Guild Wars 2

SaulWolfden.6178:

Why was the Mending change only in spvp? It’s arguably the worst heal on Warrior right now and the recharge reduction would help it quite a lot. Classifying it as a Physical would also make it sort of like Mirror (traited) with Warriors being traited for Physical skills.

Edit: The only other thing that bothers me patch wise is Time Warp still being at 180 seconds to recharge, I think with Wells, it’s sort of made redundant to have with how long it takes to recharge. 80-90 seconds would probably see it getting more use.

Structured PvP and PvE game modes have different balance needs. There are a lot of changes that we make initially to fulfill the needs of the sPvP that could, after additional evaluation make it to other game modes.

Svarty.8019:

Are Arenanet unwilling/unable to totally rework abilities or just in number tweaking mode?

Does it take the resources of an expansion budget to totally rework an ability?

We’re able, but it is a question of time tradeoffs.

- Tweaking something requires quite a bit of testing to see that it will not have dangerous consequences.
- Re-working something entirely requires even more testing for those dangerous consequences as well as functionality and potential bugs.

If it is needed and we have the time resource then we’ll do a re-work, but we’ll use tweaks when they’re deemed sufficient.

Veleritas.2647:

Do you know which items have the ids of: 14918, 79430, 79491, 79521, 79571? They are listed on the commerce/listings endpoint but do not exist in the items endpoint.

Mostly guild hall decorations, looks like.

I’ve gone ahead and whitelisted them; they should appear in /v2/items shortly.

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

•Disconnecting from a PvP match will now add additional respawn time calculated from maximum possible downed bleed duration for a maximum of 30 seconds. Reconnecting to a PvP match with a respawn time will result in death.

Sorry my english is not the best, but can somebody preferably a dev confirm wheter I am right or wrong at this one and in case correct me if needed.

What I get from it is that if u disconnect is that your respawn time is the equivelant of your character bleeding out+30 seconds maximum? and then if u come back within that timeframe u die?

Yeah, we had an issue where people could disconnect and log back in and if they had a fast drive, could get back into the action faster than intended. This change puts a stop to that.

Lunateric.3708:

- I believe the treatment you gave to GoTL and banners to be a really positive change: are you planning on giving the same treatment to other unique proffesion buffs?

- Alacrity on revenant is a change I don’t quite understand, would you mind elaborating on what was the thought process behind it?

- Do you beta test all these changes extensively?, if you do, can you share part of the evaluation and tweaking process with us?

Question 1: Answered above!
Question 2: We’ve vetted giving alacrity to revenants for a long period of time internally, specifically on Ventari.

The healing aspect for the legend is already very powerful, but the utility granted through constant energy use didn’t quite make up for the loss of DPS you take when not using other abilities. The legend itself is close to feeling like the high-healing support that it was intended to be.

Often times in the past, characters that are strong at healing are also extremely tanky, which hamstrings our efforts of making a more capable healing support build. We wanted give a good reason to take both the Salvation specialization line along with the tablet, but not give the wielder superior self-sustainability or damage as a result. As the revenant is less reliant on cooldowns and more reliant on energy management, Alacrity was a natural option. Thematically, the tablet is assisting with ‘growth’ and thus speeds up a target’s cooldowns.

Question 3: This particular change (and many others) go through several phases of testing and iteration. We did a large amount of assessment in this change, as we were also adjusting energy and healing values at the same time.

Biological.3297:

So im not sure on alot of things with this patch, but I think i can live with/ get used to it. All except one. Wvw. red circles AoE even if its freindly. NO. If its a test for lag then its a bad bad choice. no idea where is safe and where is not. Been doging these circles for years and now we wont have to doge them, maybe.

This is a bug. It’ll get fixed hopefully soon.

saerni.2584:

Also, can you comment on the devious change adding in a cool down on Stealth Attacks? This was never explained, and one question that is more pressing than the “why” is whether or not the team is satisfied with the cooldown and open to making changes to this in the future.

Unlike other thief weapons skills, stealth attacks do not have an initiative cost. Previously they did not have a cooldown as well. Guild Wars 2 frequently uses recharge as a cost to casting a skill as a result, these skills were essentially “free”. With the previous version of stealth attacks, you could spam your stealth attack until it hit at essentially no cost while your opponent had to use resources like aegis, blind or evasion to avoid it.

tldr; We added the recharge to stealth attacks to insure that there would be appropriate cost to failing to hit with a stealth attack. We’re pretty happy with this change and aren’t planning to revert it.

Kerivek.5740:

My main concern is the fact that Spirit Weapons went completely untouched. One of my favorite things about Guardian when I began playing back in beta was my Spirit Weapon build. Spirit Weapons seem to be relegated to the realm of “just for fun” rather than having any remotely competitive applications. I would really love to see Spirit Weapons and other neglected skills get some love rather than just tweaking what is already being used ad nauseum.

TexZero.7910:

<snip> when are elixir’s, gadgets, and gyro’s going to be viable choices over kits ?

