Guild Wars 2 News

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Players can now obtain their own personal homestead by playing through the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds storyline! Homesteads are an account-wide personal housing instance that provides you with an area of land and a permanent structure to cultivate, decorate, and share with your friends.

• Players with a homestead can place a conjured doorway in open-world maps, which they can use to bring their party into their homestead.
  
• All resource nodes (and cats!) unlocked in home instances will also be available in the homestead.
  
• A new account-wide handiworker crafting discipline is available, allowing players to craft decorations for their homestead.
  
• Unlocked mounts will appear in the homestead.
  
• Characters that were logged out while inside the homestead instance will visit the homestead as NPCs.

All professions can now use spears on land. This is unlocked via a WvW vendor purchase or by playing the first few chapters of the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds story.



[h3]Homesteading[/h3]

Once a homestead has been obtained, you will begin to master the crafting of homestead decorations without the need for a crafting discipline. As this mastery grows, your access to recipes and space to work in will increase, and you will gain bonuses within your homestead, such as rested experience and automated gathering of resources.

[h3]Lowland Kodan[/h3]

As you meet the lowland kodan in the Janthir region, you will gain access to their techniques, such as learning to use the spear on dry land, gaining power from local honey, and harvesting resources more efficiently.

[h3]Warclaw[/h3]

If you've not yet bonded with a warclaw, Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds will make doing so easier and allow you to use its skills outside of World vs. World. As you progress your Warclaw Mastery, it will become immune to falling damage, leap further into the air, and gain enhanced stamina regeneration, which is shared across all of your mounts.



A new hotkey has been added for entering and exiting decoration mode, and specialized skills are available while in decorating mode. You can change which set of these is displayed using three sub-mode buttons above your skill bar: Place New Decorations, Modify Existing Decorations, and Erase Decorations.

[h3]Place New Decorations [/h3]

• Place: Begin placement by choosing a location on the ground to put the decoration, or by enabling the manipulator skills for more control over how the decoration is placed. If you use this skill before having chosen a decoration from your decorations inventory, it will open your decoration list to prompt you to do that first. If you're not using a manipulator skill to refine the placement, you can right-click to cancel placement. Otherwise, to cancel, press a different skill button or the Esc key (if you have an open panel, Esc will close it first). Also, if you're not using a manipulator, you can change the decoration's rotation by holding and dragging the mouse button when choosing the location to pivot the decoration around that point.
  
• Move: Once you begin placement, the Move skill becomes available; press it to activate a manipulator gizmo. Click and drag a manipulator axis to move the decoration along that axis, or drag one of the squares to move the decoration across the corresponding plane. Once you're done using the manipulator, you can change it to another type or press the Place skill again to finish placing the decoration.
  
• Rotate: Similar to Move, but the manipulator rotates the decoration. Click and drag a ring right or left to rotate the decoration around the corresponding axis. Hold Shift when you click the ring to drag it, and the rotation will snap to 45-degree increments. Pressing the skill again will toggle a spherical manipulator that you can click and drag to freely rotate the decoration in any direction.
  
• Scale: This works much like Rotate and Move and allows uniform changing of the decoration's scale. Drag any of the boxes to scale the decoration up and down. There are practical limits on how much a decoration can be scaled, and those may be specific to the decoration you're placing.
  
• Toggle Manipulator Alignment (Local/Global): While using one of the manipulators, you may use this skill to align the manipulator with either the map's coordinate system or with the decoration that's being placed.
  

[h3]Modify Existing Decorations[/h3]

• Select Decoration to Modify: Once you have some decorations placed in the world, this skill lets you select one of them and refine its placement using the Move, Rotate, and Scale skills. After you're satisfied with the changes, press this skill again to confirm them.

[h3]Erase Decorations[/h3]

Most of the erase skills are unchanged from the existing guild hall decoration system. You can target a single decoration to erase and return to storage, or you can erase all decorations within the radius of a small, medium, or large targeting cursor.

• Toggle X-Ray Vision: This skill helps in retrieving decorations that have been placed in unreachable or obscured locations, such as beneath the terrain. While X-Ray Vision is active, the targeting of erase skills can penetrate terrain and other obstacles. It's also useful for distinguishing decorations from the rest of the environment.

[h3]Common Decorating Skills[/h3]

• Reset Scale and Rotation: This skill is available when placing or modifying a decoration. It will remove all rotation changes and restore the item's original scale.
  
• Use Last Scale and Rotation: This skill is available when placing or modifying a decoration. This matches the decoration's rotation and scale to that of the most recently placed decoration.
  
