Guild Wars 2

Bug Fix:

• Updated to prepare for the September 7 Path of Fire stress test.

Bug Fix:

• Updated to prepare for the August 31 Path of Fire stress test.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with certain spider spawns in Lake Doric.

Bug Fixes:

• 64-bit Mac client: Fixed missing or disappearing environment models in the personal-story instanced version of the Cathedral of Hidden Depths.
• Fixed a client crash.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug in Siren’s Landing in which foes in the “Kill the undead that have escaped into the camp” event would become friendly at 0 health.
• Fixed a bug in Siren’s Landing in which the lava would occasionally continue to apply burning to players after they left it.
• Fixed a server crash.

Black Lion Trading Company

Improvements:

• Improved tooltips on some items from the Living World Season 1 Memory Boxes.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a server crash.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a client crash occurring in the Bitter Harvest story instance.
• Removed Path of Fire drops from non-Path of Fire content.
• Adjusted Ogre Watch territory.
• Fixed a bug in which anomaly fragments could be absorbed by the Legendary Anomaly at long range if they were stunned immediately after spawning.
• Performed server maintenance. (PvP Demo)

Guardian

• Sword of Justice: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to strike fewer times than expected if the guardian was attacking at the same time.
• Hammer of Wisdom: Fixed a bug that prevented Hammer of Wisdom damage from scaling with the guardian’s attributes.
• Shield of the Avenger: Fixed a bug that prevented Shield of the Avenger damage from scaling with the guardian’s attributes.

Ranger

• Pets: Fixed a bug that caused a delay in readiness upon pet swap or world entry.
• Entangle: Fixed a bug that listed damage from this skill as Jacaranda’s Embrace.
• Ancient Seeds: Fixed a bug that listed damage from this trait as Jacaranda’s Embrace.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a server crash.
• Fixed an issue that caused the redirector in Hoelbrak’s Great Lodge to send players to Hero’s Canton in the Black Citadel instead of Knut Whitebear’s Loft.

Ranger

• Instinctive Reaction: Fixed a bug in which the player’s pet gained slightly less healing power than expected.
• Taste for Danger: Fixed a bug in which the player’s pet gained slightly less expertise than expected.

Elementalist

• Wildfire: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to inflict lower duration burning than expected.

Thief

• Swindler’s Equilibrium: Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to go on cooldown even if it did not recharge Steal.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed server and client crashes.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a server crash.

Bug Fixes:

• Reverted League badges to previous art.
• Fixed the -autologin command line argument.
• Improved server performance in Siren’s Landing.
• Fixed an issue in which the Magic Carpet Glider did not appear on asura.
• Fixed an issue in which the items in the Dark Harvest collection would not progress the achievement and would cause client crashes.
• Fixed an issue in which reward tracks for Expansion 2 were showing up improperly for WvW and PvP.
• Several map adjustments have been made to Eternal Battlegrounds and the Alpine Borderlands to solve gliding bugs.
• Adjusted the no-gameplay area around the Alpine Borderlands jumping puzzle.
• Fixed a server crash.

Ranger

• Fixed an issue in which pets were delayed from performing actions upon swap or world entry.
• Fixed a bug that was unintentionally stowing ranger pets.

Mesmer

• Medic’s Feedback: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to fail to create a Feedback bubble.

Thief

• Bountiful Theft: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from stealing stability.

Guardian

• Spirit Weapons: Fixed a bug that could cause spirit weapons to go on cooldown after not being used for a sufficient amount of time.

Bug Fixes:

• Taimi’s golem Scruffy in Heart of Thorns has been reverted to its pre-upgraded status.
• Fixes are being implemented on Expansion 2 achievements that are not displaying properly.
• Fixed a bug that was allowing players to glide in Edge of the Mists.
• Fixed a bug in which Mushroom Pizza granted more condition duration than intended.
• A test title that was accidentally visible has been removed.
• Some test crafting recipes that were accidentally visible have been removed.
• Fixed a bug that caused a human female face option to change inadvertently, and the new option has been added as an additional choice.

Guardian

• Zealous Scepter: Fixed a bug in which this trait failed to grant might when a guardian was also traited with Permeating Wrath.

Structured PvP

• You can now exchange 1 Perfect Mist Core for 4 Mist Core Fragments at the Ascended Armor League Vendor in the PvP Lobby.

Thief

• Pistol Whip: Fixed a bug that was causing this skill to show an incorrect number of hits when traited with Swindler’s Equilibrium.

08/08/2017 – Late Notes
General

• Added a formal keybind for full-screen toggling.
• Confusion: Base damage has been increased to match bleed’s base damage; skill-activation damage has been reduced to compensate for this. This change only applies to

PvE.

• Torment: Base damage has been increased to match bleed’s base damage; movement damage has been reduced to compensate for this. This change only applies to PvE.
  Skills
• Ether Clone: Fixed an incorrect torment-damage skill fact.
  Fractals
  Thaumanova Reactor:
• Fixed a bug in which the final boss would teleport away.
  Shattered Observatory:
• A balance pass has been completed on all tiers of Shattered Observatory. Challenge Mode is unaffected by this change.
• Loot chests have been added to the Skorvald the Shattered and Viirastra encounters.
• Fixed an issue in which Arkk’s solar-bloom phase would happen at inconsistent points in the encounter. The phase now always occurs at 80%, 50%, and 30% health, and no longer happens on a timer.
• Fixed an issue in which the platforms in the Arkk encounter would not begin their rotational turn-off sequence.
• Fixed an issue in the final phase in which the platforms in the Arkk encounter would continue their rotational turn-off sequence while solar blooms were active.
• Fixed an issue in which Arkk would begin assaulting players with attacks after a failed solar-bloom phase.
• Fixed an issue in which solar blooms behaved incorrectly in certain situations.
• Fixed an issue in which solar blooms would become stuck if repeatedly knocked into the edge of the arena.
• Fixed an issue in which the achievement credit for Blinded with Science was not applying to players with the aegis boon.
• Reduced the intensity of the sun effect in the Skorvald the Shattered encounter.
• Lowered the eyeball effect for the final boss’s look-away mechanic.

WvW

• Participation now always takes 15 minutes to decay no matter how much participation you have earned. This means that decaying at an earlier tier is no longer faster than decaying at a later tier.
• The participation bar has been changed to always display how much time is left until it will start to decay. Previously, only the grace time of 90 seconds was shown. Now it will always show the grace time. The bar will be green if your grace time is above 90 seconds, yellow if your grace time is 90 seconds or less, and red if you are decaying.

Living World

• Lake Doric: Fixed a bug in which aged ectoplasm could be acquired from ghosts.
• Siren’s Landing: Fixed a bug in which ancient saplings and orichalcum ore would only allow one gather per node.
• Hints have now been added to the “One Path Ends” open-world collections.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
Improvements

• Tyria waypoints are now accessible from the Mistlock Sanctuary. Simply open the map and navigate to the lower floor.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with the female asura face in Total Makeover Kits that was causing a gap in the forehead on bald hairstyles.
• Fixed the hairline on a human female Elonian hairstyle in character creation and in the Total Makeover Kit.
• Fixed a crash that occurred in character creation when selecting certain beards.

MAC CLIENT

• Further refinement to keyboard layout handling.
• Fixed an issue in which apparent momentum blocked the mouse from moving with various controls.
• Fixed issues in which the Dock popped into view while in full screen.
• The Full-Screen Gamma control now works.
• The Vertical Sync checkbox now works.
• Fixed an issue in which some UI elements drew lines across the screen.
• Updated the client launcher to be rendered in the native screen resolution on retina screens.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that blocked recipe updates for Toxic, Bountiful, Furious, and Magnanimous utility consumables.
• Fixed an issue in which certain hairstyles did not display correctly in the character portrait on the select screen.
• Fixed a bug in which the WvW Skirmish track diamond division was giving out skirmish tickets when it was repeated.
• Conjure Flame Axe: Fixed a bug that showed an incorrect active duration when this weapon was picked up.
• Conjure Frost Bow: Fixed a bug that showed an incorrect active duration when this weapon was picked up.
• Fixed server crashes.
• Fixed a client crash.

Necromancer

• Death Shroud: The base drain of life force from being in death shroud has been reduced 25%.
• Reaper Shroud: The base drain of life force from being in reaper shroud has been reduced 25%.

Guardian

• Retribution: Fixed an issue with this trait in which bonus attributes were granted when a guardian did not have retaliation.
• Eternal Armory: Fixed an issue with this trait that was preventing it from applying burning to enemies.

Dry Top

• Fixed several missing NPC and object spawns.

Warrior
In addition to moving some utility skills to the new ammo system, we’re also taking a look at the Strength and Arms trait lines. These lines have several adjustments aimed at making each choice more meaningful and less conflicting with other choices in the same tier while also focusing the purpose of each trait line into areas that make the most sense. One important trait that changed in this process was Berserker’s Power, which is an important trait for warriors who rely on Power damage. This trait previously granted a damage bonus based on the tier of adrenaline you were at when you used a burst skill. We’ve updated this trait to better scale with the amount of adrenaline you use so that warriors can feel good about using lower-level bursts consecutively rather than always waiting for the level 3.
Profession:

• Primal Burst: These skills now count as level-1 bursts for the purposes of traits that scale on adrenaline level.

Weapon Skills:

• Throw Axe: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 2 with a 10-second count recharge. There is a 1-second recharge between uses.
• Combustive Shot: Fixed a bug that caused the projectile created by this skill to be destroyed without creating the damaging area when fired at enemy gates in WvW.
• Scorched Earth: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to fail to hit some gates in WvW.
• Flaming Flurry: Increased projectile speed by 66%.
• Aimed Shot: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and now uses the higher damage values and vulnerability stack amounts in all game modes.
• Flames of War: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and now uses the higher burn duration and burning stack values in all game modes.
• Blaze Breaker: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and now uses the higher condition durations in all game modes.

Utility Skills:

• “On My Mark!”: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 2 with a 30-second count recharge. There is a 5-second recharge between uses.
• Kick: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 3 with a 30-second count recharge. There is a 3-second recharge between uses.
• Throw Bolas: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 2 with a 25-second count recharge. There is a 1-second recharge between uses.
• Bull’s Charge: This skill now evades for the duration of the charge. Increased damage by 267%. This skill now goes on full recharge if interrupted.

Traits:

• Berserker’s Power: This trait’s functionality has been changed. It now provides a stacking 7% damage-increase enhancement for 10 seconds for each bar of adrenaline used when a burst skill hits. Maximum 3 stacks.
• Axe Mastery: This trait has moved to the Discipline line and takes the slot previously taken by Merciless Hammer.
• Merciless Hammer: This trait has moved to the Strength line and takes the slot previously taken by Axe Mastery. In addition to its previous functionality, this trait now also causes interrupts to inflict 4 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds.
• Death from Above: This trait has been removed and its functionality moved to Peak Performance. It has been replaced with Brave Stride.
• Brave Stride: Your first attack when entering combat grants 1 stack of stability for 4 seconds.
• Peak Performance: This trait now increases the damage of all physical skills by 30% regardless of your adrenaline level. Additionally it now also reduces fall damage by 50% and causes you to launch foes when you take fall damage.
• Distracting Strikes: This trait has been removed and its functionality combined with Merciless Hammer. It has been replaced with Might Makes Right.
• Might Makes Right: Whenever you apply might to yourself, heal a small amount and gain 5 endurance.
• Determined Revival: Now reduces incoming damage by 25% while reviving, instead of granting increased Toughness.
• Precise Strikes: This trait has been reworked and its functionality moved to Bloodlust. This trait has been renamed to Furious Burst and causes burst skills to grant 5 seconds of fury with a 15-second internal cooldown.
• Berserker’s Fury: This trait has been reworked, and it has been renamed Wounding Precision. It now grants +120 Precision at level 80 and converts 7% of Precision to Expertise.
• Signet Mastery: This trait now grants Ferocity instead of Precision when a signet is used.
• Opportunist: This trait now grants 5 adrenaline when immobilizing a foe in addition to fury.
• Deep Strikes: This trait has switched places with Rending Strikes and is now in the Master Minor slot.
• Unsuspecting Foe: This trait now provides a bonus critical-hit chance against foes that are disabled by any hard crowd-control effect rather than just stun.
• Rending Strikes: This trait has switched places with Deep Strikes and is now in a Master Major slot. Increased vulnerability duration to 10 seconds.
• Blademaster: This trait now increases condition duration by 20% for sword skills instead of increasing sword critical-hit chance against bleeding foes by 20%.
• Bloodlust: This trait no longer increases damage against bleeding foes. Instead, it causes your critical hits to have a 33% chance to inflict 1 stack of bleeding for 5 seconds and increases duration of outgoing bleeds by 33%.
• Dual Wielding: Increased attack speed bonus from 15% to 20%. Updated description for clarity. This trait gives an attack speed bonus when a main-hand weapon is wielded in the off-hand slot.
• Shrug It Off: Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to go on a 30-second internal cooldown under some circumstances instead of its listed cooldown.
• Cull the Weak: Increased bonus damage from 5% to 7%. Increased health threshold from 33% to 50%. Increased weakness duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. This trait now applies weakness to foes regardless of if they already have weakness on them, but it has a 5-second internal cooldown.
• Sundering Mace: This trait has had its functionality changed. It now causes stuns, dazes, and knockdowns inflicted by mace skills to last 20% longer against vulnerable foes, and it reduces the recharge of mace skills by 20%.
• Reviver’s Might: In addition to granting might, this trait now also heals nearby allies. This trait now triggers when you successfully revive someone or when you rally.
• Inspiring Presence: This trait no longer grants Healing Power to outgoing might but instead grants bonus Healing Power to the warrior for each stack of might.

Structured Player vs. Player

• League Vendors have had some tab consolidation.
• Glorious armors, earned from PvP Reward Tracks, now have Heart of Thorns stat combinations as selectable options. Heart of Thorns required.
• The Champion’s Crown has been swapped with the Champion’s Sun for winning first place in the Monthly PvP Tournament.
• Stealth Attacks: Fixed a bug that caused thief stealth attacks to treat the PvP lobby as a PvE area when determining the duration of Revealed to apply.

PvP Stat-Swappable Armor:

• The PvP ascended armors Ardent Glorious and Glorious Hero’s can now be upgraded into stat-swappable armor.
• The Ascended Armor League Vendor now sells items needed to upgrade ascended PvP armor into stat-swappable armor.
• Since this is an upgrade, the stat-swappable armor does not include a new unique skin but is instead the same skin as the ascended piece that was upgraded.

World vs. World
Territories:

• Each objective now has a territory associated with it that is outlined on the map. An objective’s territory will display the team color of the team that owns it. The WvW score UI now displays the objective of whatever territory you are in.

Gliding:

• The new War Gliding Mastery has been added to WvW. The War Gliding skill allows gliding in territories that your team owns in the Mist War maps. You will be kicked from your glider if you enter a territory that you do not own.
• With the addition of gliding, several small map adjustments have been made to the Eternal Battlegrounds, Desert, and Alpine borderlands to better accommodate gliding. Along with map changes, several out-of-bounds areas have been added that will teleport players back to the spawn point if they get outside of the playable game area. This is a test for gliding in WvW. We can disable gliding in WvW if we do not find it appropriate for the game mode.

Ability-Point Reset:

• A new ability-point reset vendor, the World Ability Master, has been added to each portal keep (team starting area). One free sample ability-point reset is available per character. Ability-point resets can be bought with spirit shards that will instantly reset your WvW ability points.

Siege Balance:

• Ballista:
  • Ballista’s damage to siege has been increased.
  • Ballista’s 4th skill has been replaced with an antiair bolt that shoots people out of the air and immobilizes them.
• Catapult:
  • Catapults’ boulder shots now deal damage based on their charge level. The longer the catapult is charged, the more damage it deals.

WvW Stat-Swappable Armor:

• The WvW ascended armor Triumphant Hero’s and Mistforged Triumphant Hero’s can now be upgraded into stat-swappable armor.
• Commander War Razor now has a new Legendary Components tab that sells items needed to upgrade ascended WvW armor into stat-swappable armor.
• Since this is an upgrade, the stat-swappable armor does not include a new unique skin but is instead the same skin as the ascended piece that was upgraded.

