[2023] Game Update Notes: August 22, 2023

08/22/2023—August 22 Release Notes Secrets of the Obscure With the end of the final dragon cycle, new threats and archaic secrets emerge from deep within the Mists to challenge Tyria. The Wizard's Tower has floated above the small hamlet of Garenhoff for generations—a silent sentinel watching over the town and its residents. With the tower's sudden disappearance—marked by the arrival of a mysterious group calling themselves the Astral Ward—rifts appear across the world, spilling out unfamiliar horrors. While resting from the grueling ordeals they've faced over the past several years, the commander is pulled into the mysteries surrounding these events. They will come face-to-face with the Kryptis, a coalition of demonic beings with desires and malevolence far above what they've encountered before, and meet the ancient Wizard's Court—unearthing a millennia of conflict and facets of Tyrian history long protected by Isgarren and his bevy of fantastical magi. Sky-bound and headed into the fractured magic lining the Tyrian horizon, the commander must harness the power of the Heart of the Obscure, master new abilities, and make new allies as they combat Tyria's latest menace and uncover secrets of the obscure. New Masteries Heart of the Obscure Research Once the Heart of the Obscure is obtained, you will begin to master its abilities, allowing you to deal with the Kryptis by finding and closing rifts. It will also allow you to interact with useful objects in the Wizard's Court to create updrafts, activate ley lines, and open treasure chests. The first Mastery tier grants a new Mastery skill that allows you to scan for Kryptis rifts and guides you to them, even while mounted on your skyscale. You can use your standard Mastery skills key bind to activate this new skill, or you can set a specific key binding for it in your settings. Flight Training As you will be using a skyscale extensively in this expansion, new Masteries are available to enhance the capabilities of your skyscale and griffon. Your skyscale will be able to spit fireballs to deal with threats in the air. Both aerial mounts will gain the ability to use updrafts and ley lines across all of Tyria. Previous skyscale Mastery skills such as Air Rescue and Wall Launch will be available through this Mastery line for players who don't have it unlocked, and the skills will be further upgraded for players who already have them unlocked. Combat Launch will allow you to use your mount button to leap into the air out of combat and onto your skyscale. This skill is also available in the Mastery skills panel if you wish to use it out of combat. The Astral Ward makes extensive use of skyscales, granting players who have not previously unlocked their own skyscale mount access to temporary use of skyscales as well as a new route to unlocking it permanently. Progressing the new Flight Training Mastery line will offer a new series of collections for unlocking the Skyscale mount. Completing this new collection will then unlock an additional collection to earn a unique skyscale skin. Astral Ward Working with the Astral Ward will gradually provide you with access to their provisions and amenities. Unlocking the Astral Ward Mastery line will give you a new home away from home with restful experience bonuses, new crafting recipes to help your fight against the Kryptis, and a unique armor set. Finishing this Mastery will also be essential to earning the new legendary Obsidian armor that will become available in a future release. Wizard's Vault The Wizard's Vault is a new streamlined rewards system for level 80 players that combines the best elements of the daily login and daily achievement systems, allowing you to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to—whether it's PvE, Player vs. Player, World vs. World, or a mix—and earn a wide variety of exciting rewards for doing so. New objectives will appear daily and weekly. Players may choose which game modes they'd like their objectives to be generated from. Any mix of PvE, WvW, and PvP is available. Additionally, there will be one-time special objectives that will appear to everyone. Completing objectives will grant astral acclaim, which players can spend directly in the Wizard's Vault panel to select from a large variety of rewards. Rewards include Wizard's Vault–exclusive cosmetics such as armor and weapon skins as well as items that were formerly exclusive to the Gem Store, like mount skins and Build Template Expansions. Wizard's Vault rewards will reset with each quarterly release. Wizard's Vault–exclusive rewards will be available forever in the legacy shop, which will open in the future alongside the Wizard's Vault's first update. General daily achievements and daily login rewards have been retired. This does not include any game mode–specific daily achievements (e.g., fractal dailies). Progress toward the Daily Completionist achievement is preserved and will continue to be awarded when claiming the meta reward for daily Wizard's Vault objectives. Allowing for some minor balance changes, the rewards available from the daily login are now part of the Wizard's Vault. Rewards that were previously earned from daily login rewards can be purchased from the Wizard's Vault using astral acclaim. Relics The effects of the end of the dragon cycle have reverberated throughout Tyria. In Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, this has created a new class of magical artifacts called relics. Relics are a new equipment type that can grant a large variety of special effects in combat, with each one aimed at augmenting a particular style of gameplay. Most can be acquired through crafting and trading, but some can only be acquired through achievements in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure. Try a few out and see which relics fit your playstyle! Relics will be updated further during our quarterly releases with the release of legendary relics. We'll provide more details on