• Flying Mode: Toggles a flying movement mode to help you reach high places while decorating. Note that this counts as a skill, so using it will cancel any placement in progress.
  
• Select Decoration: Opens a list of decorations that are available for placing in the instance.
  
• Stop Decorating: Puts away the decoration skills and restores your combat skill bar.
  

The Decorations panel has been updated with the following features, which are saved per decoration mode (homesteads, guild halls, and guild arenas):

• A Favorites category of up to 16 decorations.
  
• A Recently Placed category, which tracks the last 8 decorations placed by the player.
  
• Filtering options for decorations and categories.
  
• Categories will remain expanded or collapsed when closing and reopening the Decorations panel.
  

• Decorating in guild halls has been updated with the new Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds decorating capabilities.
  
• The size and shape of interaction boundaries on interactable decorations has been changed.
  
• A slight rotation change of up to a degree may be noticeable in the placement of some large guild hall decorations.
  
• The Kournan Brazier guild hall decoration now correctly has a flame.
  
• Attempting to place a decoration in an invalid location will now highlight the decoration in red. Previously, this functionality only worked in the Gilded Hollow guild hall.
  
• Entering decoration mode while in the guild arena will now allow direct placement of arena decorations, without needing to interact with the Arena Obstacles Coordinator.
  

The Wizard's Vault's inventory has been updated for the new season! Last season's unique rewards are now available in the Legacy tab.

This season's new, unique rewards now require Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds ownership to purchase. Legacy rewards will continue to require their associated expansion.

• New special objectives for the season have been added, and more will appear over the course of the season, including special objectives associated with bonus events and festivals.
  
• New daily and weekly objectives have been added for adventuring in the Janthir region, as well as the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure release "The Midnight King."
  

• A new item type in the Wizard's Vault this season, the Falling Star Quest License, invites players on a short adventure in the newly available Janthir region. Your efforts will be rewarded with an ascended spear and gloves, as well as a series of achievements to track the quest's progress.
  
• Legendary Starter Kit—Set 5 is now available, containing two new weapon kits and two returning weapon kits.
  

• Fixed an issue that caused Kryptis rifts to spawn too slowly in certain areas of Thunderhead Peaks.
  
• The beach resort at Southsun Cove will no longer automatically transform players into an armorless state. For guests wishing to take a swim, a nearby tent has been repurposed as a changing area.
  
• Skywatch Archipelago: Fixed an issue that prevented shrine guardian chests 32, 33, 34, and 35 from being properly tracked for progress in the Rise and Shrine achievement.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented the water bucket near the Aid Fort Salma renown heart from being accessible.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Envious Reprieve achievement from granting progress.
  

Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds relics will need to be unlocked before they are selectable options for a legendary relic.

New relics have been added:

• Relic of the Claw: When you disable an enemy, gain a strike damage bonus for a duration.
  
• Relic of Sorrow: After using an elite skill, create an area that destroys missiles and heals and reduces incoming damage for allies.
  
• Relic of the Blightbringer: Build stacks when inflicting poison on an enemy. At 5 stacks, the next time you inflict poison also inflicts a burst of poison, weakness, and cripple on nearby enemies.
  
• Relic of the Stormsinger: After using a movement skill, your next attack performs a chain-lightning strike.
  
• Relic of Atrocity: Your lifesteal damage and lifesteal healing is increased.
  
• Relic of Rivers: Gain alacrity and regeneration when you dodge.
  

The warclaw has received updates to its skills with the release of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds:

• Sniff will now identify damaged and destroyed gates and walls for players.
  
• Chain Pull can now also be attached to walls and will apply Weakened Frame, an effect similar to Structural Vulnerability.
  
• Lance now has 2 charges.
  

Additionally, the warclaw will now be unlocked for any player who enters WvW if they own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire or Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Players who have previously completed the warclaw collection to unlock the mount will receive a War Machine Weapon Skin Selection and WvW skirmish tickets in their mail upon logging in.

The increased stamina and Warclaw's Blessing have been removed from the Warclaw Mastery ability line and are now inherent benefits to owning the warclaw in WvW. Finally, the WvW ability point costs to fill out the WvW Warclaw Mastery line have been greatly reduced.



The following changes have been made to categories and tabs in the Gem Store to aid in item searchability and to fix an issue that caused text to overlap under certain circumstances:

• The Toys tab is now named Novelties.
  
• The Mounts category and Skiff Skins category have been merged into the Mounts and Skiffs category under the Style tab.
  
• The Jade Bot Skins category, Emotes category, and Fishing Rod Skins category have been merged into the Miscellaneous category under the Style tab.
  

