Guild Wars 2

Everyone got a rating reset, at least wait until you place.

Update: I removed the thread that contained a couple of images of the problem. We’re sorry about the issue and appreciate the reports. We apologize for the removal of that thread, but given we could not simply excise the images, and because they might cause concern from some of those viewing the forums, it’s best to have the thread disappear. Thanks for understanding!

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Oh man I missed it. Did we have naked ppl running around?

The bare truth is that we had an art issue but we quickly got to the bottom of the matter and it’s now well behind us.

Due to an art issue with the Ardent Glorious armor, the Ascended League Vendor has been temporarily disabled. The vendor will be available again as soon as the issue has been addressed.

What’s your sample set? 1 game?

I’ve unstuck all stuck matches. Please let me know (via this thread) if you are still stuck.

nottsgman.8206:

Randulf.7614:

Ah, I remember this bug from a previous year. Thanks for the heads up!

so do I. such fondness!

good to know it’s still around though

It’s nice that someone can look on an old bug with fondness. Thanks for sharing your holiday spirit!

I am just happy there is a work-around and that we can get where we need to get, even if it may take a few tries.

philheat.3956:

Am I the only one to not see the meta achievement?

Some old wintersday achis appeared already completed and no meta achievement.

Hi,

I just asked about the meta achievement, and one of the devs said that there is no permanent achievement, but there is a daily achievement and a repeatable in the non-daily group that tracks how many daily metas you do.

Hope that helps!

velvetblanc.9140:

Hey Evan, thanks for the replies. I’m still curious about if a legendary player could duo queue with a player in their placements. How would the system calculate this?

Everyone still has a rating during placement, we just don’t show it so people don’t freak out when it jumps all over the place.

Crinn.7864:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Crinn.7864:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Low rated party member would start climbing quickly in rating, or high rated party member would start dropping quickly.

Enemies would update normally against the other team’s average.

But if you’re averaging doesn’t this bring back the “shopping for ambers” problem?

You can only do it with one person because of duo queue, so you can’t get an entire premade outclassing another team. Also pips didn’t have backwards progression like ratings do, which auto-corrects the problem.

Couldn’t that still be gamed by simply getting a new “amber” every so often, thus eliminating the issue of the amber’s rating rapidly increasing, thus leaving the higher player’s decreasing mmr as the only pushback? It may not work long term but it could still provide a temporary manner to game the system.

Sure, you could ruin your high rating if you want and get less pips.

Crinn.7864:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Low rated party member would start climbing quickly in rating, or high rated party member would start dropping quickly.

Enemies would update normally against the other team’s average.

But if you’re averaging doesn’t this bring back the “shopping for ambers” problem?

You can only do it with one person because of duo queue, so you can’t get an entire premade outclassing another team. Also pips didn’t have backwards progression like ratings do, which auto-corrects the problem.

Low rated party member would start climbing quickly in rating, or high rated party member would start dropping quickly.

Enemies would update normally against the other team’s average.

Ray gotchu. /15

Thank you for sending this along! I’ll see if we can find additional information to aid in us reproducing it.

Happy release day!

Hi everyone,

You may experience a bug where attempting to join a Wintersday activity may cause you to get kicked back to Divinity’s Reach with the error message “The world you are attempting to join is full. Please try to have your party member join you in your world. (Code=33:9:19:1761:101)”.

We are aware of this bug. We are in the process of trying to find a fix and will correct it as soon as we identify it.

You should be able to get into an activity by trying again until you are successful.

We appreciate your understanding.

12/13/2016 – December 13 Release Notes
Wintersday 2016
Come join us in celebrating Wintersday! Complete daily achievements to earn fanciful new holiday weapons; save Wintersday by giving wrapped gifts to the orphans spread around Divinity’s Reach; test your skills against other players in Snowball Mayhem; experience the joy of jumping in Winter Wonderland; defend against waves of toys in Toypocalypse; or help keep Tixx’s airship, the Infinirarium, in order! You will also see Wintersday events appearing all around Tyria.

• The Wintersday meta-achievement is earned by completing daily Wintersday achievements and can be repeated to collect more gifts.
• Achievements for the Winter’s Presence collection have returned with saved progress from Wintersday 2015.
• Parts of Divinity’s Reach and the Heart of the Mists have been decorated.
• Earn personalized Wintersday gifts by completing achievements, or buy them from the guild trader.
• Tradeable Wintersday gifts now have a chance to drop all over Tyria.

World Polish

• Fixed a bug that caused Wintersday ornaments to continue dropping from some chests after players had already completed the “For the Children!” achievement.
• Fixed a bug that could cause present boxes in the Winter Wonderland activity to prematurely explode.
• Fixed a bug that could cause snowflake platforms to not melt in Winter Wonderland.
• Fixed a bug that could cause players to keep their normal skill bar during Winter Wonderland.
• Fixed a bug that allowed guardians to benefit from Virtue of Courage’s aegis boon during Winter Wonderland.
• Fixed a bug that could cause players to be unable to start playing a part in the Wintersday Bell Choir if a player leaves the activity while playing that part.
• Fixed a bug that caused some skritt to not progress the “Wintersday Skritt Hit” achievement when pestered with snowballs.
• Increased the amount that players are healed by when standing near the central pillar in Toypocalypse.

