Game Update Notes: September 26, 2023

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

09/26/2023—September 26 Release Notes

World Polish

• Reduced the amount of healing twisted mender enemies applied to their allies. It is now a flat value rather than a percentage of the target's maximum health.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a mismatch between the Priority Strike rotation and related achievements at the Eye of the North asura gate during certain time frames.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from joining party members who entered a home instance or Sun's Refuge via the asura gate in the Eye of the North.
• Fixed an issue that could cause meta-event entries in the Eye of the North to be available for a longer period than expected.
• Zizel and Galrath the Undying have been promoted to legendary rank.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Kaineng Blackout meta-event in New Kaineng City to occasionally stall while players were capturing the breaker boxes.
• Kryptis rifts have been reported in additional locations. Ember Bay, Frostgorge Sound, Iron Marches, Seitung Province, and Verdant Brink have been added to the Kryptis rift weekly rotation pool.
• Additional achievements have been added for the new rift hunting locations.

Skywatch Archipelago

• Increased the duration of active checkpoints for the Rise and Shrine achievement.
• The junior archivist's position in Wizard's Ascent is now marked on the map.
• Fixed an issue that caused chest icons to persist on the compass after the chests were opened.
• Fixed an issue that could cause players using bellows to retain their bundles after completing the "Gather essence of awe around Droknar's Light" event.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent players from obtaining the special action skill to cleanse corruption at the end of the Unlocking the Wizard's Tower meta-event.

The Wizard's Tower

• Added a fishing hole at the Wizard's Respite point of interest.
• Fixed an issue that caused the targets in the Skyscale Target Practice adventure to disappear too early for players who began the adventure shortly before it became unavailable.

Amnytas

• Adjusted the location of the Spellcrafting Workshop's starlight lantern to be closer to the point of interest.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Museum of Curiosities: Main Gallery's starlight lantern to be positioned inside a wall.
• Fixed an issue that caused chest icons to persist on the compass after the chests were opened.
• Updated Dagda's astral projection visual effects during the finale of the Defense of Amnytas meta-event.
• Reduced the movement speed of the Nova Launch skill in Amnytas to fix an issue that caused players to clip through walls.
• Fixed an issue that caused the "Escort Zizel and the concoctions to the greenhouse" event to fail before the final concoction dropped.
• Fixed an issue that caused some ambient dialogue to continue playing during the Defense of Amnytas meta-event.
• Coconut's level has been corrected.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to kill cats in the Bastion of Knowledge.
• Fixed an issue that caused the player to become stuck in action camera mode during the "Help Livia escort the relics by shooting at Kryptis from the magic platforms" event.

General

• Wurm enemies below champion rank now correctly drop the item needed to progress the Skyscale Medicine Masker achievement.

Skywatch Archipelago

• "Protector of" achievement objective text has been updated to match the respective events. Additionally, if an event is part of an event chain, it will be listed as part of the objective.

Amyntas

• The hint text for the Fantastic Flying Foxes achievement has been updated.

Fractals

Silent Surf

• Fixed an issue that caused all party members to be defeated when engaging the first boss in challenge mode.

Sunqua Peak

• Fixed an issue that could cause the final boss to get stuck repeating an animation during the first phase of the encounter.

Shattered Observatory

• Fixed an issue that could cause Artsariiv to be interrupted by damage after phase transitions at 66% and 33% health in challenge mode.

Personal Story

• Fixed an issue that blocked sylvari players from completing the Hearts and Minds story step in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns if they disconnected from the game or re-entered the instance after the Mordremoth fight.
• Updated the requirements for progressing the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure Fractal Push story achievement. Rather than successfully completing the final stage of the meta-event in Skywatch Archipelago, progress will be awarded for participating in any of the meta-events.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Second Hunter Kamilla from skipping certain dialogue steps for players who had already received the one-time gift of an uncommon Kryptis motivation.
• Adjusted players' downed behavior in the Treachery story step in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure to prevent issues during the cinematic.

Profession Skills

The goal of these changes is to address a number of builds that are overperforming in PvE. We'll keep a close eye on the impact of these changes and may make additional tuning adjustments as needed to bring any overperforming builds back in line before the next regular balance update.

General

• Relic of Akeem: Reduced torment and confusion stacks from 3 to 2 in PvE only.
• Relic of Fireworks: Reduced the damage bonus from 10% to 7% in PvE and WvW.
• Relic of Mabon: Fixed an issue that caused this relic to affect might stacks applied by the user instead of might stacks applied to the user. Reduced the internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

Elementalist

• Wildfire: Reduced power coefficient from 0.66 to 0.44 in PvE only.
• Elements of Rage: Reduced the damage bonus from 10% to 7% in PvE only.
• Weaver's Prowess: Reduced the damage bonus from 10% to 5% in PvE only.
• Empowering Auras: Reduced the damage bonus per stack from 3% to 2% in PvE only.
• Deploy Jade Sphere: Reduced power coefficient from 0.4 to 0.35 in PvE only.