For all updates regarding General and Profession changes please visit the official Guild Wars 2 forums here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/149475-game-update-notes-august-20-2024/

Gather around the camp fire while we show off the new player housing arriving today in Guild Wars 2!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Note: Originally published at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on August 20, 2024.

Hello, Tyrians,

Happy release day! When Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ launches in just a few short hours, you'll begin a bold adventure into a dangerous and untamed wilderness. The denizens of Tyria are determined to recover and build a new future, and cooperation with neighbors is crucial. Your mission: befriend the lowland kodan and uncover the mysteries of a land that was once home to the enigmatic mursaat and their White Mantle followers.

In Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, you'll embark on a story that unfolds across four major releases, starting with today's launch and continuing with quarterly updates through the first half of 2025. Below is a high-level view of what's going live today and our plans for what's coming in the following three quarterly releases.

There's a significant change to our map content plans that we'd like to bring to your attention. We had originally announced that the expansion would feature three open-world maps—two at launch, with a third released in a quarterly update that would then be expanded on in a subsequent quarterly release, like Inner Nayos. Rather than shipping the third map in two parts, we will instead be releasing a standalone map in both the second and third quarterly releases, each similar in size to Lake Doric. This brings the total open-world map count for Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds up from three to four.

As always, game development is full of surprises, so this roadmap comes with a general disclaimer that our release plans may change, despite our best efforts.



In addition to all the content going live today, this quarter will also include a skills and balance update, our annual Halloween festival, a WvW update, a beta event for the new PvP game mode, the return of structured PvP's Tournament of Legends, and multiple bonus events.



Here's the full schedule of festivals and bonus events coming to Guild Wars 2 in the next few months:

• August 20–August 26: Twitch Drops
  
• August 26: Guild Wars 2 Anniversary Week
  
• September 10–September17: Fractal Rush Bonus Event
  
• September 17–September 24: Return to Path of Fire Bonus Event
  
• September 24–October 1: WvW Rush Bonus Event
  
• October 1–October 8: Living World Season 4 Bonus Event
  
• October 15–November 5: Shadow of the Mad King Halloween Festival

Don't forget to bookmark our handy event calendar to keep tabs on what's happening in the game!



Lastly, we have some cozy Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds key art wallpaper to share with everyone! We're incredibly excited to share Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds with you. Thank you for being part of this journey and for your continued support over the years!

We'll see you in Janthir,

—Guild Wars 2 Team

Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ launches tomorrow, and along with it come oodles of new items for the Gem Store. Let's take a look at everything that will be available starting tomorrow!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Heed the call of the Janthir region for amazing weekly supplies and more! When you purchase the Janthir Wilds Launch Supply Drop Requisition, the Black Lion Trading Company will send you a package of valuable items each week. The first supply drop will arrive as soon as you've purchased a requisition, and the others will be delivered on the three following Mondays.

This week, the Janthir Wilds Launch Supply Drop Requisition is available at the discounted price of 2,400 gems. The discount decreases each week, so pick up yours now for the best price—and get your first shipment of items today! (Limited to one purchase per account. Purchases made after week one will include items from the previous weeks in the first delivery.)



Week One:

• Janthir Wilds Expedition Contract*
  
• Wild Roar Mount Select License
  
• 2 Heroic Boosters

Week Two:

• Wisteria Spear Skin (shown above!)
  
• Black Lion Outfit Voucher
  
• 3 Smooth Berry Dye Kits

Week Three:

• Void Corrupted Weapon Choice
  
• Black Lion Backpack and Glider Voucher
  
• Communal Boost Bonfire

Week Four:

• 5 Black Lion Chest Keys
  
• Black Lion Weapons Voucher
  
• Golden Black Lion Chest Key

*The Secrets of the Obscure Expedition Contract will be available for purchase at a later date.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



A new, fierce adventure is starting; follow its roar in the untamed wilds of Janthir! These skins are available exclusively through Wild Roar Mount Select Licenses for 1,200 gems and Wild Roar Mount Adoption Licenses for 400 gems.

• Raptor: Aurora Blessed Feathered Raptor
  
• Springer: Nightkissed Cuckoo, Woodborn Scout Cuckoo
  
• Skimmer: Kintsugi Skimmer
  
• Jackal: Blazing Vulpine, Land Speckled Vulpine
  
• Warclaw: Aurene's Prismatic Warclaw, Dense Haar Caprine Warclaw, Glacial Caprine Warclaw, Spotted Plower Caprine Warclaw
  
• Griffon: Scaled Netherwing, Vital Geode Griffon
  
• Skyscale: Lepidote Brute Manticore, Star Blessed Manticore
  
• Siege Turtle: Charged Siege Turtle

Ice and fire are elements that have a long history together. The Elder Dragons Jormag and Primordus embodied their virtues and flaws—these outfits are infused with that never-ending duality. Take on the wild power of these two sides of the same cycle in the form of frozen wastes or volcanic fires.