Living World
Bug Fixes

• The Endless Kodan Tonic now has a 5-second cooldown and cannot be used while in combat.
• Winterberry home instance nodes now use the winterberry map icon.
• Winterberries now have a Consume All option.
• Reduced the unbound magic acquired from gathering and consuming winterberries.
• Mesmer clone-creating skills now create clones while under the effect of Endless Kodan Tonics.
• Continued attacks by the Shining Blade and their allies have lowered the health of some bandit bosses on bandit supply lines in Kryta.
• Players who have completed the Living World Episode 3 storyline may now skip directly to the boss at the end of the Frozen Out instance by interacting with the Brazier of Heroic Deeds, which is located near the beginning of the instance.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players who are working on Eureka or Shooshadoo from unlocking the Legendary Inscription recipe. This recipe has also been added to Hobbs’s inventory for those who missed it.

Items

• Fixed issues causing clipping on the sylvari female Scallywag armor set.

Fractals
Nightmare

• Added a checkpoint after the maze section.
• Fixed an issue that allowed res rushing for Siax and Ensolyss.
• Fixed an issue that allowed the first boss to be skipped.
• Fixed an issue that allowed the maze capture points to be captured from below.
• Fixed an issue in which Ensolyss could have his defiance bar active at the final 15% phase.

Swampland

• Fixed a bug in which the oakhearts would not get the exposed effect when broken.
• Dropping a wisp in Bloomhunger’s final 25% phase no longer resets all wisps.
• Arrow markers have been added to the minimap during the final 25% phase.

Underground Facility

• The turrets in the bomb path of the Underground Facility Fractal now function properly.
• Bomb and gun paths will now be randomly chosen, regardless of scale.

Agony

• Fixed a bug in which agony healing reduction would compound with multiple stacks.

Fractal Avengers

• Fractal avengers will no longer be able to stomp the wrong player.
• Fractal avengers will be destroyed instantly when interrupted or after stomping a player.
• Fractal avengers will not attempt to stomp again if they are interrupted too early.

Miscellaneous

• The Ascended Salvage Tool (1) now has a 100% chance to return upgrades.
• Mistlock singularities will now apply the agony to attribute conversions when autoconsuming infinite mist potions.
• Mistlock singularities will now apply the mist-potion effects for the correct duration on autoconsume.

Profession Skills
General:

• Added a new amulet to the PvP build panel.
  • Deadshot Amulet: 1050 Precision, 1050 Condition Damage, 560 Vitality, 560 Expertise.
• Added a new rune to the PvP build panel.
  • Rune of the Lynx: 175 power, +100 Condition Damage, +25% Movement Speed.

Elementalist

• Arc Lightning: The damage of this ability has been increased by 25% in PvP only.
• Arcane Shield: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Final Shielding: The cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 75 seconds to 60 seconds. The health threshold for activating Arcane Shield has been increased from 25% to 50%.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.

Engineer

• Blunderbuss: The damage of this ability has been increased by 10% at all range thresholds in PvP only.
• Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%.

Guardian

• Piercing Light: This trait no longer causes traps to daze enemies and will instead inflict slow on enemies for 1.5 seconds on the initial trigger of a trap.
• Virtue of Justice: Increased the burning duration of the passive effect from 2 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only. Increased the active effect’s amount of burning from 1 stack to 3 stacks in PvP only.
• Virtue of Resolve: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only. The healing contribution of this ability has been increased by 87% in PvP only.
• Virtue of Courage: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Shield of Courage: Fixed a bug that allowed this ability to grant benefits without going on recharge.
• Detonate Orb of Light: The healing contribution of this ability has been increased by 67%.
• Line of Warding: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Signet of Courage: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 180 seconds to 120 seconds in PvP only.

Mesmer

• Echo of Memory: The cooldown of this ability has been increased from 30 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP only.
• Restorative Illusions: The healing contribution of this trait has been increased by 285% in PvP only. The base healing modifiers for this trait have been adjusted as follows:
  • 0 illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 62% in PvP only.
  • 1 illusion shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 50% in PvP only.
  • 2 illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 42% in PvP only.
  • 3 illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 36% in PvP only.

Revenant

• Surge of the Mists: The damage of this ability has been reduced by 50% in PvP only.
• Precision Strike: The damage of this ability has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.
• Warding Rift: The cooldown of this ability has been increased from 12 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only.
• Debilitating Slam: The cost of this ability has been reduced from 15 energy to 10 energy.
• Pain Absorption: This ability now breaks stun.

Thief

• Infiltrator’s Strike: The range of this ability has been increased from 600 to 900 in PvP only. Immobilize duration has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Shadow Strike: The amount of torment applied by this ability has been increased from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP only.

