11/28/2017 - November 28 Release Notes

Living World–"Daybreak"

After a freak Brandstorm engulfs the Elonian city of Amnoon, a mysterious vision reveals that an encounter in the ancient ruins might determine the fate of Tyria. The commander embarks on a search for a secretive order of warriors who guard the way into the ancient city, just as the consequences of past choices come home to roost.

New Legendary Focus

A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion's Arch to learn how to craft the new focus precursor, "Ars Goetia," and forge this new legendary focus.

World Polish

Elon Riverlands

• Added a conversation line to Jimoh to help indicate that she can escort up to ten defectors north to the oasis camp.
• Fixed a bug that caused one of the Deadhouse prisoners to remain hidden in their cell.

The Desolation

• Added a fix so the second finisher used on each of the Maws of Torment portals will show the player's chosen finisher instead of the Realm Portal Spike Finisher.

General

• Molten effigies are no longer immune to burning.
• The Settings Preset under Graphics Options no longer affects the DPI Scaling setting.
• Fixed the Jackal Reconnaissance achievement so it will no longer stall if the player recovers Awakened intel before turning in a letter to Nori Mahat in the Bonestrand.
• Windows: The launcher's size now reflects the DPI Scaling setting.
• Exotic-tier Funerary weapons and armor can now be salvaged and used in the Mystic Forge.
• A new Keys category has been added to the wallet, and it contains a currency version of several existing items. These items can be consumed to convert them into the new currencies. Content that once required these items to be in a player's inventory will now check for the currency instead. This change affects the following items:
  • Zephyrite Lockpicks
  • Bandit Skeleton Keys
  • Pact Crowbars
  • Exalted Keys
  • Vials of Chak Acid
  • Machetes
  • Trader's Keys
• A new Competitive Currencies category has been added to the wallet, and it contains the following currencies:
  • PvP League Tickets
  • Ascended Shards of Glory
  • Badges of Honor
  • WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets
  • Proofs of Heroics
  • Testimonies of Heroics
• Some currencies in the wallet have been reorganized for consistency in grouping in the All Currencies view.

Fractals

New Fractal: Twilight Oasis

• Journey to the past and witness events that shaped Elona, for better or worse.

Fractal Revamps

Captain Mai Trin Boss

The Captain Mai Trin Boss fractal has a few pain points, namely the lack of diversity in the encounter, as well as the inability to progress the cannon transitions any faster through player skill. The fractal has been updated to reflect our new encounter-design standards and increase player engagement at all tiers.

• Improved telegraphing and targeting consistency of Horrik's cannon attacks.
• Captain Mai Trin will now fixate on the farthest player for a short time after a teleport.
• Adjusted transitions to rely more on player skill for progression.
• Improved mechanical escalation.
• Implemented various bug fixes and improvements.

Molten Boss

The Molten Boss fractal was too short to be considered a full fractal, and it had some time-gated content that made replaying the fractal a bit tedious. Now, the fractal is full length and has received various improvements to bring it up to our new quality standards.

• Improved the environment art and lighting.
• Added new encounters reminiscent of the original dungeon.
• Added new dialogue for the final bosses.
• Removed unnecessary waiting.
• Replaced a cinematic.
• Improved telegraphing on the Molten Firestorm.
• Reduced the amount of knockbacks in the second phase of the Molten Berserker.
• Removed evades from the Molten Berserker.
• Changed the outer ring in the second phase of the Molten Firestorm encounter to be much less punishing for melee players.
• Reworked the Champion Molten Effigy encounter.
• Rebuilt the Molten Alliance creature skillsets to be better telegraphed and more fair.
• Added new content to the second phases of the boss fight at tiers 3 and 4.
• Implemented various bug fixes and improvements.

Mistlock Instabilities

• Two new Mistlock Instabilities have been added to the fractals.
  • Hamstrung: The lower your health, the slower you move.
  • Fractal Vindicators: Fractal Avengers have been replaced by the more powerful Fractal Vindicators.
• Flux Bomb will no longer be able to appear in midair.
• Adjusted which instabilities appear at some scales.