Reward Changes:

• Being in first place with war score now grants 5 pips instead of 3.
• Being in second place with war score now grants 4 pips instead of 2.
• Being in third place with war score now grants 3 pips instead of 1.
• The Superior Siege Blueprint Case choice from the Skirmish Chest now grants 2 superior siege instead of 1.
• WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets have been reduced in the last chest of each division but have been added to every chest.
• The Triumphant Armor Box and Legacy Armor Box exotics now give Heart of Thorns stats if you own Heart of Thorns.
  • If you already chose stats on the exotic gear, you will need to earn the exotic gear again to choose different stats.
• Mistforged Hero’s ascended weapons now have infusion slots.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• A new Rival Skies Package with the Fiery Blade Axe and the Icy Blade Axe is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 1,000 gems.
• The new Black Lion Instant Level 80 Ticket is available in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 2,000 gems. Using this item will grant a Level-80 Boost, allowing players to test their characters before boosting one to level 80.
• A new Path of Fire Preparation Pack is available in the Utility category of the Gem Store for 3,500 gems. It contains 1 Character Slot, 2 Bag Slot Expansions, 1 Black Lion Instant Level 80, 1 Unbreakable Gathering Tools Container, and 10 Black Lion Chest Keys.
• With the improvement to the Mistlock Sanctuary lounge, the Permanent Mistlock Sanctuary Passkey is available in the Utility category of the Gem Store for an additional week for 1,000 gems.
• The Guild Wars 2 Fifth Year Anniversary Sale starts soon. Check back every day for your favorite items on sale.

Improvements

• Updated the Dynamics Glider Module to appear less detached on asura when deployed.
• The Mistlock Sanctuary’s portal to Tyria has been updated with additional teleportation options. Players may now choose to return to the location where they used their Mistlock Sanctuary Passkey.
• The Black Lion Exclusives Chest has been added as a rare drop in the current Black Lion Chest for a limited time. Players can choose one of the nine exclusive items released previously in the Black Lion Chest, including the Grasping Phantom Glider, Mini Celestial Rooster, Infinirarium Glider, Candelabra Staff, Bitterfrost Vantage Point, Noran’s Safe Room Pass and Key, Elemental Sword, Sworn Zaishen Helm Skin, and Hounds of Balthazar Mail Carrier.
• For a limited time, the Maguuma Jungle, Kryta, and Ranger’s Miniatures are available when using Black Lion Miniature Claim Tickets.
  • Ranger’s Miniatures: Mini Brown Bear, Mini Devourer, Mini Jungle Stalker, Mini Toxic Spider Queen, Mini Salamander Drake, Mini River Drake, Mini Swamp Drake, Mini Polar Bear, Mini Lynx, and Mini Snow Leopard.
  • Maguuma Jungle Miniatures: Mini Colocal, Mini Forest Spider, Mini Green Moa, Mini Jungle Stalker, Mini Skritt Forager, Mini Skritt Bottle Lobber, Mini Tiger, Mini Chickenado, Mini Tizlak, Mini Forest Grub, and Mini Lynx.
  • Kryta Miniatures: Mini Brown Bear, Mini Ettin, Mini Modniir Berserker, Mini River Drake, Mini Swamp Spider, Mini Wind Rider, Mini Black Wind Rider, Mini Blue Drake Hatchling, Mini Swamp Drake, Mini River Drake Broodmother, and Mini Black Moa.

Bug Fixes

• Removed the Agony Resistance filter when searching for armor or weapons on the trading post.
• Updated the Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock to correctly unlock permanent finishers while players have limited-use versions of that finisher equipped.
• Fixed an issue in which players could become stuck midair in the Mistlock Sanctuary when simultaneously manipulating gravity and untransforming.
• Fixed the Merchant Express to prevent summoned merchants floating in midair.

MAC CLIENT

• Adjusted Touch Bar integration to better work with some user preferences.

08/08/2017 – August 8th Release Notes
World Polish
General

• Current Events achievements from Living World Season 3 have been grouped into new categories under the Side Stories achievement group.
• All Season 3 Current Events achievements have been unhidden, with the exception of those that cannot be progressed without specific Living Story chapters or expansions.
• Meta-achievements have been added for two of the new Side Stories categories, including an achievement for beginning each new meta’s story.
• A Central Tyria Mastery Point has been added to the existing rewards for the Transfer Chaser meta-achievement.
• With her journey concluded for now, Seis Burntheart has returned to her original location in Frostgorge Sound, where she will direct adventurers hoping to follow in her footsteps.
• Event scaling on the Ley-Energy Coalescence events has been rebalanced.
• The Bloodstone-Crazed Arctodus, Bloodstone-Crazed Devourer, and Bloodstone-Crazed Moa have gained additional Power.
• Anomaly fragment enemies during the Ley-Line Anomaly events are now easier to stun when Counter Magic is used against them.
• Bandit leaders across Kryta have found their health further reduced as their supply lines remain in disarray.
• Responding to local demand for pet-care supplies, a new vendor has set up shop in Rata Sum to provide shoppers with fun and safe toys to entertain their cats. Further responding to local demand to “get these infuriating felines out of my lab,” harmless and scientific equipment for shooing cats away is also provided.
• Text has been standardized on food and utility tooltips.
• Added two new options to the Sound Options panel that will allow you to determine how items with unique sound effects play back on your game client. The four options are listed below and can be independently specified for both your items and other players’ items:
  • All: All unique item sound effects will play back without restrictions (as they have traditionally).
  • Limited: Unique item sounds will have a chance to play but will usually fall back to default sound effects.
  • Mute Projectiles Only: Unique item sounds originating from projectile attacks (such as Quip and the Dreamer) will be muted, and all others will play normally.
  • Off: Unique item sound effects will be completely disabled, and default sound effects will play in their place.
• Fixed some issues in which only the left modifier keys (Shift, Alt, Control, etc.) were considered for various UI interactions.

Fractals
Shattered Observatory

• Fixed a bug in which green circles would not display properly for the final boss.
• Fixed the attack timing for the final boss’s Solar Blast.
• Aegis will no longer block the first beam attack in the final boss fight.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the platforms to sometimes not disappear in the final boss fight.
• Solar Blooms have had their aggro range increased so that they will always follow their target.
• Solar Blooms will now bounce off the edges of the final boss platform instead of getting stuck.
• Solar Blooms’ attack telegraph time has been increased by 0.25 seconds.
• For lower tiers, various mechanics for the final boss have had their damage toned down so that the difficulty curve is more similar to other bosses.
• The Skorvald and Viirastra bosses now provide a daily reward chest.
• Increased the size of the hit box of the final boss.

General:

• Fixed a bug in which players might create a new fractal instance instead of joining their existing party when using the Lion’s Arch or Mistlock Sanctuary fractal portals.
• Fixed a bug in which celestial infusion effects displayed the wrong color on charr.

Items

• Giver’s weapons now provide Expertise instead of Condition Duration.
• Giver’s armor now provides Concentration instead of Boon Duration.
• Doubloons now provide Concentration instead of Boon Duration.
• Snowflake upgrades now provide Concentration instead of Boon Duration.
• Food consumables that provided Boon Duration or Condition Duration now provide Concentration or Expertise instead.
• Food consumables that provided stat conversion have had that bonus replaced with a flat amount of stats:
  • Foods that converted Toughness into Vitality now grant level-appropriate amounts of Vitality.
  • Foods that converted Toughness and Vitality into Healing Power now grant level-appropriate amounts of Healing Power (primary) and Toughness (secondary).
  • Bowl of Chocolate Tapioca Pudding now grants +100 Toughness instead of converting Healing Power into Toughness.
  • Bowl of Passion Fruit Tapioca Pudding now grants +100 Power instead of converting Healing Power into Power.
  • Bowl of Prickly Pear Tapioca Pudding now grants +100 Condition Damage instead of converting Healing Power into Condition Damage.
• Utility consumables have been overhauled and now all provide stat conversion. More details can be found on the forums: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Upcoming-Stat-Changes-in-the-Q3-Balance-Update/6667249
  • Sharpening Stones all provide at least one bonus to Power.
  • Maintenance Oils now provide bonuses to Concentration or Healing.
  • Tuning Crystals all provide at least one bonus to Condition Damage.
• Furious, Toxic, Bountiful, and Magnanimous utility consumable recipes have had their ingredients adjusted to reduce their crafting costs.
  • When ascended materials are ingredients, Sharpening Stones will now always require Dragonite Ore, Maintenance Oils will require Bloodstone Dust, and Focusing Crystals will require Empyreal Fragments.
• Runes of Balthazar: Fixed a bug that would not allow this rune’s sixth piece to fire while underwater or in air.

Profession Skills
With Path of Fire™ on the horizon, we’ll soon be adding nine new elite specializations with nine new trait lines to the game. Along with these new additions, we are also taking some time to do a pass on the older trait lines in order to update them for the current state of the game. There has been a general pass on wording for traits to better clarify what they do, as well as several functionality changes across all core profession traits and some Heart of Thorns™ elite specialization traits. These changes are aimed at improving the synergy of these old traits with the lines they live in as well as across other lines.
General:

• Ammunition System: The ammunition (ammo) system has been added to the game. Several skills across multiple professions now use ammo for their skills. Ammo skills have a stock (count) of uses that can regenerate over time. Each ammo skill has a short recharge between uses that varies per skill. New skill facts for ammo count and Count Recharge have been added. Count Recharge and recharge between uses are affected by recharge-reduction skills and traits.
• Light Aura: This skill no longer applies a single stack of vulnerability to someone striking you. It now reduces incoming Condition Damage by 10% in addition to granting retaliation when struck.
• Area Weakness: Fixed a bug in which executing a blast finisher in a poison combo field would sometimes mistakenly apply 3 seconds of weakness instead of the intended 5 seconds.
• A new icon for the Explosion skill fact has been added.
• A new icon for the Pierces skill fact has been added.
• Key words relating to profession mechanics and skill types have been standardized and highlighted across all professions.
• Charrzooka: This skill is now equipped for a 15-second duration instead of expiring after using a set number of attacks.
• Become the Raven:
  • Swoop: The distance this skill travels is no longer affected by movement-speed modifiers.
• Become the Wolf:
  • Leap: The distance this skill travels is no longer affected by movement-speed modifiers.
• Become the Snow Leopard:
  • Pounce: The distance this skill travels is no longer affected by movement-speed modifiers.

Elementalist
In this balance update, the elementalist is seeing some cleanup of a few elemental minions and a change in the way their Conjure utility skills behave. We’ve reworked different aspects of these weapons and removed the prohibitive charge system with the intention of promoting holding on to the weapons and using all of their skills. Several traits have seen augmentations, with Arcane Resurrection now allowing Geyser (in all of its formats) to revive downed allies instead of applying a flat revive percentage. And finally, we’re looking to normalize damage for the elementalist so that it is not effectively the best-in-slot for damage, support, and survivability in all scenarios. To this end, we are modifying the functionality for a few skills that unintentionally overperform against large hit-box targets, in addition to a select few damage reductions.
Profession:

• Overload Fire: The physical damage has been reduced by 10% in PvE only.
• Overload Air: The total number of attacks has been reduced from 17 to 14.

Weapon Skills:

• Lightning Surge: The cast time has been reduced by 0.4 seconds.
• Geyser: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will now use the higher-value Healing Power multiplier in all game modes. Base healing value has been reduced by 33%. Number of pulses has been increased from 3 to 5.
• Phoenix: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to hit more frequently than intended.
• Wildfire: This skill can now only damage an enemy once per second. Burning duration has been increased from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
• Burning Speed: This skill can now only damage an enemy once per second. Fire-wall damage has been increased by 100%, and burning duration has been increased from 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds per tick.
• Burning Retreat: This skill can now only damage an enemy once per second. Damage has been increased by 100%, and burning duration has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds per tick.
• Flamewall: The damage of this skill has been increased by 100%.

Utility Skills:

• Greater Air Elemental:
  • Shocking Bolt: Recharge has been reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Air Elemental:
  • Lightning Strikes: This skill now fires projectiles directly at the target rather than in an area around the target.
• Water Elemental:
  • Frozen Ground: The cast time has been reduced by 1 second. Chill duration has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.
  • Crashing Waves: The cast time of the initial portion of this skill has been reduced by 1.6 seconds. The number of targets knocked back has been increased from 1 to 3. The healing attribute multiplier has been increased by 300%.
• Fire Elemental:
  • Flame Barrage: Burning duration has been increased from 1 second to 3 seconds per missile hit. Recharge has been reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Arcane Blast: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 3, with a 20-second count recharge. There is a 1-second recharge between each use.
• Arcane Wave: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 2, with a 30-second count recharge. There is a 2-second recharge between each use.
• Conjure Weapons: Conjured weapons no longer expire after a set number of skill activations but instead last for a flat duration of 30 seconds.
• Conjure Lightning Hammer:
  • Lightning Leap: This skill now grants 3 seconds of quickness if it hits. The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 6 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Wind Blast: This skill now grants 3 seconds of superspeed if it hits.
  • Lightning Storm: This skill has been partially reworked. Lightning bolts will occur over a longer duration, with 50% of the bolts guaranteed to attack a target within the radius. The final attack delivered by the storm guarantees attacks on up to five targets. The number of attacks has been increased from 10 to 12.
• Conjure Frost Bow:
  • Water Arrow: This skill now grants a stacking enhancement to the user when striking a target. This enhancement increases outgoing healing by 10% per stack and stacks up to two times. In addition, stacks of Water Arrow modify other Conjure Frost Bow skills in different ways. Base healing has been increased by 10%. The aftercast has been slightly reduced.
  • Frost Volley: This skill now gains 10% bonus damage per stack of Water Arrow. Cast time has been reduced by approximately 0.5 seconds. The recharge has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.
  • Frost Fan: This skill now fires one additional projectile per stack of Water Arrow.
  • Ice Storm: This skill now fires one additional attack per stack of Water Arrow.
  • Deep Freeze: This skill now freezes for 0.5 additional seconds per stack of Water Arrow.
• Conjure Flame Axe: This conjure weapon now enhances the autoattack by unlocking Double Lava Axe when any other skill on the conjure weapon is used.
  • Double Lava Axe: Throw two lava axes in quick succession.
  • Burning Retreat: This skill can now only damage an enemy once per second. The damage of this skill has been increased by 100%. Burning duration has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to not apply burning in some situations.
• Conjure Fiery Greatsword: Wielding this weapon while in combat will now create Fiery Eruptions on random enemies within a range of 600 every 3 seconds.
  • Fiery Rush: This skill is now able to hit an enemy only once per second. The damage of the wall portion has been increased by 100%.
• “Feel the Burn!”: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to hit more than 5 targets.

Traits:

• Powerful Aura: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from correctly sharing light aura.
• Arcane Resurrection: This trait no longer grants an increased revive rate but instead changes the functionality of the Geyser skill, causing it to revive allies in its radius by 7% per tick in addition to healing. This trait now casts Geyser on the elementalist when they begin reviving an ally.
• Elemental Enchantment: This trait no longer grants boon duration; it now grants up to 180 Concentration at level 80.
• Conjurer: This trait no longer increases charge count for conjured weapons but instead reduces the recharge for conjured weapon skills that the elementalist uses. Fire-aura functionality remains the same.
• Arcane Abatement: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now heals you a small amount whenever you swap attunements.
• Imbued Melodies: This trait no longer grants boon duration; it now grants Concentration.
• Harmonious Conduit: Bonus damage enhancement duration has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
• One with Fire: Elementalist skills that grant fire aura have been updated to indicate the correct duration when this trait is equipped.

