Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-brand-new-fractals-of-the-mists-legendary-backpacks-ascended-salvaging-and-more/

Enjoy!

“This is not the new “challenging group content” that Colin announced on stage when he first revealed the expansion at PAX South”

Sounds like a new beginning for some end game content, but there is no talking of new fractals. There is a limit of how much you can recycle material just by making a nice backpiece skin. All of this but no new fractals?

All new precursors will be account bound… I wonder what will happen to the price of current precursors.

Ascended salvaging: Finally, got many rings to salvage.

As with the blog post about guild missions, it is exciting, but I think it is missing one extremely important (probably the most important) element -

Will there actually be new fractal islands (maps) launching with Heart of Thorns?
(I have the same question about guild missions)

I love the idea of the new system, but the real excitement comes from the idea of new content more than just new ways to do the old content.

I’m curious as to what the legendary backpack does, though I assume it has ooc stat switching like the weapons do.

I certainly suddenly really want to get to level 50. I’m just at 27 or so … it can happen!

This is the kind of article I wish they’d release more of.

Can’t wait to get those catbot minis

The legendary packback(s?) will be interesting. Gonna be a problem if they rely on a lot of the stuff from ascended items, since some of us get no ascended drops (other than rings in lower fractals). Gonna have to try to get my fractal level higher now, so I can hopefully get more ascended and some of the fractal weapons.

. We are retroactively adding this new support to many of our existing achievements.

any chance these will be before HoT, or will they be when HoT is released?

So we get a lockbox from the end chest on a fractal, but it doesn’t state how we get the fractal encryption keys, other than trading in something(s) salvaged from ascended equipment. Hopefully we have another way to get the fractal encryption keys…

For the 3 to 1 fractal change, How do we go up in fractal levels? We only need to be one fractal now to increase in fractal level?

That back looks juicy:-)

would anybody else be disappointed if the picture of the backpack was the actual legendary? it would fit as a precursor but not as a legendary imo.

I’m curious if its only 1 backpack or there will be more in other places of the game.

I really like the ‘… list of subobjectives for these types of achievements that will be checked off as you complete each one. This will work similarly to the new karka-hunt collection achievement released with the rebuild of Lion’s Arch. We are retroactively adding this new support to many of our existing achievements.’

That’s a QoL feature many have asked for. Should be very helpful. =)

Best bit of news i’ve seen in a loooong time. Thank you Anet =D

um…..okay.

more system reworks……no one reworks their existing systems more than Anet.
they’re nice for sure (very happy for ascended salvaging), but i’ll care more if/when they actually add a new fractal or two…..long overdue and will be hugely disappointing if they don’t add at least one new fractal w/ HoT

that said, reducing the time investment necessary to get something out of fractals is a great change. kudos.

Needs moar lens flares!

so that ascended salvaging, will it let me salvage my 250+ globs of dark matter? im not using it lol

The BIGGEST QUESTION ! So if legendary weapons color you foot prints legendary backpacks color your……..?

Farts ?

:D
:O

I’m very excited to hear about this! Can’t wait to see what the new weapons look like as well.

Good on you for letting us pick a fractal weapon. This was announced in the “Fractured” update years ago with “Fractal Weapon Boxes” and then they dropped it and wouldn’t even discuss why.

I adore Fractals and am glad that this stuff is finally happening. Although this should have happened ages ago when it was first supposed to happen. It’s so frustrating to have to wait ages for stuff that was already said to have been coming and then to have it thrown behind a paywall is awful.

Does all this stuff require Heart of Thorns to have access to? The Fractal weapon choices at the very least shouldn’t because you guys already said this stuff was coming when you announced “Fractured”. If it doesn’t require HoT then a big kudos from me. If it does require it, you guys should know better.

one problem left: what about the needed ar for the higher fractals? its 15ar every 10 lvl for now and with my full ar equip I achieve 85 ar atm. So basicly i am able to do up to lvl 69. We gonna get infused armors then?

This was amazing… Like omg… Yes … Please… Thank you.

As excited I am about elite specializations. This post coming out of no where got me so hyped!!!! Thank you a net ! Looking forward to the higher level fractal!!!