Structured Player vs. Player
PvP Leagues Rework

• Leagues have been reworked in order to facilitate better matchmaking, to give a more accurate indication of an individual’s skill level, and to be more rewarding.
• PvP Season 5 begins today, December 13, 2016.
• The Greater Call of the Mists bonus will be enabled in PvP until December 20.
• For more information on the PvP leagues rework, please read our recent announcement. {{+https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-changes-for-pvp-league-season-5/+}}

Better Matches

• Matchmaking will no longer factor in pips when creating matches and will instead focus more heavily on your matchmaking rating. This will increase the pool of eligible players that you can play against, thereby improving match quality and reducing queue times.
• Solo/Duo Queue: Due to the results of a recent community poll, rosters in Season 5 are now limited to a maximum size of 2 in Ranked Arena.

Measuring Skill

• Skill rating is a new visible value that represents a player’s skill level for a ranked season. Pips will no longer factor into skill rating or prestige.
• Skill rating determines which division a player belongs to. Each division has 3 tiers within it.
  • Legendary: 1950+ skill rating.
  • Platinum: 1650 – 1949 skill rating.
  • Gold: 1350 – 1649 skill rating.
  • Silver: 1050 – 1349 skill rating.
  • Bronze: 0 – 1049 skill rating.
• Nameplate badges reflect the current skill-rating division.
  • A new option is available that disables nameplate badges from being displayed to others.
• Skill rating will be soft reset at the beginning of each PvP season.
• At the beginning of each season, 10 placement matches are required to earn a skill rating and division placement.
• Skill rating has no limits on backward progress.
• Inactive players will experience skill-rating decay, impacting the division they’re placed in. Decay can be worked off by playing ranked games.
  • Period of inactivity allowed before decay begins: 3 days.
  • Skill rating reduction per day: 100.
  • Maximum skill-rating reduction: 700 (after 7 days).
  • Decay removed per game played: 100.
• At the end of each season, the top 250 players with the best skill ratings in each region will be awarded titles based on their placement. Earning a higher rank title will award all of the lower titles. These titles will persist season to season.
  • Rank 1: God of PvP.
  • Rank 2: Legendary Demigod.
  • Rank 3: Immortal Legend.
  • Rank 4 – 10: Unyielding Legend.
  • Rank 11 – 25: Relentless Legend.
  • Rank 26 – 100: Ruthless Legend.
  • Rank 101 – 250: Merciless Legend.

Rewards

• League pips will now be used exclusively as a mechanism for earning rewards. You will earn varying amounts of reward pips for wins and losses.
• Every reward tier has been renamed, recolored, and rebalanced.
  • Higher tiers now provide better rewards, such as increased amounts of liquid gold.
  • Tier sizes are now 20 – 30 pips. Later tiers are bigger.
  • There is no backward progress for reward pips.
• Winning a match awards 10 pips.
• Losing a match awards 3 pips.
• Achieving a top stat (see “Personal Score & Top Stats” below) awards 1 additional pip.
• Games played with a Platinum skill rating award 2 additional pips.
• Games played with a Legendary skill rating award 4 additional pips.
• Tier completion now awards Shards of Glory, Unidentified Dyes, PvP League Tickets, Transmutation Charges, gold, and a new currency called Ascended Shards of Glory.
• A new Ascended League Vendor has been added. This vendor has ascended armor, weapons, and trinkets available for purchase using Shards of Glory and Ascended Shards of Glory.
  • The Ardent Glorious ascended armor set, a variation of the Glorious Hero’s armor set, is now available.
• A Mini Black Llama can be purchased from the existing League Vendor using league tickets.
• A Shards of Glory Converter can be purchased from the existing League Vendor. The converter will exchange Shards of Glory for a Timeless Bag of Items.
  • The contents of the bag are similar to the bags received from items such as Princess, Mawdrey II, and the Star of Gratitude.
• Item: Tribal Leggings now have the proper icon.

Personal Score & Top Stats
Personal score has been removed from structured PvP games, and stats have been condensed into a more meaningful Top Stat system:

• At the end of a game, players who perform well in a particular area will be given the corresponding icon beside their name on the scoreboard, which is visible to all players in that match.
  • Damage: Total outgoing damage to alive enemy players.
  • Healing: Total healing given to yourself and allied players.
  • Kills: Number of player kills and kill assists.
  • Revives: Number of allied player revives.
  • Deaths: Number of deaths. (A top stat is not awarded for deaths.)
  • Defense (Conquest): Number of ticks spent in combat near a friendly captured point.
  • Offense (Conquest): Number of ticks spent capturing or being in combat near enemy and neutral capture points.
  • Defense (Stronghold): Total number of mercenaries killed and trebuchets repaired.
  • Offense (Stronghold): Total number of defenders killed and supply spent.

Overtime
Overtime has been added to Conquest. When both teams have the same score at the time limit or when both teams reach 500 points simultaneously, the game will enter overtime. Overtime ends when one team’s score becomes higher than the other’s, or after 5 minutes have elapsed. In the case of a time-out, the winning team is chosen randomly.

Infinite PvP Rank Progression

• PvP Ranks are no longer capped at 80. This number will now increment on both the in-game HUD as well as the character-select screen.
• Players will be retroactively awarded rank-ups for every time they’ve repeated rank 80.