Engineer
In this update, we’re making major changes to the Explosives and Tools trait lines as well as some changes to the Gadget skill type. Explosions traits have been reorganized and reworked to better support a larger variety of builds. While we expect any build that takes the Explosives line to have at least some explosive skills, the line was disproportionately weighted to favor bombs and grenades to the exclusion of other Power-damage options. We want this line to have a few viable options for builds that don’t go all-in on these kits while still having an explosive theme where appropriate. The traits Siege Rounds, Thermobaric Detonation, and Explosive Powder have been removed, and the Shaped Charge trait has been moved to the Grandmaster minor slot due to its passive functionality. Several new traits have been added to replace the lost traits, and some adjustments have been made to enhancement skills that suffered a loss of effectiveness due to the removal of these traits. The Tools line was suffering from poor options at its Grandmaster tier, so we’ve reworked Kinetic Battery and Gadgeteer to smooth out their gameplay patterns.
Utility Skills:

• Weapon Kits and Device Kits are now referred to as Engineering Kits to reflect that their classifications are functionally the same.
• Removed the delay on gyro skills before they can be detonated.
• Turret Detonate Skills: Fixed a bug that caused these skills to count as toolbelt skills for the purposes of traits.
• Toss Elixir X (Underwater): Fixed incorrect duration skill facts when this skill is traited with HGH.
• Personal Battering Ram: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 2, with a 25-second count recharge. There is a 5-second recharge between each use.
• Rocket Boots: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 2, with a 20-second count recharge. There is a 2-second recharge between each use.
• A.E.D.: This skill now removes confusion in addition to its previous removals.
• Throw Mine: Added a missing skill fact for the number of boons removed.
• Mortar Kit: Fixed a bug that caused the effects for these skills to play incorrectly on WvW walls and doors.
  • Poison Gas Shell: Increased poison duration from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased field duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
  • Endothermic Shell: Increased field duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
  • Flash Shell: Increased field duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
  • Elixir Shell: Increased field duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

Traits:

• Explosive Descent: This trait has been removed and its functionality merged with Grenadier. It has been replaced with Blasting Zone. Fixed an incorrect number of grenades in the skill fact.
• Grenadier: This trait now reduces falling damage by 50% and causes you to drop grenades when taking falling damage, in addition to its previous functionality.
• Blasting Zone: This trait replaces Explosive Descent, grants +120 Power at level 80, and causes your blast finishers to grant 1 stack of might for 20 seconds.
• Alchemical Tinctures: This trait no longer grants boon duration; it now grants up to 240 Concentration at level 80.
• Explosive Powder: This trait has been removed from the game. It has been replaced by Shaped Charge. Some explosion skills have had their damage increased to compensate.
  • Throw Mine: Increased damage by 20%.
  • Booby Trap: Increased damage by 10%.
  • Rocket Turret Overcharge: Increased damage by 10%.
  • Shrapnel Grenade: Increased damage by 14%.
  • Big Ol’ Bomb: Increased damage by 10%.
  • Fire Bomb: Increased damage by 14%.
  • Grenade Barrage: Increased damage by 20%.
  • Bunker Down: Increased damage by 10%.
• Shaped Charge: This trait has been moved to the Grandmaster minor slot. It has been replaced with Big Boomer.
• Evasive Powder Keg: Removed internal cooldown.
• Big Boomer: This trait replaces the slot left open by Shaped Charge. It converts 5% of Power to Vitality and 5% of Power to Ferocity.
• Thermobaric Detonation: This trait has been removed. It has been replaced with Minesweeper.
• Minesweeper: This trait upgrades Evasive Powder Keg to drop a series of mines along the dodge path instead of a single bomb.
• Siege Rounds: This trait has been removed. It has been replaced with Orbital Command. The duration of fields created by Mortar Kit skills has been increased to compensate.
• Orbital Command: This trait invokes an orbital strike when striking a foe below 50% health and has a 15-second recharge.
• Reactive Lenses: This now uses the traited version of Utility Goggles when Gadgeteer is equipped.
• Lock On: Added functionality. This trait will now also analyze foes that you disable. Disable analyze and stealth analyze are two separate skills with individual recharges.
• Excessive Energy: This trait now grants its bonus damage when you are not at full endurance.
• Kinetic Battery: This trait has been reworked. It now generates kinetic charges whenever a toolbelt skill is used. At 5 charges, gain quickness and superspeed for 5 seconds. Charges can only be generated while in combat but do not expire until 5 stacks is reached or the trait is unequipped.
• Gadgeteer: This trait has been reworked. It no longer requires static charges and always enhances your gadgets as long as it is equipped. Gadget recharge bonus has been reduced to 20%. Fixed a bug that prevented enhanced skills from displaying their bonuses properly in the trait preview. Specific gadget enhancements have been adjusted as follows:
  • A.E.D.: When fatal damage is prevented, this skill now grants shocking aura in addition to its previous effects.
  • Throw Mine: Increased radius has been removed. This now causes you to drop a second mine at your location when cast.
  • Utility Goggles: Increased might gain from 3 stacks to 5 stacks.
  • Slick Shoes: This skill now inflicts cripple when it knocks down foes, in addition to its previous effects.
  • Rocket Boots: This skill now grants superspeed after landing, in addition to its previous effects.
  • Personal Battering Ram: This skill is now considered an explosion and inflicts burning, in addition to its previous effects.
• Pinpoint Distribution: Fixed an incorrect skill fact that listed this trait as providing Precision instead of Condition Damage.

Guardian
The addition of the ammo system also allows us to rework some old skill types. In this case, something we’ve long wanted to do—Spirit Weapons. These skills now immediately summon a weapon that performs a single, powerful skill and then vanishes. We also revisited some of the older skills and traits that have gone largely untouched in recent years to update them on the back end and smooth out some of their functionality. One example of this is Zealot’s Flame, which felt somewhat random in its burn application, so we’ve smoothed out the burning around you to pulse every second. In this update, we’ve also seized the opportunity to review a couple of trait lines, adjusting and reworking the Zeal and Radiance specializations.
Weapon Skills:

• Zealot’s Flame: Reduced burning duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds. Rather than burning once every 3 seconds after the initial cast, it now burns every second as long as the enhancement persists. Fixed a bug that could prevent the application of burning to nearby enemies after the initial cast.
• Faithful Strike: The Healing Power contribution for this skill has been unsplit from PvP and will use the 100% increase in all game types.
• Zealot’s Defense: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to continue blocking even if the skill was canceled.
• Wave of Wrath: Reduced the range from 600 to 300. Increased the attack angle from 90 degrees to 110 degrees to better line up with its effect.
• Orb of Light: Reduced the extended recharge time of this skill when detonating the orb of light from 400% to 300%. Detonating the orb of light now grants light aura to allies, in addition to its previous effects. This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will use the 20% higher heal scaling in all game types.
• Empower: This skill now grants healing per pulse in addition to might. It will now heal for 17% of the previous healing value for 3 ticks and then 50% at the skill’s end.
• Line of Warding: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and how has a 30-second recharge in all game modes.

Utility Skills:

• Spirit Weapons: Spirit weapons have been reworked. They now use the ammo system.
  • Hammer of Wisdom: This now has an ammo count of 2, and using the skill orders the hammer to knock down your foe. Count recharge is 30 seconds.
  • Bow of Truth: This now has an ammo count of 2, and using the skill barrages an area with healing arrows. Count recharge is 30 seconds.
  • Shield of the Avenger: This now has an ammo count of 3, and using the skill creates a protective dome and flings projectiles at nearby enemies. Count recharge is 25 seconds.
  • Sword of Justice: This now has an ammo count of 3, and using the skill targets an area for the sword to repeatedly attack. Count recharge is 25 seconds.
• Bane Signet: Fixed a bug with this skill when attempting to use it on a target behind you.
• Hold the Line!: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will use the increased 6-second duration in all game types.
• Fragments of Faith: The detonation effect of this trap is no longer unblockable.

Traits:

• Justice Is Blind: This trait now grants you light aura when you activate Virtue of Justice, in addition to its previous effects.
• Radiant Fire: Fixed a bug with this trait in which it would fail to apply burning to nearby enemies when triggered.
• Retribution: This trait now grants Ferocity while you have retaliation, in addition to its previous effect.
• Zealous Scepter: This trait now also grants 1 stack of might for 10 seconds if you are using a nonscepter weapon when it triggers.
• Expeditious Spirits: This trait has been reworked and renamed Eternal Armory. Eternal Armory increases the maximum ammo count of Spirit Weapon skills while reducing their recharge and causes strikes from Spirit Weapons to inflict burning.
• Symbolic Avenger: This trait now converts 13% of your Toughness into Power, in addition to its previous effect.
• Radiant Retaliation: This trait has been reworked and renamed Righteous Instincts. Righteous Instincts increases your chance to critically strike and grants 1 stack of might for 6 seconds every second while you have retaliation.
• Symbolic Exposure: Increased the stacks of vulnerability inflicted by this trait from 1 stack to 3 stacks and the vulnerability duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Invigorated Bulwark: This trait has been reworked. It now grants increased outgoing healing percentage when you block and no longer requires you to wield a mace. This trait also reduces the recharge of mace skills and increases the duration of boons granted by mace skills.
• Perfect Inscriptions: This no longer grants light aura but instead shares the passive effects of the activated signets with your allies.
• Honorable Staff: This trait now grants up to 200 Concentration at level 80, regardless of weapon wielded. Removed increased boon duration while wielding a staff.
• Protector’s Impact: This trait now casts Lesser Symbol of Protection when you use your healing skill in addition to when you take falling damage, and it has a recharge of 20 seconds. Fixed a bug that caused the falling damage reduction to not function while Lesser Symbol of Protection was recharging.
• Healer’s Retribution: Fixed a bug that was preventing this trait from granting retaliation when using Purification.

Mesmer
In addition to being integrated into the new ammo system, mesmer mantras are seeing a comprehensive overhaul. When we took a look at the traits available to mantras, we found that harmonious mantras and restorative mantras had conflicting purposes. Restorative mantras are most effective when you are restocking your mantra charges, but harmonious mantras made it harder to do this. With new mantras in the upcoming firebrand specialization, we wanted to make sure that mesmer mantras had gameplay that was unique to them. Our decision was to focus mesmer mantras on combat casting, which meant removing harmonious mantras and adding additional bonuses to mesmer mantras when they are fully restocked. The removal of harmonious mantras also allowed us to make the active effects stronger since we no longer had to worry about the balance skewing that adding a third cast would create. Removing harmonious mantras also gave us space to build a new Dueling Grandmaster trait that favors Precision builds.
Profession:

• Cry of Frustration: Fixed the vigor skill fact that appears when Bountiful Disillusionment is present so that the correct 8-second vigor duration is indicated.
• Illusionary Warlock: Fixed a bug that caused this phantasm’s attack to not increase in damage against foes with certain conditions.
• Illusionary Berserker: The attack from this phantasm now has a consistent move distance and is unaffected by enhancements that change movement speed.
• Continuum Split: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to go on a longer-than-expected recharge when traited with Master of Misdirection.

Weapon Skills:

• Phantasmal Berserker: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to not display legendary-weapon projectile effects.
• Spatial Surge: Slightly increased its beam width.
• Blurred Frenzy: This skill now goes on full cooldown if it is canceled.
• The Prestige: This skill now removes 1 condition when activated.

Utility Skills:

• Signet of the Ether: Increased the healing rate to once per second instead of once per 3 seconds. The healing per pulse has been reduced to preserve approximate healing per second.
• Mantras: Mantra skills will no longer display their number of charges in the enhancement bar and will instead use the ammo system. Reduced cast time by 0.5 seconds. Mantras no longer grant bonus Toughness while channeling. Ammo count has been set to 2. Recharges between casts have not changed.
  • Mantra of Recovery: When fully charged, this skill now heals for a small amount.
  • Power Return: Count recharge has been set to 20 seconds. Lowered base healing by approximately 33%. Heal amount is increased while below 50% health.
  • Mantra of Concentration: Reduced recharge to 15 seconds. Count recharge has been set to 30 seconds. When fully charged, grants a stack of stability and aegis for 5 seconds.
  • Power Break: Removed unnecessary range skill fact. Cleaned up ambiguous language about stun breaks.
  • Mantra of Distraction: When fully charged, this skill reduces the recharge of Diversion by 15 seconds.
  • Power Lock: Count recharge has been set to 24 seconds. Updated skill description to reflect that this skill hits multiple targets.
  • Mantra of Pain: When fully charged, gain 8 stacks of might for 5 seconds.
  • Power Spike: Count recharge has been set to 10 seconds. Inflicts 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds on foes not using skills. Updated the skill description to reflect that this skill his multiple targets.
  • Mantra of Resolve: Reduced recharge to 12 seconds. When fully charged, gain resistance for 2 seconds.
  • Power Cleanse: Count recharge has been set to 24 seconds. Increased the number of conditions removed from 2 to 3. Added an effect to indicate skill area.
• Arcane Thievery: This skill has been unsplit and now has a 25-second recharge in all game modes.
• Signet of Midnight: The signet’s active effect now grants stealth for 2 seconds but no longer applies vulnerability or cripple. The recharge has been increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.

Traits:

• Harmonious Mantras: This trait has been removed from the game.
• Superiority Complex: This trait replaces Harmonious Mantras and increases critical-hit damage by 15%. This bonus is further increased to 25% against foes below 50% health or foes who become disabled by stun, daze, taunt, fear, knockdown, etc.
• Mistrust: This trait has been removed from the game.
• Ineptitude: This trait has been moved to the Grandmaster trait line in Dueling, to the slot previously taken by Mistrust, and its effects have changed. This trait now causes interrupts to inflict blind for 5 seconds, and applies blind to inflict 2 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds.
• Phantasmal Force: This trait replaces the slot left open by Ineptitude and has the following effect: Phantasms gain a 1% damage boost whenever might is applied to them, and a 4% damage boost whenever they attack (maximum bonus 25%). This bonus damage lasts until the phantasm is destroyed.
• Restorative Mantras: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to show incorrect values based on the player’s Healing-Power multiplier. Lowered base multiplier by 37%. Increased Healing-Power multiplier by 25%.
• Persistence of Memory: This trait has been reworked. It now causes shattered phantasms to transfer their boons to the mesmer.
• The Pledge: This trait now grants a flat 20% recharge reduction but no longer causes torch skills to remove conditions. Instead, it causes torch skills to apply an additional stack of burning. (Does not affect phantasm attacks.)
• Mender’s Purity: This trait now casts Lesser Power Cleanse, which removes 1 condition from you and nearby allies. Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to put Mantra of Resolve on recharge. This trait now shows an effect to indicate its radius.
• Chaotic Dampening: This trait now grants a flat 20% recharge reduction to staff and trident skills instead of scaling the recharge reduction with Chaos Armor. Fixed a bug that caused this trait to grant an unlisted 50 Toughness while wielding a staff or trident.
• Descent into Madness: The skill fired by this trait has been renamed to Lesser Chaos Storm. This trait now casts Lesser Chaos Storm when you use your healing skill in addition to when you take falling damage.

Necromancer
One of the biggest changes for necromancers in this patch is the change to the Vital Persistence trait. Previously, this trait reduced the rate at which life force decayed while in shroud and was too powerful compared to the other two traits in the same tier. We’ve changed the functionality of this trait in order to provide a different option that is easier to track and is more competitive with other traits in the same tier. The Lich Form elite skill has also received a significant update and had most of its functionality overhauled to better position it as a power-based option that can complement Plaguelands. One other major change was to the Signets of Suffering trait in the Spite line, which previously was competing with Spiteful Spirit as a boon-corruption option. We’ve reworked this trait to more directly benefit signet skills and increase the boon-corruption power of Spiteful Spirit a bit for players who want that functionality.
Profession:

• Infusing Terror: Updated the description of this skill to clarify the damage-reduction component.

Weapon Skills:

• Life Siphon: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and now uses the higher healing value in all game modes. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to go on higher (normal) recharge when interrupted while Quickening Thirst is equipped.
• Dark Pact: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and now uses the higher damage value in all game modes.