The Dueling Elements Appearance Package contains the Igneous Regalia Outfit, Igneous Chair, Frozen Regalia Outfit, Frozen Chair, and one Total Makeover Kit for 1,600 gems. The outfits and chairs can be bought separately in our available packages: the Dueling Elements Outfit Package for 1,100 gems and the Dueling Elements Chair Package for 960 gems.





Inside each chest, you're guaranteed to find a redeemable Black Lion Statuette, Gnashblade's Exotic Weapon Grab Bag, and two common items. You also have a chance to find something rarer in the fifth slot, including special items, glyphs, and skins from the Vinelord Edgebloom Weapon Collection and the Necrotic Essence Weapon Collection.

Exclusive Item: Skysteel Package

Blessed by the northern winds, these swords shine with a cyan hue mirroring the endless skies. Arm yourself with the beauty of the Skysteel Package's craftsmanship, whether you're fighting, gilding, or traveling. This package contains the Skysteel Greatsword Skin, Skysteel Chair, and Skysteel Glider.



Void Corrupted Weapon Collection

The Void is an all-encompassing force to be reckoned with, and Soo-Won's echo will give purpose to your battles with its dark beauty. Each Void Corrupted weapon skin can be obtained in exchange for 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket.





Race through verdant forests or azure seas! Starting August 23 and continuing for the next few days, select mount and skiff skins will be 20% off, including the Plush Raptor Skin, Regal Moth Skyscale Skin, Floating Lantern Skiff Skin, Synergetics Cyberhound Skin, and many more!

Returning This Week

Infinite salvage kits and Equipment Template Expansions are 20% off and Build Template Expansions are 40% off from August 20 until August 27. Salvage and organize all that you need!



Log into Guild Wars 2 and press 'O' to access the Black Lion Trading Company for these great offers and more!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hello, Tyrians!

Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ is just around the corner, and while we have been sharing exciting features such as Homesteads, raids, PvE warclaws, and spears making landfall, we have even more to share!

A new season of the Wizard's Vault will be arriving on August 20, and with it comes new rewards and a new type of offering called a quest license that is exclusive to Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds. Those who wish to brave the unknowns of the Janthir region can pick up this new item using astral acclaim and set forth on a journey where your efforts will be rewarded with star-studded ascended items.

The excitement continues beyond the wilds with the return of Twitch Drops! Watch your favorite Guild Wars 2 streamers to obtain cool rewards including the "/sipcoffee" Emote Tome!

There are lots of rewards to uncover on August 20, so let's dive into it!





For those with Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds unlocked, there are new, unique rewards waiting, such as the Onyx Spider's weapon collection and the helm, shoulders, and gloves from the macabre Rot Stalker armor set! In addition, legacy items from previous seasons can also be obtained through the Legacy tab; these still require their associated expansion to purchase.

This season also introduces a new item type to the Wizard's Vault: the Falling Star Quest License. This license sets you on a journey into the newly uncovered Janthir region, and once the adventure is complete, you can earn the ascended Falling Star spear and the Meteor-Wielder's Glove. Equip both of these items at the same time, and watch the spear become superheated!

We have also added Legendary Starter Kit—Set 5, featuring two new weapon kits and two returning ones. You'll find new daily and weekly tasks as you adventure through Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, and more special objectives will also be added throughout the season, including those tied to bonus events and festivals.





Twitch Drops are back, just in time for the release of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds! From August 20 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) to August 25 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7), you'll be able to watch your favorite Guild Wars 2 streamer and snag some awesome rewards, including the highly requested "/sipcoffee" Emote Tome. Here's what you can unlock when you watch:

• Fuzzy Quaggan Hat Skin—2 hours of viewing time
  
• Green Quaggan Backpack Cover—4 hours of viewing time
  
• Mini Pet Bundle —6 hours of viewing time
  
• "/sipcoffee" Emote Tome—8 hours of viewing time
  
• Pirate Cosmetic Bundle —10 hours of viewing time

We are excited to explore Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds with all of you soon! Be sure to keep an eye out on our social media channels and official platforms as we share more information prior to its launch.

Prepurchasing any edition of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds before the expansion launches will grant you the "Homesteader" title, the Whispering Serpents Pauldrons Skin, and a box with your choice of one Serpent's Wrath weapon skin.

Visit the official store page for full details on the items included in the Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate editions.