Fractal Rewards

Long-term uses for fractal currency have been lacking, so new rewards have been added that can be purchased using fractal currencies and materials. Additionally, some rewards, such as fractal encryptions, experience, and karma, were inconsistent, with some fractals providing too much and some fractals providing too little.

• The karma reward formula has been simplified. Players will no longer be penalized for playing above their Personal Fractal Level or for playing above scale 90.
• Tyrian Mastery experience rewards in fractals have been standardized so that tiers 1–4 respectively give 2, 4, 8, and 12 writs of mastery experience.
• Standardized Fractal Encryption rewards for all fractals, with the exception of the Nightmare and Shattered Observatory fractals, which now reward extra Fractal Encryptions.
• New account augmentations can be purchased from Deroir in the Mistlock Observatory.
• Added ascended rings, accessories, and amulets with selectable stats to Buy-2046 PFR.
• Added Mystic Clovers to Buy-4373. Purchases are limited to two per day.
• Added equipment bags that can be purchased with blade shards to Bling-9009 after completing the harbinger's challenge in the Nightmare fractal. Purchases are limited to five per day.
• Added Integrated Fractal Matrices to the material storage tab in the Bank.
• Reduced the Obsidian Shard gold cost and increased the relic cost.
• The Mistlock Observatory jumping puzzle now offers a small number of daily relics.
• The Fractal Console guild decoration can now be constructed, and players can interact with it for unique effects.

Fractal Quality of Life Updates

• Added Mystic Forge recipes with swappable states to existing cosmetic infusions, such as Celestial Infusion, Chak Infusion, Ghostly Infusion, etc.
• Added Mystic Forge recipes with swappable stats for rare infusions.
• Added expertise and concentration infusions.
• Added a right-click "Consume All" option for fractal encryptions and keys.
• When a party is defeated, astral force for Celestial Avatar and life force for Death Shroud will now refill.
• Moved the first Cliffside Mistlock Singularity to a more convenient location.

General

• Changed which fractals appear at scales 1–7.

Raids

Hall of Chains

• An influx of murderous undead relentlessly hunt innocent worshipers of Grenth. Infiltrate the Underworld and join the struggle for control over the fates of the living and the dead.

Spirit Vale

• Players who fall into the River of Spirits while the Sabetha encounter is active will now be teleported back to the main platform.
• Sabetha's flame wall attack, Firestorm, has received general improvements to its collision detection.
• Jumping will no longer negate the teleport from Unstable Magic Spike.
• Gorseval now has a facing arrow decal, similar to Vale Guardian.
• Gorseval's prisons now receive conditions and critical hits.
• Revealed is no longer permanently applied when Gorseval is engaged.
• Boss attacks now have more information in the combat log.
• All bosses are no longer immune to weakness.

Salvation Pass

• Improved messaging on Slothasor's Tantrum telegraphs.
• Boss attacks now have more information in the combat log.
• An achievement-tracking effect has been added to Environmentally Friendly.
• Saboteurs now have Veteran status to assist with tab targeting.

Stronghold of the Faithful

• Boss attacks now have more information in the combat log.
• Revealed is no longer permanently applied when the Keep Construct is engaged.
• Revealed is no longer permanently applied when Xera is engaged.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Radiant and Crimson Phantasms from disappearing.
• Fixed an issue in which conditions could damage the Keep Construct while invulnerable, allowing for phases to be skipped.

General

• The Raid Mastery track, if locked, will now be hidden. This has been done to allow players who do not participate in raids to gain experience toward Spirit Shards. Completing any encounter inside of a Heart of Thorns™ raid will unlock and make visible the Raid Mastery track.
• Various bosses now apply revealed directly to fixated targets and high-toughness targets through attacks.
• Boons, barriers, and mounts are now removed more expediently when an event starts.
• Event failure now refills astral force for Celestial Avatar and life force for Death Shroud.
• The Rift Traveler Mastery has been renamed Rift Forger. Travel via Ley Rifts is now available to all players, and the Rift Forger Mastery will allow players to repair their armor.
• All bosses are no longer immune to weakness.
• Boss encounters had incongruent toughness values across the board. With a few exceptions, all encounters have had their toughness normalized.
  • Vale Guardian, Keep Construct, and McLeod the Silent remain unchanged.