Utility Skills:

• Spectral Walk: Removed one of the unique enhancements from visibility because it had no function. Increased duration from 8 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Spectral Armor: Increased duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Spectral Wall: Increased duration from 5 seconds to 6 seconds.
• Spectral Grasp: This skill now fires at the necromancer’s original target and up to 4 other enemies within a 1,200 range. Increased the recharge from 20 seconds to 50 seconds. This skill has been unsplit from PvP and now functions the same in all game modes.
• Lich Form: This skill has had a functionality rework for many of its skills. Its active duration has been increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • Marked for Death: This skill has been renamed to Lich’s Gaze. The functionality of this skill has been reworked and will now fire a bolt of dark energy at a random, nearby enemy that cripples for 2 seconds and applies vulnerability for 10 seconds. This skill uses the new ammo system, with an ammo count of 5 and a count recharge of 1.5 seconds. There is a 0.1-second recharge between each use.
  • Chilling Wind: This skill has been renamed to Ripple of Horror. The lich will now fire a wave of terrible power that fears enemies struck by it for 2 seconds. Grants access to March of Undeath while the wave is active.
    • March of Undeath: Shadowstep to your Ripple of Horror, destroying it.
  • Mark of Horror: This skill has been renamed to Summon Madness. This skill no longer requires a ground target. Upon casting, minions will spawn every second for the next 8 seconds. Minions spawned have been changed from Jagged Horrors to a new Unstable Horror. Unstable Horrors have a low health pool and will explode after 6 seconds if they are not killed, dealing damage in a 180 radius around them.
  • Grim Specter: This skill has been reworked to no longer clear conditions from allies or boons from enemies. This skill now tethers up to 5 nearby enemies, drawing Vitality to the lich. The lich gains up to 30 Vitality per stack for 20 seconds, life-stealing each pulse. Enemy players struck by this skill have their Vitality reduced by an equivalent amount for the same duration.
• Shadow Fiend: Increased damage of basic attack by 50%. Increased damage of Haunt skill by 33%, and fixed an incorrect skill description. Haunt now applies chilled for 3 seconds and weakness for 5 seconds, in addition to blind.
• Plague Signet: Updated skill facts to clarify that this skill’s passive effect transfers 1 condition every 3 seconds from allies to yourself.
• Signet of Spite: When activated, this skill now inflicts 2 stacks of torment for 6 seconds, in addition to its previous active effects.

Traits:

• Soul Eater: This trait has had its functionality changed. It now reduces the recharge of greatsword skills by 20%. Additionally, it grants healing and life force every second while in combat and wielding a greatsword
• Spectral Mastery: Duration increase has been reduced from 50% to 20%.
• Spiteful Spirit: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to be nonfunctional while underwater. Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from granting retaliation. Fixed a bug that caused this trait to fail to display the number of boons converted. Increased the number of boons converted from 1 to 2.
• Chill of Death: The skill fired by this trait has been renamed to Lesser Spinal Shivers.
• Terrifying Descent: This trait now also inflicts 1 stack of torment for 3 seconds on foes you fear, in addition to its previous functionality. The skill activated when taking falling damage has been named Lesser Terrify.
• Spiteful Renewal: This trait now triggers when you use a healing skill instead of when striking a low-health foe.
• Signets of Suffering: This trait has been reworked to have the following functionality: Signets have a 20% reduced recharge and their passive abilities are improved. Signet passive effects are preserved while in a shroud.
  • Signet of Vampirism: Healing when struck has been increased by approximately 50%.
  • Plague Signet: The number of conditions drawn per interval has been increased from 1 to 2.
  • Signet of Spite: Increased Power to 270 at level 80.
  • Signet of the Locust: Grants an additional 180 Healing Power at level 80.
  • Signet of Undeath: Life-force gain per interval has been increased from 2% to 3%.
• Ritual of Life: This trait no longer improves revive speed. The skill cast by this trait has been renamed Lesser Well of Blood. This trait now causes Well of Blood and Lesser Well of Blood to revive allies by 7% each pulse.
• Life from Death: Increased the revive amount to 10%. Increased healing by 25%.
• Vampiric Rituals: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and now provides 5 seconds of protection in all game modes. Increased life-stealing values by approximately 100%.
• Speed of Shadows: This trait has been reworked, now grants 10 seconds of swiftness, and removes all movement-impairing conditions when you enter a shroud.
• Vital Persistence: This trait no longer slows shroud decay but instead grants bonus Vitality and reduces the recharge of shroud skills by 20%.

Ranger
With this release, we’ve aimed to update numerous traits for readability and synergy within each line. Included in these changes are some quality-of-life updates, such as syncing pet-swap trait cooldowns with the cooldown pet swap, as well as major revisions to some traits like Most Dangerous Game and Empathic Bond. While revisiting traits, we also reviewed the ranger’s signets with an eye on encouraging player choice of whether to activate the signet or retain the passive benefits by ensuring the actives are not merely a temporarily better version of the passive.
Profession:

• Celestial Avatar: Fixed a bug that was causing druids in Celestial Avatar form to lose access to their energy and transformation if they were frozen by Ice Storm (in Bitterfrost Frontier).
• Drake: Fixed a bug causing the Tail Swipe skill to display a smaller radius than the actual skill; it now correctly displays the larger radius of 280.

Weapon Skills:

• Maul: Fixed a bug in which the damage was being incorrectly updated when traited with Two-Handed Training.
• Swoop: Changed the range skill fact from 1,100 to 1,000 to better reflect the actual range of this skill (no functionality change).
• Hilt Bash: Fixed a bug that was occasionally causing this skill to miss at near maximum range or strike a target behind you.
• Winter’s Bite: Unsplit this skill from PvP. The higher 150% damage will now be used in all game types.
• Ancestral Grace: This skill now grants your pet protection for 3 seconds. Fixed a bug in which the player’s backpack would still be shown while moving.

Utility Skills:

• Signet of Renewal: Reduced the recharge of this skill from 60 seconds to 50 seconds. The old passive effect of removing a single condition every 10 seconds has been replaced with Signet of the Wild’s, in which you and your pet recover health constantly. The active effect now grants resistance to your pet for 2 seconds when they take conditions from nearby allies to themselves.
• Signet of Stone: Added additional tooltip information to indicate how much Toughness is gained from the passive of this skill.
• Signet of the Hunt: Increased the recharge of this skill from 30 seconds to 40 seconds. The old active effect of increasing the damage of your and your pet’s next strike has been replaced with making your and your pet’s attacks unblockable for 6 seconds.
• Signet of the Wild: Reduced the recharge of this skill from 60 seconds to 40 seconds. The cast time of this skill has been reduced by 0.25 seconds. The old passive of recovering health constantly has been moved to Signet of Renewal and replaced with improved Ferocity for you and your pet. The old active of gaining stability and increased damage has been replaced and now immobilizes nearby foes for several seconds.
• Strength of the Pack: Removed a tooltip that was no longer relevant.
• Glyphs: Fixed a bug in which being transformed while in the Celestial Avatar state would leave your glyphs in that mode.
• Muddy Terrain: This skill now inflicts slow for 1 second every pulse, in addition to cripple. This change also applies to the version of the skill fired by the trait Soften the Fall.

Traits:

• Opening Strike: This trait now grants Opening Strike to both you and your pet, rather than to just you.
• Enlargement: This trait has been replaced with Stoneform. Stoneform casts Lesser Signet of Stone when your health drops below the 50% health threshold, granting you temporary immunity to damage from attacks.
• Predator’s Instinct: This trait has been replaced with Hunter’s Gaze. Hunter’s Gaze grants you varying amounts of might when striking a foe based on their health percentage.
• Clarion Bond: This trait now casts Lesser Call of the Wild when you swap pets. Lesser Call of the Wild has a shorter cooldown and grants shorter duration enhancements than Call of the Wild.
• Alpha Training: This trait has been replaced with Alpha Focus. Alpha Focus causes your opening strike to inflict cripple for 2 seconds.
• Brutish Seals: This trait has been reworked. It no longer grants might. Brutish Seals now grants 6 seconds of fury to allies around you when using a signet and reduces the recharge of your signets.
• Most Dangerous Game: This trait has been replaced by Vicious Quarry. Vicious Quarry causes fury on you, granting increased Ferocity, as well as an additional critical-strike chance, and grants 4 seconds of fury when you are struck while below 75% health.
• Natural Vigor: The endurance recovery granted by this trait has been increased from 20% to 25%.
• Expertise Training: This trait has been renamed and reworked to Taste for Danger. It now grants increased Vitality and converts 7% of Vitality into Expertise for both you and your pet.
• Bark Skin: This trait has been replaced with Rugged Growth. Rugged Growth heals you or your pet while they have protection.
• Empathic Bond: This trait has been reworked and now splits the duration of conditions applied to you between you and your pet.
• Rejuvenation: The internal cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 18 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Instinctive Reaction: This trait no longer grants Power based on your Healing Power. You and your pet now convert 7% of your Power into Healing Power.
• Vigorous Training: This trait has been renamed Spirited Arrival. Grant vigor and fury to nearby allies for 8 seconds when you swap pets.
• Lingering Magic: This trait no longer grants boon duration. It now grants up to 240 Concentration at level 80 to both you and your pet.
• Go for the Eyes: Removed increased pet Toughness.
• Zephyr’s Speed: This trait now casts Lesser Quickening Zephyr when you swap pets. Lesser Quickening Zephyr is not a stun break, has a shorter cooldown, and grants shorter duration enhancements than Quickening Zephyr.
• Companion’s Might: This trait has been replaced with Potent Ally. Potent Ally grants 1 stack of might for 6 seconds to you or your pet when the other one critically strikes a foe.
• Natural Healing: Removed the pet Healing-Power increase. Increased the pulse interval from 1 second to 3 seconds. Increased the healing amount to retain overall healing per second.
• Soften the Fall: This trait now casts Lesser Muddy Terrain when you use your healing skill, in addition to when you take falling damage.
• Lead the Wind: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from updating longbow skills with the Pierces skill fact.

Revenant
Inspiring Reinforcement felt lacking in its stability generation because you still had to wait for the skill to complete before gaining stability. We’ve changed it to immediately grant stability to the caster so you have the opportunity to prevent crowd control before it lands. The Retribution trait line’s identity was centered around Sustain and was somewhat lacking in synergy; a couple trait reworks here are intended to create some interplay with retaliation and stability. The Devastation line and the Legendary Assassin stance have been about Power damage and seizing initiative, and we’ve pushed a few modifications here to help Power builds and offer revenants more control on when their traits come into play.
Weapon Skills:

• Hammer Bolt: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to hit foes beyond its maximum range.
• Echoing Eruption: This skill now leaps to a target, if there is one. Increased the leap distance traveled by 25%. Fixed a bug causing this skill to display the incorrect range.
• Shackling Wave: Increased damage by 66%. This attack now inflicts 8 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds. The range has been increased from 300 to 450.
• Grasping Shadow: Increased damage by 25%. The fury duration has been increased from 6 seconds to 8 seconds.

Utility Skills:

• Protective Solace: Fixed a bug with this skill’s tooltip displaying the incorrect radius.
• Inspiring Reinforcement: This skill has been unsplit from PvP, reducing the energy cost of this skill from 35 to 30 in all game types.
• Vengeful Hammers: Added a third hammer and reduced damage by 33% to preserve approximate damage per second. Changed the base function of this skill so you can no longer lose projectiles as a result of passing too close to uneven terrain. This skill has been unsplit from PvP, using the increased healing values in all game types.
• Energy Expulsion: Increased the duration of fragments created by this skill from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Enchanted Daggers: Increased damage by 20%.
• Riposting Shadows: This skill now grants 6 seconds of fury when activated.
• Impossible Odds: This skill now grants 10% increased damage for its duration in addition to its existing effects.
• Jade Winds: This skill now inflicts 6 stacks of vulnerability for 6 seconds on each foe struck, in addition to its existing effects.
• Soothing Stone: This skill now grants 5 seconds of retaliation when used, rather than scaling retaliation based on the number of conditions removed.

Traits:

• Abyssal Chill: Fixed a bug that affected how this trait displays its torment skill fact.
• Nefarious Momentum: Increased the might granted when using an assassin-stance skill from 2 to 3 stacks. This trait now grants 2 stacks of might for 10 seconds when using a nonassassin stance skill.
• Mutilate Defenses: This trait now has a chance to inflict vulnerability when you critically strike rather than on any strike. The chance to inflict vulnerability has been increased from 25% to 33%, and the duration of vulnerability has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.
• Empowering Vengeance: This trait has been reworked and renamed Vicious Reprisal. Vicious Reprisal increases the duration of retaliation applied to you by 50% and causes your attacks to do 10% increased damage, granting 1 stack of might for 8 seconds as long as you have retaliation.
• Improved Aggression: This trait has been split and now increases taunt duration by 100% in PvE and 25% in WvW and PvP. It now also grants 2 seconds of retaliation when taunting a foe.
• Versed in Stone: This trait now also converts 13% of your Toughness into Power.
• Determined Resolution: This trait has been reworked and now reduces the damage you take while you have stability by 15%, and increases the duration of stability you apply by 33%.
• Hardened Foundation: This trait has been reworked and now grants up to 120 Toughness, converting 7% of your Toughness into Healing Power.
• Natural Abundance: Increased the duration of fragments from this trait from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Hardening Persistence: Fixed an issue in PvP where this trait was not granting the proper amount of Toughness when using Facet of Light.
• Planar Protection: This trait now casts Dome of the Mists when you use your healing skill in addition to when you take falling damage. Increased Dome of the Mists’s recharge from 5 seconds to 20 seconds.
• Envoy of Sustenance: This trait no longer grants boon duration. It now grants up to 240 Concentration at level 80.
• Venom Enhancement: Increased the poison application of this trait from 1 stack to 2 stacks.
• Focused Siphoning: Increased damage dealt by 20%.
• Malicious Reprisal: This trait now triggers when you block an attack as well as when your attacks are blocked. The unblockable attacks from this trait now deal 25% increased damage. This trait has swapped positions with Jade Echo and moved to the Master tier. Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.
• Assassin’s Annihilation: Increased damage dealt by 20%.
• Enduring Recovery: This trait no longer grants a chance to recover endurance every 10 seconds when struck. Instead, it now grants a constant 25% increased endurance recovery, as long as the trait is equipped.
• Jade Echo: This trait has swapped positions with Malicious Reprisal and moved to the Adept tier. Renamed the skill fired by this trait to Lesser Jade Winds.
• Assassin’s Presence: Increased the Ferocity bonus granted by this trait to 225 at level 80.
• Dwarven Battle Training: The chance to apply weakness has been increased to 100%.
• Dismantle Fortifications: This trait now grants 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds when you attempt to disable a foe with stability, in addition to its previous effects.
• Steadfast Rejuvenation: Increased the chance for healing to occur to 100%. Increased healing by 25%.

Thief
The Daredevil specialization has largely taken over the Power-based gameplay that used to be the domain of the sword, so we are giving sword (and sword-related traits) an enhancement in order to ensure it has some unique utility to offer. Tricks and signets are also receiving several changes to help them compete with the very powerful utility skills offered by deceptions and physicals. Finally, we are also reassessing some traits that we felt were either lacking in power or not offering enough diversity in choice.
Profession:

• Stolen Skills:
  • Skull Fear: Added a missing unblockable skill fact.
  • Consume Plasma: Increased the duration of stability granted by this skill from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. This skill now also grants quickness for 2.5 seconds.
  • Throw Gunk: This skill is now targeted instead of ground targeted when used underwater. Updated the skill facts to show the correct number of hits.

Weapon Skills:

• Infiltrator’s Strike: This skill now grants 3 seconds of swiftness when cast, in addition to its previous effects.
• Infiltrator’s Return: Lowered the aftercast by 0.2 seconds.
• Larcenous Strike: This skill now deals 20% bonus damage to boonless foes. This damage is calculated after the boon strip takes place.
• Flanking Strike (Sword Attack): This attack is now unblockable.
• Flanking Strike (Spear Attack): This skill has been renamed to Flanking Dive, to eliminate confusion with similarly named skills and traits.
• Tactical Strike: This skill has been unsplit and now dazes for 2 seconds in all game modes when attacking from behind. Increased the damage by 33%.
• Dancing Dagger: Now applies 1 stack of torment for 6 seconds, in addition to its previous effects.
• Pistol Whip: Increased the stun duration to 0.75 seconds. Added an additional warning effect to Warmup. Reduced the number of flurry hits from 8 to 4, to match the animation. Flurry damage has been increased by 100% to compensate.