We would really like to do some in-depth passes on underused utility types across most professions. We did not have time to do that for this update, sadly.

Kits on Engineer are an outlier; as utilities they provide an insane amount of versatility. Inherently it is difficult to bring a single skill up to the level of five skills. This is a difficult conundrum and one we discuss regularly. That said, we do have a few ideas for creating gameplay with other utility revisits in the future.

In particular I’d like to review and revisit Elementalist Conjures, Guardian Spirit Weapons, Engineer Gadgets and potentially Mesmer Mantras.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Do you generally consider reworking skills when working on the balance patch or is this something you’d only do in a “last ditch effort”, when the skill just can’t be put in a good place?

We generally try to avoid reworking skills in a vacuum. If we feel a skill is slightly out of line, small tweaks to things like damage, recharge or cast time can usually be enough. We’re more likely to do skill reworks when doing major updates to a given skill category such as some of the changes to mesmer phantasms this time around, but for one-off skills we try to avoid it if we can since it can come across as random and affect players who like using the skill as is. That’s not to say we wouldn’t do it, but it would have to be a fairly extreme case.

Blademaster.6123:

How much further do you guys plan to up the target cap on skills? I know you are cautious about adding more, but can we see things like spotter see 10 man cap?

(for reference) As indicated in the dev notes: “We will not be looking to increase our five-target-maximum standard for player skills and will seldom (if ever) increase existing skill/trait caps.”

Traits that apply constant AOE benefit are not candidates for target increases. Primarily, they’re heavy on server performance. Secondarily, while we want to increase group diversity, we want to do so in a meaningful fashion.

Taking a trait and standing around doesn’t really hit the bar for participation, where ensuring proper placement and timing of a Timewarp has significant meaning.

XeonJab.7529:

“Specializing in chronomancy grants mesmers access, through traits and skills, to a new effect called alacrity. " Chronomancers. “Chronomancy is the only specialization allowed access to this powerful effect.” Chronomancers. So why do revs have alacrity now?

Chronomancer was given Alacrity because it was incredibly thematic and felt within its kit.

From a group content perspective, alacrity is so strong that if no other profession gains access to it then Chronomancers would push others out of groups because it feels necessary. As is, they are likely to remain the best ways to grant alacrity to others.

The game evolves and we decided that keeping this feature exclusive may not be in the best interest of the game as a whole. From a general game perspective, specializations are places where a profession may gain access to features from a different profession.

OneUP.3024:

I think power guardian is in a really good spot right now. Are there any future plans to buff condi guardian a little bit aswell? Maybe a change to the spirit weapons could help it a lot.

There are thoughts on this that we’re exploring. As it is, we’ve got to be careful with anything we do condition-wise because of the guardian’s interaction with Justice and the virtues line. With the wide variance of burning, it’s going to be something we’ll approach with caution.
As for Spirit Weapons: we have some plans for them, but haven’t had the right timing/tech to implement the changes in the way we want.

OriOri.8724:

• Why did AT on mesmers only get a CD reduction in PvP? It doesn’t see any use in PvE so what harm would it be to also reduce its CD in PvE as well?

There may not have been too much danger in changing this game-wide. The PvP impact ,from internal testing, was where we wanted to see more of how this change would play out. This is something we’re open to revisiting in a future update.

OriOri.8724:

• What was the thought process behind giving Alacrity to ventari? From my understanding its the clunky mechanic of the tablet that is keeping ventari from being a viable legend, and alacrity won’t change that. It feels like putting burn cream on frostbite. You tried to help but will it actually do anything?

As we work to improve the tablet over time, we also felt that there was a certain growth aspect we could apply to the Revenant’s support. We’ll continue to monitor the results, but we do feel that this is a good direction for the rev’s support role to go in.

OriOri.8724:

• The additional effects on phantasm summons for mesmer are interesting (still have to test them myself to see how effective they are), but why didn’t iBerserker or iWarden get the same love?

We’d actually planned for more phantasm changes in this update including iWarden, but we weren’t satisfied with how some of them turned out. When developing these new phantasm skills it was important for us to add functionality that had meaningful combat effects without deviating too much from the purpose of the phantasm or the weapon. We’d like to do more of these in the future but we are being careful not to power creep them so much that we have to weaken the phantasm to counterbalance it.

Ithilwen.1529:

We were promised a thread to talk to the Devs. Where is it?

It’s right here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-Skill-Balance-Thread-22-February-Update

Several members of the ArenaNet Skills and Balance Team will be reviewing this thread for your feedback and your questions about today’s changes, including Karl McLain, Robert Gee, Irenio Calmon-Huang, and Isaiah Cartwright. Team members will be active in this thread for an hour or two, but will continue to read the thread over the next several days, particularly as you’ve had a chance to play using the newly-balanced skills. Thank you for sharing your input!

Hey guys, I was curious about this too:

It turns out, the Aetherblade set is coming in the next few days. Evon Gnashblade apologizes for the confusing wording.

