GW2 Farmer's Almanac - Onyx Lodestones

Farmer's Almanac

The Farmer's Almanac is a series where you can learn Guild Wars 2 gold farming locations throughout Tyria. I don't disagree that the Cursed Shore is the best farming location; but with diminishing returns, you'll have to visit other areas and thus we bring other locations to your attention.

This Week's Guild Wars 2 Gold Farming Location

This week we are going to Malchor's Leap to farm some Earth Elementals for their Onyx Lodestones. This guys will be 2 levels above you most of the time so be careful. They open up with Churning Earth so prepare to dodge or you will be crippled and bled. After a little while, they will receive Magnetic Aura which will reflect projectiles back to you so be careful. Also, keep in mind that these guys are immune to knockbacks, knockdowns and fear so CCing has no effect. Now that you know your foe, go farm up some Lodestones that sell for around 2.5 gold. Even if you don't receive any lodestones, you should still make around 1 gold an hour. Have fun!

Have fun with this location and let us know how you've done. Have a farming location you'd like to share or have tested? Leave us a comment!

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Flame And Frost: Prelude - Patch Notes 28th January

The first pre-patch for the new world changing event Flame and Frost has landed and there are buckets of changes. Not all of these conceal the potential to make gold but that's something we'll take a look at over on our boards in more detail! :)

There's lots of things to break down in here and I will do so in the thread set up by our own ZoCks.

Before I let you guys start reading (and it's a LOT of reading) I thought I'd share what I'm most excited about at the moment: The Dreamer now shoots rainbow horses. The downside is, the legendary I WAS saving for is now in danger of never being made :(

LIVING STORY
Flame and Frost: Prelude
Source

A mystery presents itself in this first entry in a multipart Living Story series. What could be causing such discord in the foothills of the Shiverpeaks? All those poor homesteaders and ranchers displaced with nowhere to go calls into question if the storms could be that bad—or if there’s something more sinister stirring up the flame and frost. The ground is shaking, and the sky is falling in northern Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau. Norn and charr refugees, crawling from the wreckage of their homes, are fighting their way to shelter in Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel. Many are in shock and wounded; most have only what they can carry on their backs. A call has gone out for volunteers to assist them in their time of need, when the environment itself seems to have become their enemy.
Achievements

• A new Living Story achievement category has been added, which will contain a series of achievements specific to the storylines unfolding in Tyria.
• The first Living Story achievement, Refugee Volunteer, has been added. Players who complete this achievement by playing the Flame and Frost: Prelude content will be rewarded with the Volunteer title. They will also receive a karma reward via in-game mail.
• More achievements will be added as the Living Story continues to unfold.

Events

• New Living Story events have been added to Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau.

Heralds

• Starting shortly after the January 28^th^ update, heralds will begin appearing in cities across Tyria. Their task is to keep adventurers apprised of the events currently underway that are driving the Living Story forward. Be sure to check in with them if you need direction.

Other Content

• Persistent world content related to the story of the refugees has been added to Wayfarer Foothills, Diessa Plateau, the Black Citadel, and Hoelbrak. This content will continue to change and evolve as the story unfolds, so be sure to keep checking back.

NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT
Daily/Monthly Achievements
Rewards
A new currency has been added: the laurel. Players earn one laurel for completion of the daily achievement category and ten laurels for completion of the monthly achievement category. This new currency can be spent at laurel vendors in all of the major cities to obtain over 90 items, including:

• A new category of infusion, the utility infusion
• Ascended amulets
• Crafting starter kits
• WvW blueprints
• Obsidian shards
• New boosters, advanced harvesting tools, and crafting trophy bags
• A new, unique miniature: Goedulf, the mythical wolf-cub spirit that protects lost norn children
• A new, unique miniature: Chauncey von Snuffles III, who placed second in the Divinity’s Reach Fanciest Cat competition

UI

• Achievement tracking UI has been added to provide at-a-glance information on daily and monthly achievements as well as quick access to the achievements panel.

Achievements

• New daily achievements have been added.
• Daily achievements now rotate on a daily basis.
• Daily achievements now only have a single tier.
• The number of achievement points awarded for daily achievements has been adjusted.

Dungeons

• Polished dungeons and removed the ability to use waypoints while any player is in combat.

Dynamic Leveling

• Attribute calculations for dynamic level scaling have been rebalanced. In general, this means weaker when adjusted down, stronger when adjusted up. Rewards when adjusted down have been increased to compensate. It is now possible to receive your own level of loot from any level of enemy.