Utility Skills:

• Distracting Daggers: This skill now uses the ammo system. Ammo count has been set to 3 with a count recharge of 20 seconds. There is a 1-second recharge between uses.
• Haste: Lowered the recharge from 50 seconds to 30 seconds. Now grants swiftness for 6 seconds, in addition to its previous effects.
• Roll for Initiative: Lowered the recharge from 60 seconds to 35 seconds.
• Signet of Shadows: The active effect now applies weakness and 10 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds, in addition to blind. This skill now requires a target before it will activate. This skill will no longer activate and do nothing if it is cast on a target out of range.
• Thieves Guild: The thieves summoned by this skill will now use chatter lines that match their race. Increased the number of thieves summoned to 3.
• Ambush: The thieves summoned by this skill will now use chatter lines that match their race.
• Dagger Storm: Reduced the duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds, but doubled the number of daggers thrown. Now gives 1 stack of stability for 6 seconds on activation instead of pulsing stacks. This skill now increases movement speed by 100% while activated. Changed the system that limited hits on the same target to be more consistent for multiple thieves using the skill at the same time.
• Assassin’s Signet: The active skill of this signet now triples the Power bonus of the passive for 5 seconds. Reduced the recharge from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Hide in Shadows: Fixed a bug in which this skill was not receiving increased stealth duration from Meld with Shadows.

Traits:

• Improvisation: Updated the text description to refer to Stolen Skills instead of Stolen Items. The skill-recharge portion of this trait now has a 20-second internal cooldown.
• Hidden Killer: This trait now grants a lingering 100% critical-hit chance enhancement for 2 seconds when you are revealed from stealth in addition to its previous functionality.
• Flanking Strikes (Trait): This trait has been renamed to Burst of Agility to eliminate confusion with the similarly named attack skills. The version of haste activated by this trait has been renamed to Lesser Haste. Lesser Haste now grants swiftness for 6 seconds in addition to its previous effects.
• Pain Response: This trait now removes confusion in addition to its other effects.
• Swindler’s Equilibrium: Increased bonus damage to 10%. Increased internal cooldown from 1 second to 20 seconds. This trait now fully recharges steal when the conditions are met instead of recharging it by 1 second.
• Side Strikes: This trait has been removed, and its effects have been combined with Flawless Strikes. It has been replaced with Assassin’s Fury.
• Assassin’s Fury: This trait grants 3 stacks of might for 8 seconds whenever you gain fury and has a 2-second internal cooldown.
• Flawless Strikes: This trait has been renamed to Twin Fangs and now causes attacks from behind or beside to have 7% bonus critical-hit chance in addition to its previous functionality.
• Signets of Power: This trait no longer grants might when a signet is cast. Instead, it causes all signets to have a second passive effect. The additional passive varies per signet.
  • Signet of Malice: Heal on kill.
  • Assassin’s Signet: Gain 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds on kill.
  • Infiltrator’s Signet: Regain 1 initiative on kill.
  • Signet of Agility: Regain 10 endurance on kill.
  • Signet of Shadows: Gain 2 seconds stealth on kill (no effect if already stealthed).
• Cloaked in Shadow: The falling damage component of this trait has been moved to Last Refuge. This trait now makes you immune to critical hits while in stealth in addition to blinding nearby foes when you stealth. The blind applied by this trait can now be blocked or evaded.
• Last Refuge: The blinding powder cast by this skill has been renamed to Lesser Blinding Powder. This trait now also causes you to cast Lesser Blinding Powder when you take fall damage and reduces falling damage in addition to its previous functionality. Fixed a bug that caused Lesser Blinding Powder to be considered a trick instead of a deception.
• Endless Stamina: This trait now grants a +240 Concentration at level 80 in addition to its previous effects.
• Don’t Stop: This trait has been reworked and now causes incoming movement-impairing conditions have 80% reduced duration while you have swiftness. Additionally, when you gain swiftness it removes one movement-impairing condition.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed server crashes.
• Fixed several missing NPC and object spawns.
• Fixed several pathing issues.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that prevented completion of the Art Critic achievement if the player died during the “Where’s Balthazar?” instance.
• Fixed an issue where Non Instance Owners inside the Shining Blade Secrets instance were not properly immobilized in some areas.
• Addressed an issue with the “Shining Blade Secrets” instance in which the Images of Guilt were not immediately obvious as being part of the fight’s mechanic. These creatures will now display a marker over their heads—and at their location on the minimap—when they are able to be interacted with.
• Fixed an issue in the “Shining Blade Secrets” instance in which the books for the collection achievement would sometimes become unresponsive.
• Fixed an issue in the “Shining Blade Secrets” instance in which some players did not receive the Precision Blade achievement when they qualified for it.
• Difficulty has been adjusted and streamlined for the objective to defend your ally during the final boss fight of “The Last Chance” instance.
• Fixed a server crash.
• Fixed a server crash specific to Siren’s Landing.

Bug Fixes:

• The visuals in Mistlock Sanctuary have been adjusted so that they appear for the 64-bit Mac test client.
• Back-end maintenance has been conducted.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a blocking issue in the Shattered Observatory fractal.
• Fixed an AI bug in the Arkk fight in challenge mode in the Shattered Observatory fractal.
• Fixed a bug in which the oyster home-instance node was not visible on the Siren’s Landing vendor for some players.
• Added a repair anvil to the open-world map (Siren’s Landing).
• Fixed an issue in which the “Defeat the undead giant before it can kill Willowdread” event would not start.
• Updated the art on reward-chest markers.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a server crash.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a client crash.
• Fixed a server crash.

07/25/2017 – July 25th Release Notes
Living World Season Finale- “One Path Ends”

Balthazar has disappeared again, and it’s top priority to find him—especially if what he’s planning could bring disaster to Tyria. And if one thing’s for sure, it’s that he’s gearing up for something big. He’s already managed to collect magical power from a bloodstone, and now he’s set his sights on an Elder Dragon. With Taimi’s device broken, you’re on your own—for now.
New Legendary Sword
A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to learn how to craft the new sword precursor, Save the Queen, and forge the new legendary sword.
New Legendary Hammer
A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to learn how to craft the new hammer precursor, Might of Arah, and forge the new legendary hammer.
World Polish
General

• Players can now turn in midair while jumping.
• The event “Kill the Risen before they reactivate the Statue of Lyssa” now rewards players with the same chest as the event “Kill the Corrupted High Priestess.”
• The skeleton and his treasure hoard have been located and returned to their ship in the Gilded Hollow.

Blazeridge Steppes

• Fixed an issue in which the Shatterer event failed to start when both prerequisite events were completed.
• Prerequisite events for the Shatterer will now automatically fail if they are not completed within the time limit to lure out the Shatterer.

Fractals
New Fractal: Shattered Observatory

• A new fractal is accessible through the Mistlock Observatory.
• Added a new Shattered Observatory fractal achievement category under Fractals of the Mists on the Achievements tab of the Hero panel.
• New rewards are available from BLING-9009 in the Mistlock Observatory.
• The continued perseverance of adventurers has again caught the eye of the Harbinger.

Molten Furnace

• Fixed a bug in which wiping during the final fight with the Weapons Test Engineer could cause the instance to stall on retry.

Molten Boss

• Falling from the platform during the battle against the Molten Berserker and Molten Firestorm will now result in death.

Nightmare

• Fixed a bug in which completing the fractal would not award some daily achievement progress.
• The Nightmare fractal is now accessible at scales 24, 49, 74, and 99, replacing the fractals previously at those scales.

Mistlock Instabilities

• Adrenaline Rush now permanently enrages enemies and applies a 150% damage increase instead of a 200% damage increase.

Miscellaneous

• The glider animation for Ad Infinitum has been updated to be more suitable for a legendary glider.
• Fixed a bug in which Fractal Avengers were prevented from finishing players.
• Mist-potion boon icons are now invisible outside of fractal maps.
• Reduced the gold cost of medium and heavy ascended chest pieces by 1 gold to match the WvW ascended armor cost.

Raids

• Added a new achievement for acquiring legendary armor pieces.

Bastion of the Penitent

• Fixed a bug in which safe zones in the Cairn the Indomitable encounter became out of sync with certain attacks.
• Adjusted the initial impact arc of Orbital Sweep during the Cairn the Indomitable encounter.
• Fixed a bug in which players took multiple instances of damage from Cairn the Indomitable’s Energy Surge attack.
• Fixed a bug in which Rigom behaved erratically when stunned and brought to 0 health at nearly the same time.
• Fixed a bug in which Samarog abandoned the fight when pushed past certain health thresholds too quickly.

Personal Story
Items

• Exotic backpacks acquired from the Druid Stone collections in the “Flashpoint” release now have an upgrade slot.
• Fixed a bug in which killing the Eye of Zhaitan in the Promenade of the Gods in Cursed Shore would not progress the Flameseeker Prophecies III collection.
• The Jade Maw Lens is now required to test items at the Metal Forest for the Bifrost III collection.
• Players who have deleted the Humming Krait Crystal without crafting the Krait Focusing Crystal for the Kraitkin III collection can now purchase a replacement from Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs.
• Players who have misplaced components for the Incinerator III collection can now purchase replacements from Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs.
• Fixed various legendary journey text bugs.
• Two sets of Heirloom Seed Pouches have been renamed to avoid champion loot bag confusion.
• Fixed a bug in which certain weapons prevented progression of the Twice-Told Legend achievement.
• The Charged Quartz Orichalcum Amulet now has a chance to drop from grand exalted chests in Auric Basin.
• The following jewels can be converted into infusions in the Mystic Forge:
  • Preserved Queen Bee
  • Chak Egg Sac
  • Poly-luminescent Undulating Refractor: Black, Green, Orange, and Teal
  • Vial of Liquid Aurillium
• The following legendary weapons now have custom projectile effects:
  • The Juggernaut
  • The Moot
  • Bolt
  • Meteorlogicus

Structured Player vs. Player
PvP Lobby

• Cautrell the Traitor has returned from his exile and is back to vending in the new lobby.

World vs. World
General

• Made the following adjustments to participation grace times:
  • Defending caravans has been changed from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
  • Hitting a player/objective with a siege weapon has been changed from 1 minute to 2 minutes.
  • Capturing a shrine has been changed from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• For a limited time, a new set of Abaddon weapon skins are available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists for 2 Black Lion Claim Tickets. Keys can be found in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
• The Shield of the Goddess has returned for a limited time and can be found in the Style category of the Gem Store for 600 gems.
• Introducing the Mistlock Sanctuary—the most elaborate Black Lion lounge to date. In addition to a full suite of general services and amenities, the Sanctuary also contains everything a fractal explorer could need. For easy access, pick up the lifetime pass in the Utility category of the Gem Store for 1,000 gems, or check out some of the Mistlock Sanctuary’s unique features with a two-week pass for 150 gems.

Improvements

• The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Return to Orr Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.
  • The Black Lion Material Bag has been added as the new guaranteed item. It contains a collection of high-quality crafting materials, special Living World Season 3 materials, and a few surprises.
  • The Unidentified Dye and Tome of Knowledge have been removed, and the Mystic Forge Stone and the new Black Lion Booster have been added as common drops.
  • The Communal Boost Bonfire has been added as an uncommon drop.
  • The new Mini Dwayna’s Messenger is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of the Return to Orr Chest.
  • The new Feathers of the Zephyr Package with the Golden Zephyr Backpiece and Feathers of the Zephyr Glider is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of the Return to Orr Chest.
  • The new Advanced Leather Rack and Advanced Cloth Rack are available as rare drops.
  • The Daydreamer’s Weapon Collection is now available as a rare drop for the duration of the Return to Orr Chest.
  • The Dwayna’s Weapon Collection is now available as a super rare drop for the duration of the Return to Orr Chest.

Mac Client

• Fixed an issue in which the command-key symbol was not shown in some contexts.
• Enabled use of the minimize button in windowed mode.
• Fixed keyboard navigation behavior in text boxes.
• Improved the support for non-US keyboard layouts.
• Improved the rendering of some visual effects.

Bug Fix:

• The name and flavor text of the Champion’s Crown is now visible.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a client crash that occurred when swapping transmuted items with effects.

07/11/2017 – Late Notes

World vs. World
General

• Queue numbers will now display for all maps, including the one you are currently in.
• A team-colored check mark will display next to the map you are currently in.
• Commander pip has been adjusted so that you will only earn the pip if the players in your squad are in WvW.

07/11/2017 – July 11th Release Notes
General

• Significantly increased the chance that Bloodstone-Warped Hides may be salvaged into Hardened Leather.
• Fixed an issue in which some of the attack spots for the Mouth of Mordremoth encounter were located incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue in which Defiance bars would not appear on players.

Structured Player vs. Player
General

• Daily Automated Tournament: Increased rewards.
• Monthly Automated Tournament: The first-place team no longer receives a reward-track potion. Instead, the first-place team will receive a unique gizmo that will enhance the user with a special effect.

Lobby

• The free-for-all arena has been updated to prevent players from firing into the arena from safe locations.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to get outside of map boundaries.
• Fixed an issue in which personal-story markers were inaccurately displayed.

Revenge of the Capricorn

• The Maritime Defense achievement will now progress as expected around the Archway control point.

World vs. World
General

• Outnumbered is now applied each scoring tick (every 5 minutes). Swapping to a map right before a tick will no longer grant an Outnumbered pip bonus. Instead, you must play on an Outnumbered map for an entire tick to earn the bonus.
• Consume All now works for Badges of Honor.
• The Skirmish Chest now opens a vendor window instead of an item-selection window. This will allow multiple items to be selected from the chest.
• Participation decay timers have been adjusted so that players must be more active to keep participation from decaying.
• Three new commander icon colors have been added: cyan, magenta, and white.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• The improved Gem Store is now available in the Black Lion Trading Company.
• A new Dynamics Exo-Suit Glider Backpack Combo is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• A new Dynamics Exo-Suit Outfit is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• A new Dynamics Exo-Suit Appearance Pack is now available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 1,500 gems. This pack contains 1 Dynamics Exo-Suit Outfit, 1 Dynamics Exo-Suit Glider Backpack Combo, and 1 Total Makeover Kit.
• For a limited time, Shadow weapon skins are available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists for 5 Black Lion Claim Tickets. Keys are available in the Utility category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
• The Scruffy Backpack is now available for 30% off and can be found in the Style category of the Gem Store for 280 gems for one week.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue in which the God Slayer Bow appeared to fire arrows in reverse for a few skills.

Mac Client

• Improved memory usage.
• Improved text rendering in cinematics.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a server crash.

Bug Fixes:

• World vs. World: Fixed an issue in which player-controlled creatures were missing names.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from receiving loot from raid encounters.
• Fixed a client crash.

06/20/2017 – Late Notes
General:

• Left and right shift are now distinct keys when used alone. This matches the already existing behavior of control and alt/option. This should not change functionality when used in combinations.
• Added an option in the General Options tab, under Camera controls, to use either mouse button to change the direction of your character while moving.

• Laying the ground work for a native Mac OSX 64bit test client.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a client crash.

06/20/2017 – June 20th Release Notes
Fractals
Miscellaneous

• Fixed a bug in which player pets, clones, and minions would scale their stats based on the fractal scale.

Profession Skills
General:
Elementalist
The staff has always been a solid option for support builds, but it has fallen off as elementalists are relying heavily on Obsidian Flesh and other focus skills for self-survivability. In this update, we have looked at a few of the weaker staff skills to try to make the kit more rewarding for players who choose the squishier option.