Due to a crash error, we have temporarily disabled the Bastion of the Penitent raid wing. We will update when it is available.

I found the issue. Fix will be incoming asap.

We’re already investigating this one. Thanks for your patience!

What you observed is intended behavior.

We’re investigating.

I’m investigating now.

We’re aware of this issue and testing a fix for it now. Thanks

02/22/2017 – February 22nd Release Notes
Profession Skills
General:
A note on target-cap increases: In this balance update, we’re increasing the target cap for a select number of skills and traits. When doing this, we must consider a variety of aspects, from game health to server performance. These changes are intended for the specific purpose of improving large-group compositions and to improve their general support capability. We’ll continue to monitor these changes as time goes on and will make changes as necessary. However, we will not be looking to increase our five-target-maximum standard for player skills and will seldom (if ever) increase existing skill/trait caps.
For the first time in a very long time, we’re changing what a specific combo finisher does. In the past, we made side steps from retaliation to a light aura that gives retaliation. In this update, we’ll be changing the blast finisher for light fields to directly remove conditions from nearby allies. The team will be analyzing the effects of this in each game type and will be following up with it if necessary.

• Rune of Lyssa: This rune will no longer trigger when the player has no conditions on them. This item will now use the standard “condition to boon” conversion table.
• Rune of the Krait: Fixed a bug in which the sixth effect of this rune would not properly apply torment to targets.
• Light Field: Blasting a light field will now cleanse a condition from allies in a radius of 360. This previously granted retaliation.
• Confusion: Fixed a bug in which the player could take a massive amount of damage if holding a ranged autoattack down while their target is behind them.

Elementalist
In this update, we’ve reduced quite a few recharges for many weapon and utility skills that felt too high in light of previous reductions to cooldown traits. With that said, we’re also looking to reduce the elementalist’s damage in high-level content, as this profession’s damage and utility mix currently crowds out other potential high-damage dealers.

• Arc Lightning: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now deal the higher damage values (25%) in all areas of the game.
• Ride the Lightning: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Frost Aura: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Cleansing Wave: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. The number of conditions cleansed has been increased from 1 to 2.
• Earthquake: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. Fixed a bug that caused the blast finisher to occur around the elementalist’s selected target rather than around their current position.
• Frozen Ground: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Healing Rain: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Static Field: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Meteor Shower: This skill now has a 0.5-second cooldown when hitting nonplayer targets.
• Armor of Earth: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 75 seconds to 50 seconds.
• Mist Form: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 75 seconds to 60 seconds.
• Ether Renewal: The healing of this skill has been increased by 6% per pulse.
• Arcane Brilliance: The radius of this skill has been increased from 240 to 360.
• Overload Air: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 7% in PvE only.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony: This skill has been unsplit from PvP, and the cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds game-wide.
• Arcane Shield: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now use the lower recharge (40 seconds) in all areas of the game.

Engineer
The goal for engineers in this update is to improve trait synergy, weapon usefulness, and kit purity of purpose. Both power and condition builds will be affected in this round of changes, with a focus on PvE group viability. Notable to this, the trait Pinpoint Distribution now grants a unique condition-damage bonus to allies around the engineer. The Flamethrower utility kit is now focused on burning and keeping that condition on your enemies.

• Blunderbuss: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now deal the higher (10%) damage values in all areas of the game. Increased bleeding stacks from 1 – 4 to 2 – 5, based on range. Increased bleeding duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Fragmentation Shot: Bleeding duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Blowtorch: The number of burning applications that this skill applies has been increased from 1/2/3 to 2/3/4.
• Elixir U: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Toss Elixir U: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Super Elixir: Fixed a bug where this skill would display the wrong healing values underwater.
• Shredder Gyro Self-Destruct: Increased damage to match other gyros.
• Shredder Gyro: Increased damage by roughly 50%.
• Glue Bomb: Immobilize duration of this skill has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.
• Big Ol’ Bomb: This skill is now affected by Short Fuse. The visual size of this bomb has been increased by 33%.
• Short Fuse: Updated the Fuse Time to correctly display the fuse time reduction of 0.5 seconds. This trait now affects Big Ol’ Bomb.
• Glass Cannon: The threshold for damage increase has been reduced from 90% to 75%.
• Shaped Charge: The damage of this skill has been increased from 7% to 10%.
• Static Discharge: The damage dealt by this trait has been increased by 20%.
• Shrapnel: The chance for this trait to activate has been increased from 15% to 33%. Reduced cripple duration from 2 seconds to 1 second. Reduced bleed duration from 12 seconds to 6 seconds. Fixed issues with this trait that caused it to activate at lower-than-expected rates for some skills. Updated the description to specify that this trait only activates on hit.
• Explosion: Skills that count as explosions for the traits Steel-Packed Powder, Explosive Powder, and Shrapnel are now marked with a skill fact. Scrapper gyro detonations are now considered explosions. Skills that do not hit the enemy, such as Smoke Bomb and Magnetic Bomb, are no longer considered explosions for combat clarity reasons.
• Pinpoint Distribution: This trait no longer grants condition damage based on precision. This trait will now instead grant up to 150 condition damage to nearby allies.
• Flame Jet: The duration of burning inflicted on the final hit of this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Flame Blast: Reduced the base damage of this skill by 66%. This skill now inflicts burning for 3 seconds.
• Detonate Flame Blast: Reduced the base damage of this skill by 57%. This skill now inflicts 2 stacks of burning for 3 seconds.