Fractals of the Mists

• Players can now reconnect to the Fractals of the Mists if they are disconnected.
• Players can now connect to a fractal map even if they are not part of the original group that created the fractal instance.
• Players can revive at a checkpoint in fractal maps if the entire party is out of combat.
• Players are no longer prevented from entering fractal maps. The difficulty of the fractals is shared, and players will receive rewards based on their “reward level.”
• Reward level increases as players complete fractal rounds.
• If players have a higher reward level than the current fractal difficulty, they will receive bonus karma at the end of a round. However, item rewards are set to the minimum of the fractal scale and reward level.
• Daily Fractals of the Mists bonus chests are awarded after defeating the kraken. The rewards are now based off of the minimum of the player’s reward level or current fractal scale.

Guesting

• Players may now log in to a world other than their home world as a guest.
  • On the character select screen, click the “World Selection” button.
  • Choose a world you would like to guest on and click the “Guest” button.
  • Select any of your characters and select “Play” to log in to the world you chose as a guest.
• Guesting has some limits and restrictions:
  • You may only guest on worlds in the same region as your home world. Players on American home worlds cannot guest on European worlds or vice versa.
  • You may not participate in World vs. World for any guest world. If you choose to enter World vs. World, you will be moved back to your home world. Only changing your home world using a world transfer can change your World vs. World participation.
  • You are only eligible to guest on 2 different worlds at a time. Each time you guest on a world, that world becomes available to play on for the next 24 hours. After 24 hours, you may choose to guest on a different world. You may log in to any active guesting world as many times as you wish with no restriction.
  • Guesting on worlds that are full or highly populated increases your risk of being put into an overflow map.
  • While guesting, all guild influence earned will be applied to your home world, and you will only have access to your home world guild benefits, including the guild vault.

World Transfer Fee

• It now costs a gem fee to transfer your home world.
• Gem fees for world transfers are based on the population of the world you are transferring to.
• Each account is still limited to one transfer every 7 days.
• Players still cannot transfer to servers that are “Full.”

ORR

• The Risen creatures all across Orr have had their population density adjusted.
• Areas, chests, and merchants in Orr now offer better rewards.
• See “World Polish – Orr” below for more details.

UI Improvements

• Changes have been made to the attributes section of the hero panel to cleanly display more information.
• Several PvP dialogs no longer take UI focus away from chat when opening.
• Players can once again preview armor and weapons that cannot be equipped by their character.

Structured Player vs. Player
January 28th – February 4th Is Temple of the Silent Storm Week

• Instead of 3-round paid tournaments, there will be a 1-round match between 2 teams on the Temple of the Silent Storm map.
• The price for entry will be 3 tickets per player.
• Rewards for the test will be reduced from the normal paid tournaments.
• After the game is finished, both teams will be returned to the lobby, where they can reenter the tournament queue.
• To participate, go to the PvP lobby and speak to the Tournament Master.
• At the end of this period, the Temple of the Silent Storm map will be added to the tournament rotation.
• Skillbars now have team-colored backgrounds in sPvP.

World vs. World

• Character load times in WvW have been improved through the use of preloaded placeholder models.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
Dungeons
General

• Fixed a bug where creatures in dungeons were no longer becoming invulnerable to players they couldn’t reach.
• Updated the costs of several dungeon reward items to be consistent with their costs in other dungeons. These include leggings, chestpieces, and shoulder armor from Ascalonian Catacombs; tridents and assorted armor pieces from Sorrow’s Embrace; and focuses from Caudecus’s Manor.

Fractals of the Mists

• Swampland fractal: The tripwires have been rebuilt to reflect their names. Several have been lifted out of the ground and made more visible.
• Fractal Marshes: The traps in the first area now scale with the difficulty scale of the fractal.
• Fractals: Added day or night time to specific fractals. Day and night do not cycle.
• Underwater Fractal: The Jelly boss will no longer try to devour NPCs like pets and minions before they try to eat players. If no players are around, it will eat NPCs.
• Fixed various exploits and minor bugs.

Ascalonian Catacombs

• Story—The Lovers: Reduced health for both bosses and damage from Ralena.
• Story—Coffin Intro: Additional coffins cannot be interacted with once the boss shows up.
• Story—Ranger: Damage has been reduced for the trap skill.
• Story: Some enemy group compositions have been altered.
• Story—Adelbern: Reduced damage and modified his melee attack.
• Explorable—Detha’s Chain: Decreased the recharge time for cannons in the final event and modified their attacks.
• Explorable—Detha’s Chain: Adjusted the respawn rate of the groups at the “Defend Detha and her traps” event.

