Game Update Notes: August 20, 2024

08/20/2024—August 20 Release Notes Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here. Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds While the commander fought back against the treacherous Midnight King in the Realm of Dreams, the threat of the Kryptis didn't go unnoticed by the rest of Tyria. Their villages and cities were attacked and countless lives were lost, and yet the world had no idea where their assailants originated from. Just as the commander emerges from their journey into the Secrets of the Obscure, some of Tyria's most pivotal world leaders have formed the Tyrian Alliance—an organization that seeks global collaboration in the healing years following the end of the dragon cycle. Being a figure of hope to those they've helped throughout time, the commander must navigate the delicate tides of international affairs while also being enlisted to keep an eye on other enigmatic developments. When their first mission is to venture into the dangerous stretches of Janthir to befriend a long-sequestered society of kodan, the path forward seems clear. That clarity will be quickly challenged when the lowland kodan begin whispering of strangers and abnormal events arising throughout their deltas. How long can the commander maintain the state of respite before it is lost? How will the Astral Ward react to global developments as their existence becomes harder to conceal? The commander must walk a fine line between diplomacy and action as they make allies with the lowlanders and uncover the bloodied history of the Isles of Janthir. Storm clouds thicken by the hour. Homesteads Players can now obtain their own personal homestead by playing through the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds storyline! Homesteads are an account-wide personal housing instance that provides you with an area of land and a permanent structure to cultivate, decorate, and share with your friends. Players with a homestead can place a conjured doorway in open-world maps, which they can use to bring their party into their homestead. All resource nodes (and cats!) unlocked in home instances will also be available in the homestead. A new account-wide handiworker crafting discipline is available, allowing players to craft decorations for their homestead. Unlocked mounts will appear in the homestead. Characters that were logged out while inside the homestead instance will visit the homestead as NPCs. Land Spears All professions can now use spears on land. This is unlocked via a WvW vendor purchase or by playing the first few chapters of the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds story. New Masteries Homesteading Once a homestead has been obtained, you will begin to master the crafting of homestead decorations without the need for a crafting discipline. As this mastery grows, your access to recipes and space to work in will increase, and you will gain bonuses within your homestead, such as rested experience and automated gathering of resources. Lowland Kodan As you meet the lowland kodan in the Janthir region, you will gain access to their techniques, such as learning to use the spear on dry land, gaining power from local honey, and harvesting resources more efficiently. Warclaw If you've not yet bonded with a warclaw, Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds will make doing so easier and allow you to use its skills outside of World vs. World. As you progress your Warclaw Mastery, it will become immune to falling damage, leap further into the air, and gain enhanced stamina regeneration, which is shared across all of your mounts. Decorating (General) A new hotkey has been added for entering and exiting decoration mode, and specialized skills are available while in decorating mode. You can change which set of these is displayed using three sub-mode buttons above your skill bar: Place New Decorations, Modify Existing Decorations, and Erase Decorations. Place New Decorations Place: Begin placement by choosing a location on the ground to put the decoration, or by enabling the manipulator skills for more control over how the decoration is placed. If you use this skill before having chosen a decoration from your decorations inventory, it will open your decoration list to prompt you to do that first. If you're not using a manipulator skill to refine the placement, you can right-click to cancel placement. Otherwise, to cancel, press a different skill button or the Esc key (if you have an open panel, Esc will close it first). Also, if you're not using a manipulator, you can change the decoration's rotation by holding and dragging the mouse button when choosing the location to pivot the decoration around that point. Move: Once you begin placement, the Move skill becomes available; press it to activate a manipulator gizmo. Click and drag a manipulator axis to move the decoration along that axis, or drag one of the squares to move the decoration across the corresponding plane. Once you're done