GW2. A complete achievement guide about the seasonal Lunar New Year Festival.
Lunar New Year is a festival taking place around the time of the Chinese New Year. It is inspired by the Chinese representations of luck such as the number 8 and has themes of the 12 zodiac animals. There is a rotation every 12 years with each year representing a specific zodiac animal and people born during those years identify with that animal and its characteristics. There is the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.
In Guild Wars 2, each year of the Lunar New Year Festival provides a different skin for players to unlock corresponding to this year’s zodiac animal. Divine Lucky Envelopes and Little Lucky Envelopes are also a very important part of this festival as they provide players good fortune in the form of gold rewards. Players can buy a limited amount of Divine Lucky Envelopes per day at the vendor in the Crown Pavilion, and coming back every day of the festival to buy more can yield great rewards by the end. Opening these envelopes will always give a profit, but opening them with magic find buffs will yield more rewards.
Lunar New Year (Festivals)
Celestial Challenger – 5AP
Open the Chest of the New Year in the Celestial Challenge in Divinity’s Reach a total of eight times. You can reach the Celestial Challenge by speaking to the NPC at the Crown Pavilion. You must participate in the challenge until the very end when the large chest appears. Each round has six events and each event has a three-minute timer, so it takes at most 18 minutes to do one round.
Celestial Companion – 5AP
Unlock any of the Lucky Great back items available during the festival. You can buy these off the trading post or get them by chance from a lucky envelope. Any of the animals such as the Ram, Ox, Rat, Dog, Boar, and Monkey will suffice.
- Lucky Great Dog Lantern
- Lucky Great Monkey Lantern
- Lucky Great Ram Lantern
- Lucky Great Rooster Lantern
- Lucky Great Boar Lantern
- Lucky Great Rat Lantern
Favored of the Celestials – 10AP
Participate in each event of the Celestial Challenge. Access this from the NPC in the Crown Pavilion in Divinity’s Reach. Each round will represent one of the animals of the Lunar New Year so there is a total of 12 that you need to do. One round of the event will experience six different animal events. Because the rounds of the Celestial Challenge are random, the time it takes to experience all of them will depend on how many you repeat.
Celestial Racer – 5AP
Complete the race event in Divinity’s Reach during the Lunar New Year in under 3 minutes and 30 seconds. This can be easily done using the raptor or jackal mount. The race event will spawn at the Crown Pavilion about every 20 minutes. Completing this will award the Mini Lunar Gourdog.
NOTE: You can also complete this achievement by doing the Time Trial.
Firecracker Finder – 5AP
Find all 10 of the firecrackers around the Crown Pavilion. They are not scattered around the city so they are relatively close together. Their locations can be found here.
Golden Firestarter – 5AP
Earn a gold medal in the Firecracker Lighting adventure at the Crown Pavilion. This is a very lenient adventure to get gold on, but you will need to go through all of the districts of Divinity’s Reach to collect them. Zoom your map in and use a flying mount to accurately find firecrackers. If you don’t have a flying mount, use the Jackal or Raptor until you get below them, and then swap to the Springer. If you mess up during this, just keep going as the timer for gold can be done easily.
NOTE: There are two Firecracker Lighting adventures, you can do any of them to complete this achievement.
Light Up the Sky – 5AP
Set off 100 fireworks. These can be found in lucky envelopes or bought off the trading post. Since this is about quantity not quality, you can buy the cheapest ones to complete this. Search for the Lucky New Year Firework on the trading post.
- Lucky Prismatic Rocket
- Lucky Guild Firework
- Great Guild Firework
- Lunar New Year Firework
- Lucky New Year Firework
- Visage of the Great Dog Firework
- Visage of the Great Ram Firework
- Visage of the Great Monkey Firework
- Visage of the Great Rooster Firework
- Visage of the Great Boar Firework
- Visage of the Great Rat Fireworks
- Visage of the Great Ox Fireworks
Sparking Celebration – 5AP
Set off 8 Great fireworks. Only fireworks that have “Great” on their label will count for this. They can still be just as cheap on the trading post as regular fireworks. Searching for “Visage of the Great” on the trading post will show all of the choices you have, and you can use the cheapest one.
- Visage of the Great Dog Firework
- Visage of the Great Ram Firework
- Visage of the Great Monkey Firework
- Visage of the Great Rooster Firework
- Visage of the Great Boar Firework
- Visage of the Great Rat Fireworks
- Visage of the Great Ox Fireworks
New Year’s Customs (Annual)
(Annual) Lunar New Year Customs – 0AP
This is the meta achievement. You need to complete 5 eligible annual achievements to earn the reward. This year the rewards are a Lantern Chest and the Snaketail Breeches.
(You can obtain the rewards from past years and other stuff by buying them from the “New Year Vendor [Prizes]” NPC)
This year also has a few new rewards, especially three new weapon skins that can be obtained from Sparking Stone NPC.
(Daily) Tyria’s New Year – 0AP
Open the Chest of the New Year in the Celestial Challenge or defeat any champion enemies across Tyria.
This daily achievement will award a Lunar Gift Box which can drop the Firework Weapons (these weapons can be purchased from Trading Post too).
(Weekly) Lunar Festivities – 0AP
Participate in the Firecracker Lightning adventures, lunar mount race, and Celestial Challenge. Progress awarded varies based on the activity.
You can now obtain extra Lantern chests from this achievement.
NOTE: The old Fortunate weapons can be obtained from Trader’s Fortunate Chest from a weekly NPC or trading post.
Best Wishes for the New Year – 100AP
Each time you complete the festival daily achievement 5 times (New Year’s Fortune), you will complete a tier, and earn 10AP and an which contains the Shining Aureate weapon skins and other stuff. This achievement is repeatable up to 100AP.
