Guild Wars 2 – March 19, 2024 Patch Notes | New Features and Fixes

03/19/2024—March 19 Release Notes

Note to users of third-party programs: The game may not launch or work properly after we release a new build if you use a third-party program, due to possible incompatibilities. ArenaNet cannot offer support if a third-party modification breaks, interferes with, or prevents you from playing Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Our policy regarding third-party programs can be found here.

General

• Added new custom postprocessing options to the Graphics Options menu. This allows new, finer control over what postprocessing effects are active.
• Optimized loading times between starting the game and getting to the character selection screen. Load times are improved by approximately 3 seconds, depending on your hardware configuration.
• Updated 11 item converters to use the vendor interface, allowing these to draw directly from players' banks in addition to their inventories:
  • Candy Corn Gobbler
  • Herta
  • Mawdrey II
  • Princess
  • Star of Gratitude
  • Sentient Aberration
  • Sentient Anomaly
  • Sentient Oddity
  • Shards of Glory Converter
  • Memory Gobbler
  • Spearmarshal's Plea
• Fixed an issue that could cause fashion prompts during the April Fools' fashion shows in Lion's Arch to end if the show went for long enough.
• Prospective contestants will now be moved to the audience area between fashion shows.
• Cheering skills in fashion shows now grant the contestant on stage an escalating amount of approval from the judges based on the skill used.
• The Noblesse Oblige Mastery, which increases revive speed and removes downed penalties on a successful revive, will no longer remove downed penalties in Strike Mission and raid challenge mode encounters. This will help maintain the intended difficulty level of these encounters by reinstating some penalties for ignoring encounter mechanics.

Amnytas

• Moved the Starlight Lantern from inside the Great Debate Hall to outside the Great Debate Hall.
• Removed the experience and karma consumables from the silver map meta-event progress chests awarded during the Defense of Amnytas meta-event. The rewards have been adjusted to compensate for this change.

Inner Nayas

• Moved a Greater Arcane Chest in Nyedra, Dreamer's Sanctum, to a location where players would not get stuck.
• Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause hylek to join the Kryptis.

Strike Missions

Temple of Febe Challenge Mode

We reduced the overall enemy health of the Temple of Febe Challenge Mode to make the fight accessible to more players. We will be monitoring the Strike Mission to ensure that this brings it to the desired level of challenge, and we are ready to make more changes if it still remains more difficult than intended. To give players the ability to experience and try to defeat the fight in its original form, we have added an option to the challenge mote to activate a legendary challenge. Players who had defeated Cerus before this change, or players who defeat him with the legendary challenge mode active, will earn a new Legendary Conqueror of Cerus title to demonstrate this feat.

• Changed the empowered Envious Gaze skill to not steal quickness and alacrity.
• Fixed an issue that could cause projectiles to be obstructed when attacking an embodiment in the split phase if that embodiment was active during the phase transition.
• Fixed an issue in which selecting an option from the challenge mote did not reset the encounter if the event was already in progress.

Cosmic Observatory Challenge Mode

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Precision Anxiety achievement to be rewarded even if the entire party did not meet the requirements.

Structured Player vs. Player

• A new achievement category, Profession Achievements, has been added to the PvP section of the Achievements panel.
• New tiers of champion Profession Achievements have been added to the Profession Achievements category in the PvP section, each with a new title. Players can progress these achievements with their current PvP ranked wins by traveling to the Heart of the Mists.
• A new achievement named True Dragon has been added. Players who are PvP Rank 469 or higher will complete this achievement upon entering the Heart of the Mists.