using the manipulator, you can change it to another type or press the Place skill again to finish placing the decoration. Rotate: Similar to Move, but the manipulator rotates the decoration. Click and drag a ring right or left to rotate the decoration around the corresponding axis. Hold Shift when you click the ring to drag it, and the rotation will snap to 45-degree increments. Pressing the skill again will toggle a spherical manipulator that you can click and drag to freely rotate the decoration in any direction. Scale: This works much like Rotate and Move and allows uniform changing of the decoration's scale. Drag any of the boxes to scale the decoration up and down. There are practical limits on how much a decoration can be scaled, and those may be specific to the decoration you're placing. Toggle Manipulator Alignment (Local/Global): While using one of the manipulators, you may use this skill to align the manipulator with either the map's coordinate system or with the decoration that's being placed. Modify Existing Decorations Select Decoration to Modify: Once you have some decorations placed in the world, this skill lets you select one of them and refine its placement using the Move, Rotate, and Scale skills. After you're satisfied with the changes, press this skill again to confirm them. Erase Decorations Most of the erase skills are unchanged from the existing guild hall decoration system. You can target a single decoration to erase and return to storage, or you can erase all decorations within the radius of a small, medium, or large targeting cursor. Toggle X-Ray Vision: This skill helps in retrieving decorations that have been placed in unreachable or obscured locations, such as beneath the terrain. While X-Ray Vision is active, the targeting of erase skills can penetrate terrain and other obstacles. It's also useful for distinguishing decorations from the rest of the environment. Common Decorating Skills Reset Scale and Rotation: This skill is available when placing or modifying a decoration. It will remove all rotation changes and restore the item's original scale. Use Last Scale and Rotation: This skill is available when placing or modifying a decoration. This matches the decoration's rotation and scale to that of the most recently placed decoration. Flying Mode: Toggles a flying movement mode to help you reach high places while decorating. Note that this counts as a skill, so using it will cancel any placement in progress. Select Decoration: Opens a list of decorations that are available for placing in the instance. Stop Decorating: Puts away the decoration skills and restores your combat skill bar. The Decorations panel has been updated with the following features, which are saved per decoration mode (homesteads, guild halls, and guild arenas): A Favorites category of up to 16 decorations. A Recently Placed category, which tracks the last 8 decorations placed by the player. Filtering options for decorations and categories. Categories will remain expanded or collapsed when closing and reopening the Decorations panel. Decorating (Guild Halls) Decorating in guild halls has been updated with the new Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds decorating capabilities. The size and shape of interaction boundaries on interactable decorations has been changed. A slight rotation change of up to a degree may be noticeable in the placement of some large guild hall decorations. The Kournan Brazier guild hall decoration now correctly has a flame. Attempting to place a decoration in an invalid location will now highlight the decoration in red. Previously, this functionality only worked in the Gilded Hollow guild hall. Entering decoration mode while in the guild arena will now allow direct placement of arena decorations, without needing to interact with the Arena Obstacles Coordinator. Wizard's Vault The Wizard's Vault's inventory has been updated for the new season! Last season's unique rewards are now available in the Legacy tab. This season's new, unique rewards now require Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds ownership to purchase. Legacy rewards will continue to require their associated expansion. Objective Updates New special objectives for the season have been added, and more will appear over the course of the season, including special objectives associated with bonus events and festivals. New daily and weekly objectives have been added for adventuring in the Janthir region, as well as the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure release "The Midnight King." Inventory Updates A new item type in the Wizard's Vault this season, the Falling Star Quest License, invites players on a short adventure in the newly available Janthir region. Your efforts will be rewarded with an ascended spear and gloves, as well as a series of achievements to track the quest's progress. Legendary Starter Kit—Set 5 is now available, containing two new weapon kits and two returning weapon kits. General Cats in the