this in the future, but any player possessing legendary runes will be granted progress toward their legendary relics for each legendary rune they've acquired. Along with the emergence of relics, some of the magic that once powered runes has changed into something different. Equipping a complete set of runes will now grant you bonus attributes instead of a special effect. Weaponmaster Training Early in the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story, players will gain access to ancient knowledge preserved by a weaponmaster long ago. Weaponmaster Training allows players to equip weapons that were previously only usable by their profession's elite specializations, opening up many more options for your character's combat style. Strike Missions Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure brings with it two new Strike Missions: Cosmic Observatory and the Temple of Febe. These are based on epic encounters from the expansion story and are unlocked by completing their related story chapters. Fractals Mistlock Instabilities Vengeance Fixed an issue that caused players to become afflicted with weakness when their own boons were removed. This fix prevents aegis from applying weakness when it blocks a strike. Toxic Trail Fixed an issue that prevented the exposed effect from being applied when a toxic trail attack was blocked. No Pain, No Gain Fixed an issue that caused boon duration to affect the duration of boons applied to enemies by No Pain, No Gain. Stripping might applied by No Pain, No Gain now grants 10 stacks of might for 6 seconds. Stripping might from other sources still only grants one stack. Toxic Sickness The warning for Toxic Sickness now includes a shrinking ring around the player to help indicate when the vomit attack will fire. Bug Fixes Aetherblade Fractal Fixed an issue that allowed a large amount of content in the fractal to be skippable. Shattered Observatory In the final boss encounter, Curved Shot (normal mode) and Solar Bolt (challenge mode) projectiles are now destroyed when blocked. Fixed an issue that could cause the final boss's determined effect to be removed earlier than intended during reactor phases. Underground Facility Fixed an issue that could cause the legendary dredge powersuit's fixated effect to swap targets more frequently than intended. Profession Skills Elementalist Cyclone: This skill can no longer strike the same enemy more than once per use. Lightning Orb: Reduced the number of projectiles fired per interval from 2 to 1. Increased power coefficient from 0.36 to 1.0. This skill now deals 10% less damage on each subsequent hit against the same target, down to a minimum power coefficient of 0.05. Tempest Transcendent Tempest: Increased damage bonus from 15% to 25% in PvE only. Weaver Swift Revenge: Reduced damage bonus from 15% to 10% in PvE only. Catalyst Deploy Jade Sphere: Reduced power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.4 in PvE only. Engineer Engineers without the holosmith elite specialization equipped will now use separate versions of sword skills. Those skills have been adjusted as follows: Sun Edge: Increased power coefficient from 0.88 to 0.96 in PvE, and from 0.586 to 0.61 in PvP and WvW. Sun Ripper: Increased power coefficient from 0.93 to 1.02 in PvE, and from 0.62 to 0.65 in PvP and WvW. Gleam Saber: Increased power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.65 in PvE, and from 1.0 to 1.05 in PvP and WvW. Refraction Cutter: Increased number of blades fired from 1 to 2. Radiant Arc: Increased quickness duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Mesmer Unstable Bladestorm: Fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent this skill from dealing damage if two bladestorms were active at the same time. Necromancer Nightfall: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in WvW only. Grasping Darkness: Increased cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in WvW only. Reaper Infusing Terror: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in WvW only. Soul Spiral: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in WvW only. Ranger Solar Beam: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.3 to 0.25 in WvW only. Vine Surge: This skill can now strike a maximum of 5 enemies. Pounce: Reduced power coefficient from 2.2 to 2.0 in PvE only. Untamed Unleashed Wild Swing: Reduced power coefficient from 2.16 to 2.0 in PvE only. Unleashed Savage Shock Wave: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 1.2 to 0.8 in PvE only. Relentless Whirl: Increased power coefficient per strike from 0.7 to 1.0 in PvE only. Deft Strike: Increased power coefficient from 2.2 to 3.0 in PvE only. Savage Slash: Increased power coefficient from 2.2 to 3.0 in PvE only. Multishot: Increased power coefficient from 2.0 to 2.5 in PvE only. Neurotoxin Burst: Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 2.0 in PvE only. Toxic Shot: Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.8 in PvE only. Increased torment stacks from 3 to 4 in PvE only. Ferocious Symbiosis: Increased damage bonus per stack from 4% to 5% in PvE only. Natural Fortitude: Increased base life-steal damage from 1,764 to 3,517 in PvE only. Increased base life-steal healing from 1,764 to 3,517 in PvE only. Increased additional-hit life steal from 294 to 586 in PvE only. Thief Death's Judgment: Increased power coefficient from 1.65 to 2.67 in PvE and from 1.11 to 1.339 in PvP and WvW. Deadeye Malicious Death's Judgment: Increased power coefficient from 1.65 to 2.67 in PvE and from 1.11 to 1.339 in PvP and WvW. Reduced damage bonus per malice to 10% in all game modes. Fixed an issue that prevented scepter skills from granting malice. Fixed an issue that prevented Malicious Intent from interacting properly with Malicious Shadowsquall. World Polish Cats and other pets associated with 2022 Extra Life charity donation incentives have appeared across Tyria. They are visible only while under the effects of the Chatoyant Elixir or Chatoyant Lens.