Guardian
Improvements to underused base skills have been the general focus for the guardian in this patch, but we are also giving the dragonhunter specialization a little bit more counterplay in PvP scenarios. We’ve unsplit a few of the changes introduced this winter, taking either the more powerful option or compensating to a more powerful level than is available in most game modes.

• Virtue of Resolve: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now use a 30-second cooldown.
• Virtue of Courage: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now use a 45-second baseline cooldown_._
• Signet of Courage: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now use a 120-second cooldown.
• Spear of Justice: The casting time of this skill has been increased from 0.25 seconds to slightly under 0.75 seconds.
• Deflecting Shot: The missile hitbox has been improved.
• Whirling Wrath: Reduced recharge from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. Increased damage by 20%. Projectile damage is now listed separately from melee damage.
• Leap of Faith: Reduced recharge from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
• Symbol of Wrath: Increased damage by 22%.
• Binding Blade: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Purification: The trap heal on this skill has been reduced by approximately 16% in PvP only.
• Litany of Wrath: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
• “Receive the Light!”: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• “Feel My Wrath!”: The quickness duration granted by this skill has been increased from 5 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP only.

Mesmer
The mesmer is receiving a few different additions and reworks. Time Warp is one of the select skills and traits in this update, which is being changed to affect ten targets. Also in this update, we are implementing initial attacks on several phantasm skills, allowing the mesmer to deliver a primary attack in addition to the summon in order to provide a bit more constant pressure on your targets.

• Arcane Thievery: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Null Field: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 32 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Feedback: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 32 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Signet of Midnight: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Phantasmal Defender: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
• Time Warp: The interval of quickness and slow that this skill applies has been increased from every 1 second to every 2 seconds. Quickness and slow duration have been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds. This skill now affects up to ten targets. This skill will now apply slow through an unblockable attack rather than directly applying through all defense.
• Portal Exeunt: This skill now has a 1-second recharge after Portal Entre is used.
• Well of Action: Increased the quickness duration from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Chaos Armor: Reduced recharge to 30 seconds. This skill now applies a random condition (confusion, cripple, or weakness) to nearby foes when activated.
• Illusionary Counter: This skill now evades attacks during the counterattack animation.
• Illusionary Riposte: This skill now evades attacks during the counterattack animation.
• Phantasmal Duelist: In addition to its previous effect, this skill now fires a slow-moving homing bullet that cripples its target if it hits.
• Phantasmal Mage: In addition to its previous effect, this skill now burns nearby foes when activated.
• Phantasmal Warlock: In addition to its previous effect, this skill now also fires Winds of Chaos projectiles at up to 3 unique targets within a radius of 600 of the caster.
• Wells: Fixed a bug that caused wells to display their effects incorrectly while under the effects of quickness or slow.
• Gravity Well: Fixed a bug that caused this well to be destroyed prematurely when used with Continuum Shift.

Necromancer
One of the major goals for the necromancer during this update has been to improve the reaper’s greatsword weapon in all game modes, without blowing its power out in the ones where it was already good. In addition, we’ve also been looking to improve a few baseline utility abilities.

• Gravedigger: The aftercast of this skill has been reduced by 0.2 seconds.
• Death Spiral: The damage of this skill has been increased by 20%.
• Nightfall: This skill now converts boons into conditions from enemies it hits.
• Well of Darkness: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 35 seconds.
• Spectral Wall: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Spectral Grasp: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.
• Grasping Darkness: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds. Increased damage by 30%.
• Well of Blood: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Ritual of Life: The well created by this trait has been renamed to the Lesser Well of Blood and will continue to use a 35-second recharge.
• Deathly Chill: Increased bleed stacks to 3 for 5 seconds in PvE only.
• Reaper’s Onslaught: Now grants up to 225 bonus ferocity while in a shroud, based on effective level.
• Life Rend: Increased damage by 17%.
• Life Slash: Increased damage by 17%.
• Life Reap: Increased damage by 12.5%. Increased life-force gain from 1.5% to 2%.
• Death’s Charge: Increased damage by 30%.
• Chilling Scythe: Increased life-force gain from 3% to 5%.
• Wells: Fixed a bug that caused wells to display their effects incorrectly while under the effects of quickness or slow.