Maps

• Battle for Champion’s Dusk has been removed from Ranked Arena. Queue preferences will now only affect Unranked Arena.
• Skyhammer
  • This map has been added to Ranked Arena.

Mist Champion Skins

• Mist Champion skins can now be purchased from the League Vendor for Shards of Glory.

Guild Teams

• Guild teams no longer show a ranked rating as they cannot queue for season games in Ranked Arena.
• The guild team leaderboard and banners have been removed from the PvP lobby.
• Guild missions can still be completed in Unranked Arena.

World vs. World
General

• On Friday’s reset (12/16), skirmish points will change:
  • 1st place will be awarded 2 points.
  • 2nd and 3rd place will be awarded 1 point.
  • This is a change that we and the players wanted to try. If we aren’t happy with the results, we can change the skirmish score values again.
• War score floaters have been added.
  • When war score is earned via various activities, floaters will now appear above various things to display the amount of points earned for all teams.
    • When an objective is captured/ticks, the war score will appear above the lord.
    • When a player is killed, the war score will appear above the player.
    • When a sentry is captured/ticks, the war score will appear above the capture point.
    • When a shrine is captured, the war score will appear above the shrine.
    • When a dolyak is killed or makes it to an objective, the war score will appear above the dolyak.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• The Festive Hat has returned and can be found in the Style category of the Gem Store for 150 gems.
• The Wintersday Wreath Backpack has returned and can be found in the Style category of the Gem Store for 500 gems.
• The Winter Solstice Appearance Pack, containing the Winter Solstice Outfit, a Miniature Snow Flurry Dragon, an Immortal weapon skin, a Total Makeover Kit, and a pack of 5 Glint’s Winter Dye Kits, is available again in the Style category of the Gem Store for 2,000 gems.

Improvements

• The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Wintersday Black Lion Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.
  • The Large Personalized Wintersday Gift has been added as the new guaranteed seasonal item.
  • The Infinirarium Glider is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of this seasonal chest.
  • The Candelabra Staff is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of this seasonal chest.
• For a limited time, a new set of Frostforged weapon skins is available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists for 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket. Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
• Many Merry Minis has been added to the Black Lion Miniature Claim Ticket vendor.
• You no longer need to type an item’s full name on time-expired items when destroying them.
  • Using Gem Store “Time Expired” items will open the Gem Store if that item is available.

Dirame.8521:

Evan Lesh.3295:

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

What the hell? This patch comes with bugs?

I’m guessing at least 2.

Roaches and bedbugs or Lice and mosquitoes?

I personally prefer lice and mosquitoes. They don’t multiply as fast.

Roaches and mosquitoes. At least I can see them easier.

Looks like your ratings aren’t that far apart (assuming I looked up the right denshee). Both are a bit above average.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

What the hell? This patch comes with bugs?

I’m guessing at least 2.

Dawdler.8521:

Here’s to hoping it’s actually OK instead of just ‘OK’.

Nothing is ever OK.

I will wait a couple days before raging. I’ll be spending that time fixing bugs anyways.

We can throw the switch anytime, but will wait until everything looks ‘OK’. So, some hours after the new build is activated.

Ocerkin.8741:

this absolutely infuriates me, i bought a legitimate copy of this game from gamstop and i get a glorified coaster in return!?

ive put in a ticket but this is utter incompetence on the part of arenanet, how do you print copies of a game with invalid serial codes!? i paid good money for this expansion and now i have to sit around waiting for DAYS in hopes of maybe getting what i paid for? im furious about this, its total bull that this is even POSSIBLE to have occured

i want what i paid for kitten and i want it right now

May I please get your CS ticket ID from you? If there is an issue with codes that are being given out, it could be larger scale than just yours and I’d like us to look into it.

I can understand your initial frustration and hope that we’ve been able to resolve this and get you into Tyria.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

…If you continue to have issue, you can contact the Billing CS Team via the ‘Support’ link above/below and ‘Submit a Ticket’ for assistance….

I came here to say what Inculpatus cedo stated, I’ve quoted that text. There is no known current billing platform issues and when there isn’t a known global issue that we’ve communicated, then billing questions are typically best addressed by CS.

Charrbeque.8729:

A couple days ago I opened a black lion chest and it gave me Braham’s Woolfblood Outfit. The thing is, I already owned it since I purchased it from the gem shop. To my understanding I should have received a couple keys as compensation if it tries to give me something like that that I already owned.

Do note: I did contact customer support and they did mail me the 2 keys that I was suppose to get.

The bug here is the keys weren’t granted automatically when the chest tried to award me a bound-when-acquired wardrobe item I already owned

The other problem is, the black lion chest preview window still shows the outfit as a possible item. Which means, if I open more chests there’s a chance the game will bug out again and give me the outfit again. IMO, wardrobe unlocks in black lion chests that are bound when you acquire them should be automatically removed as possible rewards, to avoid bugs like this.

Hello,

We had tested the Braham Outfit/BLC flow that you mention before release and did not have that issue. Additionally, a team member had done the same behavior with the release that you mentioned (bought outfit from gem store, received as a BLC reward) and she received the keys as we’d expect. Is there anything else that was going on at that time that stood out to you, or any additional details. At this point we have been unable to reproduce that issue and are unable to provide a resolution until the issue can be found.