08/22/2023—Late Notes General You can now filter skins you have unlocked out of search results in the Trading Post. The unstable magical abilities Restorer and Propagator now grant barrier rather than healing. Propagator now applies protection instead of regeneration. Improved Equipment Warnings Equipment panel warnings have been significantly revamped to make it easier for players to determine whether their character's equipment is complete. Each equipment slot will display a red exclamation mark and a warning message in the tooltip when hovering over the slot under the following circumstances: A slot is missing equipment. Attributes have not been chosen for equipment with selectable attributes. Equipment does not have upgrades (runes and sigils). Equipment is below exotic quality. Upgrades are below superior tier. Improved Crafting Functionality Improvements have been implemented to help with crafting use and navigation. The crafting interface has been revamped to better serve its intended purpose as a library of crafting recipes. The category menu now includes an All Professions category, which is selected by default and will display all the recipes currently available to your character, regardless of their active crafting discipline. Selecting one of the nine disciplines from the menu will filter the results to only display recipes from that discipline. Selecting one of the nine disciplines from the menu will filter the results to only display recipes from that discipline. The menu will show which disciplines are currently active. Two new options are available from the menu that appears when right-clicking any material that can be used in a crafting recipe. The Open Crafting Preview with Item option will open the Crafting tab in your Hero panel. The Open Crafting Station with Item option is available when you are near a crafting station, and it will open the station's crafting interface. Both options will display recipes that require the item. For example, when right-clicking mithril ingots in your inventory and selecting one of the new options, the available crafting recipes will be automatically filtered to those requiring mithril ingots as an ingredient. The options will not display crafting recipes that are unavailable at your current crafting level or that you have not learned. Fractal Dungeons Silent Surf The final boss's health has been reduced in challenge mode. All checkpoints now require only two players, regardless of the fractal tier. The Mists Convergence and Toxic Sickness instabilities have been removed from Silent Surf. The game camera's field of view during the final boss encounter has been increased. Fixed an issue that caused Captain Thess to have an incorrect effect icon during the third encounter. Fixed an issue that prevented Aspects from applying Extreme Vulnerability in challenge mode when striking with Dread Visage. Fixed an issue that allowed players to bypass World Cleaver. Fixed an issue that could cause the final boss to focus on attacking pets more often than intended. Fixed an issue that prevented the Peace and Quiet achievement from requiring completion on the Master tier, causing it to be inconsistent with the achievement description. Fixed an inconsistency with other challenge mode fractal encounters. Defeated characters can now be revived during combat. Fixed an issue that allowed Frightening Speed to be blocked. Fixed an issue that caused Rending Storm to ignore evasion and invulnerability. Fixed a timing issue in the challenge mode version of Dread Visage's large-eye warning effect that prevented it from detonating at the same time as the smaller eyes. Fixed an issue that could cause an Aspect to return to the main platform during World Cleaver without selecting a new target for Phantasmagoria. Fixed an issue that caused Aspects to interrupt themselves when a player not eligible for a tether moved between the Aspect and its primary target. Fixed an issue that caused Aspects to react slowly when eligible targets for Phantasmagoria became available during World Cleaver's warm-up. Fixed multiple issues affecting phase transitions and the synchronization of Dread Visage attacks: The final boss and the Aspects no longer gain alacrity, regeneration, or quickness from boon-stealing attacks. Sugar Rush has been removed from the list of Mistlock Instabilities for Silent Surf. PvP and WvW Reward Potions Update Potions of WvW Rewards and Potions of PvP Reward are no longer obtainable by players. Any potions that players currently possess can still be consumed. Recipes for guild hall upgrades requiring the potions have been changed. Instant reward track progress granted through the WvW skirmish reward track has been increased. Instant reward track progress has been added to PvP rank-up chests, starting at rank 30. Items Fixed an issue that caused Bling 9009 to count the number of times a player had completed Silent Surf on challenge mode rather than the daily completion of challenge mode when unlocking Last Words. Fixed an issue that caused Bling 9009 to require more than the listed Silent Surf challenge mode completions for Last Words.