home instance can now be petted, unless they are otherwise occupied. Cats and other pets associated with 2023 Extra Life charity donation incentives have appeared across Tyria. They are visible only while under the effects of the Chatoyant Elixir or Chatoyant Lens. Animals from 2023 donations are present in a core Tyria town, as well as the Lowland Shore map in the Janthir region. Extra Life charity pets can now be petted. Scribe crafting stations now have unique background art, rather than reusing the art from weaponsmith crafting stations. The Tools of the Luxon Hunters and Energized Tools of the Luxon Hunters collections have been moved to the Rare Collections category. Fixed an issue that caused progress in the Tools of the Luxon Hunters collection to stall if a player unlocked the requisite weapon skins without owning Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Visiting Lion's Arch will allow progress to resume. Fixed an issue that allowed the Delve into the Haze achievement category to be viewed and accessed by players who do not own Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Updated the damage types of generation 3 legendary weapon variants: Kralkatorrik: Lightning Primordus: Fire Jormag: Ice Several updates have been made to the currency and materials exchange vendor Gharr Leadclaw: Adjusted the currency costs in the Essence Exchanges tab. Updated the variety of items to exchange for weekly astral fluctuating masses. Updated the variety of items to exchange in the Heart of Maguuma: Bulk Exchanges and Crystal Desert: Bulk Exchanges tabs. Adjusted the costs of those items the player exchanges for currencies or materials. Gharr now appears in several new locations. No Masteries are required for players to see him or use his services in these areas: Dragon's Stand, east of Pact Base Camp Waypoint, offering Heart of Maguuma bulk exchanges. Eye of the North, near Snargle Goldclaw, offering Crystal Desert bulk exchanges and 2 new daily exchanges. Arborstone, near Kestrel Zuru, offering Cantha bulk exchanges and 5 new daily exchanges. World Polish Fixed an issue that caused Kryptis rifts to spawn too slowly in certain areas of Thunderhead Peaks. The beach resort at Southsun Cove will no longer automatically transform players into an armorless state. For guests wishing to take a swim, a nearby tent has been repurposed as a changing area. Skywatch Archipelago: Fixed an issue that prevented shrine guardian chests 32, 33, 34, and 35 from being properly tracked for progress in the Rise and Shrine achievement. Fixed an issue that prevented the water bucket near the Aid Fort Salma renown heart from being accessible. Relics Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds relics will need to be unlocked before they are selectable options for a legendary relic. New relics have been added. Relic of the Claw: When you disable an enemy, gain a strike damage bonus for a duration. Relic of Sorrow: After using an elite skill, create an area that destroys missiles and heals and reduces incoming damage for allies. Relic of the Blightbringer: Build stacks when inflicting poison on an enemy. At 5 stacks, the next time you inflict poison also inflicts a burst of poison, weakness, and cripple on nearby enemies. Relic of the Stormsinger: After using a movement skill, your next attack performs a chain-lightning strike. Relic of Atrocity: Your lifesteal damage and lifesteal healing is increased. Relic of Rivers: Gain alacrity and regeneration when you dodge. World vs. World The warclaw has received updates to its skills with the release of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds: Sniff will now identify damaged and destroyed gates and walls for players. Chain Pull can now also be attached to walls and will apply Weakened Frame, an effect similar to Structural Vulnerability. Lance now has 2 charges. Additionally, the warclaw will now be unlocked for any player who enters WvW if they own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire or Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Players who have previously completed the warclaw collection to unlock the mount will receive a War Machine Weapon Skin Selection and WvW skirmish tickets in their mail upon logging in. The increased stamina and Warclaw's Blessing have been removed from the Warclaw Mastery ability line and are now inherent benefits to owning the warclaw in WvW. Finally, the WvW ability point costs to fill out the WvW Warclaw Mastery line have been greatly reduced. Profession Skills Elementalist Increased all etching durations from 5 seconds to 7 seconds. Etching skills will now put their corresponding lesser skill on a short cooldown to prevent unintentional usage. The visual effects of Jökulhlaup, Derecho, and Haboob will no longer be replaced by legendary effects. The beneficial effects applied by Seethe and Energize will no longer be consumed by slot 1 skills. Flame Spear: This skill now strikes up to 3 enemies. Blazing Barrage: Increased the power