The Black Lion Chest Preview is intended to show what is available in the chest. It doesn’t update for your personal account, so I would expect for you to still be able to see the outfit. As mentioned above, the key replacement should apply if you receive the outfit from the chest again and you may have had a separate thing happen when you first experienced an issue.

Thank you for taking the time to write-in. If you have additional details, please do let us know.

Thank you,
Sarah

Hi there!

It is expected that the Bitterfrost Vantage Point item behaves like the wardrobe unlock (e.g. Phantom Glider) where it would reward you two keys if you had already received that item from the chest.

Ashantara, may I please get your CS ticket ID from you? I’d like to see the repro information you’ve provided because internal testing does not have the same result you’ve mentioned above.

Others are also encouraged to post any potential tips to aid in a test reproduction of this issue.

Thank you!
Sarah

I went ahead and whitelisted 1257 — though the data I’m looking at shows it’s worth 5AP. I don’t think it’s the source of the 1AP discrepancy.

Any other missing achievements would show up in /v2/account/achievements, so I don’t think it’s that. It could be something weird with the daily/monthly counts (an off-by-one somewhere in the API code?). Not really sure.

I don’t think the in-game value is wrong though; IIRC someone went through all their achievements and added them up by hand to verify that the in-game value is correct and the API data is wrong. Just haven’t figured out where exactly the error is coming from.

Evga got in touch with me to ask me to lock this thread, since their cut-off date was December 7th.

Hope everyone had fun with the idea, and thanks again to Evga for the generous idea.

Kuya.6495:

Karl McLain.5604:

For those asking about it: We’ll be keeping tabs on a few of the buff (+nerf) splits and will take them into other parts of the game in future updates, as is seen fitting.
Thanks for your continued feedback!

-Karl

While you’re here:

Are there also skill changes for warrior, necromancer and ranger coming next week as well? The skill balance preview didn’t include them so i assume they won’t be receiving changes on this specific patch?

I’m always here.
This update featured very directed changes with PvP specifically being the target, to herald in the new season and shake things up a bit. It’s not a full balance update and not all professions are being covered at this time.
Does this update substitute for a full balance update? No. We’ll still be doing game-wide balance updates in the future, in which case you’ll probably see a full spectrum of changes.

-Karl

thijsken.5031:

So my biggest concern with nerfing rev is the following:

So first of all let’s be honest ele is pretty dam strong atm, not taking an ele in your team is basically not even considered. An ele had to choose between different traits according to matchups making it weak against some things and strong against other things. But if you nerf rev thus letting ele just take diamond skin, what will kill ele?

• thief? It’s not even sure if thief will be meta but if it is, a thief can’t stick to an ele as a rev and simply can’t afford it as they die to aoe cleave.

• guard? With the amount of projectile hate from the ele itself and other classes ( scrapper), it’s quite hard for the guard to kill the ele or other targets in teamfights.

I think this will result in ele being over the top and simply not dying in teamfights as they can just fully spec against condi builds thus making the teamfights last much longer as the ele heals not only himself but obviously heals his allies by a large amount.

This is a valid concern and something we thought about as well. We will be paying close attention to the survivability of tankier builds given the nerfs to revenant.

Velho.7123:

@Cal Cohen

The change to Piercing Light is PvP only, right?

This change will be applied in all game modes.

For those asking about it: We’ll be keeping tabs on a few of the buff (+nerf) splits and will take them into other parts of the game in future updates, as is seen fitting.
Thanks for your continued feedback!

-Karl

Lots of great feedback in this thread! I see a lot of concern about the nerfs to revenant so I would like to discuss those a bit more.

Surge of the Mists is a skill that does everything. It evades attacks, is a massive cc, and does a huge amount of damage. The defensive capability and cc fit well with the rest of the staff set, so we felt the damage was the best spot to bring the skill down a bit. 50% is certainly a big reduction, but consider just how much damage this skill does right now. Even after the nerf it will still take a chunk out of a squishy’s health bar, in addition to providing cc setup for another skill (and teammates).

Precision Strike is another skill that we felt did too much damage on its own, particularly when all 3 projectiles hit one player. This is another case of a big reduction on a skill that does a ton of damage, resulting in a skill that still does a reasonable amount of damage.

In general, revenant isn’t lacking in sources of damage. Unrelenting Assault, Facets of Strength, Elements, and Chaos, Equilibrium, and sword autoattack are all strong damage skills as well. Precision Strike and Surge of the Mists will continue to bring relevant damage to the table, so rev should still have plenty of damage to go around.

With that said, we will definitely be keeping a close eye on things going into the season.

A message from the PvP Team:

Hey all,

We have a number of skill splits (and some global changes) that will be accompanying the launch of Season 5 next week. Read on to see what’s in store for December 13.

