Sky Pirates of Tyria!!

June 25, 2013

Chaos has come to Lion’s Arch and the culprits responsible for the mayhem have holed up in their hideout! Inspector Ellen Kiel spearheaded the investigation into the murder, and she’s now gathering teams of deputies to capture the perpetrator. Better sharpen your weapons and skills—this criminal promises to be a slippery eel

Events

• New Story Dungeon: Aetherblade Retreat – June 25-July 9

  Find the hidden entrance to the Aetherblade base and take the fight to the pirates! It’ll take skill, courage, and no small measure of agility to battle your way to the Aetherblade Captain and First Mate.

• Developer Livestream – June 24 at 12PM PDT

  Take an inside look at the Sky Pirates of Tyria release with ArenaNet devs during the preview livestream on our Twitch channel on Monday, June 24 at 12PM PDT.

• New Guild Wars Novel: Sea of Sorrows – Available June 25

  We’re proud to announce Sea of Sorrows, the third original Guild Wars novel by Ree Soesbee!Sea of Sorrows follows the thrilling adventures of young Cobiah Marriner, founder of the reborn city of Lion’s Arch.
  Buy the Book >

• Sea of Sorrows Scavenger Hunt—Begins June 25

  In this new permanent content, retrace the steps of Cobiah Marriner. Twelve plaques have been set up to honor the history of the city and its founder. You can find clues to the plaques’ locations in Sea of Sorrows. Complete the scavenger hunt to earn five skill points.

• Aetherblade “Not So Secret” Jumping Puzzle – Begins July 1

  Introducing a new, permanent jumping puzzle! An Aetherblade airship is hidden inside a holographic mountain – find your way in, fight with the pirates inside, and prove your prowess using a pair of hard-to-find diving goggles.

Rewards

Track Down Aetherblade Caches! – June 25-July 9

The Aetherblade pirates have hidden caches of plunder around the world in hard-to-reach locations. Scout them out to take a share of treasure and earn special achievements.

Mini First Mate Horrik

Commemorate your struggle against the Sky Pirates of Tyria with this fierce, cannon-wielding miniature companion. Finish the Against the Aetherblades achievement to win a little First Mate Horrik for your very own.

 

 

Monocle

Players who face down the deadly Aetherblade Captain will have a chance at a new, stylish Monocle. This dandy piece of Headgear is combat-ready, tradeable, and full of sophistication!

Aetherized Rewards

Your journeys through the Aetherblade Retreat will earn you a chance for items like rare salvageable materials or a new infinite tonic recipe in addition to guaranteed rare item rewards. Enduring the trials of the Not So Secret jumping puzzle will win you a set of exotic shoulderpads.

New Items in the Gem Store

• Last Chance to Get Dragon Bash Items!

  The Dragon Bash items won’t be in the Gem Store forever – you only have until July 8 to pick up a Fireworks Launcher or some Rich Dragon Coffers! Rich Dragon Coffers hold tasty candy and a chance at fireworks or rare drops like Dragon’s Jade Weapon skins or a mini Holographic Risen Knight. The Dragon Bash Mini Pack is also leaving the Gem Store soon; it won’t be available after July 15, so be sure to pick up your holographic companions before then!

New Features

• Skill and Trait Balance Update

  We’re introducing our largest balance patch ever in this build, which includes significant updates to traits and skills to introduce more viable build diversity. Every single profession trait line is seeing changes and we’ve also made updates to some less popular skills to improve their effectiveness.
  Learn More

   

  

• Custom Arenas and Spectator Mode are out of Beta!

  Custom PvP arenas allow players to host private matches and customize their map settings. This feature is leaving beta, which means that Custom Arena Starter Kits will be available for anyone to purchase in the Gem Store. Spectator Mode is also officially out of beta – together, these two features allow for practice, competitive play, and tournaments!

• Mortar Mastery Joins the Growing List of World vs World Abilities!

  Players can increase their mortar effectiveness by training in Mortar Mastery. Improvements in this line include increasing mortar blast radius, beefing up on damage, reducing skill recharge, and even adding a new skill, Mortar Barrage!

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Upcoming Skill and Trait Changes

Upcoming Skill and Trait Changes

by Jonathan Sharp on June 20, 2013

Hey folks, it’s Chap again! There are a lot of changes coming in this release, and I wanted to explain the thought processes behind some of them. Today I’ll be joined by Karl and Roy, two members of our skill and balance team!

