GW2 Game Update December 3rd: Full Patch Notes

GW2 Game UpdateA pretty meaty game update this time from ArenaNet, with a huge number of bug fixes.

Read them all in full:

 

Release Notes:
General

  • Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when repairing armor while transformed.
  • Area of effect heals and boons now prioritize players over minions and NPCs.
  • Guild leaders are able to demote other players of the same rank.
  • Weapon skills will now properly display their PvP and PvE split variants in the Weapon Skills tab of the Hero Panel instead of displaying both.

Events

  • Fixed a bug that caused NPCs not to resurrect other NPCs in various Orr events.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Warmaster Jofast and her caravan to not advance properly through Cursed Shore.
  • Fixed a rare bug that could prevent the event “Protect the trained skelk gathering kindling for Raintimber Mill” in Diessa Plateau from progressing.
  • Fixed a bug that could potentially prevent progress with the event “Protect Orl’s research krewe” in Metrica Province.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent progress with the event “Stop the Inquest operatives from kidnapping adventurers” in Sparkfly Fen.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent progress with the event “Raid the Separatist camp with the Warhound Village veterans” in Iron Marches.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent displaced spirits from rejoining their bodies in Iron Marches.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent progress with the event “Protect the armory from the Flame Legion” in Plains of Ashford.
  • Fixed a bug that would prevent “Ireta the Smasher” from team switching correctly during the event “Prevent the brawl between the three legions.”
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Suwash from confronting Captain Jetsam in Lornar’s Pass in the event “Defeat Captain Jetsam.”
  • Fixed a bug that preventing events from running properly near Eldvin Monastery in Queensdale.
  • Fixed a bug causing skritt thieves to stop stealing harpy eggs in Harathi Hinterlands.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Crusader Soma to give up searching for the lost caravan in Timberline Falls.

Dungeon
Crucible of Eternity

  • Front door path: Fixed a bug that affected the aggro range of the Destroyer Specimen Boss.
  • Submarine path: Fixed a bug with Bjarl’s armor not going off when he charges and hits a tower.

Ascalonian Catacombs

  • Detha’s Path: Fixed a problem with Detha’s script where she would sometimes not start the event to fix the cannons.
  • Hodgin’s Path: Fixed a problem in Hodgin’s script at the “Collect scepter fragments” event that prevented the event from starting.
  • Detha’s path: Fixed a bug that caused the Ghostly Oozes not to use their basic attack properly, and spend a large amount of time loitering around players instead of attacking them.

Sorrow’s Embrace

  • Fixed multiple problematic doors that would not open and close when intended.

Twilight Arbor

  • Fixed a bug where Morrigu could die after defeating the final boss before the cinematic could start, which would break the dungeon and prevent players from receiving the final reward.

The Ruined City of Arah

  • Seer Path: Fixed an exploit where rangers using longbows could trivialize a fight by attacking at max range, and the Melandru boss would not fight back.

Fractals of the Mists

  • Cliffside: Fixed an issue where players could damage the final seal with their normal attacks.
  • Cliffside: Fixed an issue where players were able to attack and kill the first boss before triggering the cinematic.

PersonalStory

  • Minor personal story bugs in multiple personal story steps were fixed.
  • The story step “Forewarned is Forearmed” has been fixed to avoid an error that prevented completion.
  • The story step “Time for a Promotion” has been fixed to avoid a problem that caused it to stall.
  • The story step “Silent Warfare” has had the difficulty adjusted.
  • The story step “The Artist’s Workshop” has been fixed to allow players to rally when they defeat hypnotized performers.
  • Players who completed the sylvari “mirror” storyline are now recognized by the NPCs in the story step “Through the Looking Glass.”

World vs. World

  • Invisible & invulnerable players can no longer contest capture points in WvW. WvW capture points now follow the same rules as PvP capture points.
  • All players will now correctly receive WvW bonuses. Players who transfer worlds will still be locked out of bonuses for the current and subsequent match.

StructuredPvP

  • Heart of the Mists: Added light, medium, and heavy PvP Underwater Mask items to the PvP Armorsmith.
  • Battle of Kyhlo: The hit box on the trebuchets has been decreased so that they are less vulnerable to certain AoE skills.
  • Legacy of the Foefire: The red guild lord and his guards have been repositioned to more closely match the blue side.
  • Forest of Niflhel: Fixed incorrect names on the archer NPCs that guard each base.
  • Removed slots in the PvP locker for the Rawhide armor pieces, as they are not obtainable as PvP rewards.
  • PvP locker now can store consumable finishers up to rank 6, glory boosters, PvP salvage kits, and tournament tickets.
  • Updated the NPC names of archers in Forest of Niflhel.

Items

  • Updated the names of the level 80 rare armorsmithing boxes to match the names of the items they contain.
  • Runes of Balthazar and Orrian now properly apply quickness when the player is struck and below 20% health.
  • Updated Knight’s Jewel so that it appropriately grants Power rather than Toughness.
  • Updated the ingredients required to craft satchels and boxes of armor to match the ingredients required to craft the individual pieces contained within.

Commerce

  • Fixed an issue with the Boxing Glove skills remaining when players swap to armor from town clothes.
  • Mini pets are now usable in the Heart of the Mists.
  • Fixed Krait Tonic second skill description.
  • Fixed missing nightmare medium icons and pants using gloves icons.
  • Total Makeover Kit and Self-Style Hair Kit added to the Black Lion Chest as rare rewards.
  • Increased chance to get Mini boosters and Dye Pack boosters from the Black Lion Chest.

Profession
Elementalist

  • Updated elementalist conjured weapons to appropriately apply attributes to all players that pick them up.
  • Dragon’s Tooth: This skill’s blast finisher now triggers at spell location, instead of character’s location.
  • Electrocute: This skill now has a maximum range and line of sight requirement.
  • Impale: Fixed an exploit with this skill’s interaction with Signet of Restoration.
  • Arcane Resurrection: This trait now applies five seconds of aura to allies affected by it.
  • Evasive Arcana: This trait now has a blast finisher while attuned to earth.
  • Elementalists will no longer get into a state where they aren’t attuned to any element. This commonly results in the player’s skillbar being empty.