Ranger
The ranger will see a variety of changes during this update. Of particular note, we are reducing Grace of the Land’s damage bonus and reworking it so that it’s compatible with all Celestial Avatar abilities and affects ten allies around the druid. We hope this improves the value of a single druid in large-group scenarios. Many pet attacks have had usability and movement enhancements in an effort to improve general damage against moving targets. The greatsword has had a couple of improvements for better damage and pet synergy. Finally, a few underused (and even some meta) utility skills have undergone general quality-of-life improvements.

• Maul: This skill now grants an Attack of Opportunity to the ranger’s pet, causing its next attack to deal 50% more damage.
• Hilt Bash: This skill should now land more consistently when used at max range. This skill no longer grants a damage bonus to pets, but it will now refresh the greatsword’s Maul skill when striking an enemy.
• Throw Torch: The physical damage of this skill has been increased by 33%.
• Sharpening Stone: The number of stacks that this skill applies has been increased from 6 to 10.
• Muddy Terrain: Immobilize duration applied by this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Soften the Fall: Immobilize duration applied by this trait has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Lightning Reflexes: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Spike Trap: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Signet of the Wild: Fixed a bug that caused the ranger to be unblockable.
• Sharpened Edges: The chance to bleed a target on critical hit has been reduced from 66% to 33%.
• Grace of the Land: Damage per stack of this trait has been reduced from 3 to 2. The number of targets affected by this trait has been increased from 5 to 10.
• Natural Convergence: This skill will now provide Grace of the Land on every pulse when that trait is equipped.
• Avian Pets: Updated on-land nonbasic attacks so that they more consistently hit enemies and can be executed from farther distances.
• Canine Pets: Updated on-land basic attacks to more reliably hit enemies, with their executable attack range being increased from 130 to 240.
  • Crippling Leap: Increased the attack range of this skill from 130 to 180. Also increased the reliability of this skill by increasing the movement speed and duration. This skill will now be affected by quickness.
  • Brutal Charge: Reduced the warmup casting time by 0.5 seconds. This skill will now be affected by quickness.
• Smokescale: Updated on-land basic attacks to move slightly toward the target when executing attacks on land. Increased the range at which the creature will attack from 130 to 200.
  • Takedown: Updated this attack to have a slight movement toward the target. Reduced aftercast by 0.25 seconds. Increased the range at which the creature will attack from 130 to 240.
• Wyvern Pets: Updated on-land basic attacks to move farther toward the target on each swing. Greatly increased the attack speed of this skill from 3.3 seconds to 2.2 seconds. Increased the range at which the creature will attack from 130 to 200.
  • Tail Lash: Updated this attack to move farther toward the target when executing. Reduced the attack of this skill from 3.6 seconds to 1.2 seconds. Increased the range at which the creature will attack from 130 to 200.
  • Wing Buffet: Reduced the initial casting time of this skill by 0.5 seconds. Increased the attack radius from 240 to 360.
• Drake Pets: Updated on-land basic attacks to move farther toward the target when executing on land.
  • Chomp: Updated this attack to move farther toward the target when executing on land.
  • Tail Swipe: Increased the radius of this attack from 225 to 280. Greatly increased the attack speed of this skill.
• Feline Pets: Updated on-land basic attacks to move farther toward the target when executing on land.
  • Bite: Updated this attack to move farther toward the target on land and have a faster recovery once the skill has been executed.
  • Maul: Updated this attack to move farther toward the target on land and have a faster recovery once the skill has been executed.
• Moa Pets: Updated on-land basic attacks to move farther toward the target when executing on land.
• Pig Pets: Updated on-land basic attacks to move farther toward the target when executing on land. Increased the attack range from 130 to 200.
  • Maul: Updated this attack to move toward the target when used on land. Reduced the start-up and aftercast by around 0.5 seconds each.
  • Brutal Charge: Reduced the start-up of this skill by 0.5 seconds. Reduced the aftercast by 0.5 seconds.
• Bear (Ursine) Pets: Updated on-land basic attacks to move farther toward the target when executing on land.

Revenant
In addition to bug fixes and quality-of-life changes, we’ve been looking to improve the support role for the revenant. Alacrity will now be available through the Salvation specialization line, allowing Ventari’s Tablet to project it at a constant rate. We’re excited to see it in play!

• Searing Fissure: This skill will now more reliably hit enemies on slopes.
• Temporal Rift: This skill will now more reliably hit enemies on slopes.
• Legendary Centaur Stance: Project Tranquility will now instantly activate when invoking this legend. The cost of this skill has been removed.
• Serene Rejuvenation: In addition to its current bonus, this trait will now cause Natural Harmony to apply alacrity to allies for 3 seconds.
• Natural Harmony: The base healing of this skill per level has been reduced by 30%. The healing contribution of this skill has been increased by 180%.
• Forced Engagement: The cost of this skill has been reduced from 35 energy to 25 energy. The recharge for this skill has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Rite of the Great Dwarf: The cost of this skill has been reduced from 50 energy to 40 energy in PvP only.
• Vengeful Hammers: Increased the base damage of this skill by 100%.
• Ventari’s Will: The cost of this skill has been reduced from 10 energy to 5 energy.
• Purifying Essence: The cost of this skill has been reduced from 30 energy to 25 energy.
• Unyielding Anguish: Increased the base damage of this skill by 20%. The duration of torment inflicted by this skill has been increased from 5 seconds to 6 seconds.
• Burst of Strength: Increased the base damage of this skill by 25% in non-PvP only.