Bug Fixes Fixed a server crash. Fixed incorrect cooldowns on various relics. These have now been re-enabled. Added missing relic text to four PvP relics. Fixed an error in the Wizard's Vault weekly meta reward bundle. Fixed an issue that prevented Archivist Ikur from speaking to multiple players at once at the beginning of the seventh chapter of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story. Fixed an issue that required players to own Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure to obtain the "/bless" emote from the Wizard's Vault. Fixed a potential issue that affected the "Help Rata Novans prepare for a party" event in Skywatch Archipelago.

Bug Fixes: Fixed a server crash. Fixed a client crash. Fixed an issue that prevented players who were defeated while banished during the meta-event in Amnytas from using several of the special action skills until after changing maps. Fixed an issue that prevented Kryptis enemies from disappearing after event completion. Fixed an issue that caused the /bless emote to play when using /shiver. Fixed an issue that prevented players from receiving the Skywatch Archipelago: Hero's Choice Chest. Added the ability to unlock the Beacon of Ages waypoint from Lion's Arch and Gendarran Fields for players who completed the second chapter of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story but could not connect to Skywatch Archipelago. Fixed an issue that prevented Galene the Seething from spawning during event preparation. Fixed an issue that prevented Galene the Seething from being attacked. Fixed an issue that caused infinite enemies to spawn during the “Help the Kestrels search for survivors” event chain. Fixed an issue that caused Dagda's Shooting Stars and Soul Feast skills to target player pets. Fixed a potential stalling issue in the seventh chapter of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story. Fixed an issue that prevented ranged attacks on certain turrets from hitting properly in the Skywatch Archipelago meta-event. Fixed an issue that could cause the meta-event in Skywatch Archipelago to stall.