Engineer

  • Toss Elixir C: This skill’s underwater cooldown is reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds to match the land recharge.
  • Elixir S: Fixed a bug that would cause this skill to go on normal recharge when Fast-Acting Elixirs is equipped.
  • Smoke Bomb: Cleaned up skill facts.

Guardian

  • Ring of Warding: This skill will no longer affect non-attackable NPCs.

Mesmer

  • Updated the description for Blurred Frenzy to indicate that it gives evasion through “Blur,” instead of “Distortion”.
  • Phantasms will now properly have all boons applied to them via player traits.
  • Phantasmal Disenchanter can now be cast at the correct distance.

Ranger

  • Fixed a bug that allowed a ranger to have two traps of the same type active simultaneously.

Thief

  • Using a stolen bundle item should no longer destroy a bundle being wielded in their hands.

Warrior

  • Whirling Axe: This skill can now be cancelled by other skills.

Guild Wars 2 Patch Notes: 15th November 2012 Update

GW2 Patch Notes

Sorry for the delay in posting these GW2 patch notes from the latest update. For any regular players you’ll know this update has contained the latest big content update, the Lost Shores event. Aside from the extra Level 80 dungeon,Fractal of the Mists, there’s a heap of other stuff including a range of bug fixed.

The patch notes in full for you:

Dungeons

General

  • New dungeon rewards have been added to all dungeons.
  • Each dungeon has a new set of unique items with new stat combinations, ranging in rarity from masterwork to exotic. These items have a chance to drop off of certain bosses in the explorable mode of each dungeon.
  • Story and explorable bosses and encounters have a chance to drop Bags of Wondrous Goods, which contain coins and karma. Bags of Wondrous Goods obtained in explorable mode also contain dungeon tokens.
  • If the owner of a dungeon instance intentionally leaves his party to kick out players and invite new players, it will now also kick that owner out of the dungeon to prevent people from kicking PUG members and inviting guild members for the final boss of a dungeon.

Fractals of the Mists
There are new stories being told in the taverns of Lion’s Arch, usually in hushed tones by broken and bloodied adventurers. They weep into their ales and shake as they speak…not about dragons or the undead, but of something new, a mysterious portal that has emerged in the city, beckoning the bravest to venture through it.
Introducing a dungeon experience like no other—Fractals of the Mists! A series of unique “fractal” minidungeons, increasing in difficulty, offers players unlimited levels of challenge! With great risk comes great rewards, including new weapon sets, a back slot item, new Ascended loot, and much more!

  • New level 80 dungeon with dynamic leveling so you can bring your friends!
  • Endless and scaling. The deeper you go, the harder it gets!
  • The portal to the Fractals of the Mists will activate with the Lost Shores content Friday at 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Head west of Fort Marriner to the entrance and try your luck. Perhaps you’ll survive and reap the rewards, or perhaps you’ll be lost forever to the Fractals’ bloody secrets.

Items
There are two new major features added to items in this update. For more detailed information on these features and how they tie into the new Lost Shores content, check out this blog post!

  • Added new crafting materials as part of the Lost Shores update.
  • Crafted Halloween potions are no longer account bound.
  • The mighty Zommoros has slightly increased the drop rate on Legendary precursor weapons from the Mystic Forge from both Rares and Exotics.
  • The drop rarity of Rare and Exotic weapons from certain places in the world (champions, veterans, and players in WvW) has been increased. Rares and Exotics should be much more likely to drop and every champion should be guaranteed to drop loot. This was to ensure that world loot drops were not a significantly worse way of acquiring rare and exotic items than crafting and running dungeons.
  • The amount of loot that drops for downscaled players has been increased. You should now be able to receive level-equivalent loot until you are fighting at a downscaled level that is less than 2/3 of your actual level. You should also receive loot a greater percentage of the time as well as receiving a greater percentage of experience, gold, and karma. For level 80 characters, this means level 55+ areas will be able to drop level 80 gear and give about 75% or so of the other rewards. Previously, these areas would give level 77 gear at best and closer to 60% or so of your rewards.

New Rarity Type: Ascended

  • Ascended rarity falls between Exotics and Legendaries on the rarity spectrum.
  • Ascended items have higher stats than Exotics and come with slots for the new upgrade type, Infusions.
  • Ascended rings and back slot items have been added to the game.

New Upgrade Type: Infusion

  • Infusions are a new type of upgrade component that can only be slotted into a matching Infusion slot.
  • Added 12 new Infusions of the offensive, defensive, and omni types to the game.
  • Create Infusions through the Mystic Forge using new crafting materials.