coefficient from 2.15 to 2.5 in PvE and from 1.3 to 1.5 in PvP. Volcano: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.26 in PvE only. Ice Beam: Increased the power coefficient per strike from 0.33 to 0.4 in WvW and from 0.33 to 0.45 in PvP. Ripple: This skill is now ground-targeted and also heals the user in addition to its other effects. Fixed an issue that caused Ripple's movement speed to be affected by quickness, slow, and movement-speed modifiers. Undertow: This skill will now always pull enemies that it strikes and will slow enemies within the inner radius. Fulgor: This skill now also strikes enemies in addition to the damage-over-time effect. Fixed an issue that allowed Fulgor's damage-over-time effect to be applied to WvW walls. Reduced the damage-over-time effect from 3 seconds to 1 second in PvE only. Derecho: Increased the power coefficient from 4 to 5 in PvE and from 1.4 to 1.6 in WvW. Earthen Spear: This skill now pierces. Increased the power coefficient from 2.2 to 2.6 in PvE and from 1.25 to 1.45 in PvP. Harden: Increased the dazed duration from 0.25 seconds to 2 seconds in PvE only. Fissure: Increased the power coefficient from 1.9 to 2.1 in PvE, from 0.9 to 1.0 in WvW, and from 1.3 to 1.5 in PvP. Haboob: Increased the power coefficient from 3.5 to 4.25 in PvE and from 1.2 to 1.33 in WvW. Fixed issues that prevented several skills from being affected by skill retargeting. Fixed an issue that caused multiple Volcano or Lesser Volcano skills cast in short succession to be affected by each other's damage falloff. Fixed an issue that prevented the flipped version of spear slot 5 skills from being available when swapping out of a double-attuned state as a weaver. Engineer Puncturing Jab: Increased the angle of this skill's hitbox. Rending Strike: Increased the angle of this skill's hitbox. Amplifying Slice: Increased the angle of this skill's hitbox. Reduced the casting time by 0.2 seconds. Reduced the bleeding and vulnerability durations from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Increased the bleeding and vulnerability stacks from 1 to 2. Conduit Surge: Added visual effects to help engineers identify their focused targets. Updated this skill so that Focused can only affect one target at a time. Successfully applying Focused now applies a Focusing effect to the engineer to help indicate time left on the focused target. Increased the burning stacks from 2 to 3 in PvE and from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW. Reduced the focused burning duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds and the unfocused burning duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only. Reduced the cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Lightning Rod: Increased strike damage per hit on focused targets from 0.25 to 0.3. Increased the strike damage per hit on unfocused targets from 0.15 to 0.17. Electric Artillery: Reduced the casting time by 0.24 seconds. Increased the range from 600 to 900. This skill no longer requires you to face your target. Increased the burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Devastator: Reduced the casting time and aftercast by 0.25 seconds. Increased the range from 450 to 600. Increased the damage coefficient from 1.75 to 2.0. Increased the burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Boiling Point: Reduced the internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 1 second. Modified Ammunition: Reduced the damage per condition from 2% to 1.5% in WvW only. Holosmith Photon Blitz: Increased the total damage coefficient from 1.6 to 1.84 in PvP and WvW. Prime Light Beam: Reduced the field's number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only. Laser's Edge: Reduced the maximum damage bonus from 15% to 10% in WvW only. Guardian Permeating Wrath: Reduced the number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only. Daybreaking Slash: This skill will now heal the player as well as other allies. Increased the base healing multiplier from 0.03 to 0.06. Increased the healing power multiplier from 0.03 to 0.06. Increased the target cap to 5 for both allies and enemies. Helio Rush: This skill is now a targeted area-of-effect skill and will heal the player as well as other allies. Increased the movement speed by 15%. Reduced the power multiplier from 1.25 to 0.8 in PvP and WvW. The illuminated version of this skill now additionally deals bonus damage to enemies and inflicts weakness on them. Gleaming Disc: The non-illuminated version of this skill now has a visual effect. The illuminated version of this skill now does more damage to enemies on the follow-up shock wave. Solar Storm: The illuminated version of this skill now has a higher limit on the number of strikes per target and additionally heals for each condition removed from allies. Reduced the power multiplier from 2 to 1.8 in PvE only. Symbol of Luminance: Resistance granted by this skill can now stack with other sources of resistance, but the symbol can only