Thief
Quality-of-life improvements and PvP health have been our focus for the thief, mainly for daredevil. As such, we’ll be looking to reduce endurance from a few different areas to target survivability through evasion but also compensate for it a bit with extra utility and condition removals.

• Infiltrator’s Strike: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now use a 900 maximum range. Immobilize duration has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds game-wide.
• Vault: The code functionality of this skill has been updated. The user will now more accurately travel to the targeted destination when under high-latency situations, in most scenarios. This skill is now affected by quickness. This skill now requires a line of sight to the target point in order to cast.
• Bound: This trait will no longer trigger the damage and bonus portion if the dodge is canceled or interrupted.
• Signet of Agility: The endurance gain from this skill has been reduced from 100 to 50 in PvP only.
• Signet of Agility: Condition cleansing has been increased from 1 to 3 in all game modes.
• Channeled Vigor: The endurance gain from this skill has been reduced from 25 to 20 per pulse in PvP only.
• Hard to Catch: The internal cooldown on this trait has been increased from 30 seconds to 45 seconds in PvP only.
• Upper Hand: The internal cooldown on this trait has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• Body Shot: The duration of immobilize inflicted by this skill has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Cloak and Dagger: The vulnerability inflicted by this skill has been increased from 3 stacks to 5 stacks.
• Assassin’s Signet: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Needle Trap: The poison inflicted by this skill has been increased from 1 stack to 3 stacks.
• Caltrops: The duration of bleeding inflicted by this skill has been increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Tripwire: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

Warrior
Warrior’s banners are the final recipient for our target-increase update, with the unique enhancements from each banner increasing to ten. After that, we’ve mostly focused on improving weapon and utility effectiveness, with some significant increases to underutilized areas.

• Deep Strike: This trait has been altered and will now grant condition damage to the warrior whenever they have fury. Condition-damage gain has been increased from 150 to 180.
• Eviscerate: Lowered the aftercast by 0.25 seconds.
• Hamstring: This attack now applies 1 stack of bleeding for 8 seconds in addition to its previous effects.
• Fierce Blow: The base damage dealt by this skill has been increased by 28%.
• Hammer Shock: The base damage dealt by this skill has been increased by 25%.
• Combustive Shot: This skill now has a radius of 360 at all adrenaline levels.
• Rupturing Smash: Increased damage by 50%.
• Counterblow: This skill now applies 10 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds in addition to its previous effects in all game types. Lowered the damage of this skill by 12.5% in PvP only.
• “To the Limit!”: The endurance gained by this skill has been increased from 25 to 50.
• “Shake It Off!”: The number of conditions removed by this skill has been increased from 1 to 2.
• “For Great Justice!”: The might granted by this skill has been increased from 3 stacks to 6 stacks.
• Mending: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only.
• Blood Reckoning: The amount healed by this skill has been increased from 10% to 20%.
• Vigorous Shouts: The effect of healing power on this trait has been increased by 20%.
• Banner of Defense: Increased the number of enhancement targets from 5 to 10.
• Banner of Discipline: Increased the number of enhancement targets from 5 to 10.
• Banner of Strength: Increased the number of enhancement targets from 5 to 10.
• Banner of Tactics: Increased the number of enhancement targets from 5 to 10.
• Earthshaker: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to hit 10 targets at level 1 adrenaline.
• Blaze Breaker: This skill will now attempt to face your target before firing instead of failing. If you cannot face your target, it will instead fire in your current facing direction.
• Whirling Axe: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from being canceled when transitioning to gliding.
• Adrenal Health: The amount healed by this trait has been reduced by 10% in PvP only.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Birthday Boosters and Celebration Boosters can now be used in PvP maps.
• Wintersday Black Lion Chests can now be opened in PvP maps.
• Dabs, Globs, and Clumps of Destabilized Ectoplasm can now be used in the PvP lobby.
• The Bag of Spirit Shards given with the second birthday gift is now usable in PvP maps.
• Disconnecting from a PvP match will now add additional respawn time calculated from maximum possible downed bleed duration for a maximum of 30 seconds. Reconnecting to a PvP match with a respawn time will result in death.
• Mastery: Commander swiftness is now enabled in the PvP lobby.