Structured Player vs. Player

Players can no longer mount or glide in the Free-for-All arena found in the Heart of the Mists.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

New Items and Promotions

• For a limited time, the new Resplendent Avialan raptor mount skin is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 2,000 gems.
• A new Elonian Landscape Dye Kit containing six exclusive colors is now available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.
• For seven days, the Mistlock Sanctuary Passkey returns to the Utility category of the Gem Store for 1,000 gems.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a server crash.

Bug Fixes:

• Raids—Hall of Chains: Completing the Statue of Darkness event will now properly reward an achievement.
• Raids—Hall of Chains: The Surging Souls pattern no longer causes an errant wave to appear.
• Brandstone elementals will now properly advance their kill objective in the Eye of the Brandstorm story instance.
• Raids—Hall of Chains: Fixed an issue that prevented the statue events from resetting properly.
• Raids—Hall of Chains: The Necro Dancer achievement now properly applies and reapplies the tracking effect when the encounter starts and resets.
• Updated the tooltip for the Resplendent Avialan to clarify that this item unlocks a raptor mount skin.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some players from reaching Istan.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Call of the Mists from being applied to players in the Hall of Chains raid instance.mancer character of any race.

  11/28/2017 - Late Notes

General

• Renown rewards and WvW reward chests can now be right-clicked to quickly take their contents.

Fractals

• Agony will no longer reduce barrier application.
• Skorvald's Supernova attack in the Shattered Observatory fractal can no longer be dodged.
• The magical launchers in the Skorvald fight will no longer pull in downed players.
• Time pockets, temporal anomalies, and Corporeal Reassignment are now more consistent in the Arkk fight.

Professions

Mesmer:

• Imaginary Axes: This skill will no longer hit the same target twice with the same axe.
• Mirrored Axes—Phantasmal Seeking Axe: This skill will no longer hit the same target twice with the same axe.

Items

• A new item, Gift of Desert Mastery, has been added to allow crafting legendary weapons by playing in Path of Fire™ maps.

• • The following weapons can be created with the new gift: Flames of War, Sharur, Shooshadoo, the HMS Divinity, the Shining Blade, and future legendary weapons that are part of this set.
  • Legendary tributes can now be purchased from various vendors in Path of Fire maps.

Structured Player vs. Player

We've introduced a new PvP Conquest Timeline feature. During a PvP match, you can see a running timeline of both teams' scores. Events that affect the score will show up as icons on the timeline.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

Bug Fix

• The Mysterious Sands Chest has been updated to include the Dreamthistle Dagger skin.

CHINA-SPECIFIC RELEASE NOTES

Bug Fix

• Fixed an issue that prevented the zoom feature from zooming in on the face of the model when creating a new necromancer character of any race.

Bug Fixes:

• Raids—Hall of Chains: Fixed an issue that prevented the Statue of Darkness event from completing.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players who are not instance owners from receiving credit for "The First City" story instance in a party.
• Adjusted the health of Branded wyverns and Death-Branded Lieutenants in the "Eye of the Brandstorm" chapter.
• Raids—Hall of Chains: Fixed an issue in which the Eater of Souls could die early.
• Fixed an issue that caused players to become stuck if they teleported outside of the arena during an encounter in "The First City" story instance.
• Fixed a server crash.
• Fixed a client crash.
• Akili will no longer get stuck during his escort event.
• Revenge of the Capricorn: Fixed an issue in which the Capricorn ship appeared in the wrong location.
• Fixed a bug with books in Istan.
• Fixed a bug that caused too many Daily Domain of Istan achievements to be active in one day.
• Corrected an issue in which Daily Domain of Istan achievements awarded extra achievement points.
• Fixed a bug in which the Branded wyvern would become immortal and sentient, and then it would decide to block chapter progression.