grant resistance once per interval to each affected target. Dragonhunter Dragon's Maw: Increased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only. Test of Faith: This skill's passthrough strike now deals additional damage to disabled targets. Reduced the passthrough damage coefficient from 2.5 to 1.88 in PvP only. Procession of Blades: Reduced the total damage coefficient from 4.4 to 3.6 in PvP only. Mesmer Mind the Gap: This skill's visual effect has been improved to better outline the outer edge. This skill now always grants Clarity on hit. This skill's outer edge will now always deal critical damage when it strikes an enemy. Increased the damage coefficient from 1.4 to 1.54 in PvP only. Imaginary Inversion: This skill will now cleanse conditions at the start of the cast, regardless of whether you have Clarity. This skill no longer requires hitting an enemy to heal, and this healing is now increased with Clarity. Phantasmal Lancer: This skill's phantasms no longer dash at the target and now launch their spears toward the target, inflicting damage in an area. This skill now grants swiftness to the player. Increased the damage from 0.4 to 0.6 in WvW and PvP. Mirage Fractured Glass: Increased the damage per hit from 0.25 to 0.3125 in WvW and PvP. Phantom Razor: This skill now inflicts crippled for 1.5 seconds instead of dazing the target. Mirage Mantle: Fixed an issue that prevented Sharp Edges from stacking duration properly. Necromancer Soul shard damage and healing information is now visible when viewing the Perforate tooltip. Soul shard duration now refreshes when gaining new shards. Deadly Slice: This skill now grants one soul shard if it strikes an enemy. Perforate: Increased the power coefficient per strike from 0.46 to 0.5 in PvE only. Isolate: Increased the power coefficient from 1.8 to 2.4 in PvE only. Addle: Reduced the number of soul shards required to inflict immobilized from 4 to 3. This skill now always grants its bonus effects when striking a defiant enemy. Increased the base number of soul shards generated from 1 to 2. Increased the power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.9 in PvE only. Extirpate: This skill now grants 12% life force and 5 might upon striking the first enemy, plus 2% life force and 1 might for each additional enemy struck. Increased the power coefficient from 3.4 to 3.8 in PvE only. Signet of Vampirism: Reduced the casting time by 0.4 seconds. Vile Blast: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 18 seconds in PvP only. Dread: Reduced the internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 1 second. Reaper "Suffer!": Increased the cooldown from 16 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only. "Nothing Can Save You!": Reduced the duration of unblockable stacks from 10 seconds to 6 seconds in all game modes. Increased the cooldown from 16 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP only. Ranger Drake's Swipe: Increased the power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.9 in PvE only. Bee's Sting: Increased the power coefficient from 0.7 to 1.2 in PvE and from 0.466 to 0.6 in WvW and PvP. Mongoose's Frenzy: Increased the power coefficient per hit from 1.0 to 1.25 in PvE only. Wolf's Onslaught: Increased the power coefficient per hit from 1.0 to 1.25 and the follow-up damage coefficient from 2 to 2.5 in PvE only. Reduced the casting time of the follow-up attack by 0.267 seconds. Falcon's Stoop: Increased the power coefficient from 1.8 to 2.2 and reduced the cooldown from 10 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only. Owl's Flight: Increased the power coefficient from 2.16 to 3.25 and reduced the cooldown from 10 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only. Improved the tracking of this skill when you have a target. Warclaw's Engage: Decreased the size this skill's visual effect. Increased the power coefficient from 2.64 to 3 in PvE only. Predator's Ambush: Decreased the size of this skill's visual effect. Increased the power coefficient from 2.64 to 4 in PvE only. Panther's Prowl: This skill now grants Hunter's Prowess when used. Hunter's Prowess allows the use of a stealth skill, even if the player is revealed. Reduced the number of charges from 2 to 1 in PvP only. Increased the stealth duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP and WvW. Spider's Web: This skill no longer shares its cooldown with Panther's Prowl. Increased the cooldown from 10 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE and from 15 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW. The pet selection panel now displays more pets per row. Flourish: Reduced the power coefficients from 0.75/1.0 to 0.6/0.9 in PvP only. Thistleguard: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP only. Wild Strikes: Reduced the total damage from 2.4 to 2.0 and reduced the dazed duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvP only. Healing Spring: Reduced the duration of regeneration per pulse