PvP

  • Paid tournament rewards have been improved. We’ve spread out the rewards for paid tournaments, so that more finishing positions receive rewards. We’ve also made it so that qualifying points are rewarded to the following finishing positions:
    • 1st place—Tourney Chests, 500 glory, 500 rank points, 120 gems, 5 qualifying points
    • 2nd place—Tourney Chests, 400 glory, 400 rank points, 80 gems, 3 qualifying points
    • 3rd place—Tourney Chests, 300 glory, 300 rank points, 20 gems, 1 qualifying point
    • 4th place—Tourney Chests, 300 glory, 300 rank points, 20 gems, 1 qualifying point
    • 5th place—Tourney Chests
    • 6th place—Tourney Chests
    • 7th place—Tourney Chests
    • 8th place—Tourney Chests
    • Paid tournaments also provide each finishing place a small chance to win gems in the following amounts. The chance of winning one of these is approximately 1 in 4. No player can win twice.
      • 10 gems
      • 35 gems
      • 80 gems
      • 120 gems
      • 1000 gems
  • Free and paid tournaments will now use individual respawn timers. Public games played via the PvP Browser will still use time-based wave spawning.
  • A new map set in a kodan dojo is available. “Temple of the Silent Storm” is a beta version of the map, but we’re letting players play it now to give us feedback.
  • We will also be putting up some PvP Browser hot-join maps so that some are 5-on-5 and some are the current 8-on-8.
  • The map rotation for PvP Browser hot-join maps will be:
    • Temple of the Silent Storm
    • Forest of Niflhel
    • Legacy of the Foefire
    • Battle of Kyhlo
    • Raid on the Capricorn
  • Daily and monthly achievement rewards are now available in PvP.
    • Daily rewards: 1 tournament ticket and 1 glory boost
    • Monthly achievement rewards: 10 tournament tickets, 5 glory boosts, and 5 salvage kits
  • The /rank command will now show your PvP ranking. This only works in the PvP lobby and cannot be used inside an active PvP game.
  • Added tracking for Qualifying Point Leaderboards. The current leaderboards are being shown here: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Leaderboards-for-Qualifying-Points/.
  • PvP Mystic Forge: You can now convert PvP Mystic Forge components into other components. This requires purchasing an Arcane Converter from any glory vendor. The conversion recipes are as follows:
    • 25 Arcane Orbs + 1 Arcane Converter + 1 Arcane Crystal + 25 Arcane Powder = 11 Arcane Crystals
    • 25 Arcane Crystals + 1 Arcane Converter + 1 Arcane Sliver + 25 Arcane Powder = 11 Arcane Slivers
    • 25 Arcane Slivers + 1 Arcane Converter + 1 Arcane Orb + 25 Arcane Powder = 11 Arcane Orbs
  • Raid on the Capricorn: Reduced the number of sharks from 10 to 6. They should no longer cover the Ruins capture point.
  • PvP downed health is now 75% of what it was. This change was made so that in fights where players are slightly outnumbered, they can win those fights by killing off downed enemies through damage rather than needing to use a finishing move. This should not have too much impact on 1v1 fights or big team fights, but it should help players win 1v2 and 2v3 fights if they gain the initial advantage.
  • The hit area for the trebuchet in the Battle of Kyhlo has been updated to prevent players from dropping massive AoE attacks (e.g. Meteor Shower) and having every single attack hit the trebuchet, destroying it without any counter. All normal attacks should still work against it.

General

  • The Fire Elemental encounter in Metrica Province has received a balance pass.
  • The Shatterer encounter in Blazeridge Steppes has been updated.
  • A UI confirmation window will now pop up on large vendor purchases.
  • Players will now be warned if they do not have enough inventory space to acquire an elemental fragment during the Dierdre’s Steps jumping puzzle.
  • Harvesting tools are now account bound.
  • Updated Rune of Water to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.
  • Updated Rune of the Monk to provide 10% boon duration instead of 15% in PvP.
  • Updated Rune of Earth to provide 15% protection duration instead of 20%, and 3 seconds of protection instead of 4 seconds in PvP.
  • Updated Rune of the Citadel to properly grant power instead of healing.
  • Rune of Svanir’s block of ice effect will no longer allow players to capture points while they’re invulnerable. Removing the stun from this effect will remove the invulnerability as well.
  • Rune of Air’s lightningdamage has been reduced by 25%.
  • “Unblockable” skill facts have now been added to various skills.
  • Rune of the Pack’s on-hit effect now works properly.
  • Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.
  • You can no longer view opponents’ account names through reporting in WvW.
  • Fixed a bug that caused many piercing, boomerang, and bouncing projectiles (those that hit more than 1 target) to continually increase in damage the more targets they hit.
  • Fixed a bug preventing melee attacks from hitting static objects in the world if the character was not moving. As an example, this should help players using melee in Ascalonian Catacombs to hit graveling burrows, amongst other offending objects.

Commerce

  • The Consortium Chest has been added to the gem store in the Consumable category for 250 gems each or 10 for 1800 gems. No key is required to open these chests; simply double-click them in your inventory.
    • When you open the Consortium Chest, you will receive some number of crafting materials and one random item.
    • Some items in the chest include: shoulder skins, breathing masks, weapon skins, hats, and minis.
    • All items in the chest are new and have never been available before.
    • Weapon skins are rare, and the minis are very rare.
    • All items can be sold on the Trading Post.
    • The Consortium Chest will only be available for a limited time.
  • All the items found in the Consortium Chest can also be obtained as rare drops from any creature from the new Lost Shores event.
  • The Consortium Dye Kit has been added to the gem store in the Consumable category for 125 gems each or 5 for 500 gems.
    • The Consortium Dye Kit gives one random blue dye and one random yellow dye.
    • The Consortium Dye Kit will only be available for a limited time.
  • Dye Packs now come in bundles of 5 for 800 gems.

Events

  • Fixed a bug preventing Captain Penzan from retrieving his treasure in Bloodtide Coast.
  • Fixed a potential blocking bug for the event “Protect Orl’s research krewe” in Metrica Province.
  • Fixed an exploit with the “Assist the skritt with their fortifications” renown region in Mount Maelstrom.
  • Fixed a bug that would cause Fleshgrazer to turn permanently invulnerable.
  • Fixed a blocking bug that could occur during “Escort Brugh to Morgan’s Spiral” in Caledon Forest.
  • Fixed a blocking bug in the event “Help the Priory return the energy core to the Henge of Denravi” in Brisban Wildlands.
  • The Priory Explorer Plinx event chain in Cursed Shore will now occur less frequently.
  • The event “Defend Rimtooth, the pack marmox, from dredge” in Diessa Plateau has been updated to avoid situations that could block progress.
  • Fixed a bug that would occasionally prevent the event “Return the stolen cattle to Stonefall Estate” in Diessa Plateau from starting.
  • Updated the “Royal Forum Waypoint” in the Straits of Devastation so players will no longer get stuck in nearby props.
  • Fixed two bugs that could prevent progress with the event “Cull the undead horde gathering outside of First Haven” in Gendarran Fields.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent progress with the event “Protect krewe leader Dobbs as the krewe clears the excavation site” in Timberline Falls.
  • Fixed a bug that would allow the player to remain transformed after the event “Disguise yourself and gather special roots for Drysdan’s medicine” in Mount Maelstrom.
  • Fixed potential blocking bugs with the event “Help the Soundless villager return home” in Caledon Forest.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the spectral weapons from respawning in the Malchor’s Leap event “Defeat spectral weapons and bring them to Byanca.”
  • Fixed an issue that caused Ghostnight to become stuck on his path in the Diessa Plateau event “Defend Faint Ghostnight as he searches for a new devourer egg.”
  • Fixed an issue that was preventing Nia from continuing on her path in the Fields of Ruin event “Help Nia rescue Cymbel’s hounds.”
  • Fixed an issue that caused NPCs to become stuck while reviving allies in the Straits of Devastation event “Escort the northern invasion Pact squad to the Pact rally point at Triumph Plaza.”
  • Fixed an issue that could prevent the Straits of Devastation event “Help the Pact reach the Altar of Betrayal before their morale is depleted” from starting.