Build diversity

One of the things we’ve focused on is making sure that each class has more build diversity. To do this, we revised some traits, combined others, and in some cases, removed certain traits completely and added new ones in their place.

We also looked at small skill revisions and number balances to boost the power of specific skills, weapons, and traits. When possible, we try very hard not to take away too much potency from popular builds because we know that a lot of people enjoy them – but occasionally we do need to bring some abilities down in power. Why don’t we just increase the power of weaker skills to match the most popular ones? Well, the problem is that then we get into something called power creep; the power of all builds and classes keeps rising as we keep making improvements, which causes instability in game balance.

And now I’ll leave it to Karl and Roy to get into more detail about some specific changes you’ll be seeing in the world of Tyria after this release!

Hello fellow Tyrians! I’m Karl McLain, a game designer involved in skill development and balance, and I’m here to tell you about some of the cool stuff that we’ve been working on for this release.

Trait Changes

First off, we’ve got a ton of trait changes coming up. Many traits that were less than desirable have been brought up in effectiveness, while others have been shuffled around and merged together to make room for new traits to be introduced. In doing this, we’ve created several new grandmaster traits for quite a few trait lines. For example: elementalists have a new grandmaster Air trait that allows them to recharge their air attunement, necromancers now have access to the burning condition, and warriors will have an option to remove conditions when using burst abilities.

With these changes in mind, we are going to be making a few builds a little harder to achieve due to their extreme effectiveness. Some traits will go up in tier while increasing in potency to promote build variation.

Necromancer Death Shroud 5

As the professions in Guild Wars 2 continue to grow, we will continue to find ways to augment them and add potency to their arsenal of abilities. With the next balance update, necromancers will be unlocking their fifth ability within Death Shroud: Tainted Shackles. This skill will cause nearby enemies to be inflicted with conditions and controlled if they don’t take very quick action.

New condition

With the introduction of Tainted Shackles, we’ll also be adding a new condition to the game: Torment. This condition is designed to play around with movement, one of our fundamental combat mechanics. Enemies under Torment will take damage periodically; as they move, they’ll take even more damage. In looking to expand the condition diversity of thieves and mesmers, we decided to include Torment skills for those two professions as well.

Hey everyone, I’m Roy Cronacher, and I’m a Game Designer on the balance team. I’ll be discussing the upcoming changes to the Weakness condition as well as some of our larger skill changes.

Weakness condition change

We have a very interesting change coming to Weakness condition. Currently, Weakness decreases endurance regeneration and causes non-critical hits to have a chance to become glancing blows. We wanted this condition to punish spike damage, but it was a bit underwhelming because critical hits, which are essential to spike damage, have previously bypassed Weakness’s effect. Weakness will now cause all hits, both critical and non-critical, to have a chance to become a glancing blow. We went through and rebalanced a lot of the weakness durations for this change. We think this change will make the condition more meaningful and give it much more play.

Stun Breakers

As mentioned above, a lot of our skill changes were made to promote more build diversity in each profession. One key area we looked at was the accessibility of stun breakers. Many professions have been limited to playing one or two certain builds because stun breakers were limited to certain types of utility skills. In some utility skill types, stun breakers were over-abundant; in others, they were non-existent. We removed some and spread them out across more utility types. For example, the elementalist’s stun breakers have always been loaded up on cantrips, so we spread some out to the other categories like glyphs and signets. This way most builds have at least one viable stun breaker.

Closing

So that’s it! Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out the patch notes for the details on all of the incoming changes! We tried to give all the classes in Guild Wars 2 some great changes to less-used skills, traits, and weapons!

See you in game!

Guild Wars 2 ,June Event




June 11, 2013

Dragon Bash

June 11, 2013

Lion’s Arch honors the defiant spirit of its citizenry with the rousing Dragon Bash festival, when revelers laugh in the face of fear! Sponsored by the Captain’s Council of Lion’s Arch, Dragon Bash is a month-long celebration packed with all-new activities, fireworks, exclusive rewards, and surprises galore! The festival begins on June 11 and ends on July 9.

Show no fear – Dragon Bash is here!

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Dragon Bash Events

• Dragon Bash Activities in Lion’s Arch – Begins June 11

  Lion’s Arch is the bustling epicenter of the Dragon Bash festivities. The Captain’s Council has spared no expense in decorating this proud, battered city, as evidenced by the giant holographic dragon harmlessly soaring overhead.