• Ice Spike: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds and now causes a blast finisher when the spike lands.
  • The staff has numerous combo fields but has limited ability to utilize them. Adding a blast finisher to Ice Spike gives another opportunity for staff players to set up their own combos. We have slightly increased the cooldown to compensate for the strength of a blast finisher.
• Geyser: The heal scaling of this skill has been increased by 60% in PvP only.
  • Geyser is a solid healing skill but is weakened by the requirement of standing in an area for a period of time, allowing players to take a lot of damage in return. We have increased the heal scaling to make Geyser more rewarding to players who can maximize the risk.
• Gust: The reliability of the Gust projectile has been improved.
  • Gust did not reliably hit targets, especially when they were moving. We’ve made adjustments to the way Gust works to increase the chance it will hit your target.
• Static Field: The radius of this ability has been decreased from 240 to 180.
  • We increased the radius of this skill when we rolled Blasting Staff into baseline for all staff skills. This had an unintended effect of making it easier to move around within the static field and avoid the stun while also avoiding enemy attacks. We are reducing the radius back to the original value to make the skill more effective.
• Eruption: This skill now cripples enemies for 3 seconds in addition to its other effects.
• Arcane Brilliance: The cooldown of this skill has been decreased from 25 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only.
  • Players who slot Arcane Brilliance are taking a smaller overall heal to gain the utility of a blast finisher, but the overall value is still lower than other options in the heal slot. We are reducing the cooldown of this skill to allow for more frequent blasts and make it a more competitive choice overall.

Guardian
Support builds for guardians have fallen out of favor due to the strength of the support builds on other professions. In this update, we have looked at a few core skills on staff, mace, and shouts to help support guardians retain viability.

• Detonate Orb of Light: The heal scaling of this skill has been increased by 20% in PvP only.
  • The healing of this skill was a bit low, considering the difficulty of hitting multiple allies. We have increased the heal scaling to better reward players who use this ability well.
• Empower: Increased the base healing of this skill by 100% in PvP only.
  • Empower did not offer enough reward given the risk of a stationary 2.5-second channel, so we have significantly increased the healing granted by this skill.
• Faithful Strike: The heal scaling of this skill has been increased by 100% in PvP only.
• “Hold the Line!”: The protection duration of this skill has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only.

Necromancer
For this update, we looked at enabling some more bruiser-oriented options for the necromancer.

• Life Siphon: The base healing of this skill has been increased by 25.7% in PvP only.
  • Life Siphon is an extremely long channel, opening the necromancer up to all sorts of punishment from enemies. We have increased the heal to better offset the risk taken.
• Dark Pact: The damage of this skill has been increased by 33% in PvP only.
• Vampiric Rituals: The protection duration of this trait has been increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds in PvP only.
  • Well utilities typically have longer cooldowns, and we felt that 3 seconds of protection was not enough to justify a Grandmaster trait slot. We’ve bumped this up to 5 seconds to make it a more interesting option.

Ranger
The axe has always been suited to work with hybrid damage stats, with the Might stacking of Ricochet combining with the bleeding from Splitblade and Winter’s Bite. The latter two skills have very low power coefficients, which prevented them from getting the maximum benefit from Might. We have significantly increased the power scaling of these two skills to grant them more synergy with the goal of the kit.

• Splitblade: The damage per axe hit of this skill has been increased by 200% in PvP only.
• Winter’s Bite: The damage of this skill has been increased by 150%.

Revenant
Jalis has struggled to remain competitive with other Legend options for the revenant. In this update, we are enhancing some of his underperforming skills with the goal of enabling a more bruiser-oriented build.

• Inspiring Reinforcement: This skill now grants 2 seconds of stability upon cast. Reduced energy cost from 35 to 30 in PvP only. The damage of this skill has been increased by 50% in PvP only.
  • Inspiring Reinforcement was not a reliable way to gain stability in response to incoming crowd control because it didn’t grant stability until the field finished building, so we added stability on the initial cast.
• Vengeful Hammers: The base healing of this skill has been increased by 43% in PvP only.
  • We felt that Vengeful Hammers did not provide enough value to warrant its expensive upkeep cost, so we have increased the healing.

Thief

• Choking Gas: The daze duration of this skill has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 1 second. Poison duration has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Daze interval has been increased from 1 second to 4 seconds. All of these changes affect PvP only.
  • We felt that a skill that provides a pulsing AoE daze to such a large area was too strong in PvP. It allowed coordinated players to completely control downed-state situations within the area of effect. By limiting the daze to once per cast, it still allows for the AoE daze but makes the skill significantly less oppressive.

Warrior
In this update, we have taken a look at a few underperforming weapons for the warrior: rifle and torch. The torch exists as a more aggressive off hand for condition builds, but it currently does not provide enough pressure to warrant taking it. We have increased the burning output on both torch skills to make it a more competitive option.
The rifle lacks in sustained pressure because three of its abilities focused on utility. Because of this, the rifle struggled to kill enemies when Volley and Gun Flame were mitigated. We have increased the damage of Aimed Shot to provide another source of damage to the rifle kit.

• Blaze Breaker: The number of burn stacks applied by this skill has been increased from 1 to 2 in PvP only. The cripple duration of this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• Flames of War: The burning duration applied each pulse has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds. The number of burn stacks applied by the final explosion have been increased from 2 to 4, in PvP only.
• Aimed Shot: The damage of this skill has been increased by 68% in PvP only. The vulnerability applied by this ability has been increased from 5 to 10 stacks in PvP only.

Structured Player vs. Player
As part of the June 2017 Competitive Feature Pack, structured Player vs. Player will see a custom arena map for 2v2 battles, a new and improved PvP lobby to hang out in, and automated tournaments for a regular schedule of slaughter.
Daily PvP Achievements

• The daily achievements to win a PvP match with a profession have been removed.
• A daily achievement has been added to win a match.
• A daily achievement has been added to participate in a PvP tournament.
• The icon on the Potion of PvP Reward has been updated.

End of Match

• We have introduced a new end-of-match feature for Ranked Conquest and Stronghold matches.
  • After victory is declared, players are teleported to a unique location on each map.
  • Each player on the winning team stands victorious on a pedestal with celebration skills.

Hall of the Mists

• Hall of the Mists is a new map designed for a 2v2 team deathmatch.
  • In overtime, healing and stealth is disabled while the map is filled with a deadly fog that deals damage based on a percentage of maximum health.
• Updated custom arena configuration to allow game-mode selection.
  • Added a new option for number-of-round victories required to win the match.
  • Respawn is disabled for this game mode.

Eternal Coliseum

• The order in which the control points display in the score UI have been adjusted to match the order on the maps.

Courtyard

• Courtyard has been given a unique murderball-style secondary mechanic.
  • An altar in the center of the map allows players to commune for a short duration to obtain an orb. Only one orb exists at any given time.
  • While a player holds the orb, score will be periodically given to their team.
  • More team score is given if the orb is closer to the center of the map.
  • The orb will deal damage to the carrier based on their maximum health.
  • Players who die while carrying the orb cannot be resurrected.
  • When a player holding the orb dies, the orb is returned to the altar in the center of the map.

PvP Lobby

• Heart of the Mists has been given a visual overhaul.
• Added a public free-for-all arena.
• Added an exclusive VIP area accessible to players rewarded with a pass.
  • Timed passes are rewarded through tournament and league play.

Automated Tournaments
Automated tournaments are live!

• Daily, single-elimination tournaments are run three times each day on a shifting schedule to fairly represent all time zones.
• Qualifying Points (QP) are earned by participating in daily tournaments and are reset monthly. QP rewards range from 5 for participating up to 50 for first place.
• Each month will conclude with a single-elimination tournament with a QP requirement of 100.
• The winning team of each monthly tournament will have their likeness celebrated in the Heart of the Mists as statues until the next monthly tournament.
• Tournament rewards include llama minis, gold, mystic coins, and more!
• Tournament registration opens 15 minutes before the start.
• Tournament registration requires a full party.
• A new tab in the PvP panel lists all information related to automated tournaments including rewards, schedule, and live data.
• Looking for Group has a new section dedicated to tournaments.

Link to blog post.
World vs. World
General

• Simple nameplates for enemies have been changed to triangles instead of circles, making it easier to distinguish between enemies and allies.
• The Loyalty pip has been renamed to the Commitment pip. The Commitment pip is obtained by completing wood division the previous week.
• 1 up / 1 down matchmaking:
  • Starting this Friday at reset, WvW will begin doing 1 up / 1 down matchmaking. This means a single, third-placing world will move down one tier and a single, first-placing world will move up one tier. If there is a tie for last, no world moves down, which also means no world in the tier below can move up (as there’s no room). Similarly, if there is a tie for first, no world moves up, which prevents the next tier up’s last-place world from moving down. If there is a change in which worlds are being used for matchmaking purposes (such as when world links change), matchmaking falls back on the usual Glicko rating sort (plus a potential deviation-based shuffle). Even while 1 up / 1 down is active, Glicko data will continue to be updated as it has been when each week’s round ends. This way it is always current when it needs to be relied upon.
  • This is a new test to try to improve how quickly worlds can move into their proper place.
  • We can revert back to Glicko if it is determined that the new matchup style is more harmful than helpful.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• A new Jormag Dye Kit containing six exclusive colors is now available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.
• A new God-Slayer Bow Pack is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• The Sport Sunglasses are back by popular demand for the summer and are available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 150 gems.
• For a limited time, the Tormented weapon skins are available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists for 5 Black Lion Claim Tickets. Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
• Today is the last day for Inventor’s Sunglasses and Reading Glasses. Pick up yours today in the Style category of the Gem Store for 150 gems each.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed some shoulder-armor positions for characters using the Magic Carpet Glider.
• The Replica Job-o-Tron Backpack will no longer chatter away when equipped but not displayed.
• Fixed a bug that caused the lenses of the Sport Sunglasses to not display from both sides. Additionally, the frames have been made dyeable.

Bug Fixes:

• Further adjustments have been made to the centaur trebuchet targeting in Lake Doric.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue in Eternal Coliseum where players were unable to teleport up the ledge on the red side of the middle point.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue in Eternal Coliseum where players could teleport up to the secondary objective while the gate was up.
• Thief—Quick Pockets: This trait now has an 8-second internal cooldown between activations.

Bug Fixes:

• One piece of the Hellfire achievement armor set snuck into the Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock. It has been kicked back out.
• Bastion of the Penitent: Players outside of the boss rooms will no longer receive achievement credit when the boss is killed.

06/06/2017 – Late Notes
World Polish
Adjustments have been made to the Watchtower Cliffs area of Lake Doric. Please refer to this thread for more information.

06/06/2017 – June 6th Release Notes

World vs. World
As part of the June 2017 Competitive Feature Pack, updates to World vs. World will include improved LFG, new rewards, skirmishing updates, and more.
General

• Power of the Mists has been disabled and has been replaced with the new Skirmish Reward UI.
• The Standard Enemy Models option beneath Competitive now functions in WvW.

Skirmish Rewards

• The WvW Match Overview tab has been reworked to include the new Skirmish reward track.
• The Skirmish reward track is progressed by earning pips.
• Pips are earned every tick and are awarded based on the following:
  • Your world’s position during the skirmish (first, second, or third).
  • Your WvW rank.
  • Commanding a squad containing at least five people.
  • Playing on the same world for at least three weeks.
  • Playing on a map in which you are outnumbered.
• Pips cannot be earned if you have recently transferred or if you do not have enough participation.
  • You must play on a world for an entire match in order to be eligible for earning pips.
• Crossing tiers and divisions gives various rewards including Skirmish Claim Tickets (which have replaced Tournament Tickets) that can be used at the Skirmish Supervisor Vendor.
• The Skirmish Supervisor Vendor has replaced the Battle Historian on all WvW maps.
  • This vendor sells ascended and exotic WvW gear, including the brand-new Triumphant Hero’s armor and Mistforged Triumphant Hero’s armor, along with improvements, tactics, siege, siege decorations, tricks, traps, food, and more.

Match History

• The second tab in the WvW Match Overview now displays the war score, victory points, and kill/death statistics throughout the entire match so it’s easier to track how well your world is doing.

Improved LFG

• To promote squads and parties in WvW, the party/squad UI will now pop up when entering a WvW map and suggest three squads and three parties to join that are currently listed in World vs. World Squad Play or Party Play. This should make it easier to find other players to play with while in WvW.
• This can be disabled by unselecting Automatically Expand LFG Preview.

WvW Legendary Backpack

• The legendary WvW backpack Warbringer is now obtainable.
  • Talk to Commander War Razor in any WvW map to purchase tiers 1 – 4 of the wings.
  • Commander War Razor now sells the Commander’s Compendium.

Structured Player vs. Player
As part of the June 2017 Competitive Feature Pack, structured Player vs. Player will see PvP League Season 7 updates and changes to the Coliseum map.

General

• The Shards of Glory Converter can now be used a consistent five times per day.
• Audio cues have been added to capture points.

League Season 7

• Season 7 begins June 13.
• The Mini Princess Llama has been added to the Llama Mini Choice Box given out in the final Byzantium chest for League Season 7. The llama is also available from the League Vendor, but you must have already unlocked the miniature before purchasing additional ones.
• We have revised the number of Ascended Shards of Glory given out in League chests for Season 7 as follows:
  • Cerulean: 25
  • Jasper: 50
  • Saffron: 75
  • Persimmon: 75
  • Amaranth: 75
  • Byzantium (repeatable): 100
• The final chests in Persimmon, Amaranth, and Byzantium (not repeatable) now give a box containing one Grandmaster Mark of the player’s choice.
• In Season 5, we decreased the volatility during placement matches. This had an unintended effect of making it harder to reach Platinum and Legendary. As such, we’ve revised the tiers for each rank:
  |Rank|Min. Rating|Max Rating|
  |Bronze|0|899|
  |Silver|900|1199|
  |Gold|1200|1499|
  |Platinum|1500|1799|
  |Legendary|1800|———|

League Vendors

• Ardent Glorious armor and ascended weapons from PvP League Vendors now include Shards of Glory as part of their cost.
• Ascended Salvage Tools have had their PvP League Ticket costs reduced.

Eternal Coliseum

• Eternal Coliseum has received a visual update.
• Gates have been added around the Sword of Reaping and Shield of Life enhancements that only open after they are captured. This prevents classes with teleports from having too much of an advantage in acquiring the enhancements.
• Eternal Coliseum will be added to the Ranked map pool.

Revenge of the Capricorn

• Revenge of the Capricorn will be added to the Ranked map pool.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• A new Magic Carpet Glider is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 400 gems.
• For two weeks, a different dye kit will return to the Gem Store every day. The Bloodstone Dye Kit has returned today and is available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.
• The Mist Herald Back Item Skin Set has returned for a limited time and is found in the Style category of the Gem Store for 500 gems.
• The Permanent Mystical Dragon Finisher and Permanent Minstrel Finisher have returned for a limited time and are found in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 800 gems each.

Improvements

• Six new and exclusive eye colors have been added to Total Makeover Kits, which are available in the Services category of the Gem Store.
• The Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock available inside the Black Lion Chest has been updated with over 700 new items.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Zaishen War Paint Kit to not award dyes in certain areas of the game.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Unbound Magic Harvesting Blast and Unbound Magic Mining Beam to fail underwater.

Bug Fix:

• PvP: Fixed a bug in which the missing-items warning would always appear for elementalist and engineer, preventing them from joining parties in Ranked arenas.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a server crash.
• In the Heart of the Volcano instance, when playing in a party, characters will now correctly be teleported off the barrier if they land in the center or die before hitting the barrier.
• Arcane Power: The number of stacks this ability applies has been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Elemental Surge: The duration of burning this ability applies has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Epidemic: Fixed a bug that caused conditions to not transfer on the fifth missile. The missiles fired from this ability will now pierce targets already struck by the skill. Removed the new functionality that caused condition durations to affect newly transferred conditions.
• Increased the respawn time on several centaur spawns in Lake Doric.