Over the past few releases the PvP team has been working closely with the Skills team to implement some PvP-only skill splits. Moving forward the PvP team will have more opportunity to make these skill splits as we see fit. It’s important to understand that skill splits should not change the core functionality of a skill. Players should be able to use a skill in PvE and have it do relatively the same thing in PvP, though it may be more or less effective depending on the game mode. This means that when we are looking to split out a skill, the changes are limited to the following areas:

• Recharge
• Damage multipliers
• Healing multipliers
• Number of conditions/boons applied
• Duration of conditions/boons applied
• Skill cost (energy and initiative)

A lot can be done with these knobs, but there still will be cases where we identify a problem skill or trait that we feel cannot be addressed without a functional change. In these cases, we are continuing to work closely with the Skills team to find a solution that makes the most sense as a global change.

Now on to the changes! Note that all changes listed are global changes except for those that are designated as “PvP only.”

General:

• New PvP Amulet: Deadshot Amulet: 1050 Precision, 1050 Condition Damage, 560 Vitality, 560 Expertise
  • This amulet should be a viable choice for lower-HP precision proc-based condition classes, such as condition engineer and condition ranger. It provides strong offense, with some defense through vitality.
• New PvP-only Rune: Rune of the Lynx: +175 power, +100 Condition Damage, +25% Movement Speed
  • We’re looking to add a viable damage-oriented movement speed rune to help professions with minimal access to in-combat movement speed or swiftness. This may impact match pacing, so we’re going to keep a close eye on it.

Elementalist

Support elementalist has long reigned supreme, but we’d like to see elementalist bring a bit more damage to the table. To start, we’re looking at giving scepter some stronger sustained damage to fill the gaps between their burst combos. The changes to Final Shielding are more QoL in nature, but should give the elementalist slightly better survivability when pressured in 1-on-1 scenarios. The greatest buff to the elementalist’s survivability will come as a result of reductions to other professions.

• Arc Lightning: The damage of this ability has been increased by 25% in PvP only.
• Arcane Shield: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 60 to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Final Shielding: The cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 75 to 60 seconds The health threshold for activating Arcane Shield has been increased from 25% to 50%.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 25 to 20 in PvP only.

Engineer

We’ve been making some gradual changes to pistol and rifle, hoping to bring them a bit more in line with hammer. As for Jump Shot, it’s difficult to land both the first and second attacks consistently unless you’re cleaving a downed player. To address this, we’ve moved some of the initial damage to the end of the attack, making it easier to spike. The total damage done by the skill will be the same.

• Blunderbuss: The damage of this ability has been increased by 10% at all range thresholds in PvP only.
• Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%

Guardian

We’d like to give the guardian some core buffs to encourage non-elite spec play, ideally pushing them towards a potential support role. As for Dragonhunter, we’re seeing a disproportionate amount of play across all skill levels. We’re mostly happy with their damage output, and have decided to instead shave some of their utility.

• Piercing Light: This trait no longer causes traps to daze enemies and will instead inflict the Slow condition on enemies for 1.5 seconds on the initial ‘trigger’ of a trap.
• Virtue of Justice: Increased the Burning duration of the passive effect from 2 to 4 seconds in PvP only. Increased the amount of burning of the active effect from 1 to 3 stacks in PvP only.
• Virtue of Resolve: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 45 to 30 in PvP only. The healing contribution of this ability has been increased by 87% in PvP only.
• Virtue of Courage: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 60 to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Shield of Courage: Fixed a bug that allowed this ability to grant benefits without going on recharge.
• Detonate Orb of Light: The healing contribution of this ability has been increased by 67%.
• Line of Warding: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 40 to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Signet of Courage: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 180 to 120 seconds in PvP only.

Mesmer

Mesmer has been on our radar for a while now, but it’s a delicate situation. We’re going to keep the change list small for this update, focusing mostly on sustain, and reassess the situation mid-season.

• Echo of Memory: The cooldown of this ability has been increased from 30 to 35 seconds in PvP only.
• Restorative Illusions: The healing contribution of this trait has been increased by 285% in PvP only. The base healing modifiers for this trait have been adjusted as follows:
  • 0 Illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 62% in PvP only.
  • 1 Illusion shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 50% in PvP only.
  • 2 Illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 42% in PvP only.
  • 3 Illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 36% in PvP only.

Revenant

Revenant is in an interesting place in PvP. It’s undoubtedly one of the more difficult professions to play, but when mastered it is devastating on the battlefield. We’re going to bring some elements of the main power build down slightly, while attempting to address the lack of stun-break in the standard Mallyx condition build.

• Surge of the Mists: The damage of this ability has been reduced by 50% in PvP only.
• Precision Strike: The damage of this ability has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.
• Warding Rift: The cooldown of this ability has been increased from 12 to 15 seconds in PvP only.
• Debilitating Slam: The energy cost of this ability has been reduced from 15 to 10.
• Pain Absorption: This ability now breaks stun.

Thief

Thief has two very strong options between the dagger/pistol and staff builds. We’re putting in two small changes in this release that might open up additional options for pistol main-hand and sword builds. Sword already does top-tier damage between its auto-attack chain and various 3 skills – the changes to Infiltrator’s Strike should help make that damage land more consistently. The change to Shadow Strike should hopefully give a bit more punch to some off-meta condition builds.