from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP only. Smoke Cloud (Juvenile Smokescale): Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only. Stalk (Juvenile Jaguar): This skill will no longer apply stealth to downed players. Increased the cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds in PvP only. Moment of Clarity: Reduced the daze and stun duration increase from 50% to 10% in PvP and WvW. Untamed Ravager's Abandon: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.0625 in PvP only. Rampant Growth: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.91 to 0.75 in PvP only. Relentless Whirl: Reduced the total power coefficient from 1.7 to 1.5 in PvP only. Enhancing Impact: Reduced the quickness duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP only. Revenant The first spear skill slot's melee and ranged autoattacks have been separated to give each its own tooltip. Each attack now inflicts 1 stack of vulnerability for 6 seconds in addition to applying torment. Abyssal Fire: This skill's casting time has been slightly reduced. This skill now attacks up to 3 targets in a radius of 180 upon striking a foe. This attack is a 20% projectile finisher. Abyssal Strike: The casting time has been reduced from nearly 1 second to slightly over 0.5 seconds. Increased the attack radius to match other melee skills. Abyssal Force: Reduced the energy cost from 5 to 4. Reduced the casting time to 0.5 seconds. This skill now inflicts 1 stack of burning for 8 seconds instead of inflicting torment. Abyssal Blitz: This skill now drops a maximum of 3 mines, and the distance at which they are created has been slightly increased. Blitz mines now inflict weakness in addition to slow and chill effects. Abyssal Blot: This skill now pulls enemies on its first damage pulse instead of its last. Each pulse now inflicts poison for 6 seconds. Abyssal Raze: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 1.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds. This skill now inflicts torment without requiring Crushing Abyss, and it inflicts 2 stacks of torment per stack of Crushing Abyss. Increased the bonus strike damage per stack of Crushing Abyss from 20% to 33% in PvE and from 10% to 17% in PvP and WvW. Reduced the energy cost of this skill from 10 to 8. Crushing Abyss: Reduced the maximum stacks from 5 to 3. Coalescence of Ruin: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.45 to 1.3 in PvP only. Phase Smash: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only. Field of the Mists: Reduced the field duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP and WvW. Renegade Orders from Above: Reduced the alacrity duration per pulse from 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds in WvW only. Vindicator Angsiyan's Trust: Reduced the energy granted from 25 to 10 in PvP only. Death Drop: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.335 to 0.75 in PvP only. Empire Divided: Reduced the power bonus from 240 to 120 in PvP only. Thief Using a lead attack skill will now always enable follow-up skills unless the skill is interrupted. Using a follow-up skill will now always enable finisher skills unless the skill is interrupted. Mantis Sting: Reduced the bleeding from 2 stacks for 6 seconds to 1 stack for 4 seconds in PvE only. Unsuspecting Strike: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to be affected by movement speed. Entangling Asp: Reduced the poison stacks from 2 for 6 seconds to 1 for 2 seconds in PvE only. Falling Spider: Increased the number of targets struck from 3 to 5. Reduced the bleeding and poison stacks from 2 for 7 seconds to 1 for 3.5 seconds in PvE only. Shattering Assault: Increased the number of targets struck from 3 to 5. Ashen Assault and Malicious Ashen Assault: Increased the attack range from 170 to 240. Reduced the bleeding and poison stacks from 4 for 8 seconds to 3 for 7 seconds in PvE only. Fixed an issue that prevented some spear skills from generating shadow force. Tactical Strike: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.33 to 1.1 in PvP only. Infiltrator's Return: Increased the initiative cost from 2 to 3 in PvP only. Deadeye Mercy: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 45 seconds in PvP only. Malicious Tactical Strike: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.33 to 1.1 in PvP only. Warrior Mighty Throw: This skill now produces four spear shards regardless of range. The initial spear projectile deals more damage, and the follow-up shard projectiles deal less damage. This skill now counts as an explosion. Maiming Spear: Reduced the casting time by approximately 15%. Increased the aftershock damage coefficient from 0.6 to 1.2 in PvE only. The aftershock now occurs in a radius of 240 regardless of range, deals bonus damage to the enemy closest to the epicenter, and counts as an explosion. Disrupting Throw: This skill has been moved to the third skill slot. This skill now immobilizes at all ranges. This skill additionally dazes the first target