World vs. World

• Nine new tiers of the Realm Avenger achievement have been added to the WvW section of the Achievements panel. Each tier comes with a new variant of the Ultimate Dominator title that reflects the number of players that you've defeated (e.g., Ultimate Dominator II). Players can progress these new achievements with their current kill counts by traveling to Eternal Battlegrounds, Alpine Borderlands, or Desert Borderlands maps.
• The Siege Disabler trick has been updated and renamed to Siege Disruptor. Siege Disruptors will now reduce outgoing siege damage by 66%, and they will cause affected siege devices to take 66% increased damaged for the duration. Golems will still have their skills disabled for the duration.
• We're modernizing the loadouts of keep lords with the addition of a new healing skill that aids objective defenders in combat, giving the lord a more active role in battle. Keep lords in Alpine Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds will now have a channeled healing skill at 75% and 25% health thresholds. Their defiance bars will only be available at these health thresholds and can be broken in order to prevent the skill from being fully channeled. We will be closely monitoring player feedback to determine if the skill should be introduced to castle and tower lords as well.
• New 24, 28, and 32 slot bags can be purchased from outfitters in WvW. These bags have also been added to the Ascended League Vendors in PvP.

Items

• Removed the April Fools' event requirement from the Chatoyant Elixir.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Expedition Cape to not have an upgrade slot.
• The items needed to progress the Astral Ward Arsenal achievement sold by the Heroics Notary vendor no longer require the player to type out the name of the items to safely discard them.

Profession Skills

General

New Changes

• Relic of Fireworks: Fixed an issue that could cause some projectile skills to not trigger this relic.
• Relic of Ice: This relic can now only strike the intended missile targets. Reduced the power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 in WvW only.

Elementalist

This release includes some updates to arcane skills. Arcane Blast and Arcane Wave have a bit too much overlap with each other, and we wanted to give Arcane Wave a more unique identity by adding a movement component. We've also reworked and renamed the Elemental Surge trait, giving it some more powerful bonuses to individual skills instead of all of them inflicting bonus conditions.

New Changes

• Pistol: Fixed an issue that caused skills to not properly use legendary weapon effects. Elemental bullets are no longer lost when using a conjured weapon or while gliding.
• (March 19 Balance Update Preview)
• Water Trident: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.25 in PvP and WvW.
• Updraft: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to display a warning area for allies.
• Flame Uprising: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to inflict less burning than intended in PvP and WvW.
• Polaric Leap: Reduced the cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Earthen Vortex: Reduced the cooldown from 18 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Rust Frenzy: Players can now move while casting this skill.
• Arcane Brilliance: This skill now grants additional healing when used as a combo finisher.
• Arcane Power: This skill no longer grants bonuses to allies. This skill now grants a flat amount of ferocity for 5 seconds instead of the ferocity bonus being linked to the critical-strike stacks. Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Arcane Wave: This skill now leaps to the targeted area before dealing damage and now dazes enemies that it strikes. Reduced the range from 900 to 600. Reduced the attack radius from 360 to 240. Increased the power coefficient from 0.6 to 1.7 in PvP and WvW. Reduced the ammunition recharge time from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvE only.
• Elemental Surge: This trait has been renamed to Arcane Lightning. This trait no longer causes arcane skills to inflict conditions and instead enhances each arcane skill as follows:
  • Arcane Brilliance: Grants protection to the user.
  • Arcane Wave: Immobilizes enemies that it strikes.
  • Arcane Shield: Grants stability to the user when the shield expires.
  • Arcane Power: Grants additional critical-strike stacks to the user.
  • Arcane Blast: Blinds enemies that it strikes.
• One with Air: Increased the superspeed duration from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP. This trait still grants a reduced superspeed duration in PvP when the Fresh Air trait is equipped.
• Aquamancer's Training: Increased the outgoing healing modifier from 15% to 20%.

Tempest

New Changes

• Tempestuous Aria: Lowered the condition-damage increase from 10% to 5% in PvE only.
• (March 19 Balance Update Preview)
• "Wash the Pain Away!": Increased the radius of the first pulse from 180 to 240 and the radius of the second pulse from 240 to 360.
• Lucid Singularity: This trait now applies might instead of alacrity in PvP and WvW.
• Elemental Bastion: Increased the healing coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in WvW only.

Weaver

(March 19 Balance Update Preview)

• Bolstered Elements: This trait now causes stances to grant protection instead of barrier.