Arah

• Story: Reduced most veterans to regular strength during the ship events.
• Story: Attacking dragons have reduced damage and no longer knock back on their flyover barrages.
• Story: Zhaitan’s acid pools do less damage.
• Explorable: Fixed issues that may have prevented events from starting or ending properly across all paths in the dungeon when an NPC was potentially dying, reviving, or being interacted with.
• Explorable—Seer Path: In the Dwayna fight, the sparks will now target players primarily, and their attacks have been adjusted in a way that should make them chase the player as initially intended.

Citadel of Flame

• Story: The Baelfire fight now has a safety net in case players fall off. If players die in a dangerous area, their body is teleported to a safe location for players to revive.
• Story—Forgefire Armory Boss: This boss’s damage has been reduced.
• Story—Bolok Barracks Boss: The group composition of the reinforcements summoned by Bolok Barracks boss has been modified.
• Explorable—Magg’s Chain: The event to defend Magg while he plants a bomb has been rebuilt.
• Explorable—Magg’s Chain: The respawn rate of creatures in the magma field has been adjusted.
• Explorable—Rhiannon’s Chain: The torch event at the start has been adjusted to only require 3 torches instead of 5; enemy groups have also been adjusted accordingly.

Sorrow’s Embrace

• Explorable—Inquest Path: The infinitely spawning waves have been adjusted to no longer spawn when fighting with the golem miniboss. They will continue once the golem event completes. The group compositions were also adjusted to add more variation.

Crucible of Eternity

• Explorable—Evolved Destroyer: This enemy’s health has been reduced. The time window before the shield turns back on has been increased.
• Explorable—Subject Alpha (All): The enemy’s health has been reduced.

Twilight Arbor

• Explorable: Leurent’s Elite Guard shields have been fixed so they no longer deal damage after they disappear.
• Explorable—Leurent Boss Encounter: The group composition has been adjusted.
• Explorable—Worm Boss: Spit puddles have reduced damage, but more puddles are created with each attack.

Honor of the Waves

• Explorable: Aldus Stormbringer adds are no longer veterans and have adjusted respawn times.
• Explorable: Aldus’s invulnerability shield now properly decrements to melee and area attacks.
• Updated the effect for the Cone of Cold skill used by Controller Andal to match the area affected by the skill when he turns.

World Polish – Orr
General

• Uncontested waypoints have been added to Cursed Shore and Straits of Devastation. Players that have already achieved map completion will retain it without having to discover these new waypoints.
• Updates have been made to the small statues to the human gods throughout Orr.
  • New map icons to indicate the location and status of the statues have been added. Mousing over the icon will display more detailed information.
  • The visual effect surrounding each of the god statues has been updated to be more noticeable and to more accurately reflect the range of its influence.
• Various Risen creatures have had their animations and size updated.
• The music that plays during key events that take place at the Orrian temples to the gods and the Gate of Arah has been updated.
• The difficulty of events to claim and defend the Orrian temples and the Gates to Arah will now scale to accommodate a larger number of players.
• The visual impact of taking control of the Orrian temples has been increased.
• Various Risen creatures have had their skills adjusted to use fewer crowd-control skills.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the “Arah Waypoint” from updating properly when the gate to Arah was open in Cursed Shore. This also caused the Arah dungeon marker to erroneously display as contested. The gate to Arah should only be closed when the events leading up to it are active.