struck by the projectile. Reduced the total casting time by 33%. Decreased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Spearmarshal's Support: This skill has been moved to the fourth skill slot. Reduced the damage multiplier from 0.7 to 0.6 in PvE. The target now takes increased damage from this skill. Spears now spawn over the target without delay, regardless of its distance from the player. Increased the radius from 90 to 120. Decreased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. Spear Swipe: This skill has been moved to the fifth skill slot. Players can now move freely while casting this skill. The movement portion of this skill now occurs at the same time the projectile fires. Increased the power coefficient from 1.5 to 2.0 in PvE. This skill's projectile is now unblockable, reflects missiles, and counts as a projectile finisher. The first enemy struck by this skill's projectile is launched instead of knocked back. Increased the evasion duration from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds. Increased the cooldown from 10 seconds to 20 seconds. The cooldown is decreased if an attack is evaded or at least one enemy was struck by the projectile. Harrier's Toss: Reduced the casting time by approximately 33%. This does not affect the evade duration. Players leap higher and can now move freely while casting this skill. This skill now does more damage to the target closest to its epicenter. Wild Throw: Reduced the total casting time from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds; the total number of spears thrown remains the same. This skill now deals more damage to the first enemy it strikes. This skill is now a projectile finisher and can no longer be used on targets behind you. Path to Victory: This skill no longer inflicts weakness. Reduced the damage coefficient from 0.91 to 0.5 in PvP only. Snap Pull: Increased the cooldown from 18 seconds to 22 seconds in PvP only. Impale: Reduced the damage coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2 in PvP only. Gem Store Improvements The following changes have been made to categories and tabs in the Gem Store to aid in item searchability and to fix an issue that caused text to overlap under certain circumstances: The Toys tab is now named Novelties. The Mounts category and Skiff Skins category have been merged into the Mounts and Skiffs category under the Style tab. The Jade Bot Skins category, Emotes category, and Fishing Rod Skins category have been merged into the Miscellaneous category under the Style tab.

Bug Fixes: Fixed an issue that caused the map location coordinates for the homestead to be misaligned with the map visuals. Fixed an issue that caused the first gate to break when playing the Warclaw Run adventure after the Warclaw Run race. Fixed an issue with the asura and charr Skysteel Glider animations. Relocated titan rifts so that they are above the terrain. The books "Letter from Dagonet," The Ravaging of the Jade Runner, From Pirate to Pilot, and Dragon Parentage and Family now all properly progress the Life in the Lowlands achievement. Fixed an issue that caused completion of a renown heart to unlock a different renown heart's vendor in certain situations. Fixed an issue that caused Vast Caldera's conversation to close quickly. Fixed an issue that could cause racing adventures in Lowland Shore to stall if a player did not remove the salmon transformation effect before completing the "Reach the Salmon Run finish line" event. Fixed an issue that prevented one of the books in the Unknown Territory story instance from being interacted with, which prevented completion of a story achievement. Fixed an issue that caused the "Escort Ardent Gale as she poisons valravn nests" event to stall if it failed. We have temporarily disabled drag-and-drop movement of spears between aquatic weapon slots and terrestrial weapon slots to address an issue.

Bug Fixes: Fixed several server crashes. Fixed an issue that caused the game to crash when automatically converting currencies. Fixed an issue that caused a Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure vendor to request unusual coins instead of ancient coins. Fixed an issue that prevented some players from seeing conduits summoned by a world boss. Fixed an issue that caused some players' handiworker crafting discipline level to be immediately set to 500. Updated the handiworker crafting level of all players to the appropriate level based on their unlocked Homesteading Mastery tier. Fixed an issue that prevented adventures in the Janthir region from awarding experience on completion. Fixed an issue that caused Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure exploration to continue awarding unusual coins. Fixed an issue that prevented new rifts from spawning properly. Reduced the ursus oblige cost of collection items for the Falling Star: Crafting List achievement.

This hotfix will be briefly delayed while we address an unexpected technical issue.

This game update is now live.