Story

  • The story step “The Hatchery” has been fixed to allow players to progress.
  • The story step “Source of Orr” has been fixed to prevent a possible blocking issue.
  • The story step “Estate of Decay” has been fixed to avoid a problem where allowing Hekja to die resulted in preventing progress.
  • The story step “Conscript the Dead Ships” fixed a possible blocking issue if you used movement skills to board the ships or talked to Jeyne while she was building the gangplanks.
  • The story step “The Stone Sheath” has been fixed for engineers that were previously unable to complete the quest.
  • The story step “Dredge Assault” now progresses correctly when destroying either door into the dredge cave.
  • The story step “Critical Blowback” has been fixed to avoid a problem that could prevent progress.
  • The story step “The Ghost Rite” has been fixed to avoid a problem where players were able to defeat the final boss too early.
  • The story step “A Light in the Darkness” has been fixed to avoid a problem that could prevent progress, and the difficulty has been reduced.
  • The story step “Ships of the Line” has been fixed to avoid a problem that could prevent progress.
  • The story step “Trading Trickery” has been fixed to avoid a problem that could prevent progress.

Profession Skills
Elementalist

  • Ride the Lightning: This skill should now track moving enemies more reliably.
  • Magnetic Grasp: This skill should now track moving enemies more reliably and end correctly when you reach your target.
  • Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer creates unintended blast finishers.
  • Ether Renewal: This skill’s cast time has been reduced from 4.75 to 3.5 seconds. There is no change to the total amount of healing.
  • Healing Rain: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct duration of 6 seconds.
  • Armor of Earth: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct duration of 6 seconds.
  • Churning Earth: This skill’s description no longer references “hold and release.”
  • Signets of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water: These skills should now have a cast animation while wielding a Fiery Greatsword.
  • Ring of Fire: This skill on Conjure Flame now lists itself as a Fire combo field.
  • Dragon’s Tooth: The blast finisher for this skill now triggers at the spell location rather than the character’s location.
  • Magnetic Wave: This skill’s missile-reflect portion now has an accompanying icon.
  • Phoenix: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct duration of 5 seconds of vigor that this skill applies.
  • Blasting Staff and Geomancer’s Alacrity: These traits now work together for the Eruption skill.
  • Mist Form: This skill now works with the Water Magic trait Cantrip Mastery.
  • Soothing Wave: This skill now properly applies regeneration to the elementalist when using Conjure Frost rather than only when the bow is picked up.
  • Healing Ripple: This skill’s scaling with healing power has been reduced by 50% in PvP only, as it had scaling that’s normally reserved for main healing skills. The maximum number of targets has also been reduced from infinite to 5.
  • Obsidian Focus: This Earth Magic trait now grants toughness when channeling the Stone Shards skill.
  • Ice Spike: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct amount of vulnerability when traited.
  • Conjure Frost Bow’s Deep Freeze: This skill now applies 1 second of chill per pulse, preventing extreme stacking of chill on a target.
  • Conjure Frost Bow’s Ice Storm: This skill now applies 5 seconds of bleeding per hit instead of confusion.
  • Tidal Wave: This skill’s responsiveness has been improved.
  • Tornado: Leaving this elite skill now removes the stability it grants in order to make it consistent with other elite transformation abilities.
  • Vapor Form: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to contest a capture point.
  • Flame Axe: This weapon now grants the wielder power and condition damage.
  • Frost Bow: This weapon now grants the wielder increased condition duration and increased healing power.
  • Fiery Greatsword: This weapon now grants the wielder power and condition damage.
  • Magnetic Shield: This weapon now grants the wielder vitality and toughness.
  • Lightning Hammer: This weapon now grants the wielder increased precision and critical damage.