• Bash the Dragon! – Begins June 11

  Look for holographic projectors scattered all across Tyria during the celebration. These mini-projector devices contain hologram minions which can drop a Dragon Bash surprise… a Dragon Coffer! Starting June 18, you’ll also find dragon effigies all across Tyria during Dragon Bash. Perform a ritual dance and light the effigy to receive a temporary boost!

• Developer Livestream – June 10 at 12PM PDT

  Take an inside look at Dragon Bash with ArenaNet devs during the livestream on ourTwitch channel on Monday, June 10 at 12PM PDT.

• Dragon Ball – Begins June 11

  The ancient Tyrian pastime of Dragon Ball returns! Teams of players test their Dragon Ball skills against one another in this fast-paced game of skill and reflexes. Get ready to dodge!

• Moa Racing – Begins June 11

  Pick the fastest moa! Farshore Ward in Lion’s Arch is the site of fast and furious Moa Racing, where you can bet on your favorite moa racers!

• Dragon Piñatas – Begins June 11

  In major cities around Tyria, you’ll find dragon piñatas strung up in honor of the festival. Break these open to receive tasty Dragon Bash candy!

• Dragon Bash Fireworks – June 14-17

  Watch the skies above Lion’s Arch come alive with an explosive fireworks show every night in-game. The fireworks begin at 9AM PDT on Friday, June 14 and will go off every two hours until 12PM PDT Monday, June 17. Stay through the spectacular finale and receive a unique festival helm – The Horns of the Dragon!

• The Dragon Effigy Lighting Ceremony – Begins June 18

  Join the Captain’s Council and other dignitaries as they light dragon effigies in the Grand Piazza of Lion’s Arch starting June 18. Hosted by the jovial Magnus the Bloody Handed, this ceremony will be full of merriment and surprises.

New Rewards

• Horns of the Dragon

  This unique helm is only available to players who attend an entire fireworks show in Lion’s Arch, which occurs every two hours during the in-game evening from June 14 to June 17.

• Holographic Dragon Wings

  This dragon wing back item is only available as a very rare drop in the Dragon Ball Arena and throughout Tyria during the celebration. Ambitious adventurers who collect a large amount of Dragon Bash candy can obtain these exclusive holographic festival wings.

• Holographic Shattered Dragon Wings

  Dedicated festival goers who earn the Dragon Bash Meta Achievement will receive this imposing back item – a set of holographic Shattered dragon wings!

• Dragon Coffer

  This special reward chest, which drops only during Dragon Bash, is packed with treats and a chance for fireworks, a hologram minion mini, and Dragon’s Jade weapon skins!

• Dragon’s Jade Weapon Skins

  Show your Dragon Bash spirit with these cool new weapon skins with a distinctly draconic look. You can find weapon tickets inside Rich Dragon Coffers and (rarely) in Dragon Coffers, and exchange them for weapon skins from Black Lion Weapon Specialists in every major city!

• Helmed Moa Racer Mini

  You’ll only find this adorable helmed version of the moa mini during Dragon Bash! Purchase this mini with vouchers earned from the Moa Racing activity.

A Guide to Dragon Bash

Wondering how to make the most of your time at Dragon Bash? We’ve created a small guide to help keep you on the right track for this year’s festival.

LEARN MORE

New Gem Store Items

• Rich Dragon Coffer

  Crack open the new Rich Dragon Coffer, a deluxe version of the Dragon Coffer chest which offers a greater chance to receive rare items like holographic minis and the Dragon’s Jade weapon skins! Available only in the Gem Store in the Consumables category.

• Dragon Bash Mini Pack

  This exclusive 3-pack of holographic minis will remind you of the festivities all year long. Available in the Gem Store in the Minis category through the end of Dragon Bash!

New Features in this Release

 

Fight to Keep Your Spot on the PvP Leaderboards

We’ve improved the way that the PvP leaderboards reflect excellence! Inactive players will automatically start to slip down the leaderboards over time, allowing new and active players an opportunity to fight their way up to a higher rank. This means that the leaderboards will more accurately represent the best PvP players.

Authorized Shoutcaster Program

In the new Authorized Shoutcaster Program, when highly rated PvP teams are matched-up in rated play, authorized shoutcasters will receive a notification and be allowed to enter that match as a spectator to bring you the action on a slight time delay.

 

Release Notes