• Infiltrator’s Strike: The range of this ability has been increased from 600 to 900 in PvP only. Immobilize duration has been increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Shadow Strike: Increased the amount of Torment applied by this ability from 2 to 4 stacks in PvP only.

Loex.5104:

Why can my browser display the images but okhttp quits its service on the same URL cal?

Caches.

render.guildwars2.com is currently broken ;__;

EDIT: I think I fixed it.

Yeah, pretty much all of render.guildwars2.com has been broken since yesterday — any successes have been CDN cache hits. Hopefully will have it fixed today/tomorrow?

EDIT: it might be working again.

The “training” field of /v2/professions.

Evga.2471:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I have attempted to split out two threads about Wintersday. I will now clean up both threads to remove the oh-so-frequent complaints about the erroneous merging.

I’d like to remind everyone that the people who moderate this forum are human beings, and human beings can make mistakes. Having a dozen and more people complain about it is unnecessary and unkind. In the future, if there’s an error, please PM me — and post that you have done so, so that others don’t flood my inbox, as the thread was flooded with unnecessary chatter.

Thanks.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Having said the above, as explanation for the changing nature of the threads/thread/threads, I want to congratulate Evga on such a nice idea, and thank them for being so kind.

We have apologized directly for the mis-merge, as well.

Thank you so much for clearing this up Gaile Gray. I will keep that in mind if a mis-merge like that happens again. Thank you again.

You’re kind to be so understanding, and I thank you for that.

Again, I love that you’re doing this, and I know it’ll be fun for all involved. <3 !

aandiarie.7195:

Please let us have Wintersday as soon as possible and let it last a while. When the weather dips below -20 F and you are stuck in your house because of blizzards it’s nice to do the wintersday day stuff while drinking hot cocoa and listening to a crackling fire in chimney. Get me through the winter please when it gets closer oh great anet gods.

You’ve painted a very pretty seasonal picture there, aandiarie.

Keep warm now!

Evga.2471:

I personally can’t wait for the event, it’s my favorite one. Anyway I’m making a list and checking it twice. As of right now I have four fellow GW2 players that are going to get stuff. However, NO ONE is getting ANYTHING from the GEM store. It’s going to be all in game items. I already have a set of stuff I’m going to give out during the event.

Who can take part of the set stuff I’m giving out?
That’s easy anyone that plays GW2 this also includes ArenaNet staff.

How can I get on the naughty or nice list?
That’s also easy leave a naughty or nice comment on this thread.

Everyone will get stuff from me during the Wintersday Event and it might take until the end of Wintersday to get stuff from me. The naughty and nice list will vary on the set stuff I’m giving out.

Please be patient with me; if you can’t you’ll get put on the naughty list.

You can make a wish list if you like. But you may or may not get.

From your Santa Charr that looks like a Reindeer in a way.

I want to congratulate Evga on such a nice idea, and thank them for being so kind. It sounds like a ton of fun (and a bit of work for Evga). Thanks for doing this!!

I have attempted to split out two threads about Wintersday. I will now clean up both threads to remove the oh-so-frequent complaints about the erroneous merging. I have apologized on the team’s behalf directly to Evga for the mis-merge, as well.

I’d like to remind everyone that the people who moderate this forum are human beings, and human beings can make mistakes. Having a dozen and more people complain about it is unnecessary and unkind. In the future, if there’s an error, please PM me — and post that you have done so, so that others don’t flood my inbox, as the thread was flooded with unnecessary chatter.

Thanks.

Randulf.7614:

Gaile Gray.6029:

You’ll be happy to know that you will get both the opening and end date for the Wintersday Festival. I agree with everyone who expressed opinions in the past that it’s very helpful to know the extent of a festival, and it’s my belief we’ll be more forthcoming about end dates in the future.

We appear to have only got the start date. No end date on the News blog that I could see.

Yes, which was not what I expected. However, the news it out there through the MMORPG article, and both dates will appear, I believe, on the release page which goes up the date the festival starts.

They’re only on /v2/continents/… for now, e.g. Queensdale, in the skill_challenges section. It’s kind of an inconvenient place for them, admittedly; might be worthwhile to add a /v2/heropoints that provides the floor/region/map/coords (even if that means some data duplication).

monkeyface.5627:

Was playing around with my guild in WvW keep and ported a bunch of golems into a tree with mesmer. I was pretty sure the count was 13 but not certain.

That looks great! Golem Winterdays lights! <3

Tamasan.6457:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Just your own and leaderboard.

Ok. I wish we got more, but I understand that it could lead to some toxicity. Could we perhaps get some anonymized or generalized ratings at some point to get an idea of where we stand within the entire community?

While I might know that my rating is 1500, the top player is 2200 and everyone who made the leaderboard is >2000, that doesn’t really mean a lot in a large community. I don’t really know if 1500 is average, above or below, in the 80 percentile, or 40 percentile.

Well now that we will have visible ratings, we will start talking to the community about averages, ranges, deltas, everything MMR. Average/starting rating is 1200, and has a bell curve distribution.