Events

• Grenth Temple Chain
  • “Use portals to fight shades, slay the Champion Risen Priest of Grenth, and protect Keeper Jonez Deadrun.”
    • Clarified event text to provide more guidance on event mechanics.
    • Updated enemy waves that appear when the priest reaches certain life totals.
    • Added several new abilities to the Champion Risen Priest of Grenth.
    • Fixed an issue that would cause enemies to stop spawning if waves were killed in the wrong order.
    • Adjusted enemy wave compositions, start locations, and respawn times.
    • Adjusted the stacks of corruption that enemy shades apply to players during the fight.
    • Updated the visual appearance of the portals to Grenth’s domain and the effect applied to players who step in.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the Risen Priest of Grenth from attacking properly during the event “Stop the Risen Priest of Grenth from retaking the Cathedral of Silence.”
  • Fixed a bug that would cause Pact troops to stall at points in the event chain.
• Dwayna Temple Chain
  • Adjusted the difficulty of the events that take place inside of the temple.
  • Updated the skills for the Risen Priestess of Dwayna.
  • Updated the skills for the Statue of Dwayna.
  • Adjusted the terrain within the Cathedral of Zephyrs.
  • Added a boss camera during the fight with the Statue of Dwayna.
• Melandru Temple Chain
  • Updated the Risen Priest of Melandru’s skill set.
  • Updated the music that plays during the boss fights.
  • Adjusted the terrain inside the Cathedral of Verdance to allow for better creature and player movement.
  • Added more noticeable environmental effects to the temple’s contested and uncontested states.
  • Updated the participation rewards for the event “Defend the Pact interruptor from Risen attacks” to be more consistent with holdout events at other temples in Orr. Players who participate will earn three times the normal event rewards.
• Lyssa Chain
  • Adjusted the difficulty of the events to take over and defend the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the force field surrounding the Risen Priestess of Lyssa from resetting properly.
• Balthazar Chain
  • Adjusted the strength of the Risen Priest of Balthazar’s skills.
  • Adjusted the number and compositions of enemies that appear during events to take over and defend the Cathedral of Silence.
• Promenade Chain
  • Updated the participation rewards for the event “Ensure that the Pact holds the Gates of Arah” to be consistent with the holdout events at other temples in Orr. Players who participate will earn three times the normal event rewards.
  • Fixed a bug in the event “Aid the Pact soldiers around the airship wreck” that would cause the event to restart prematurely.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Risen High Wizard to not flee after successfully defending the Pact camp at the Gates of Arah.
• The Gladiator Chain
  • Adjusted the start and restart conditions for the event chain.
  • Adjusted the difficulty scaling of the events.
  • Added visual effects to the event area and Risen creatures featured in the event.
• Changed the starting condition and location of the event “Kill the Risen broodmother.”

Items & Rewards

• A new Orrian Jewelry Box has been added to karma vendors across Orr.
• The item “Heavy Moldy Bag” has been updated to drop more frequently.
• Various Risen creatures have had their loot tables updated to provide more varied crafting materials.
• The karma vendors featured in temple chains offer new exotic wares.

World Polish – Other
General

• Fixed the descriptions for some armorsmithing packs that stated an incorrect level for the armor contained within the pack.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Mystic Forge to give inappropriate rewards when given level 80 masterwork swords.
• Updated the Moa Tonic’s Screech skill description to correctly show only one daze stack.
• Bandithaunt Caverns: It’s no longer possible to create an infinite number of bombs in the caves.
• Locking your Windows User Account will no longer result in the Guild Wars 2 launcher being invisible.
• Trait buffs are no longer reapplied after being resurrected while in a transformation that disables traits.
• Renown regions now reward karma upon completion.
• The contacts list has been significantly improved to enhance performance in crowded maps and for players with many followers and friends.
• Loot interactions now take higher priority than mesmer portals.
• Fixed a bug that could cause rectangular skills to fail to hit the correct targets.
• Fixed a bug that could cause chain skills to sometimes interrupt dodge rolls.
• Fixed a bug that could cause projectiles to sometimes disappear if passing through a field that had expired.
• Fixed a bug that allowed skills that steal or remove boons to manipulate effects that they were not intended to be able to affect.
• Weapons now continue to grant bonus stats while bundles are equipped.
• Bundles from player skills (engineer kits, elementalist conjured weapons, warrior banners) now have base damage that is consistent with the highest rarity weapons available at the level of the player.
• WvW & PvE: Our culling system has been updated to use affinity culling, which favors allowing players to see important enemies regardless of the local player population density.
• Lionguard Lyns has returned to Lion’s Arch but no longer has Black Lion Keys available. Donations toward the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch will continue to be accepted until late February, at which time Lionguard Lyns must return to her normal Lionguard duties. Liquidate those Captain’s Commendations while you can.
• Golem in a Box has been updated to have a 20-second recharge and has been disabled in WvW.
• In PvE, if a player is awarded loot by killing a creature and the loot is of uncommon rarity or higher, a chest will appear that contains the loot that would previously have been on the corpse. If the rarity of the loot on the creature is lower than uncommon, the loot will remain on the creature’s corpse.

