points per participation tier.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Updated the Orb of Ascension in Spirit Watch to remove its transform when the orb is dropped.

Fractals

• Fixed a crash caused when players used the Scale Setting Sequencer in the Mistlock Observatory.

Activities

• Added Crab Toss back into the daily activity rotation.
• Fixed a bug that prevented bundles in Crab Toss from functioning.

Legendary Journey

• The Crimson Sunflower for the Kudzu I: The Experimental Longbow collection will now only drop once per account.

Raids

• Woven bands dropped by Slothasor are no longer unique.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Despite Crab Toss being added to the rotation, its dialogue option with Activity Lead Cassi is bugged and you are unable to access it.
• Build: 61,265

Update 2 - May 3, 2016

Bug Fix

• Fixed a bug that allowed food items sold by the Permanent Portable Provisioner to be used in PvP matches.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Build: 61,193

Update - May 3, 2016

General

• The expiration of open-world maps when new builds are released now permits players to remain in open-world maps for two hours. Previously, players were kicked after one hour.
• Fixed a bug that caused some UI elements to be blurry. This was very noticeable on the PvP league division UI and the compass.
• Fixed a bug in which achievements that progressed from the same action as their prerequisites would sometimes receive an extra point when unlocking. This caused players to gain extra progress for the division-crossing PvP league achievements.
• Faction Provisioner markers no longer stick to the edge of the compass in Heart of Maguuma maps.
• The compass in Black Citadel, Divinity's Reach, and Hoelbrak now includes the option to change floors to Tyria's upper level, surface, and underground to aid navigation to different levels of other maps.
• The Basic Magnetite Exchange Operative in the Lion's Arch Aerodrome now correctly sells Chests of Medium Coats.
• "Torn from the Sky": Fixed a bug that caused a stall when players collected turret parts.
• Magic energy has been surging around the ley lines.

Profession skills

Mesmer

•   Signet of Humility: Reduced the moa transform duration of this skill from 10 seconds to 6 seconds. The defiance-bar damage has not been changed.

Revenant

•   Rite of the Great Dwarf: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to reduce damage additively rather than multiplicatively while under the effects of a trait.
•   Surge of the Mists: Reduced the damage of this skill by 15%.

Thief

•   Unload: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to apply 5 seconds of might instead of the intended 8 seconds of might.

Structured Player vs. Player

Dishonor

• Players will be considered disconnected until they finish loading. This prevents some cases where players see teammates who are gone for longer than 2 minutes but still lose progress for the match.

Polish

• Player profession markers on the compass will now always layer above secondary objectives.

World vs. World

General

• Reduced the duration of Chilling Fog from 1 minute to 30 seconds.
• Reduced the duration of Emergency Waypoint from 1 minute to 30 seconds.
• Reduced the duration of stealth applied by Cloaking Waters from 1 minute to 15 seconds.
• Reduced the duration of Airship Defense from 3 minutes to 2 minutes.
• Reduced the damage of Airship Defense explosions by 20%.
• Added a red-ring indicator that now appears 1 second before an Airship Defense explosion triggers.
• Removed experience gain for crafting siege weapons.

Eternal Battlegrounds

• Halved the number of ambient creatures (deer, drakes, wolves, etc.).
• Disabled the "Thin the local mosquito population" event.
• Disabled the periodic dolyak caravan ambushes.

Alpine Borderlands

• The Alpine borderlands map has been rotated back into play.
• Updated map content to be consistent with existing WvW maps.
  • Sentries now detect and mark enemy players on the map.
  • Original resource nodes have been removed. Resource synthesizer nodes now exist inside objectives.
  • Objectives now have capture-point decals.
  • Objective lords now have health scaling.
  • Objectives now upgrade based on dolyak caravan deliveries.
  • Objectives now support the updated guild-claiming and guild-objective upgrades systems.
  • Disabled Commander Siegerazer's breakout events.
  • Cultural armor vendors have been added at the team citadel areas.
  • Dolyak caravans now jog rather than walk.
  • Dolyak caravans now gain the Protected Caravan effect when allied players are nearby.
  • Players can no longer rally by killing basic creatures.
  • Halved the number of ambient creatures (deer, drakes, wolves, etc.).

Desert Borderlands

• The Desert borderlands map has been rotated out of play.
• Camps: Reduced the number of base guards from 4 to 3.
• Camps: Base guards are now a combination of both scouts and guards.
• Camps: Guards have been moved inside the capture circle.
• Southeast Camp: Fixed a bug in which the guards weren't sharing hate properly.
• North Camp: The capture point's size has been increased, and it is now rectangular.

Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store

New Items and Promotions

• For a limited time, Boxes o' Fun are stuffed with temporary travel toys for the first two minutes after appearing. This may be canceled by the owner. Boxes o' Fun are located in the Toys category of the Gem Store for 80 gems each.
• A new Macaw Wings Glider Combo is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• A new Blue Shift Dye Kit with 9 exclusive colors is now available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.

Improvements

• Travel toys (the Magic Carpet, the Riding Broom, and the Sonic Tunneling Tool) will now restart automatically when moving outside of combat if the player hasn't used the stop skill or changed maps.
• The Box o' Fun's celebration mode now grants both dance and fireworks together instead of separately.
• The Box o' Fun now grants the owner an adjustment tool immediately if the owner is not holding any other bundles.
• The Box o' Fun no longer knocks down the owner when granting an adjustment tool.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

• Character background is now present on log-in screen for characters in Lion's Arch Aerodrome.
• The attacks on the ranger sword auto-attack chain now have sounds.
• WvW Reward Track progress increased by +25 for every tier above +0.
• The Magnificent Chest in the Volcanic Fractal now gives Fractal Encryption Keys and Fractal Encryptions.
• Build: 61,156