Bug Fixes:

• Skull Grinder: The blast finisher delivered by this attack has been removed, as indicated in the original release note.
• Infusing Terror (Reaper Shroud): Updated the skill fact to properly indicate a 20% damage reduction rather than 33%.
• Tainted Shackles: Updated the skill fact to correctly indicate that this skill applies 5 seconds of Revealed when hitting an enemy.
• Spear of Justice: Updated the skill fact to correctly indicate that this skill applies 6 seconds of Revealed.
• Alchemical Tinctures: This trait now functions with Toss Elixir X.
• Elemental Surge: When used with Arcane Power, this trait now considers the caster of the ability as the source when dealing conditions and will apply them based on the caster’s current attunement.
• Heart of the Volcano instance:
• Chimney barriers now apply significantly less burning to players.
• Killing the bosses at the same time no longer results in the strange timing or overlap of VO.
• Fixed an issue in which VO might stall if the instance owner was transformed.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that was causing legendary armor to display in combat mode on the Character Select screen.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing legendary armor from animating in the wardrobe and preview screens.

Skills:

• Fixed a bug that prevented some traits from correctly applying conditions to world bosses.
• Fixed a bug in which certain leap finishers would apply conditions for longer than intended.
• Epidemic: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to affect allies.
• Healing Turret: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to display the regeneration radius to enemies.
• Turrets: Added a 0.5-second recharge delay to detonate-turret skills, when a turret is first placed, in order to prevent accidental detonation.

05/16/2017 – Late Notes
Legendary Armor

• Medium and light armor now has fully covered asura toes, in and out of combat.
• Fixed an issue with chest-piece sizing on asura and sylvari females.
• Fixed an issue that allowed legendary armor to be salvageable.
• Fixed an issue with light female armor for humans and sylvari in which portions of the back of the chest piece would clip.
• Fixed an issue that caused the tip of the light-armor skirt to clip with the ground.
• Fixed a clipping issue with medium armor and charr tails.
• Fixed an issue in which players who unlocked a different class of armor for Refined Envoy than they did for Experimental would not receive the associated Experimental skins.
• Fixed an issue with the Bobblehead Tonic and Bobblehead Laboratory when legendary armor is equipped.
• Fixed an issue in which precursor recipes that became available after the first legendary armor set was obtained would not be account bound.
• Reduced the distance between the left shoulder piece and the player model on medium armor.
• Fixed an issue in which darker dyes would appear washed out and harder to see on legendary heavy armor.
• Fixed recipe text on the pop-ups for Gift of Dedication, Gift of Prowess, and Gift of Prosperity.
• Fixed an issue in which having multiple chronomancers generating clones simultaneously in an instance would cause a drop in performance.
• Fixed an issue in which the effect from the legendary hammer Juggernaut was not properly applied to legendary armor.

Living World

• Reenabled problematic fertile soils.
• Fixed a server crash related to the Wayfarer’s Henge collection.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with single-use Captain’s Airship Passes that caused certain friendly characters in Gendarran Fields to turn hostile.
• Fixed an issue in which off-hand weapons would appear incorrectly when previewing armor with the Wielded box checked.

05/16/2017 – May 16th Release Notes
Living World

• Moved the Koda’s Blessing achievement from the A Crack in the Ice achievement category into the Rare Collections category.
• Fixed a bug that caused the bonus from Superior Sigils of Bounty to be removed when weapon swapping.
• Resurrecting at a checkpoint after the end of the final cinematic in the “Heart of the Volcano” instance will no longer revive players in midair.

General

• Newly created accounts must wait 72 hours before gems-to-gold transactions can be completed on the currency exchange.

Raids

• Refined Envoy armor crafting recipes are now account bound.
• Acquiring a piece of Refined Envoy armor now unlocks the skin for the corresponding Experimental Envoy armor piece.
• Legendary armor pieces are no longer salvageable.

Items

• Added several cooking recipes to the rotation of the Pact Supply Network.

Profession Skills
In this update, you’ll see some changes aimed at normalizing how certain types of skills work. Skills that tether players together now apply Revealed to provide a stronger window of opportunity to players who can successfully land them. Skills and traits that previously granted pulsing stability now grant a block of stability up front in order better allow for counterplay through boon removal. Finally, we are increasing the casting time of many skills that apply effects like daze or stun in order to give the player on the receiving end of these skills time to react and defend.
General:
Consumables:
The line of foods that provided bonus damage while moving has been dominating consumable use for all power-based builds. In addition to being significantly more powerful than other foods designed to boost power damage, the “wiggle” strategy to maintain uptime on its effect has a negative impact on the health of the game (and its players). For these reasons, food that increases outgoing damage while moving has had its efficacy reduced by 50%. This affects the following items and their respective feasts:

• Bowl of Seaweed Salad (10% -> 5%)
• Bowl of Winterberry Seaweed Salad (10% -> 5%)
• Swiftly Scrambled Eggs (10% -> 5%)
• Bowl of Asparagus and Sage Salad (8% -> 4%)
• Can of Asparagus and Sage Salad (8% -> 4%)
• Experimental Remnant (8% -> 4%)
• Cabbage and Chickpea Salad (6% -> 3%)
• Bowl of Coleslaw (4% -> 2%)

General Continued:

• Frost Gun: The bundle item obtained from Researcher Bamm in Gendarren Fields has had its skills reworked.
• Seed Turret: Reduced duration of bleeding to 3 seconds.
• Take Root: Reduced duration of bleeding to 3 seconds.

Elementalist
In this iteration, there have been a couple of reworks for less-used utility skills and a couple of general quality-of-life changes. In PvP, we’ll be looking to slow down the elementalist’s defensive capability so that it has a few more openings for opponents to pressure them.

• Obsidian Flesh: The duration of this ability has been reduced from 4 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• “Wash the Pain Away!”: The cooldown of this ability has been increased from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Rebound: The base healing of this ability has been increased by 33%.
• Gale Song: The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 40 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only.
• Elemental Shielding: The duration of protection this trait applies has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.
• Glyph of Elemental Power: Reduced recharge to 25 seconds. Now gives 5 charges instead of using a 5-second cooldown interval. Decreased duration to 25 seconds. Reduced burning duration to 1 stack for 3 seconds. Changed crippled condition to 1 stack of bleeding for 6 seconds. Changed weakness condition to 4 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds.
• Arcane Power: The effects of this skill now apply to up to 4 other nearby allies within a range of 240. In addition to its previous effects, each stack of this effect now gives 75 ferocity at level 80.
• Drake’s Breath: Increased burn duration to 4 seconds and increased damage by 14% in PvE only.
• One with Fire: Now applies 1 stack of might for all other auras besides Flame Aura.

Engineer
Most of the time, engineers were taking turret skills and never deploying the turret because the Tool Belt skill was too important to be overridden by the detonate turret skill. In this update we are moving the detonate skill to be the flip-over for the turret itself so that the Tool Belt skill is always available even if you deploy the turret. Because many of the overcharge skills weren’t very tactical and much easier to just press on cooldown, we’ve changed these skills to automatically activate the moment the turret is placed instead. Since this means a turret can only be overcharged once per deployment, we’ve reduced the recharge of a few turrets to compensate.

• Bunker Down: The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• Protection Injection: The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Med Pack Drop: This skill will now remove all (14) conditions for up to 5 allies upon impact.
• Bulwark Gyro: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Purge Gyro: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Turrets: Turrets no longer need to be overcharged. Summoning a turret will automatically overcharge it once.
• Detonate Turret: This skill has been moved off of the Tool Belt skill. It is now the flip skill for the associated turret.
• Thumper Turret: Reduced recharge to 40 seconds. Overcharge attack now launches foes straight up instead of out of the turret’s attack range.
• Healing Turret: Fixed a bug that caused this turret to show a water combo field when none was present.
• Flame Turret: Reduced recharge to 20 seconds.
• Rocket Turret: Reduced recharge to 40 seconds.
• Detection Pulse (Scrapper): Fixed a bug that caused the effect from this skill to incorrectly reflect its radius.

Guardian
Quite a few signets have languished for the Guardian for some time, so we took this opportunity to give them a bit more oomph and rework some of their actives.

• True Shot: The recharge of this skill has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Wings of Resolve: Base healing of this skill has been reduced by 24% in PvP only.
• Smite Condition: Damage when the guardian is affected by conditions has been reduced by 21% in PvP only.
• Test of Faith: Damage of this skill has been reduced by 10% in PvP only.
• Shield of Courage: Decreased active duration of this skill from 4 seconds to 3 seconds. The cooldown has been decreased from 75 seconds to 60 seconds.
• Hunter’s Determination: The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 60 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only.
• Spear of Justice: This skill now applies 6 seconds of Revealed on the initial impact.
• “Save Yourselves!”: This skill now grants 1.5 seconds of resistance, in addition to the other boons applied.
• Renewed Focus: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 90 seconds to 105 seconds in PvP only.
• Signet of Mercy: Reduced the casting time of this skill from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Wall of Reflection: Reduced the cooldown of this skill from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Hallowed Ground: Reduced the cooldown of this skill from 60 seconds to 45 seconds. Reduced the pulse amount from 10 to 8, and replaced the boon-duration increase component with retaliation.
• Signet of Courage: Reduced the cooldown of this skill from 120 seconds to 90 seconds. Reduced the casting time of this ability from 3.25 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
• Signet of Judgment: Passive now also reduces condition damage by 10%. Reduced radius from 600 to 300. Active no longer inflicts weakness and instead applies 2 stacks of burning for 3 seconds.

Mesmer
In this update, we’re rolling out new attacks for more phantasm skills and looking at enhancements to power-based shatter builds, which have fallen out of favor recently.

• Tides of Time: The casting time of this skill has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
• Well of Precognition: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 0.75 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
• Continuum Split: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 90 seconds to 105 seconds in PvP only.
• Phantasmal Berserker: This skill now fires a boomerang projectile that inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerability for 3 seconds in addition to summoning a phantasm.
• Phantasmal Swordsman: This skill now performs a sword strike in front of the player when summoning the phantasm. If the sword strike hits you and all Swordsmen currently summoned, gain 8 might for 10 seconds.
• Phantasmal Warden: This skill now throws an illusionary axe at the target, which immobilizes for 2 seconds in addition to summoning a phantasm.
• Phantasmal Rogue: This skill now performs an attack that applies 1 stack of confusion and 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds in addition to summoning a phantasm.
• Illusionary Whaler: This skill now fires Siren’s Call projectiles at 3 nearby foes in addition to summoning a phantasm.
• Illusionary Mariner: This skill now performs an Evasive Strike in addition to summoning a phantasm.
• Mind Wrack: Increased damage of 2 illusion shatter by 3% per strike. Increased damage of 3 illusion shatter by 4% per strike.
• Cry of Frustration: Increased damage by 15%.
• Mental Anguish: Increased bonus damage to 25% base (50% vs. Inactive) in PvE only.
• Master of Fragmentation: Critical-hit chance bonus for Mind Wrack raised to 25%.
• Illusionary Reversion: Increased required illusions shattered to 3.
• Bountiful Disillusionment: Increased might stacks to 5. Increased vigor duration to 8. Increased fury duration to 10.

Necromancer
Our biggest focus in this iteration for necromancers was that of Epidemic, in that its impact is too instant in most PvP scenarios, as well as its heavy toll on our servers. Secondarily, we’ve long felt that the Plague elite was lackluster and was in need of a rework. In addition to a variety of weapon-based quality-of-life changes, we’re excited to see how the skill changes fare over time.

• Plague Sending: The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Chilling Nova: The damage of this trait has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.
• “Rise!”: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 40 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only.
• Tainted Shackles: This skill will now apply 5 seconds of Revealed to enemies the first time it successfully hits.
• Infusing Terror (Reaper Shroud): This skill no longer pulses stability but instead grants 3 stacks for 6 seconds upon activating it. The active form of this skill now reduces incoming physical and condition damage by 20% for its duration.
• Chilling Victory: The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds in PvP only.
• Plague (Elite): This skill has been reworked and has been renamed to Plaguelands.
• Plaguelands: This skill creates a 240-radius corrupted area at the necromancer’s initial location for 10 seconds. After 1 second, it pulses damage and conditions in that area for 9 seconds. Each pulse applies a new condition, and each pulse applies all conditions from every pulse before it. Conditions applied (in order) are: bleeding, poison, torment, vulnerability, cripple, weakness, blind, chill, and burning. Recharge is set to 120 seconds.
• Epidemic: This ability now fires slow-arcing projectiles from its initial target to up to 5 targets in range. Foes hit by the projectiles gain all conditions from the original Epidemic target. Projectile strikes are unblockable but cannot critically hit. Increased radius to 900.
• Rending Claws: Applies twice as much vulnerability while your target is below 50% health.
• Ghastly Claws: This skill now deals 1% more damage per stack of vulnerability on the target.
• Unholy Feast: This skill no longer applies retaliation. It now invokes a secondary AoE strike against foes below 25% health. Fixed skill-fact bugs that showed range instead of radius and did not display the correct number of boons converted.
• Spiteful Spirit: Updated this trait to clarify that it is no longer casting Unholy Feast.
• Life Siphon: Gains 20% increased healing if cast while you are bleeding. Deals 20% more damage to bleeding foes.
• Dark Pact: Increased damage by 20%. Now inflicts 2 stacks of bleeding on you for 10 seconds.

Ranger
Condition rangers have been pretty potent largely on the strength of torch skills and Quick Draw. We’d like to preserve the tactical play of Quick Draw, so we’re nicking bits of burn duration from torch skills at this time. While we’re at it, we’ve taken the opportunity to revisit a few older weapon traits for short bow, axe, and sword to grant them a bit more synergy with the core weapon skill function.

• Lunar Impact: The amount this skill scales with healing power has been reduced by 20% in PvP only.
• “We Heal as One!”: Shared regeneration duration has been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• Resounding Timbre: Regeneration duration of this trait has been reduced from 10 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only.
• Ancient Seeds: The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 10 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.
• “Strength of the Pack!”: This skill has been reworked and no longer pulses boons on the ranger. When cast, this skill will now apply 10 stacks of stability for 8 seconds, along with 12 seconds of fury and 12 seconds of swiftness.
• Smoke Assault: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 15%.
• Bonfire: The duration of burning applied by this skill has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
• Throw Torch: The duration of burning applied by this skill has been reduced from 6 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Evasive Purity: This trait now removes one damaging condition and one non-damaging condition.
• Honed Axes: This trait now grants a ferocity bonus whether axe is in the main hand or the off hand.
• Light on Your Feet: This trait now enhances flanking/behind aspects for short bow skills.
• Crippling Shot: This trait now immobilizes if you are beside your target, in addition to when you are behind your target.
• Poison Volley: This trait now has increased effect if you are beside your target, in addition to when you are behind your target.
• Refined Toxins: Reduced the effective cooldown from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. Reduced the required health threshold from 90% to 75%.
• Strider’s Defense: This trait no longer has a chance to destroy projectiles on melee attack. It has gained new functionality: when you evade an attack, gain quickness for 3 seconds.
• Troll Unguent: Reduced total duration of this effect from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. Increased healing per second by 25%. Reduced casting time from 1 second to 0.75 seconds.

Revenant
Some of the core trait lines of revenant have been lacking in either synergy or uniqueness. In particular, the Mallyx legend and the associated corruption trait line aren’t up to snuff. Further exacerbating this, there’s a lack of synergy from other trait lines. As a result, we’ve reworked and tuned up some of the traits in the invocation and corruption lines to offer more to condition-centric revenants. Additionally, we’ve selected a few places to make small effects on condition-applying skills. Lastly, we’re also reworking the Ventari Tablet’s energy expulsion to give it a stronger place in large group support.