Events

• Fixed a bug that could cause events around Eldvin Monastery to not run properly in Queensdale.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent the event to fight the Shadow Behemoth from starting in Queensdale.
• Frostgorge Sound—“Claw of Jormag” Event: Fixed a case where the ice shield would not appear correctly.
• Blazeridge Steppes Event: The ogre beastmaster in Sootpan Kraal now heals a limited amount each fight.
• Master Engineer Steelclaw in the Fields of Ruin now uses a consistent gender for her scenes/greets.
• Diessa Plateau: Fixed a bug that prevented players from using the cattlepult if a cow wandered too far away, blocking the betting minigame.

Personal Story

• Fixed Zojja and other NPCs having invisible headgear in cinematics.
• “Armor Guard”: Fixed errant minimap marker.
• “A Tangle of Weeds”: Increased the size of the instance so it’s much harder for the lich to fear players out of the map.
• “Volcanic Extraction”: NPCs are now more durable.
• Norn Chapter 3: Fixed an issue where the wrong cinematic was playing.
• “A Sad Duty”: Strengthened the Pact defenders.
• “Suspicious Activity”: Fixed a minor cosmetic bug.
• “A Grisly Shipment”: Playing the story step with party members no longer prevents progression.
• “Source of Orr”: Fixed an issue that could prevent progression after defeating the Eye of Zhaitan.
• “Fixing Blame”: Warmaster Gurnn should now start his cinematic correctly.
• “On Red Alert”: Fixed an issue that could prevent progress if the player bypassed part of the story step.
• “Romke’s Final Voyage”: Fixed an issue that could prevent progress when playing the story step with party members.
• “A Sparkling Rescue”: Zojja will now help players in combat.

Skill Challenge

• The terror of Ancient Shark Pistrix and his gang of “landsharks” has finally come to an end. Players will now interact with the corpse of Pistrix in his cave in Sparkfly Fen to complete this skill challenge.

Items

• Fixed a bug that prevented Endless Halloween Tonics from being listed on the Trading Post.
• All Halloween tonics have a two-second cooldown for removal.
• Fixed an issue where some rebreather models would cause light armors to display incorrectly.
• Transmuting weapons now preserves the higher rarity of the two items.
• Sigil of Doom: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Sigil of Intelligence: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Sigil of Leeching: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Life-stealing food buffs based on critical hits no longer affect gadgets.
• A Mystic Forge recipe has been added to upgrade the Triforge Amulet to an ascended version with a utility infusion slot.
• The Orichalcum vein in Southsun Cove is now a regular vein instead of a rich vein.

Profession Skills
General

• Cancelling executing skills that have no recharge via the [Escape] key or stowing weapons will now trigger a 0.5-second cooldown for that skill.
• Gadgets placed by players (such as turrets) will now apply boons and conditions based on those players’ stats. Those conditions and boons will not be reduced to level-1 values when the triggering gadget is destroyed.
• Updated skill facts.

Elementalist 

• Fixed a bug that caused several spells, including Tornado, Arcane Shield, and most frequently Whirlpool, to sometimes fail to display any graphics.
• Arcane Power: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Arc Lightning: Fixed a bug which would cause this skill’s animation effects to continue playing after the skill ended.
• Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects.
• Glyph of Renewal: Increased this skill’s cast time while underwater from 1 second to 3.5 seconds.
• Ice Spikes: This skill now appropriately displays area-of-effect rings.
• Rock Spray: Skill facts for this skill now display the proper distance and bleed damage.
• Vapor Form: This skill will no longer allow players to rally off of kills that grant zero experience. This skill will now also properly restore death state on completion.

Engineer 

• Removed collision from engineer turrets that were causing player pathing issues.
• Elixir X: Fixed a bug where this skill’s tooltip did not reflect the cooldown reduction from Fast-Acting Elixirs.
• Hair Trigger: Fixed a bug which prevented this trait from working correctly for some skills.
• Healing Turret: Fixed issues with this skill’s description when the Deployable Turrets trait was equipped.
• Incendiary Ammo: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.Reinforced Shield: Fixed a bug which prevented this trait from reducing Static Shield’s cooldown if the Throw Shield skill was activated.
• Reserve Mines: This trait’s area-of-effect rings now display the appropriate area that they can be triggered at.
• Speedy Gadgets: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from reducing the cooldown of Throw Mine.
• Toss Elixir S: This skill will no longer remove transforms from players.