Tamasan.6457:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Visible skill rating should help shift focus from win rate to an actual performance metric.

Are we only going to see our own skill rating and the ones on the leaderboard(s)? Or will we know the ratings of other players in our matches?

Just your own and leaderboard.

OriOri.8724:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I honestly do not know why people think 50/50 matchmaking is a bad thing. My best guess is that people just want want something to blame when they lose.
EDIT: I agree 50/50 matchmaking sucked for the pip-based league. My comment is more general, regarding desired match quality and rating accuracy.

People don’t like it because statistically most people think they are above average. When they end up with a 50/50 win rate, they are made to feel average. Also, I think a very large part of it is how horribly it meshed with the pip system where it basically worked against you going up in divisions, which just left an extremely sour taste in people’s mouths for the system.

Visible skill rating should help shift focus from win rate to an actual performance metric.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commando

LUST.7241:

It got to a point where, in non-premade matches, you got to know EVERYONE in your division. I assume, since this isn’t a 1v1 matchmaking system, it’s based on the “team’s average MMR”. Say you know you are evenly matched (again we got to know literally everyone in our division), but the system has us a point off of each other. A close game is had (499-498, clock ran out). The underdog (W) gets a boatload of rating and the L gets slammed? Are close match ups a factor? Is individual player skill a factor?

Close team score is not a factor, but close rating is. If two teams all have the exact same rating, winning or losing will barely effect your rating because everyone’s skill level is probably the exact same. I would really like to factor in team scores, but it’s very tricky because conquest scoring is not very indicative of skill. A totally outclassed team can often get 200 points just because of how 3 point conquest works.

LUST.7241:

I know there is A LOT of math behind the system, but like CS:GO this is modified. In CS, I can play great, lose, and still go up because of my performance. I can go on a win streak against better players, play poorly, and drop/go nowhere. The system knows me, the team, and my history.

GW2 hasn’t felt like that in the past seasons. Here all it seems like is: Your individual contribution doesn’t matter. You could have won the game 1v5, and you’ll still get the same gain as you would if you were 5 and the same predictable match up next game.

There is no good way of tracking individual player skill in gw2 conquest to help get more accurate ratings. There are way too many variables. This has been a case of not making kittenumptions that actually end up making ratings LESS accurate.

LUST.7241:

50/50 matchmaking is a bad thing because of the weight it has on the system. It needs to be adjusted because it’s so painfully obvious that this is the biggest factor in matchmaking right now. Instead of matchmaking based on SKILL, it’s matchmaking on what the outcome alone (was it a W or an L). Its way harder to carry solo/duo in this game than other MULTIPLAYER games that use Glicko. Plus, other games that effectively use Glicko put less priority in W or L.

Matchmaking has always been based on skill (your Glicko rating), not your win/loss record. Glicko rating updates obviously requires the outcome of the match (W/L) to adjust your rating. I think my answer above addresses this as well. There seems to be some confusion between two concepts: Using rating to pick 10 players for a match and using the outcome of a match to update an individual player’s rating.

LUST.7241:

Now, with the removal of pips and opening up the pool of players to choose from? That, on paper, sounds fantastic…but every season something like that has been said and it fell real short because it was pretty much vaguely presented like it was ‘No Man’s Sky’ or something. I think it’s better not to be so vague and have each Season just be a “test” (not a stab at GW2 PvP only…because, for example, there is a company that named itself after as “a severe snowstorm” and haven’t learned from their competitive changes in their other games).

We tried multiple flavors of matchmaking specifically to address the conflict of goals between balanced matches and the pip-based league. None of them worked, which is why we’ve scrapped it. Also, none of the changes we tried with matchmaking expanded the pool, it just changed how teams were formed.

Hesacon.8735:

So how is this blow out mechanic being addressed? It sucks the fun out of the game entirely. They’re totally not balanced or competitive,and it’s my experience that nearly every match is this way. We’re not talking the occasional blowout that will happen, it felt like it was designed to be that way.

Pips were limited the pool of players to match with, so sometimes the only options for matchmaking is a lopsided match. Games will be much more even in Season 5.

Emapudapus.1307:

So how does the matchmaking work? Are teams formed of overall mmr, so that a team can have high mmr player and very low mmr player and then it produces average and pair it with similar average? Or the teams are formed with only players of similar mmr, so that actual average is quite similar to all players mmr?

You can take a look at the wiki linked above, but quickly: Matchmaking picks the first person in queue, then tries to find the closest acceptable people in skill rating. Once 10 players are found, it then balances them between the teams. A team will only have a large MMR spread if someone has been sitting in queue a long time.

Liam McColgan.7689:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I honestly do not know why people think 50/50 matchmaking is a bad thing. My best guess is that people just want want something to blame when they lose.

Are you serious?

How about maybe because you(Anet) created a grind based pip ladder system where a 50/50 mmr system is totally counter productive to how you are supposed to achieve progression.

I agree 50/50 matchmaking was bad for the pip system. That is why we tried 3 different styles of matchmaking for seasons 1, 2, and 3, and now revamped the system entirely. 50/50 will once again be best.