Leagues:

• Losing a Ranked season match with a score greater than or equal to 80% of the winning team’s score will award a Near Victory bonus, worth 2 league reward pips.
• Added rating delta to game history for league matches.
• Ardent Glorious armor can now be used in the Mystic Forge.
• Ascended PvP trinkets now have proper icons.
• Ascended PvP rings can now be attuned.
• The Mini Emperor Llama is now available from the League Vendor.
• Significantly reduced the number of Transmutation Charges obtained through league chests.
• Reduced the number of unidentified dyes obtained through league chests.
• Reduced the number of Ascended Shards of Glory obtained through league chests, but added Ascended Shards of Glory to the repeatable Byzantium reward chest.
• Ascended PvP armor and weapons now require special currency that you craft along with Ascended Shards of Glory and gold.
  • The recipes are available from the ascended vendors for league tickets.
  • These recipes require fewer materials than normal ascended crafting, so they are a small discount from just crafting the armor and weapons outright.
• Ardent Glorious armor skins are now available from the ascended PvP vendors.

World vs. World
General

• Being killed while outnumbered no longer grants any war score to the enemy team.
• All siege devices and traps have been changed to gizmos that are consumed once they are placed.
  • This change was made to help solve bugs in which siege devices and traps weren’t being granted back properly when they weren’t placed.
• Siege bundles now stay in your hands until players drop, cancel, or run out of siege.
• Changed the Potion of Ascalonian Mages to work similarly to combat tonics. The transformation now allows for all player skills to be used. The transformation is removed after 30 minutes. Clicking the potion again will remove the transformation.

Alpine Borderlands

• Garrison’s back gate that enters the lord’s room now has secured, reinforced, and fortified states like all other gates.

Desert Borderlands

• Removed the floating gargoyle at the Shrine of Fire.

Fractals

• The commands /resign, /qq, /gg, etc., may now be used in fractals.
• Ascended fractal armor and weapons now require special currency that you craft, along with Fractal Research Pages, Fractal Relics, and gold.
  • These recipes are available from BLING-9009.
  • These recipes require fewer materials than normal ascended crafting, so they are a small discount from just crafting the armor and weapons outright.
• Unwanted Integrated Fractal Matrices can now be converted to Fractal Encryption Keys at a rate of 10 keys per matrix at BLING-9009.
• Fixed a bug in the event UI that would cause two health bars to appear for the Thaumanova Anomaly.

Living World

• Players will now be able to enter Noran’s Safe Room with an oiled key.

General

• Fixed an issue where many mesmer clone-creating skills did not create clones for players using the Endless Miniature Tonic and Infinite Watchknight Tonic.
• Pact soldiers returning from the campaign in the Maguuma Jungle have created a monument at the entrance of the Grove.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• A new Bloodstone Ascender is available in the Toys category of the Gem Store for 250 gems.
• A new Shattered Bloodstone Glider is available in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 400 gems.
• The Emissary’s Staff has returned for a limited time in the Style category of the Gem Store for 600 gems.
• Taimi’s Dye Kit has returned for a limited time, found in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.

Improvement

• Six new and exclusive eye colors have been added to Total Makeover Kits, which are available in the Services category of the Gem Store.

Bug Fixes

• Scribe has been added to the Crafting Discipline filter on the trading post.

Ashym doesn’t really move a whole lot other than when he uses the fiery greatsword whirl. Other than that he has AI just like any other mob so he aggros on people and moves towards them.

Jace al Thor.6745:

Lawton Campbell.8517:

JordanJD.3209:

Lawton Campbell.8517:

Thanks to a sudden influx of taco donations, the APIs have been turned back on.

After some investigation, it seems like the APIs were not the root cause of the underlying issues.

Awesome, can I become a developer for Anet?

We’re hiring!

Since WA is on the other side of the States can I consult from home? Would do for free too for the experience of working with a development team. Kind of like hey here’s a bug/something that needs balanced this can be done to fix it.

AFAIK we don’t do remote; you’d have to relocate, unfortunately.

We just received word from CS that the title items have been resent via in-game mail. Some players may receive the item, even if they already successfully got their title. This is fine.

If you still don’t have a title and you earned one, feel free to contact us and we’ll investigate further.

Hey all! Everyone in this thread should now be unstuck.

We made some changes to the PvP infrastructure last week and are actively working through some issues. Apologies!

JordanJD.3209:

Lawton Campbell.8517:

Thanks to a sudden influx of taco donations, the APIs have been turned back on.

After some investigation, it seems like the APIs were not the root cause of the underlying issues.

Awesome, can I become a developer for Anet?

We’re hiring!

Yeah, they’re currently missing. I’m pretty sure the fix for that goes out with tomorrow’s release.

Impressive strats :O I wasn’t aware of that Urban trick!

You totally can make it a get request with ids separated by commas. Also the results can be paginated if you don’t want to deal with ids.

chaly.7638:

Well.. we do have some data again.
Is it stable already or still work in progress/ last checks?

Should be stable unless it explodes in a brilliant ball of fire.

Which I don’t expect it to, but hey, things happen.

Thanks to a sudden influx of taco donations, the APIs have been turned back on.

After some investigation, it seems like the APIs were not the root cause of the underlying issues.

They’ll probably be back up eventually but definitely not until tomorrow.

Not certain what the actual underlying cause was, need to pour over some metrics and such to get an actual understanding of what happened. Just not tonight. Sorry about the inconvenience

Just disabled the APIs temporarily. No ETA (yet) on when they’ll be turned back on.