Bug Fixes: Fixed a server crash. Fixed an issue that caused Min-Ji to spend more time than anticipated at an emergency broadcast station, increasing the event's run time. Fixed an issue in the Mother of Stars story chapter that caused player progress to stall on the story step "Make a plan with Frode, Uenno, Zojja, and Mabon." Fixed an issue that caused the Sanctified Gloves Skin and Sanctified Boots Skin to appear sold out if one of the skins had already been purchased. Adjusted the health drained by the Spectral Agony condition protecting the Bastion of Strength key in the Tower of Secrets story chapter to feel less punishing to certain builds. Lowered the number of Kryptis turrets that must be destroyed to complete "Prepare for the Kryptis assault" events in the Bastion of Knowledge and Bastion of Strength and decreased their respawn time. Fixed an issue that prevented the Complete Meta-Event: The Jade Crisis objective in the Wizard's Vault from awarding completion. Fixed an issue that prevented enemies in the "Stop the angry dwarves from causing a panic" event from spawning if no players were present after the event started. Fixed an issue that caused the "Stop the angry dwarves from causing a panic" event to stall if no players were present when the event began. Fixed an issue that could prevent the "Find survivors in Garenhoff" event from starting as often as intended in Skywatch Archipelago. Fixed an issue that prevented the Cosmic Observatory Strike Mission from being available to all characters after unlocking it on a single character. Fixed an issue that could cause Refugee Coordinator Zaya to get stuck during an event chain if a player was not present. Fixed an issue that prevented players from obtaining the Relic of Mabon, Relic of Vass, and Relic of Cerus.

Bug Fixes: Fixed an issue that prevented players from permanently unlocking the skyscale mount via the Skies of Tyria: A New Friend achievement. The skyscale will be unlocked for players who have already completed the achievement the next time they return to Skywatch Archipelago. Fixed an issue that caused the Into the Obscure story chapter to stall on the "Listen to Zizel's call" story step. Players stuck on this step should receive the comms call the next time they return to Amnytas. Avatar of Regret's Crushing Regret attack now properly limits the number of players targeted when fewer players are within range. Fixed an issue that prevented the bouncing magical orb in the Wizard Tower's Keep It Up achievement from appearing correctly in some circumstances. Added missing German voice lines for norn male player characters.

Bug Fixes: Fixed an issue that occurred when the "Escort Lyhr to the Great Hall so he can rebalance himself" event restarts. Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented a veteran dwarf from being present during subsequent event cycles. Fixed an issue that caused Min-Ji to stall after the completion of the "Help Min-Ji set up emergency broadcast stations" event. Fixed an issue that allowed the Combat Launch skill to be used in inappropriate maps. Fixed an issue with certain Wizard's Vault rewards not being awarded correctly if claimed during a PvP match or raid.

Bug Fixes: Fixed one of the issues that was involved in causing the “Help the Asura researchers reach the source of abnormal energy” event to stall. Removed the Wizard's Vault objective "Loot the Chest of Grand Valdhertz Riches in the Valdhertz Crypts Minidungeon."

Bug Fixes: Fixed an issue that caused the unlock timer for the A New Look achievement to only progress while spending time in the game. The character that finished A New Friend must log back in to unlock the achievement. Fixed an issue that allowed the Rift Guidance Mastery skill to be used in inappropriate maps. Fixed an issue that caused the "Help Battlemaster Flintfoot prepare new trainees for combat" event to stall during a second playthrough. Fixed a crash that occurred when conversing with Novice Taeya for the Waylit Lantern collection. Fixed an issue that caused Researcher Lezzi to stall and stop moving forward in the "Escort Researcher Lezzi and her new data about Nayos" event. Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Stormy Silvercrest to stall at the start of the "Help the Kestrels search for survivors" event. Fixed an issue that prevented players who had completed the Burden of Choice achievement from progressing a step in the Knowledge of the Elders collection. Fixed an issue that occasionally caused the "Help the Asura researchers reach the source of abnormal energy" event to stall. Fixed an issue that sometimes removed the Nova Launch special action skill before the "The Defense of Amnytas" meta-event was complete. Fixed an animation issue that occurred when using some gliders.