Engineer

  • Elixir
    • Elixir X: This skill now only requires one cast to transform the user.
    • Toss Elixir R: This skill’s recharge is increased from 85 seconds to 120 seconds.
    • Elixir S: This skill is now improved by the Alchemy trait Fast-Acting Elixirs.
  • Tool Kit
    • Box of Nails: This skill now shows its proper area of effect.
    • Gear Shield: This skill now blocks for an extra second.
    • Magnet: This skill’s range has been doubled.
  • Grenades
    • The projectile speed of all grenades has been increased by 10-15%.
    • Grenade: This skill’s damage has been decreased by 10% in PvP only.
    • Shrapnel Grenade: This skill’s damage has been decreased by 15% in PvP only.
    • Freeze Grenade: This skill’s damage has been decreased by 10% in PvP only.
    • Grenade Barrage: This skill’s damage has been decreased by 10% in PvP only. It also now works correctly with the Explosives trait Grenadier while underwater.
  • Turrets
    • Smoke Screen: This skill’s graphic has been updated to show the area of the screen. It now pulses every 2 seconds for 6 seconds instead of every second for 5 seconds. This makes it more effective against enemies using attacks at normal speeds but prevents it from being abused to shut down quick-attacking enemies completely.
    • Automatic Fire: Increased the duration of this skill’s Overcharge by 100% on Harpoon Turret and 25% on Rifle Turret.
    • Electrified Net: Increased the velocity of the Electrified Net by 100%.
    • Thump: Increased the damage of the Overcharged attack by 25%.
  • Bomb Kit, Med Kit, Tool Kit, and Elixir Gun: These skills can now be equipped in the air.
  • All kits can be stowed in the air now.
  • Toss Elixir C: This skill’s cooldown will be set from 60 seconds to 30 seconds when underwater.
  • Elixir Gun’s Fumigate: This skill will now be cancelled when using other skills on the weapon to improve responsiveness.
  • Rocket Turret: This turret can now be detonated underwater.
  • Power Wrench: This trait now applies to Gear Shield and Magnet.
  • Incendiary Powder: This trait now states that it can only trigger once every 3 seconds.
  • Elixir U and Elixir C: These skills have had outdated skill facts removed.
  • Potent Elixirs: This skill no longer grants improper boon durations.
  • Elixir B: This skill grants fury, retaliation, and swiftness for 10 seconds base, with might being applied for 30 seconds base.
  • Smoke Bomb: This skill’s radius has been reduced to 180 from 240 when traited. Smoke Bomb is now active for 4 seconds, pulsing every 2. This change also affects the Autodefense Bomb Dispenser trait.
  • Homing Torpedo: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.
  • Retreating Grapple: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Timed Charge: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Net Wall: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Harpoon Turret: This turret will now spawn at the engineer when the Deployable Turrets trait is equipped.

Guardian

  • Protector’s Strike: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to be cancelled and retain the blocking benefits.
  • Shield of Judgment: This skill’s protection duration has been set to 3 seconds from 5 seconds in PvP only.
  • Courageous Return: This trait now uses the correct icon.
  • Power of the Virtuous: This trait now uses the correct icon.
  • Orb of Light: This skill’s velocity has been increased by 50%.
  • Empower: This skill’s might duration increased from 8 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Selfless Daring: This trait had an efficiency with healing power that was reserved for healing skills only and has now been reduced to its intended level. Heal scaling has been reduced by 50% in PvP only.
  • Merciful Intervention: This skill has been updated to be instant when traited and will now always be based around the guardian.

Mesmer

  • Moa Morph: Targets transformed by this skill have 5 new and less-frustrating skills, and this skill can also be used underwater to turn enemies into tuna. This skill now removes Death Shroud from the target instead of the necromancer being stuck in Death Shroud.
  • Portal: This skill’s recharge has been increased to 90 seconds.
  • Illusionary Duelist, Phantasmal Swordsman, Phantasmal Mage, Phantasmal Defender, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Phantasmal Rogue, Phantasmal Warlock, Illusionary Mariner, Illusionary Whaler, Phantasmal Berserker, and Phantasmal Warden: These skills must now be cast in line-of-sight of the target. These skills now behave as normal attacks that the mesmer must connect in order to summon the phantasm, and they will fail if the mesmer is blind or the ability is cast on an invulnerable target.
  • Phantasmal Mage: This skill’s confusion has been increased to 3 stacks for 3 seconds from 1 stack for 9 seconds. The recharge on Phantasmal Mage’s skill has been increased to 6 seconds from 5 seconds.
  • The Prestige: This skill’s damage has been increased by 100%.
  • Phantasmal Haste: This trait now works.

Necromancer

  • The Soul Reaping trait line now properly increases maximum Life Force.
  • Ghastly Claws: This skill’s damage has been increased by 10% and updated to indicate the correct life force gained.
  • Reaper’s Touch: This skill applies 4 stacks of vulnerability per hit instead of 3.
  • Mark of Blood: This skill now uses the standard staff scythe cast effects.
  • Spectral Wall: This skill now applies its recharge at the correct time instead of both during and after casting.
  • Dark Path: This skill now applies it recharge at the correct time instead of both during and after casting.
  • Spinal Shivers: This skill’s casting effects and audio are now consistent with or without the Spiteful Talisman trait.
  • Soul Marks and Mark of Revival: These traits now work together to grant 3% life force to players when triggered.
  • Death Nova: This skill now properly activates when using Taste of Death and Putrid Explosion. The internal cooldown has been removed. This skill’s field duration is now 4 seconds, and the rate it pulses has been increased to every 2 seconds. Its poison duration is 5 seconds per pulse.
  • Weakening Shroud: This trait now functions underwater.
  • Mark of Evasion: This trait is no longer a blast finisher when the mark is created.
  • Plague Blast: This skill’s casting time has been reduced.
  • Death Shroud: Moa Morph now removes Death Shroud from the target instead of the necromancer being stuck in Death Shroud and using their entire bar while in the transform.
  • Deadly Catch: This skill now pulls enemies to the necromancer in a reliable fashion.
  • Summon Blood Fiend: The Blood Fiend’s survivability has been increased, and its attack now heals the necromancer for 200% of its previous heal.
  • Spectral Walk: This skill now sets its underwater slot appropriately on recharge.
  • Corrosive Poison Cloud: This skill’s duration tooltip has been corrected.
  • Frozen Abyss: This skill now lists the vulnerability it applies.
  • Spectral Grasp: This skill’s projectile velocity has been increased by 33%.
  • Lich Form: Leaving this skill now removes stability from the player to make the removal consistent with all other transform elites.
  • Feast: This skill no longer causes damage to the necromancer.
  • Sinking Tomb: This skill now has a correct range of 1200, cannot hit targets above the water, and has to hit the target to cause the sink effect.
  • Vampiric Precision, Vampiric Rituals, and Vampiric: These traits have been updated so that they don’t heal enemies when in lower-level areas.
  • Signet of Spite: This skill’s description now indicates all conditions applied.