Distributed systems are hard

I’ve unstuck and/or verified everyone is in this thread is unstuck. Please let me know if this is not the case.

Thanks!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the items will be going out today. Stay tuned and sorry for the wait.

We’ll be making a game update on Wednesday, February 22 that will include skill balancing. Members of our skills and balance team will be on the official forums for a while after the build goes live to discuss those changes with you.

To take part, please join the new thread we’ll post after the build goes live. For our players who participate on the French, German, or Spanish forums, we will provide a list of highlights from the conversation by the end of the week.

Greetings Tyrians!

With the next release we will be making some changes to ascended vending in PvP and Fractals. Over the past year we introduced ways to obtain ascended gear via participation in either game mode thus allowing players to acquire gear by playing the game mode they chose. We implemented these vendors in a way that made sense for their perspective player base at the time. With the next release we are making two significant changes to these vendors to create one system that functions the same regardless of game mode.

First, each game mode will still use a specific currency unique to that mode as part of the price but the rest of the costs associated with purchasing the gear will be the same across the game modes. Having a unified system for acquiring ascended gear via vendors will give us more flexibility for adjustments, if they are needed, and it will give us the flexibility to potentially introduce this system in other game modes where appropriate.

Second, purchasing the ascended gear will now rely much more on player crafting. The cost for a piece of gear will now include a crafted token which shows a player’s mastery of the appropriate crafting discipline, the game mode specific currency, and raw gold. Ascended crafting is vital to sustaining a healthy economy and it is important that we keep that in place even when a player acquires ascended items via a vendor. For PvP, this will add a considerable cost to the acquisition of ascended gear. Please note that you will be able to buy gear with current prices until the update is live.

Ascended vending is not intended to be the optimal path for acquiring ascended gear, but rather a way for players to acquire the gear through time spent playing their preferred game mode. And while ascended vending now requires max level crafting, players that obtain ascended gear via vending will see a moderate discount in cost over traditional crafting.

Hey guys! The issue with the weapons not changing to Seraph in the Mystic Forge is known. A fix is being looked into, but I cannot provide an eta on when that will be out.

Concerning the PvP vendor armor not stat adjusting either – as Illconceived pointed out – there is a fix being prepped (I verified this with the PvP team as well). I can’t give an eta on when it will be out at this time.

Thank you guys for the reports!

mrauls.6519:

Any new news, Ben?

The work is done, we’re just working with CS to arrange resending out the items.

Thorniss.2301:

I don’t understand how the matchmaking would be more “accurate” if yes win; it will be just profession based instead of account based, or am I missing something?

The idea is that, just because you are a great mesmer, doesn’t mean you know how to play a revenant well. If the professions were locked we could place you into a match that reflects your skill with that class.

Top stats already give pips. Unless people want MORE pips?

We haven’t made any manual adjustments. Our last manual adjustment was during the previous World Link on 12/2.

Manual Adjustments Thread

babana.7521:

Please send my character back where I was before I enter a PvP match in PvE queueing.

Thank You Very Much, I am mapping and queueing for PvP, today, I find that I am being send to the nearest entrance/exit of a map after my match.

The extra running and WP coins use is not actually welcoming.

Please fix thanks.

Interesting… My character does not do this. Thanks for the report.

I think we’re totally open to using her again in other content. She’s a fun character IMO.

Blaeys.3102:

BobbyStein.2315:

bettalykan.3429:

so now the devs literally say the non raiders only deserve scraps and they made the new raid focused in that way

No, I merely pointed out what is currently available for non-raiders to catch up on the raid story while inside the game. More than happy to answer your questions, but in the future I’d appreciate it if you didn’t paraphrase my intentions that way. Because that’s not what I said, nor what I meant.

Your statement above is in direct contradiction to your comments in the recent MMORPG interview you and Crystal Reid did -

http://www.mmorpg.com/guild-wars-2/interviews/the-demons-of-bastion-of-the-penitent-1000011552

You cant claim that a cleared instance provides the same experience and then make statements about how you integrated story into every element – how it doesn’t matter if players play for the challenge or the thrill of discovery, they will still find something fun.

It comes across as disingenuous and, frankly, as marketing doublespeak (intentional or not) – simply telling people what they want to hear to placate them.

I replied to this over on Reddit but I’ll paste it here, too, since I think people should understand the context of my statements.

“I think you’re reading into my quotes a little too much. By ‘integrating story into every element’ I mean that the environment is a reflection of the story, the audio is an expression of the story. By the team collaborating across the board, we made the experience feel cohesive. The story bits are mostly told outside the encounters, save for the dialog during the Deimos fight (which is similar to how we handled Spirit Vale). The bulk of the story dialog is told between encounters, and all of the discoverables are available in a cleared instance.

Not trying to convince people either way, or belittle anyone’s feelings about the raids. I just wanted to clarify that part because it seems like the intention of my comment was unclear to you."