09/21/2021—September 21st Release Notes

Beta Event 2

We’re excited to begin our second End of Dragons Elite Specialization Beta Event, running from September 21 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) through September 25 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7).

All players will see three new beta character slots appear on the Character Select screen that allow them to create and play a fully geared, level-80 beta character of any race for the duration of the weekend.

You can use this character in PvE, WvW, unranked PvP, and any core Tyria or previous expansion map content, including Heart of Thorns™ and Path of Fire™. Maps from the upcoming expansion, End of Dragons™, are not available for beta testing.

The beta character slots are only accessible during an active beta event and will be deleted between elite specialization beta events.

In this beta event, the following three new elite specializations are available for play:

Elementalist—Catalyst

·         Catalysts have revitalized ancient techniques for channeling elemental forces—with a few modern improvements. They use jade-tech spheres to create concentrated wells of immense power. Using their augmentation abilities within range of the spheres enhances their effects. With the weight of Tyria’s fundamental magics behind every blow from their hammers, these elementalists are a steady presence in melee combat.

Revenant—Vindicator

·         The Kurzicks and Luxons were bitter enemies, but their greatest champions—Saint Viktor and Archemorus—united to help slay Shiro the Betrayer at the cost of their own lives. Vindicators call upon the strength of their legendary alliance, channeling both heroes’ skills to devastate their enemies and protect their allies. They use greatswords to deliver massive attacks, and they crush foes by leaping straight into battle instead of dodging.

Warrior—Bladesworn

·         Advances in Canthan technology have yielded a fusion of firearm and longsword: the gunsaber. Only a dedicated, highly trained warrior can handle such a volatile weapon. Gunsaber attacks enhance the bladesworn’s flow, allowing them to use their meditative Dragon Trigger. In this state of calm and concentration, they can load their gunsaber with magically imbued cartridges that power up their attacks. With their gunsaber sheathed, they wield off-hand pistols to maintain their flow.

Beta Character Limitations

• Progress is not carried over from beta characters to live characters.
• Beta characters may no longer participate in ranked PvP matches.
• Beta characters do not share normal account-wide inventory with nonbeta characters (e.g., wallet, karma, shared inventory slots, bank access).
• Beta characters cannot access the trading post.
• Beta characters cannot mail gold or items.
• Beta characters have access to a copy of your account’s Legendary Armory. Legendary items newly added to your Legendary Armory while a beta event is in progress will not be usable by beta characters during that beta event.

DirectX 11 Beta

The DirectX 11 beta is now available. The goals for the initial implementation of DirectX 11 are stability, visual, and performance parity with DirectX 9. Most players will likely see negligible performance improvements at this time.

Players can opt in to the test by enabling DirectX 11 in the in-game Options panel. Before participating, make sure to install the latest graphics drivers for your device. Please also disable any unsupported third-party graphics modifications before participating in the beta. More information on our third-party program policy can be found here.

You can report any graphical issues you encounter with the beta on the official Guild Wars 2 forums.

Known Issues

·         Custom window refresh rates over 60hz in the Options panel are not yet supported.

·         Full-screen window gamma settings in the Options panel are not yet supported.

World vs. World—World Restructuring: Phase One Beta

The first weeklong beta event for the WvW World Restructuring feature takes place from September 24 to October 1.

World Restructuring is a feature that aims to address player population imbalances and create great matches. It achieves this by deprecating the current concept of “shards” (aka worlds/servers) and introducing a matchmaking system to the game mode in which players, guilds, and alliances (player-managed groups of guilds) are programmatically redistributed to new “teams” (previously known as shards) on a set schedule. This gives us more flexibility and granularity when creating new teams and helps address natural fluctuations in population over time. It’ll also give players more agency in choosing who they want to play with on an ongoing basis, and it allows long-standing communities to continue playing together. More information on the feature can be found in our recent blog post here.

• A new tab for the World Restructuring feature is now available in the in-game World vs. World panel. On this tab, you’ll be able to choose which of your guilds you’ll want to play with during the World Restructuring beta event. Please choose your WvW guild before 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on September 23, or you may be matchmade on to a team as an individual player.
• The beta event matchup will begin at WvW reset on September 24.
• At the conclusion of the beta event on October 1, the World Linking system will be re-enabled, and WvW will return to the current state.
• A WvW bonus-experience event will be active between September 21 and October 1, granting 100% bonus to world experience, a 25% bonus to reward-track progress, and a 50% bonus to magic find.

General

• Fixed a bug in which the region to laugh at Marcello to complete one of the Minstrel’s Misfortune requirements of the Quip I: The Experimental Pistol legendary weapon collection achievement was incorrectly placed and nowhere near the Minstrel.
• Fixed a bug in which some profession-specific UI would change color depending on the map environment, such as the deadeye’s malice pips.
• Fixed a bug in which the Feast of Delectable Birthday Cake would not apply its effect to players with the malnourished effect.
• The away-from-keyboard detection system has been updated; players actively participating in chat will no longer be disconnected for inactivity.

·         We have made several changes to the status-reset system that was introduced on August 31. These changes were detailed more extensively here.

o    A status reset removing boons will no longer occur when changing an equipped weapon with your inventory or the Hero panel. Status reset will still occur on changing traits or templates.

o    Status reset will no longer remove the aegis boon.

o    Status reset will no longer remove the swiftness boon.

• Status reset will now remove stealth.
• Special Forces Training Area: Selected boons will now be regularly reapplied if lost, until removed at the console.

Profession Skills

Engineer

• Healing Turret: The water combo field generated when the turret is summoned will now appear immediately instead of after a 1-second delay.

Mesmer

Mirage

• Chaos Vortex: Targeting for the boons provided by this skill will now prioritize party members and then squad members in the area before enhancing other players. This skill now additionally draws a thin circle on the ground visible by allies for 1 second, making it easier to gauge distance and positioning for granting boons to allies.

Necromancer

• Summon Blood Fiend: Reduced the blood fiend’s base health from 13,306 to 9,315 in PvP only.
• Summon Shadow Fiend: Reduced the shadow fiend’s base health from 10,814 to 7,571 in PvP only.
• Summon Bone Fiend: Reduced the bone fiend’s base health from 7,036 to 4,926 in PvP only.
• Summon Bone Minions: Reduced the bone minions’ base health from 5,149 to 3,605 in PvP only.
• Summon Flesh Golem: Reduced the flesh golem’s base health from 12,706 to 8,895 in PvP only.
• Jagged Horror: Reduced base health from 8,922 to 6,246 in PvP only.
• Eternal Life: Reduced life-force threshold from 20% to 10% in PvP only.

Ranger

• One Wolf Pack: Fixed a bug that caused damaging strikes from this skill to fail to occur on certain large bosses, such as Conjured Amalgamate.

Revenant

Renegade

• Orders from Above: Targeting for this skill will now prioritize party members and then squad members in the area before enhancing other players.

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New Items and Promotions

• The Waypoint Unlock Box has been updated to include the new Major Cities Waypoint Unlock as a possible selection.

Black Lion Chest

• The new Black Lion Mastery Coffer has been added as the new guaranteed item for the duration of the Reaper’s Path Chest.

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09/21/2021—Late Notes

Profession Skills

Ranger

• One Wolf Pack: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s damaging strikes from affecting certain large bosses, such as Conjured Amalgamate.

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed a bug that prevented some light sources from correctly displaying lighting effects.

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Source: Guild Wars 2 Official Forums