Ranger

  • Improved the effect chance on ranger spirits to 35% base and 50% when traited.
  • Beastmastery minor traits now use the correct icon.
  • Splinter Shot: This skill’s damage is increased by 150%, and its bleeding duration is increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
  • Counterattack: The blocking portion of this skill can now be used while moving. Ranged attacks will not trigger the second half of the skill.
  • Protecting Screech: This skill now states the correct duration of 4 seconds.
  • Call of the Wild: The Wilderness Survival trait Off-Hand Training now applies to this skill.
  • Throw Torch: The speed of the projectile has been increased.
  • Maul: This skill’s damage has been increased by 40%.
  • Sun Spirit: The tooltip for this skill now displays the proper burning time of 3 seconds.
  • Whirling Defense: This skill was updated so that it interacts better with combo fields.
  • Splinter Shot: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.
  • Coral Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Feeding Frenzy: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Mercy Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.

Thief

  • Piercing Shot: Fixed an error in this skill’s damage tooltip.
  • Dancing Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 50%.
  • Blinding Powder: This skill’s recharge has been reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds.
  • Smoke Screen: This skill’s height has been increased to help it absorb projectiles.
  • Shadowstep: This skill is temporarily disabled underwater to keep players from circumventing walls when using it.
  • Tactical Strike: This skill’s damage has been increased by 10% in all formats. This skill’s daze duration has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvP.
  • Leeching Venoms: This trait now scales based on the thief’s power.
  • Cluster Shot: This skill’s damage is reduced by 15% in PvP.
  • Cloak and Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.
  • Body Shot: This skill now allows players to activate other skills sooner after the ability ends.
  • Sneak Attack: This skill will now only apply the Revealed buff on the first attack that hits an opponent.
  • Stab: Damage for this skill has been normalized so that it doesn’t deal less damage from behind the target.
  • Bountiful Theft: This trait no longer applies aegis at odd times.
  • Scorpion Wire: This skill’s range has been increased to 1200.
  • Shadow Trap: This skill no longer shadowsteps the thief when the trap is triggered. This skill now has two additional abilities: The first ability becomes available when Shadow Trap is cast and will destroy the current trap. The second ability, Shadow Pursuit, becomes available when an enemy triggers the trap. The thief may choose to activate this ability and shadowstep to the enemy that triggered the trap. If this ability is not activated after 10 seconds, the ability will fade and Shadow Trap will be available.
  • Piercing Shot: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.
  • Ink Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.

Warrior

  • Dual Shot: This skill’s damage has been increased by 10%.
  • Bull’s Charge: This skill’s range fact now properly reflects the actual range of the skill.
  • Reviver’s Might: This trait now uses the correct icon.
  • Stick and Move: This trait now uses the correct icon.
  • Forceful Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Brutal Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Split Shot: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.
  • Knot Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
  • Repeating Shot: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.
  • Triple Chop: This skill’s responsiveness has been improved.

Racial Abilities
Human

  • Avatar of Melandru: This skill now properly removes stability when players leave the transformation.

Sylvari

  • Grasping Vines: This skill now immobilizes enemies when the vines connect with the enemy.

GW2 Game Status Update: 8th September 2012

Another day, another game update with a nice bunch of fixes, particularly with some storyline steps.

Interestingly, you can now also choose to not be prompted to join your home world if you’re wanting to play on overflow indefinitely.

The update in full:

 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Account Security
Hackers have lists of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and collected through spyware, and are systematically testing Guild Wars 2 looking for matching accounts. To protect yourself, use a strong, unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you’ve never used anywhere else!
When accounts are hacked and then used for botting or spamming ads for gold sales, we ban the accounts until we can return them to their rightful owner. If you login and see the message, “this account has been permanently banned for a violation of the User Agreement,” and if you’re not a gold seller, it’s likely that your account was hacked. Please contact customer support using the instructions below.
If you see email authentication messages in your inbox asking you to approve a login that you didn’t initiate and from someplace you don’t recognize, that’s a sign that a hacker knows your account name and password, and is only being prevented by the email authentication feature from accessing your account. You should immediately change your password to a new, unique password that you’ve never used anywhere else.
You can find more tips for keeping your Guild Wars 2 account secure in this article.
Customer Support
Our customer support team is still prioritizing hacked accounts and other blocking login issues over other types of support requests.
Hacked accounts – If you submit a support ticket for a hacked account, ensure it is properly prioritized by following these instructions. Clearly state that it is a hacked account, and provide as much information as possible, including your account email address, your account display name or character names, and your 25-digit Guild Wars 2 serial code.
Email authentication – Email authentication allows you to approve or deny each login attempt from a new location, which can help protect your account even in the event a hacker discovers your password. However, some customers are finding email authentication messages are being filtered by their email provider or are otherwise having difficulty receiving these messages. You can now turn off email authentication by following these instructions. If you turn it off, be especially sure to use a unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you’ve never used anywhere else.
Password resets – If you’ve lost your password, you can now reset it by following these instructions.
Last Night’s Update
    • Fixed the issue with parties not staying together as they travel into dungeons.
    • Fixed issues with the storyline steps “A Light in the Darkness,” “Estate of Decay,” “Explosive Intellect,” “Rumors of Trouble,” “The Lost Chieftain’s Return,” and “Tribunes in Effigy.”
    • Added an option to stop queueing for your home world, for players who want to remain on an overflow server indefinitely without being asked.
Today’s Back-End Work
    • Fixed PvP tournament rewards.
Tonight’s Update
    • Will add the ability to report in-game mail.
    • Will reset monthly achievements for players who have been stuck at 100%, to help those whose achievements didn’t reset correctly on September 1. (Note that daily achievements reset each day at 00:00 GMT and monthly achievements reset on the first of each month at 00:00 GMT.)
    • Will include fixes for various blocked events and skill challenges.
Reporting exploits
If you discover an emergency game-breaking or economy-breaking bug, do not exploit it, but please notify us immediately at this email address: exploits (at) arena (dot) net. You may also use this email address to report suspected security vulnerabilities. Thank you to everyone who has sent reports. However, note that we cannot respond individually to emails to this address.
Worlds & Overflow
We’re increasing world capacity as necessary to handle all the new players coming into the game.
During this initial surge of high concurrency, and especially while most characters are low-level and thus playing in the same starting areas, it’s common for players to be directed to overflow servers. To play with a friend on a different overflow server, form a party together, then right-click on the friend’s portrait in the party list and click “join”. We expect the use of overflow servers to naturally subside as players spread out more through the world.
Next software updates

The next software update will be tonight at midnight Seattle time. We don’t expect significant downtime; however players may experience some connectivity issues at this time.