Once you unlock one of the Shining Aureate weapon skins, you will be able to buy the Fortune-Shining Aureate version of it at the “New Year Weapons [Weapons]” NPC:
(Annual) Celestial Challenger – 0AP
Complete one round of the Celestial Challenge in the Crown Pavilion with enough participation during the events to open the final chest.
(Annual) Celestial Racer – 0AP
Complete the race event in Divinity’s Reach during the Lunar New Year in under 3 minutes and 30 seconds. This can be easily done using the raptor or jackal mount. The race event will spawn at the Crown Pavilion about every 20 minutes.
NOTE: You can also complete this achievement by doing the Time Trial.
(Annual) Firecracker Finder – 0AP
Find all 10 of the firecrackers around the Crown Pavilion. They are not scattered around the city so they are relatively close together. Their locations can be found here.
(Annual) Golden Firestarter – 0AP
Earn a gold medal in the Firecracker Lighting adventure at the Crown Pavilion. This is a very lenient adventure to get gold on, but you will need to go through all of the districts of Divinity’s Reach to collect them. Zoom your map in and use a flying mount to accurately find firecrackers. If you don’t have a flying mount, use the Jackal or Raptor until you get below them, and then swap to the Springer. If you mess up during this, just keep going as the timer for gold can be done easily.
NOTE: There are two Firecracker Lightning adventures, you can do any of them to complete this achievement.
(Annual) Light Up the Sky – 0AP
Set off 100 fireworks. These can be found in lucky envelopes or bought off the trading post. Since this is about quantity not quality, you can buy the cheapest ones to complete this. Search for the Lucky New Year Firework on the trading post.
(Annual) New Year’s Resolution – 0AP
Complete the race event in Divinity’s Reach during the Lunar New Year without using a mount and within 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Bring a class and build with lots of swiftness and mobility such as a shortbow thief or a greatsword warrior.
NOTE: You can also complete this achievement by doing the Time Trial.
Annual Customs – 1000AP (50AP Annual Limited)
Complete the Lunar New Year Customs annual achievement. This will give you 50 AP every year to reward players who make it to every festival.
Celestial Messenger – 25AP
Complete the race event in Divinity’s Reach during the Lunar New Year a total of three times. The race spawns every 20 minutes. This awards a repeatable 5AP so you need to complete it a total of 15 times to reach the 25AP maximum.
NOTE: You can also complete this achievement by doing the Time Trial.
Continual Celestial Challenger – 60AP
Complete the Celestial Challenge eight times. This is repeatable and will give 5AP per eight rounds. At 60 AP maximum, that means 96 rounds of the Celestial Challenge, which at most takes 18 minutes (less if the rounds complete faster) per round. So this requires around 24 hours of play to max out. Granted you need to keep your participation to get credit and it must be done within the duration of the festival this can feel very grindy.
Firework Festival – 25AP
Set off 300 fireworks. Quality does not matter so you can buy the cheapest off the trading post such as the Lucky New Year Firework. This awards 5AP repeatable for a maximum of 25AP. So you will need to set off 1500 fireworks.
New Year’s Benevolence – 25AP
Donate 100 items of Lunar New Year food to the celestial pigs at the north half of the Crown Pavilion. You can repeat this five times for a maximum of 25 AP and 500 total food items. Some Lunar New Year foods are expensive because they are used commonly for their buffs. Generally, the Steamed Red Dumplings, the Spring Rolls, and the Sweet Bean Buns are the cheapest on the trading post. But is that really benevolent?
New Year, New Quaggan – 25AP
Donate 1,000 Essences of Luck to Drooburt on the south end of the Crown Pavilion. This is repeatable for 25AP which will cost a total of 5,000 luck. You can obtain Essences of Luck by opening Lucky Envelopes or by salvaging Globs of Ectoplasm or fine/masterwork gear. Artificers can upgrade but cannot downgrade luck.
Dragon Ball (Festivals)
Total achievements: 5 – 0AP
Dragon Ball is a PvP mini-game that can be accessed by talking to Finolla by the steps at the center of the Crown Pavilion. It is a deathmatch game mode with a determined skill bar that can be improved by finding power-ups. To win you must simply kill other players to reach 500 points. None of the Dragon Ball achievements give AP, but they can reward annual Lucky Envelopes, and winning in Dragon Ball will award Tokens which will allow you to buy more Divine Lucky Envelopes.
Dragon’s Breath (Annual) – 0AP
Gain four Dragon Damage power-ups which can be found in the middle of the map at the bottom on top of rock. This will spawn very rarely.
Dragon’s Gaze (Annual) – 0AP
Interrupt 20 skills using the kick skill which can be obtained near the pipes on each side of the top level of the map.
Dragon’s Heart (Annual) – 0AP
Gain 8,888 health by collecting the blue orbs around the map. You must be missing health to collect them.
Dragon’s Shadow (Annual) – 0AP
Gain five Invisibility power-ups which spawn very rarely on top of the platform hanging in the middle of the map
Dragon Ball Champion – 0AP
Win 10 games of Dragon Ball. This is repeatable to gain a Coffer of the Dragon Ball Champion, which gives Little Lucky Envelopes, some rare gear, and a token to buy more Divine Lucky Envelopes.
The Goldclaw Holiday Collection
This collection requires you to find a hidden book on each one of the festivals. Check the following video to see where to find it during this festival:
Credit to TiffyMissWiffy for the video.
2 Comments
Better than any guide, I’d like a guild to do these achievement with — with people who know what they are doing and who can teach us — we’re teachable, but not as organized as some.
I don’t have time to personally teach everybody so I make guides instead, but if you are looking for a guild you can try here: https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/