Guardian

• Absolute Resolution: This trait now functions with Battle Presence.
• Battle Presence: This trait no longer misses pulses or spams “immune” text.
• Empower: This skill now appropriately applies might for 10 seconds.
• Selfless Daring: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects.
• Shield of the Avenger: Fixed the damage displayed in this skill’s Command variant.
• Spirit weapons are now susceptible to attacks.
• Sword of Justice: Fixed the damage displayed the descriptions for this skill and its Command variant.
• Sword Wave: This skill is now able to strike gadgets that are low to the ground.
• Zealot’s Flame: Added burning information to this skill’s description.

Mesmer 

• Cleansing Conflagration: This trait should now remove a condition at the beginning of The Prestige instead of at the end of the skill.
• Duelist’s Discipline: This trait no longer reduces damage dealt by the Illusionary Duelist.
• Illusion of Life: This skill should no longer allow players to rally off of creatures that grant no experience.
• Portal Exeunt: Updated the skill fact of this skill to reflect the actual duration. Also added a description to the Portal Uses marker.

Necromancer

• Fixed a bug that caused some minions to be overly aggressive.
• Mark of Evasion: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects.
• Necrotic Traversal: Fixed a bug which caused this skill’s descriptionto display an incorrect amount of poison damage.
• Spinal Shivers: Fixed a bug which caused this skill to enter its full cooldown if used when facing away from the target.

Ranger 

• Fixed a bug where aquatic ranger pets could sometimes get on land.
• Drake Pet: This pet will now activate its Tail Swipe skill on a regular basis, and the casting time of that skill has been reduced by 1.25 seconds.
• Entangle: This skill’s bleed effects now properly scale with condition damage and duration.
• Sharpening Stone: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Opening Strikes: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.

Thief 

• Leeching Venoms: This trait no longer affects gadgets.
• Shadow Refuge: Added a radius skill fact to this skill’s description.
• Smoke Screen: This skill’s blinding pulse no longer follows the thief.
• Spider Venom: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Devourer Venom: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Ice Drake Venom: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Skale Venom: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Basilisk Venom: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Assassin’s Signet: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.

Warrior 

• Arcing Slice: Updated this skill’s description to correctly state the boon it applies.
• Banner of Strength: This skill’s descriptions have been updated.
• Banner of Discipline: This skill’s descriptions have been updated.
• Banner of Tactics: This skill’s descriptions have been updated.
• Empowered: This trait should now appropriately increase damage for the Stability boon.
• Reckless Dodge: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects.
• Vengeance: This skill is no longer able to rally a player off of kills that grant zero experience.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Legacy of the Foefire: Fixed a bug that prevented certain melee skills from hitting the front red/blue base gates.
• Legacy of the Foefire: Fixed a bug that allowed friendly and enemy projectile skills to penetrate the red/blue base gates.
• Legacy of the Foefire: Red/blue keep NPCs have been modified to avoid spawning before the match start countdown begins.
• Legacy of the Foefire: Red/blue lords have been modified to remove up to 3 conditions at the beginning of their heal skill.
• Legacy of the Foefire: Red/blue guards and casters have been modified to engage enemies when the lord enters combat.
• Battle of Kyhlo: Fixed a bug that could cause the repair kit to disappear after switching teams.
• Heart of the Mists: Two unused glory vendors have been removed.
• Fixed trebuchets not being targetable by ranged attacks after being repaired.

World vs. World

• Siege is no longer usable while inside a WvW jumping puzzle.
• Multiple areas have had their terrain adjusted to prevent players from bypassing gates and walls to get into objectives.
• Superior siege will now be saved properly when maps restart.
• In WvW, different types of loot chests will replace the bag drop depending on loot rarity. Players should now see bags for loot that is lower than uncommon rarity and chests for loot that is uncommon rarity or higher.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items

• Plush Quaggan Backpack Cover is now available in the Gem Store for 300 gems in the Style category. This adorable skin can be applied to any back-slot item, but it also comes with a basic back-slot item with no stats in case you don’t have one.
• The Riding Broom is now available in the Gem Store for 250 gems in the Style category. Simply equip this toy and activate its skill to ride the broom. Riding the broom does not provide a speed bonus.

Improvements

• Evon Gnashblade’s Box ‘o Fun has been revamped and is now available in the Consumable category for the new low price of 1 for 80 gems or a bundle of 5 for 320 gems. The revamped design offers more control over what effect the box has on those that interact with it.
• All weapon and armor skins now have the option to be converted to PvP skins. When activating a skin you will be given the choice to either apply the skin to a PvE item or convert the skin to a PvP-only item. Either action will consume the skin. This change applies to all unused weapon and armor skins in the game, regardless of when the skin was first released.