Bug Fixes: Fixed a server crash in Hearth's Glow. Fixed an issue that could cause the "Defend the kodan base from the Mistburned creatures" event to stall indefinitely. Fixed an issue that caused Glyphs of Alchemy to convert materials from lowland pine saplings and unique enemy-related mining nodes in Janthir Syntri. Targets in the event "Work together to destroy all targets while mounted on your warclaw" will now properly appear if the event starts with no players nearby Reduced the warclaw's jumping height in WvW. Fixed an issue that prevented jackal mounts from traveling through some sand portals or caused them to emerge from the portals in unexpected directions. Reduced blighted beast area-of-effect attacks to relieve pressure on melee players and work more seamlessly with Greer's mechanics. Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Barbed Vale to walk around the arena instead of executing skills and phase mechanics during the "Prove your mettle to Barbed Vale" event in Lowland Shore. Reduced the number of objectives needed to complete the Janthir Wilds: Act 1 Mastery achievement. Placed a conjured door portal in Hearth's Glow that returns players to Lowland Shore. Fixed an issue that caused Decima to enter additional warclaw phases at 10% health. Fixed an issue that prevented a successful warclaw phase against either titan from completing the other's warclaw phase if both were active at the same time.

Bug Fixes: Unsuspecting Strike: Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from consuming initiative at the start of its cast. Shattering Assault: This skill now requires its attack to strike a target in order to apply stealth to the thief. Fixed a client crash that could occur when moving the mouse cursor over a spear icon. Fixed an issue that caused Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure Strike Missions to incorrectly reward green prophet shards instead of blue prophet shards. Nikki the Lost now trades blue prophet shards for green prophet shards. Fixed several issues in the Diplomacy and Discovery story steps to find and return the lost warclaw cub. Adjusted the drop rate of the Warclaw Kitten Tonic. Fixed an issue that caused the "Assist Ekto's paranormal research" event in Janthir Syntri to scale inappropriately. Fixed an issue with the White Mantle Portal Device. Fixed a server crash. Fixed an issue that allowed players to jump directly after dodging while riding the warclaw in WvW to gain extra height. The Salvage Pile node in Hearth's Glow is now located in front of the Mine's entrance if it has been unlocked. The Wintersday Gift Tree node is now located next to the Lumber Mill in Hearth's Glow if it has been unlocked. Fixed an issue that prevented the "Help the kodan gather foraged plants and animal meat" events from restarting after a Mists Tide. Relic of Rivers: Fixed an issue that caused this relic to trigger on all instances of Mirage Cloak. Harrier's Toss: Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to trigger burst traits without striking a target. Fixed an issue that prevented events in Harvest Den from progressing the "Earn Distant Thunder's trust by completing events in Harvest Den" step of the Star-Crossed Lovers collection.

Bug Fixes: Fixed an issue that prevented some handiworker recipes from being visible or craftable. These recipes will be available after the character that originally learned the recipe has logged in once. Adjusted how adventures award renown tokens. Titanspawn emerging from Mists rifts will now begin spawning as standard enemies rather than as veterans.

Bug Fixes: The Ornamented Bearkin Claw weapon is no longer account bound on acquire. Fixed an issue that allowed more than one glyph to be applied to a homestead collection box for no additional benefit, causing the excess glyphs to be lost. If you lost a glyph due to this issue, please contact Customer Support. Fixed an issue that prevented glyphs from applying the correct bonuses to homestead collection boxes. Fixed an issue that allowed players to interact with the same cloud multiple times when playing the View from the Top adventure. Fixed incorrect fishing nodes in Hearth's Glow. The handiworker recipe for chandelier homestead decorations now requires lowland honeycombs rather than a lump of beeswax. Fixed an issue that prevented players from progressing in the Tales of the Lowland Wisps collection in Lowland Shore if they interacted with members of the second group of wisps before meeting Valiant Aria in Loch Lucent. Fixed an issue that could block progression in the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story chapter Commander without a Cause.

Bug Fixes: Fixed an issue that caused the "Help Gosta Contact the Restless Spirits" event to be active at unintended times. Fixed an issue that prevented the Poetic Justice achievement from being awarded to players more than once per map instance. Fixed an issue that caused the "Clear Rising Bloom's garden of Mistburned flowers" event to stall after successful completion. Fixed an issue that prevented the Full Bloom achievement from being awarded to players more than once per map instance. Fixed an issue that caused the "Defend the kodan base from the Mistburned creatures" event to stall indefinitely. Fixed an issue that prevented players from interacting with paranormal activity in the "Assist Ekto's paranormal research" event. The Shield Trap achievement can now be completed during all of the "Relic hunt!" events. The leaderboard rankings for the View from the Top adventure have been reset.