Engineer

• Poison Dart Volley: Reduced poison duration from 9 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only.
• Blowtorch: Reduced burning stacks from 4 to 3 in PvE only.
• Corona Burst: Reduced burning duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Photon Blitz: Reduced burning duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvE only.

Mesmer

• Jagged Mind: Reduced bleeding duration from 5 seconds to 4.5 seconds in PvE only.

Necromancer

• Devouring Darkness: Reduced torment duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only.
• Dhuumfire: Reduced burning duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds when the scourge elite specialization is equipped in PvE only.
• Sadistic Searing: Reduced burning from 2 stacks for 5 seconds to 1 stack for 4 seconds in PvE only.
• Demonic Lore: Reduced burning duration from 3 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.
• Desert Shroud: Reduced torment duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only.
• Sandstorm Shroud: Reduced torment duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only.
• Voracious Arc: Reduced torment duration from 10 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only.

Ranger

• Furious Strength: Reduced the damage bonus from 15% to 10% in PvE only.
• Neurotoxin Burst: Reduced bleeding stacks from 3 to 2 in PvE only. Reduced poison stacks from 5 to 2 in PvE only.

Revenant

• Mist Swing: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.7 in PvE only.
• Mist Slash: Reduced power coefficient from 1.1 to 0.8 in PvE only.
• Arcing Mists: Reduced power coefficient from 1.3 to 1.2 in PvE only.
• Mists Unleashed: Reduced power coefficient from 2.0 to 1.6 in PvE only.
• Bloodbane Path: Reduced bleeding duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvE only.
• Sevenshot: Reduced torment duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only.
• Elemental Blast: Reduced burning from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only.
• Leviathan Strength: Increased damage bonus from 10% to 15% in PvE only.
• Forerunner of Death: Increased damage bonus from 15% to 25% in PvE only.

Thief

• Malicious Shadowsquall: Reduced bonus poison duration per stack of malice from 25% to 20% in PvE only.
• Twilight Combo: Reduced poison and torment duration from 8 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only.
• Strength of Shadows: Reduced torment damage bonus from 25% to 20% in PvE only.

Warrior

• Fan of Fire: Reduced burning duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Flaming Flurry: Reduced burning duration from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds in PvE only.
• Scorched Earth: Reduced burning duration from 4 seconds to 2.5 seconds in PvE only.
• Flames of War: Fixed an issue that caused this skill's pulses to inflict an additional stack of burning for 1 second in PvE.
• Blood Reaction: Increased the power to condition damage conversion from 10% to 15% in PvE only.

World vs. World

• A new merchant has been added to Eternal Battlegrounds, Desert Borderlands, Alpine Borderlands, and Armistice Bastion. This merchant sells exotic equipment with selectable attributes in exchange for gold and badges of honor.
• The armorsmith, weaponsmith, and karma equipment merchants in WvW maps have been removed.

Improvements and Updates

• Fixed an issue that caused duplicate daily WvW objectives to occasionally be displayed in the Wizard's Vault.

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that prevented players from communing with the Searing Cauldron hero challenge in Iron Marches.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Kryptis rift events from being enabled upon weekly reset if that week’s chosen maps were opened before the Weekly Rift Hunting map rotation changed.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from earning progress toward the following achievements. Completing these achievements should now properly award progress toward the Master of the Rifts achievement:
  • Frostgorge Sound Rift Hunting
  • Ember Bay Rift Hunting
  • Iron Marches Rift Hunting
  • Verdant Brink Rift Hunting
  • Bitterfrost Frontier Rift Hunting
• Fixed a camera rotation issue when placing guild decorations.
• Fixed an issue that prevented spiral diving while using a griffon mount.
• Fixed an issue that caused griffon mounts to lose momentum when entering an updraft.

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that caused the Stack of Badges of Honor item to grant fewer badges of honor than intended.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to repeatedly commune with certain places of power across Tyria while holding uncharged quartz crystals.           
• Fixed an issue that prevented the notification icon for the Wizard's Vault from disappearing correctly after completing several special objectives.

[Branded Employee.5397]

Bug Fix:

• Fixed an issue in the Treachery chapter of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story that caused the player's UI to become permanently hidden during the encounter.