Out of all that was posted, the one I got excited about?

Subobjectives. It’s little QoL changes like this that vaguely restore my trust in ANet.

Good for many things:

-It’s not the challenging group content (it would’ve been a copout if it was)
-More incentive besides fractal daily to go in there
-Better rewards (fingers crossed)
-Legendary Backpieces (I prefer legendary armour, but ok)
-Ascended salvage kits (about time I got rid of those rings I don’t need)
-Leaderboards (for the hardcore peeps)

Maybe I’ll give it a run in the future.

Nesfarro.1265:

one problem left: what about the needed ar for the higher fractals? its 15ar every 10 lvl for now and with my full ar equip I achieve 85 ar atm. So basicly i am able to do up to lvl 69. We gonna get infused armors then?

Moar gold sink incoming?

ATM with the actual system 145 AR would be needed for lvl 100. Apart from standard +5 infusions on all slots (14 slots = 70AR), one’d need 75 AR more in Agony Infusions only in trinkets, that means 3×12 + 3×13 infusions → 275.6529G only for the thermocatalytic reagents.

they talk about how to get weapons and backpack

but what about fractal tonic?
I just want to get that thing

Xillllix.3485:

Sounds like a new beginning for some end game content, but there is no talking of new fractals. There is a limit of how much you can recycle material just by making a nice backpiece skin. All of this but no new fractals?

That’s very telling, I think, no mention of new fractals at all. Maybe they’ll mention them in the future articles but you’d expect at least a mention of new fractals in this article if they were adding any at launch.

From the article:
“while we view fractals as our infinitely expandable, endgame version of 5-man dungeon content”

Yes, I remember them saying something like that before when they first launched back in 2012. They’ve expanded upon them once, when they added mostly reworked LS1 content to them. Infinity is apparently quite small.

I have to say though, that they have a track record of not adding all that much to these systems after launch, moving onto the “next big thing”, same happened with guild missions. Changing the rewards or they way we access these features is appreciated but not itself a substitute for adding new content.

Relshdan.6854:

um…..okay.

more system reworks……no one reworks their existing systems more than Anet.

It’s called iterative development XD

Mightybird.6034:

The BIGGEST QUESTION ! So if legendary weapons color you foot prints legendary backpacks color your……..?

Farts ?

:D
:O

Maybe something like necro’s spectral walk?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Walk

Why is there no Sinister Stats?

Sounds great if you’re into fractals. If you’re like me though and don’t like FOTM, it’s tough luck. I wish Anet would give alternative methods to all these kind of things, so we truly get to ‘play how we want’. Sure, make it harder if said rewards are gained via alternative methods, and keep it a lot easier if you did fractals itself, but at least give us the dang option.

If all this is fractals exclusive, I’m just gonna go ahead and not bother with any of it.

Am i misreading this or is the only way to get a legendary backpack is through fractals?

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Am i misreading this or is the only way to get a legendary backpack is through fractals?

The challenges are inside and outside the fractals. Maybe you have to do only a portion of the challenges. It is hard to say.

I hope there will be multiple back piece legendaries available in a variety of methods.

Monk Tank.5897:

Why is there no Sinister Stats?

There’s a vendor in SW that gives you the recipe for insignias and a few ascended rings

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Am i misreading this or is the only way to get a legendary backpack is through fractals?

You are reading it wrong. The only way to get the backpack being shown includes some activity in the fractals. Probably since just about everything about it screams “fractal weapons styling”.

This is how news should have been handled. A lot of info from different sides of the game into 1 article. NOT how the elite classes are handled.

All in all good interesting article.

Finally.

The first news since HoT announced that I actually care for.

As I was reading the article I was thinking the whole time: “Oh God, please don’t let this be the challenging group content…” so the last paragraph was a big relief.

this is a legendary back piece.
you will need to unlock all the precursor collection masteries to make the precursor.
some of the components you need are from the fractals
some of the components you need are from salvaging ascended gear.
you still need components from all over Tyria from all game modes.

it will probably be worth about 4000 gold of effort to craft. but it won’t be tradeable.

Boost to assassins gear