GW2 Game Status Update: 6th September 2012

There’s another update on live issues for GW2.

Some are the ongoing account security / customer service areas, but there’s a range of stuff beyond that. The update is replicated in full for you below:

Account Security

Hackers have lists of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and collected through spyware, and are systematically testing Guild Wars 2 looking for matching accounts. To protect yourself, use a strong, unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you’ve never used anywhere else!

Customer Support
Our customer support team is prioritizing hacked accounts and other blocking login issues over other types of support requests.
Hacked accounts – If you submit a support ticket for a hacked account, ensure it is properly prioritized by following these instructions. We’re resolving prioritized hacked account tickets within 72 hours. If you have an older hacked account ticket that has not been resolved, it may not be properly prioritized, or the ticket may not contain enough information for us to address it quickly. Please update your existing ticket, clearly state that this is a hacked account ticket, and provide as much information as possible, including your account email address, your account display name or character names, and your 25-digit Guild Wars 2 serial code.
Email authentication – We will soon provide a secure method on our web site for customers who are having trouble with email authentication to disable it for their accounts. We ask that you use this new self-help system, and only submit a support ticket if that doesn’t work for you.
Password resets – We will soon provide a secure method on our web site for customers who have lost their passwords or whose passwords aren’t working to reset their passwords. We ask that you use this new self-help system, and only submit a support ticket if that doesn’t work for you.
Support forums – The official support forums are now online, and we have a new forum for players helping other players.
Trading Post
The Trading Post is now available to all players. Items and gold deliveries that have been delayed should arrive soon. Please check your “pick up” tab.
Parties & Guilds
We’re working on capacity constraints causing issues with parties and guild functionality, including symptoms such as party members not appearing on the map, parties not staying together as they travel between maps or into dungeons, and guild manipulation not working. We deployed fixes in last night’s update and will deploy additional fixes in tonight’s update.
Note that guild upgrades and guild influence are world-specific. If you move your account to a new world, you’ll see the upgrades and influence that your guild has on that new world, not the upgrades and influence you previously saw on the old world.
PvP Tournament rewards
We’re still working on the issue with missing PvP tournament rewards.
World v. World event rewards
Event rewards for Dolyak caravan escort events in World v. World will be disabled until further notice.
Storyline steps
In tonight’s software update we will fix issues with the storyline steps “Fury of the Dead”, “Grisly Shipment”, and “In The Ruins”.
Downed mode camera
In tonight’s software update we will improve the downed mode camera to maintain a more consistent distance taking race into account.
Reporting exploits
If you discover an emergency game-breaking or economy-breaking bug, do not exploit it, but please notify us immediately at this email address: exploits (at) arena (dot) net. You may also use this email address to report suspected security vulnerabilities. Thank you to everyone who has sent reports. However, note that we cannot respond individually to emails to this address.
Worlds & Overflow
We’re increasing world capacity as necessary to handle all the new players coming into the game.
During this initial surge of high concurrency, and especially while most characters are low-level and thus playing in the same starting areas, it’s common for players to be directed to overflow servers. To play with a friend on a different overflow server, form a party together, then right-click on the friend’s portrait in the party list and click “join”. We expect the use of overflow servers to naturally subside as players spread out more through the world.
Next software updates
We’ll perform a significant update tonight at midnight Seattle time, during which the game will be unavailable for approximately one hour.

We’ll perform maintenance on the Guild Wars 2 wiki tomorrow night, during which time the wiki will be unavailable for approximately one hour.

GW2 Game Status Update: 3rd September 2012

ArenaNet remain on the front foot with the update on issues in-game. This update is larger than the last one and covers off in detail the email authentication issues, customer support, guilds, overflow servers and the dearth of official forums.

You can read it all right here:

 