• Misery Swipe: Torment duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Anguish Swipe: Torment duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Manifest Toxin: The number of poison stacks applied has been increased from 1 to 2.
• Echoing Eruption: This skill is no longer able to multistrike targets. Torment duration has been increased from 6 seconds to 10 seconds. Torment stacks applied have been increased from 3 to 5. This skill will no longer automatically track the revenant’s target and will instead fire the skill forward.
• Frigid Blitz: This skill now applies the slow condition for 2 seconds in addition to its other effects. The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Temporal Rift: In addition to its current effects, this skill now applies 3 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds to enemies that are currently using a skill when struck by it.
• Energy Expulsion: Reduced cost to 10 energy. This skill now consumes all remaining energy when cast and removes a condition from up to 5 nearby allies for every 10 energy consumed (including the casting cost).
• Ferocious Aggression: This trait now additionally increases condition damage inflicted while under the effects of fury.
• Incensed Response: This trait now grants might when you gain fury.
• Fierce Infusion: Reduced the effective cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds, and reduced the duration of fury granted from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Invigorating Flow: Renamed to Rapid Flow. Now grants swiftness in addition to healing when using an energy skill.
• Venom Enhancement: Reduced the effective cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Opportune Extraction: This trait now steals a boon once every 10 seconds per target when you apply torment to a target with at least 4 stacks of torment.
• Yearning Empowerment: Reduced duration increase from 33% to 20%. Torment damage is now increased by 20%.
• Frigid Precision: This trait has been replaced by Abyssal Chill. Abyssal Chill causes you to inflict torment when you chill a foe.
• Maniacal Persistence: This trait no longer increases your critical-hit chance. It now lashes out torment at nearby enemies when you gain resistance.
• Diabolic Inferno: Reduced the effective cooldown on this trait from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Unyielding Anguish: Removed one of the two strikes on initial casting.

Thief
The Daredevil staff functions as a fairly strong AoE weapon, but core thief lacks good ways to deal with large groups, so in this update we’re tuning up the short bow to be a stronger ranged AoE weapon. Additionally, we’re making a small change to Unload to make it more effective as a damage tool when you can ensure that your target will stand still. Finally, we’re also looking at updates to the Deadly Arts line that emphasize poison use to help establish more defined ways to play based on the traits that you select.

• Pulmonary Impact: The damage of this effect has been reduced by 15% in PvP only.
• Channeled Vigor: Endurance per tick has been reduced from 20 to 15 in PvP only.
• Endurance Thief: Endurance gained has been reduced from 50 to 25 in PvP only.
• Palm Strike: This skill now applies two instances of Pulmonary Impact on a successful hit.
• Vault: The initiative of this skill has been increased from 5 to 6 in PvP only.
• Bound (PvP Only): The damage of this ability has been reduced by 24% in PvP only.
• Body Shot: This skill has been unsplit and now applies immobilize for 1.5 seconds in all game modes.
• Unload: This skill now refunds 2 initiative if all attacks hit.
• Trick Shot: Increased number of bounces to 3. Now deals 25% increased damage to poisoned foes.
• Detonate Cluster: Increased number of bombs to 4.
• Choking Gas: Increased damage by 200%. This skill now briefly dazes foes with 5 or more stacks of poison every pulse. The same foe cannot be dazed more than once every second.
• Potent Poison: In addition to its previous effect, this trait now increases the number of stacks of poison applied by other Deadly Arts traits.
• Panic Strike: In addition to its previous effect, this trait now causes you to apply 1 stack of poison for 4 seconds to foes that you immobilize.
• Panic Strike: Immobilize duration has been reduced from 2.5 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Trapper’s Respite: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to display an incorrect poison duration.

Warrior
For the warrior in this update, we’re looking to tone down some overperforming elements and tune up some underperforming ones. Berserker skills such as Arc Divider and Headbutt were providing too much power for their casting time, while Smash Brawler was just providing too much power overall. In terms of effects, we’re looking at tuning up axe skills and their synergy with other weapons. The Axe Mastery trait has been changed to be friendlier to builds that don’t use axes in both hands, and several axe skills have been tuned up to provide more consistent damage during combat.

• Shield Bash: The initial casting time of this skill has been increased, moving the skill from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds total.
• Arc Divider: The casting time of this skill has been increased by 0.25 seconds.
• Skull Grinder: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 33%. Bleeding has been reduced from 4 stacks for 8 seconds to 3 stacks for 6 seconds. The blast finisher on this skill has been removed. All changes apply to PvP only.
• Headbutt: The casting time of this skill has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds. Distance traveled has been increased from 300 to 400.
• Healing Signet: The passive healing from this skill has been reduced by 10% in PvP only.
• Endure Pain: In PvP only, the cooldown of this skill has been decreased from 60 seconds to 30 seconds, and the active up-time has been decreased from 4 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Defy Pain: Active up-time has been decreased from 4 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.
• Bloody Roar: Taunt duration has been reduced from 1.5 seconds to 0.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Smash Brawler: The cooldown reduction received from this trait has been reduced from 33% to 20%.
• Eternal Champion: This trait no longer grants pulsing stability but instead applies 3 stacks for 8 seconds when activating Berserk.
• Powerful Synergy: This trait has been updated to double the effects of all combo finishers.
• Reckless Dodge: Added missing skill fact for unblockable. Increased damage by 20%.
• Axe Mastery: Now gives 300 bonus ferocity as long as you have at least one axe equipped.
• Eviscerate: Now grants 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds if it hits.
• Decapitate: Now grants 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds if it hits.
• Double Chop: Increased damage per strike by 7%.
• Triple Chop: Increased damage per strike by 7%.
• Cyclone Axe: Now grants 2 seconds of fury per hit in addition to its previous effects. Increased vulnerability applied per hit from 2 to 3 stacks. Updated skill fact to show vulnerability applied per hit rather than total vulnerability for both hits.
• Throw Axe: Increased damage by 27%.
• Dual Strike: No longer gives fury. Now gives quickness for 1.5 seconds per strike that hits.

Structured Player vs. Player
We have revised the sigils available in PvP. Players who had a sigil that is no longer available will have their money refunded.
On Hit

• Sigil of Fallibility: Inflict vulnerability for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 2 seconds.)
• Sigil of Purging: Remove a condition. (Cooldown: 10 seconds.)
• Sigil of Revocation: Remove a boon. (Cooldown: 10 seconds.)
• Sigil of Courage: Gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 2 seconds.)

On Swap

• Sigil of Agility: Gain 5 seconds of swiftness and 2 seconds of quickness when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 18 seconds.)
• Sigil of Battle: Gain 4 stacks of might for 5 seconds when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 9 seconds.)
• Sigil of Doom: Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts poison for 5 seconds. (Cooldown: 9 seconds.)
• Sigil of Energy: Gain 25% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 9 seconds.)
• Sigil of Exposure: Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds. (Cooldown: 9 seconds.)
• Sigil of Stagnation: Cripple nearby foes when swapping to this weapon while in combat for 3 seconds in a 240 radius. (Cooldown: 9 seconds.)
• Sigil of Intelligence: Your next three attacks after swapping to this weapon while in combat have a 100% critical chance. (Cooldown: 9 seconds.)
• Sigil of Escape: Remove movement-impairing effects from yourself when swapping to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 18 seconds.)
• Sigil of Annulment: Your next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat removes 2 boons from your target. (Cooldown: 18 seconds.)
• Sigil of Cleansing: Remove 1 condition when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 9 seconds.)

On Interrupt

• Sigil of Ruthlessness: Gain 5 might for 3 seconds when interrupting a foe. (Cooldown: 3 seconds.)
• Sigil of Absorption: Steal a boon when interrupting a foe. (Cooldown: 3 seconds.)

Passive

• Sigil of Compounding: Deal 1% extra damage per condition on your foe.
• Sigil of Exploitation: Deal 5% extra damage to targets below 50% health.
• Sigil of Opportunity: Deal 5% extra damage to movement-impaired foes.
• Sigil of Enhancement: Deal 0.5% extra damage per boon on your yourself.
• Sigil of Separation: Deal 5% extra damage to targets more than 500 distance away.
• Sigil of Savagery: +30% stun duration. Deal 3% more damage versus disabled foes.
• Sigil of Agony: Increased inflicted bleeding duration 25%.
• Sigil of Smoldering: Increased inflicted burning duration 25%.
• Sigil of Venom: Increased inflicted poison duration 25%.
• Sigil of Confusion: Increased inflicted confusion duration 25%.
• Sigil of Misery: Increased inflicted torment duration 25%.

PvP default builds have been adjusted in consideration of the sigil rework.
World vs. World
General

• Tactivators and supply depots should now be easier to interact with.
• Updated the laurel vendor in WvW to include the amulets, trinkets, and rings it was missing.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• A new Mercenary Backpack is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 400 gems.
  • For a limited time, a new set of Keepsake weapon skins is available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists for 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket. Black Lion Chest Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
  • The Balthazar’s Regalia Outfit is on sale with a 30% discount for a limited time at 490 gems, found in the Style category of the Gem Store.
  • This is the last week to purchase the Swarm Logging Flute, the Butterfly Harvesting Flute, and the Firefly Mining Flute.
  • Over the weekend, some of the glider skins and backpack glider combos will be removed from the Gem Store. Get them before they go away!

Improvements

• The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Sworn of Balthazar Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.
  • The Zaishen War Paint Kit has been added as the new guaranteed seasonal item. It contains some unidentified dyes, a booster, and a Fire Orchid.
  • The Sworn Zaishen Helm is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of this seasonal change.
  • The Hounds of Balthazar Mail Carrier is available as an uncommon drop for the duration of this seasonal change.

Bug Fixes

• Audio has been added to the Red Envelope Mail Carrier.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a client crash.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with the positioning of Flames of War while wielded.
• Fixed an issue with the coloration of Neophyte’s Beacon, Liturgy, and Flames of War at certain shader settings.
• In the Heart of the Volcano instance, downing one of the bosses next to the machine no longer prevents completion of the relevant quest step when you scan it.
• Additional lighting fixes have been implemented for all 10-Series NVIDIA graphics cards.
• Fixed an issue in which mercenary prisoner doors remained in an untargetable state.
• The golem who gives you the password for the People Watching achievement now grants achievement credit in a larger radius.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with Oakheart’s Essence effects on the hand.
• Fixed an issue in which scanning one of the boss corpses could sometimes block Taimi from delivering further instructions.
• The Heart of the Volcano instance will no longer stall in the sequence following the boss fight if a warrior uses Vengeance to rally.
• The errant remnant of Taimi’s machine at the end of the Heart of the Volcano instance has been cleaned up.
• Fixed a bug in which some video cards had a display issue with lights.

05/02/2017 – Late Notes

• Fixed a bug that caused the “Clear out the remaining White Mantle forces around Noran’s Homestead” event in Lake Doric to occasionally stall.
• Fixed a pathing issue with Glenna in Stronghold of the Faithful.

05/02/2017 – May 2nd Release Notes
Living World – Flashpoint
The White Mantle launched a surprise attack on Divinity’s Reach. Betrayed from within and assaulted from without, the city fought a battle on two fronts. Queen Jennah rose to the occasion, revealing just how powerful a mesmer she is, and with a monumental effort on the part of the humans and their allies, the city broke the siege.
Caudecus Beetlestone, once the legate minister, was commanding the White Mantle forces, bringing his plot to take the Krytan throne to its conclusion. He’d been working on it for decades, but his plan was foiled. Loyalists and allies of the queen found him in his mansion. Before he could be taken into custody, however, the snake murdered his own daughter, Demmi, an honorable agent of the Order of Whispers—and a friend to many.
Caudecus’s subsequent death was an unsatisfactory revenge for her loss. With their leader dead, the White Mantle forces fell into chaos, and the Seraph and Shining Blade picked off the stragglers with ease. In the wake of the battle, the Divinity’s Reach prison bulged with inmates. A search of Caudecus’s manor revealed one of Lazarus’s aspects—the objects into which he safeguarded portions of his soul.
This discovery brought Lazarus’s true identity into question. Who is Lazarus? Marjory continues to shadow him, but does she know what she’s getting herself into? That question will have to wait, because Taimi is on the verge of completing her antidragon device. The Elder Dragons grow stronger every day, and thus Tyria becomes ever more chaotic and dangerous. Taimi’s device could be the answer that saves the world.
New Legendary Torch: Flames of War
A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak with Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to learn how to craft the new torch precursor, Liturgy, and forge the new legendary torch, Flames of War.
Raids

• Legendary armor is now available in the game. Complete the final step in the collection to receive the Refined Envoy set. Combine that armor with the recipe components in the Mystic Forge to produce the most sought-after armor in the Guild Wars® world.
• Rune Swapping: A key functional attraction of legendary armor is the ability to swap the stats of the item on the fly. Since runes and infusions are as impactful a choice as the stats on the armor, we have altered the behavior of these items to allow players to swap runes and infusions from legendary armor at will. Ascended armor will not be affected by this change.

Items

• Blood Rubies, Jade Shards, Petrified Wood, and Winterberries have been added to material storage.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Added the Draconis Mons Reward Track.

World vs. World
General

• Added the Draconis Mons Reward Track.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• The new Kasmeer’s Regal Outfit is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• The new Vine-Touched Destroyer Glider Combo is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• Kasmeer’s Staff has returned for a limited time, found in the Style category of the Gem Store for 600 gems.
• The Metallurgic Dye Kit has returned for a limited time, found in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.
• The Cosmic Harvesting Tool, Cosmic Mining Tool, and the Cosmic Logging Tool have all returned and are available in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 1,000 gems each.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused the art on the Character Select screen to revert back to the pre-Heart of Thorns view.
• Fixed a client crash occurring when sorting the PvP sigil list by category.

04/18/2017 – Late Notes
BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY
Bug Fixes

• Adjusted the audio on the Beastslayer Rifle.
• Fixed an issue in which the bowstrings on Chaos bows did not appear properly.
• Fixed an issue with weapons in the Black Lion Chest that prevented wielded and weapon-only previews from displaying properly.
• Adjusted the price of the Forgeman Mantle, Forgeman Raiment, and Forgeman Leggings to be consistent with the remainder of the dungeon-armor prices.

04/18/2017 – April 18th Release Notes
Living World

• Fixed an issue with the “Into the Labyrinth” instance that was preventing friendly NPCs from assisting in combat.

General

• The Active Guild Member achievement, which can no longer be earned after the retirement of Influence as a guild currency, has been moved from the General ? Community category into the Historical ? Retired Achievements category.
• Unique text has been created for skill and trait tooltips, specific to their game mode.
• An option called Disable Player Item Chatter has been added to the Sound Options tab. Enabling this option will disable all chatter voice-over from player items such as the Replica Job-o-Tron Backpack, tron-themed salvaging tools, and tron-themed gathering tools.
• Ruins of Orr—Karst Plains: Crusader Feintscar now correctly has a female voice.

Raids
Bastion of the Penitent

• Fixed a bug in which players in the Samarog encounter were sometimes impaled when there were no nearby spears.
• Fixed a bug in which Samarog waited too long to recall spears if transitioned at the wrong time.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Rigom and Guldhem from spawning if Samarog was transitioned while using Brutalize on a player.
• Demonic Tears will no longer consume Aegis when hit while the challenge mote is active.
• Players can no longer use Continuum Shift to exit Deimos’s realm during the final phase.
• In the Deimos encounter, the player targeted by Soul Feast can no longer be selected by the Eye of Janthir to enter the demon realm.
• In the Deimos encounter, jumping will no longer prevent Soul Feast from spawning.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Default builds have been adjusted.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• A new Primordus Dye Kit containing six exclusive colors is now available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.
• The Crystalline Dragon Wings Backpack Glider Combo has returned for a limited time and is located in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• For a limited time, Chaos weapon skins have returned to the Black Lion Weapons Specialist for 5 Black Lion Claim Tickets. Black Lion Chest Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.

Improvements

• Six new exclusive hair colors and six new exclusive hair-accessory dyes have been added and are available in Total Makeover Kits and Self-Style Hair Kits, found in the Services category of the Gem Store.
• For a limited time, Living World Season 2 miniatures and Forest and Jungle miniatures are available when using Black Lion Miniature Claim Tickets.
  • Living World Season 2 miniatures: Mini Rox, Mini Braham Eirsson, Miniature Belinda Delaqua, Mini Marjory Delaqua, Mini Caithe, Mini Faolain, Mini Lord Faren, Mini Kasmeer Meade, Mini Logan Thackeray, and Mini Eir Stegalkin
  • Forest and Jungle miniatures: Mini Forest Spider, Mini Jungle Stalker, Mini Wasp, Mini Swamp Spider, Mini Mosquito, Mini Eelob Poisonfang, Mini Lynx, Mini Forest Grub, Mini Sylvan Pup, and Mini Mossheart