Game updates/2021-01-19

January 19, 2021

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Update - January 19, 2021

New Release: Champions Chapter 2—Power

Beset by the rampaging forces of Primordus, Tyria's defenders face an uneasy ceasefire with Jormag. As the conflict grows, makeshift alliances will be tested as the Elder Dragons gather their strength. Face the conflict head-on and become the champion Tyria needs in the second chapter of The Icebrood Saga's climactic finale.

• Four new Dragon Response Missions are now available. Note that these missions will contain spoilers for the Champions story if you play them before they occur in your Story Journal.
• As the war in the depths crashes to the surface, old allies return to welcome new heroes to their fight. The Deldrimor dwarves, stone-formed enemy of the destroyers, are marshaling in the Eye of the North. Complete daily achievements on their behalf to aid their efforts and earn rewards. As the world completes tiers of progress, everyone who helped will earn extra rewards from their representative, Ogden Stonehealer.
• Completing all 3 initial objectives in a Dragon Response Mission will now immediately progress the mission to the next event.
• Dragon Response Missions will no longer close when the party leader leaves the instance.
  • As a side effect, the quest log is currently not shown in private instances of Dragon Response Missions. Quest progress is still gained on completion, and the display issue is under investigation.
• Dragon Response Mission boundaries will now uniformly push players back rather than eject players if they were in a private mission.
• The baseline health for champion-level enemies in Dragon Response Missions has been standardized to set a more even experience across the missions. Some champions will have slightly lower health, and some will have slightly more or be unchanged.
• The health scaling and damage reduction modifiers granted by the Challenging effect in Dragon Response Missions have been adjusted. With the relevant challenge modes active, groups of 5 players will see a small decrease in enemy durability, while smaller groups will see a more pronounced decrease and more consistent curve in difficulty based on party size.

General

Spirit shards were designed as an end-game currency that fuels player interactions with the Mystic Forge. Whether this is for promoting materials, generating unique equipment, or working toward a Legendary item, the spirit shard cost reflects a time investment spent engaging in gameplay. Over the years we have monitored the acquisition of spirit shards, and we have come to a determination that allowing them to drop from champion loot bags has both devalued them as a currency and also created restrictions on how we use champions in encounters. For these reasons, we have made the decision to remove spirit shards from the drop tables of champion loot bags. They will still be available from every other existing source, and we will be closely monitoring how this change affects the game's economy.

• Removed spirit shards as a potential drop from champion loot bags.
• The item filters in the Trading Post now support attribute filtering for Concentration and Expertise.

Items

Some items are becoming tradable. For the following notes regarding items becoming tradable, existing account-bound items will remain bound, but items acquired after updating the client will be unbound. Updated materials can be unbound by depositing them into material storage.

• Crafted exotic equipment with the following attribute prefixes is now tradable:
  • Celestial
  • Commander's
  • Crusader
  • Grieving (trinkets only, as there are no crafted exotic weapons or armor with this attribute prefix)
  • Marauder
  • Minstrel's
  • Nomad's
  • Seraph (armor and weapons only, as there are no crafted exotic trinkets with this attribute prefix)
  • Sinister
  • Trailblazer's
  • Vigilant
  • Viper's
  • Wanderer's
  • Zealot's
• Many account-bound non-ascended food consumables are now tradable.
• Account-bound sharpening stones, maintenance oils, and focusing crystals are now tradable.
• Exquisite Serpentite Jewels are now tradable.
• Exquisiter[sic] Serpentite Jewels now have a rare chance to drop from dragon crystal nodes in Thunderhead Peaks and the home instance.
• Increased the drop rate of Maguuma Lilies from Jungle Plants.
• Aetherblade enemies now have a chance to drop Watchwork Sprockets directly, in addition to Blade Shards.
• The Watchwork Mechanism now requires 250 Watchwork Sprockets to craft, down from 500.
• Linseed oil now requires 15 piles flax seeds to craft, down from 20.
• The Celestial Orichalcum Imbued Inscription now requires 2 Charged Quartz Crystals to craft, down from 5.
• The Celestial Intricate Gossamer Insignia now requires 2 Charged Quartz Crystals to craft, down from 5.
• The base crafting time for cloth, metal, wood, and leather refinement has been reduced to 1 second, down from 2 seconds.
• Many sources in Living World Season 4 and Icebrood Saga maps that drop Gold Doubloons now have a chance to drop Silver, Gold, or Platinum Doubloons.
• Increased the drop rate of the Charged Quartz Orichalcum Amulet, which contains the Chak Egg Sac from the Gerent's Chest.
• Increased the drop rate of the Festive Confetti Infusion from the "Stop the choya pinata before it gets away" event's bonus chest.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the aura effect of the Festive Confetti Infusion from displaying properly.
• Significantly increased the drop rate of the Heart of the Khan-Ur infusion from the "Recovered" Charr Artifact.
• Some adjustments have been made to the sorting of items in material storage to align related items more closely.
• The Wooden Plank consumable item is no longer usable in dungeons or fractals.
• The content preview of Faction Supply Boxes available from Eye of the North vendors now shows the minimum quantities of materials available.
• Prismatium Ingots are now tradeable.

Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store

New Items and Promotions

• To celebrate the next chapter of The Icebrood Saga, one free Primordus Dye Kit and one free Jormag Dye Kit are available for a limited time in the Style category of the Gem Store.
• The new Ice Reaver Greaves Skin is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 400 gems.
• For a limited time, the Sacred Pegasus Griffon Skin, War-Torn Marauder Warclaw Skin, and Infernal Horror Springer Skin are available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 1,200 gems, a savings of 40%.
• For a limited time, the Wild Trihorn Raptor Skin and Mordrem Alpha Jackal Skin are available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 960 gems each, a savings of 40%.
• The Mistlock Sanctuary Passkey has returned to the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 1,000 gems for a limited time.
• Jora's Outfit has returned to the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems for a limited time.

Improvementsand[sic] Updates

• Glider skins can now be unlocked in PvP and raids.

Bug Fixes

• When purchased using Miniature Claim Tickets, the Mini Aetherblade Admiral, Mini Molten Berserker, Mini Toxic Warlock, and Mini Kookoochoo the Incredulous now reward the mini itself rather than consumable items.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Unbound Harvesting Sickle, Volatile Harvesting Sickle, and Frostbitten Orichalcum Harvesting Sickle from creating bonus gathering rewards.

Mac Client

Gem purchases from the Gem Store have been disabled. Read more.

• EN: An update on Mac support for Guild Wars 2
• DE: Neues zur Mac-Unterstützung für Guild Wars 2
• ES: Noticias sobre nuestro soporte en Mac para Guild Wars 2
• FR: Informations à propos de Guild Wars 2 sur Mac

Guild Wars 2 Wiki Notes

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