World Polish – Other
Items

• Visual effects on some legendary weapons have been polished:
  • Eternity: Fixed a bug that caused the Sunrise effects to play on the Twilight version of the sword.
  • The Moot: Added visual-effects polish and footfalls.
  • Kamohoali’i Kotaki: Added visual-effects polish.
  • Frenzy: Added visual-effects polish.
  • Kraitkin: Added visual-effects polish.
  • Quip: Added visual-effects polish and footfalls.
  • The Predator: Added visual-effects polish and footfalls; updated projectile and hit effects to match the weapon’s look.
  • Howler: Added visual-effects polish and footfalls.
  • The Dreamer: Updated the projectile effect.

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Farmer's Almanac - Corrupted Lodestones

Hello everyone! Kyle here and this week we are heading out to Frostgorge Sound once again, but this time it's to the Ice Floe waypoint which will be for level 78-80s. Our goal is to find Corrupted Lodestones from Icebrood Colossus and Corrupted Quaggan. Some of you may know this farm already, but I had been putting it off since I never had any luck with it. I gave it a go this week though since it had been a while and I actually made a pretty penny.

The Icebroods are a ranged attackers that will chill you and try to hit you with ice shards. Simply stay out of the red circles and you'll have no problems with these guys. The Quaggan are melee attackers and are easy to round up after their initial ranged attack. As for drops, there are a few crafting materials that drop like Vicious Claws, but as mentioned before the main reason for the farm is for Corrupted Lodestones which sell for over a gold each.

Try out the farm if you haven't yet and please let me know how you did in the comments of the video. And while you're down there, if you have any farms you'd like to see featured, send us a message or comment on the channel. Happy farming!

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Flame and Frost Prelude

We don't get much time between big events finishing and new ones being hyped in Tyria. Not that I think that's something worth complaining about! Today sees the first teaser, the prelude, for Flame and Frost - the beginning of a series of events that'll change the world we game in.

Much like all events before, this is going to trigger some market activity. There's not much information to go on just yet but, as always, gems are going to play a part here (it's how Arenanet make money without a subscription fee).

In fact the marketing geniuses at Anet headquarters have given a large chunk of the playerbase what they've always wanted (or didn't know they wanted until they saw the screen shot): Quaggan backpacks. QUAGGAN BACKPACKS:

I just commented over in our forums, something a touch throwaway but I was instinctively right: This is why gems are such a good cushion against inflation if not an all out profit making technique (the large fee is what prevents us from really making super profits with gem flipping). In fact gems are starting to see some action already.

I know it's early to speculate but, when you're right, the earliest speculation nets the surest and most substantial  profits. What do you think we'll see? What kind of event are we looking at? New materials (like the Lost Shores are a possibility. New recipes are almost a certainty.

There's very little information to go on just now in terms of what to invest in. We've got hints about an overhaul of achievements including daily and monthly quests; a new reward type "laurels"; changes to the 'Box o' Fun'; and information that the trouble and refugees originate from the northern regions of Tyria including the Charr and Norn areas (flame and frost).

For now I'll be keeping my eyes peeled and getting involved in discussions on our boards and in the comments!

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Bots And Their Influence On Item Supply

We've been speculating in the forums about the changes in the value of several item types. The most obviously influenced are tier 6 materials:

Blood 

Scales

Totems

Venom

Bones

Dust

Fangs

Claws

Check a few of those links - you'll see prices climbing. A detailed post over on the reddit subforum by user rawrgs indicates that these changes are supply side - and the most popular theory in that thread is that a bot ban Wave is the cause. 

Players report seeing fewer (to the tune of almost none) bots in the most prolific botting area: Southsun Cove.

Right now profiting from this isn't going to be easy. It's not something you can predict in the short to medium term (I'll get to long term in a minute) because we won't know (unless Anet announce it) that there is a bot ban wave incoming.

Now as for long term: I'm put in mind of a post I did a week or so ago - Learning To Make More Money in Guild Wars 2 - and I'll tell you why. 

The knowledge or awareness that bots have an impact on the economy is something you can draw on to make long term predictions. You combine your in-game know-how with real world knowledge.

In-game; "I know that Tier 6 mats are cheap because of bots even though they are in demand," RL;  "I know that Arenanet take a firm stance against botting but often take a while to take action. When they do take action it's on a large scale."