Monday, September 3, 2012

Account Security
Hackers have lists of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and collected through spyware, and are systematically testing Guild Wars 2 looking for matching accounts.
To protect yourself, use a strong, unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you’ve never used anywhere else!
Today a Guild Wars related fan site announced that its account database has been breached. That’s important but just one of many apparent breaches of other games and web sites that hackers have been collecting email addresses and passwords from. Protect yourself by using a unique password for each game and web site account you care about, and especially be sure to use a unique password for your Guild Wars 2 account.
Customer Support
Our customer support team is prioritizing hacked accounts and other blocking login issues over other types of support requests. If you submit a support ticket for a hacked account, ensure it is properly prioritized by following these instructions.
We have now completed prioritized requests submitted prior to Saturday, September 1. If you have an older ticket that has not been completed, that means it’s not correctly prioritized. Submit a new ticket using the above instructions, and in the title write, “Hacked Account – Ticket submitted August xx – Ticket number xxxxxx-xxxxxx” (fill in the date and ticket number of your existing ticket), and we will prioritize your existing ticket.
In the past 24 hours we helped 2,574 players with hacked accounts and 2,867 players with other blocking login issues get back into the game.
Email Authentication
Once you validate your account email address, we help protect you from attempted account hacking (even if the hacker guesses your password) by sending you an email every time you attempt to login from a new location, asking you to approve or deny the login attempt. Keep in mind, if you receive an email asking you to approve or deny a login attempt and you didn’t make that login attempt, that means a hacker knows your password. Change your password immediately.
Be sure not to flag an email authentication message as spam; if you do, your email provider may prevent future email authentication messages from reaching you.
If email authentication is preventing you from logging in, contact our customer support team following these instructions and we’ll disable it for your account.
Reset Password
We will leave “reset password” disabled until further notice. We don’t want to allow hackers who compromise an email account to use that email account to steal the associated Guild Wars 2 game account. If you forget your password, please contact customer support.
Network Connectivity Issues
We experienced network connectivity issues today between our North American and European data centers, which caused intermittent errors with login, character creation and deletion, and guild manipulation. These issues should now be resolved.
Parties & Guilds
We’ve made progress but still have capacity constraints causing issues with party and guild functionality, including symptoms such as party members not appearing on the map, parties not staying together as they travel between maps or into dungeons, and guild manipulation not working. We’re working on a fix and will provide a further update tomorrow.
PvP Tournament Rewards
PvP tournament rewards are currently not functioning properly. We’re working on a fix and will provide a further update tomorrow.
Trading Post
We’ve been expanding the Trading Post’s capacity to handle the huge volume of requested trades. After our test yesterday, we’ve been working to resolve some issues reported by players. We expect to have the Trading Post online for all players this evening.
Storyline Steps
In last night’s update we fixed blocking issues with the storyline steps “Stealing Secrets” and “A Grisly Shipment”. We’re preparing to fix issues with “The Battle for Fort Trinity” and “Shell Shock” for tonight’s update.
Worlds & Overflow
We’re increasing world capacity as necessary to handle all the new players coming into the game.
During this initial surge of high concurrency, and especially while most characters are low-level and thus playing in the same starting areas, it’s common for players to be directed to overflow servers. To play with a friend on a different overflow server, form a party together, then right-click on the friend’s portrait in the party list and click “join”. We expect the use of overflow servers to naturally subside as players spread out more through the world.
Forums
Our most important priority at the moment is to ensure that the game runs stably and flawlessly. So as to not create additional demand on our infrastructure and on our programming team, we made the decision not to open the forums until the initial mass influx of players has calmed down a bit.
Reporting exploits
If you discover an emergency game-breaking or economy-breaking bug, do not exploit it, but please notify us immediately at this email address: exploits (at) arena (dot) net. You may also use this email address to report suspected security vulnerabilities. Thank you to everyone who has sent reports. However, note that we cannot respond individually to emails to this address.
Next software updates

We’re making non-disruptive changes throughout the day. We’ll publish the next back-end server update tonight at midnight Seattle time. The game may be unavailable for approximately 20-60 minutes while we perform this update.

Over to you: what do you think of the communication so far and how’s your playing experience been?

GW2 State Of The Game Update: 1st September 2012

ArenaNet have posted the first significant ‘State Of The Game’ update to the official Wiki. There’s a range of interesting stuff mentioned, replicated in full below.

It’s worth taking notice of the password and bot warning in particular. There’s a few bugs/glitches discussed as well, and I have to say I like the overall approach to fix these whilst minimising disruptions.

Here’s all the details:

This is the current status of the most important issues we’re tracking with Guild Wars 2 live service.

Account Security – Protect your account! We’ve seen hackers systematically scan email addresses and passwords harvested from other games, web sites, and trojans to see if they match Guild Wars 2 accounts. We’ve taken steps to protect our players from this, but we need your help too. Make sure that you use a strong, unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you’ve never used anywhere else. For best security, use a unique email address too, and see our blog post for more tips.

Email authentication – We now have email authentication enabled for all players who have validated their email addresses. This feature sends an email whenever it detects a login attempt to your account from a location you haven’t played from before, asking you to allow or deny the login.

We’ve learned of an incompatibility between email authentication and older versions of Internet Explorer. We’re working on a fix, which we expect to deploy tomorrow.

If you’re not receiving account verification emails or account authentication emails, please check your junk/spam folders, and add noreply@guildwars2.com to your safe senders list.

Parties, guilds, etc. – We’ve made significant fixes to parties and guilds. However, you may still see intermittent outages. These outages cause symptoms such as party members not appearing on the map, party members not staying in the same overflow servers as they travel between maps, and guild invites not working.

Trading Post – Yesterday we opened the Trading Post for a random, rotating 50% of users. After gathering data from yesterday’s tests, we applied a number of fixes and performance improvements, and are preparing a larger-scale test today.

Tournament Rewards – We believe we’ve addressed the problem with tournament chests not appearing. Let us know if you still see any issues with this.

World v. World – We’re aware the world v. world matches have not been resetting properly. We’re preparing an update to fix this. Once the issue is fixed, we’ll start running 24-hour matches to balance servers.

Worlds – We added three new worlds in Europe yesterday, three new worlds in America today, and increased the population limits on all worlds.

Overflow – During this initial surge of high concurrency, and especially while most characters are low-level and thus playing in the same starting areas, it’s common for players to be directed to overflow servers. If you want to play with a friend, but you’re not on the same overflow servers, you can form a party together, then right-click on your friend’s portrait in the party list and click “join”.

We expect the use of overflow servers to naturally subside as players spread out more through the world.

Botting – We suspended accounts of 750 players running bots. We’re ramping up and will soon apply permanent bans for cases of substantial botting.

Exploits – If you discover an exploit in the game, do not exploit it or publicize it, but instead please notify us immediately at this new email address: exploits (at) arena (dot) net.

Forums – Our most important priority at the moment is to ensure that the game runs stably and flawlessly. So as to not create additional demand on our infrastructure and on our programming team, we made the decision not to open the forums until the initial mass influx of players has calmed down a bit.

Wiki – We increased wiki server capacity to address issues users are seeing. We plan to start posting these updates to the wiki, as long as the wiki can handle the traffic.

Next software updates – We’re making non-disruptive changes throughout the day. We’ll publish the next back-end server update tonight at midnight Seattle time. The game may be unavailable for approximately 20-60 minutes while we perform this update.

Over to you: are you still having a great GW2 playing experience, and are any frustrations covered off in the above info for you?