Working from here you can draw up a rough formula of sorts for long term investments in and around bot-saturated markets. 

If you know (through following news sources or personal experience) that bots are in an area  where (for example) a particular item, or group of items, drop in abundance and you also know that the demand for these items is pretty steady (but brought down by a large, botted supply), then you could purchase a sizeable supply of these items over a few weeks. 

You might just benefit from the next bot ban wave.

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Farmer's Almanac - A Trio of Farming Locations

Bunch of Farms for you Today!

Tier 1 Crafting Materials

Sorry I haven't posted. It's been hectic around here lately but I have not been lazy. I've got 3 different farms for you all to try if you haven't already. Have fun!

This location is not for farming for gold. You may receive some gold in the process but we are actually looking for Tier 1 crafting materials. You know, those materials you need to start leveling your crafting professions. Stuff like Jute Scraps, Tiny Scales/Claws/Totems, Vials of Weak Blood and all that jazz. Of course, most of these items can be purchased off the Trading Post for a pretty low amount of money, but I know there's quite a few frugal people out there that won't spend money on something they can easily farm themselves.

Anywho, all of the Tier 1 crafting materials can actually be farmed in one place in Queensdale. So in this level 1-17 zone, you can port over to Vale waypoint or Fields waypoint. Either way, head to the caverns to the eastern part of the map and kill yourself up a bunch of bandits. They drop Bags of Pinched Goods which you can open up for the materials. If you're level 80, you may notice that these guys will drop level 75+ items along with level 3-5 items. I believe this has to do with magic find gear. The low level stuff are things that would have dropped anyway where the high level stuff was stuff that only dropped because of the magic find gear you had. I was actually able to find a rare item off a champion in the caverns that I salvaged for an ecto. Not a huge profit gain, but it did more than pay for my fast travel costs. As for the bandits themselves, there's nothing special. They are easy to kill and range from level 3-5. Scouts are mid ranged and cutthroats (or is it cutpurses) are melee. Just a little something to keep in mind when grouping them up.

Karka Farming in Southsun Cove

We will be heading to Southsun Cove, a level 80 zone that was added during the Lost Shore event. Karkas are level 80 sperm shooters that look like Patrick Star from Spongebob Squarepants. They are tough, with a large health pool and strong attacks. I recommend medium to long ranged attacks when possible and adding blind or weakness to your build will help mitigate damage. After the Karka's opening ranged attack, they will attack at melee range so I suggest crippling and kiting the Karka to avoid most damage.

Karka drop Vials of Potent Blood, Vials of Powerful Blood and Karka Shells as well as a couple types of trash loot and Rare items as well. All sell pretty well on the Trading Post. You should also get at least one rare item or two within an hour that can be salvaged for Globs of Ectoplasm. In the 2 hours I farmed this location, I received 2.8 Gold. I cannot recommend this farm because of its potential difficulty in farming and its low payout.

Killing Sparks for Charged Lodestones

There are 3 different locations to farm sparks. Two of them are in Cursed Shore of Orr and are only there during certain events. The first location is just north of Caer's Shadowfain Waypoint and the other is just west of Arah Waypoint. Since I couldn't get a lot of sparks in this zone, I decided to farm the majority of my sparks in Malchor's Leap south of Tempest Waypoint and specifically just south of Karst Plains in a ruin with veteran sparks and spirits of valor. The sparks themselves are simple to take down and the veterans are a bit tougher but still pretty simple. Grab a farming buddy like I did and things will go a lot smoother.

These sparks are the only things that drop charged lodestones which sell for around 3.5 gold. I wasn't lucky enough to get one during my first hour but if you do, your profits could exceed 4 gold. Not bad, eh?

Anyway, sorry for the gap in content. Hopefully this will hold you all over for some time. Let us know how your farms turn out and submit farms you'd like to see in the comments of the videos. Thanks all!

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Join the forums!

I am embroiled in time consuming RL scenarios at the moment. It means my posting has been a bit lax, a bit irregular, a bit infrequent. I hope to correct that soon but in the meantime I wanted to shout out the forums!

They're already really informative. There's a few early adopters coming up with some excellent discussion and, even when I have little time to create a full fledged post for the site, I've enough time to get talking to folks on the boards.

I recommend everyone who's interested in where GW2 is going in 2013 (did you see that post today by the way? I'll be blogging about this in the next few days I hope - if I get time!) get involved!

JOIN UP

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