Guild Wars 2 news » Release Notes for Tequatl Rising

The scourge of Splintered Coast has risen, more deadly and powerful than ever before. Band together with other heroes, old friends, and new allies to fight the rising evil. Beware—against a foe of this strength and cunning, failure is a very real option!

LIVING WORLD

Tequatl Rising

Something’s gotten into Tequatl the Sunless. This ancient dragon, scourge of the Splintered Coast, has become more formidable than ever with an arsenal of new attacks and lethal tricks at its disposal. To stop this rampaging beast, players will join forces with old friends and new allies in a desperate battle where failure is a very real option. Tequatl has risen, and it will take an army of players to bring it down!

Tequatl the Sunless

• Recruit friends and forge new allegiances to battle against Tequatl the Sunless in an all new epic encounter!
• Earn new rewards not available elsewhere:
  • Exclusive ascended weapon skins
  • Mini Tequatl the Sunless
  • Rare quality underwater breathers

Track the Dragon

• Meet up with Rox in Sparkfly Fen to help her track the dragon and gain recognition in the warband.
• Scour Frostgorge Sound, Blazeridge Steppes, and Sparkfly Fen for evidence of Tequatl and other dragons.

World Boss Updates

• Jungle Wurm
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 15 minutes.
  • Increased the boss’s health.
  • Fixed a number of issues that caused the boss’s skills to miss enemies.
• The Shatterer
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 15 minutes.
  • Increased the damage dealt by the mortars set up near the Lowland Burns waypoint.
  • Increased the boss’s health.
  • Shard Storm now targets enemies instead of predetermined locations.
• Claw of Jormag
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 30 minutes.
  • Phase 1: Skill locations have been adjusted to eliminate “safe spots.”
  • Phase 2: Golems no longer die instantly after encountering an ice pillar.
  • Phase 2: Increased the damage dealt to ice pillars by Pact charrzookas.
  • Added two gilded strongboxes to the daily reward chest awarded for killing this boss.
• Fire Elemental
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 15 minutes.
  • Increased the boss’s health.
  • Standing too close to the elemental now causes players to be set on fire.
  • The boss now summons flame vortexes that move around the room and inflict burning and blindness.
  • Added two deluxe gear boxes to the daily reward chest awarded for killing this boss.
• Frozen Maw
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 15 minutes.
  • Increased the boss’s health.
  • Frost vortexes summoned by this boss now move around the battlefield.
• Shadow Behemoth
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 15 minutes.
  • Portals will now summon veteran or champion minions when multiple players are present.
• Inquest Golem Mark II
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 15 minutes.
  • Increased the damage dealt by electrified platforms.
  • Fixed a number of issues that caused the boss’s skills to miss enemies.
  • Added two deluxe gear boxes to the daily reward chest awarded for killing this boss.
• Taidha Covington
  • The event now fails if it’s not completed within 10 minutes.
  • Increased the boss’s health.
  • Fixed a number of issues that caused the boss’s skills to miss enemies.
• Megadestroyer
  • Players will now receive a daily reward chest for killing this boss.
  • This boss now has an updated visual appearance and skills.

 Achievements

• A rotation of Tequatl and other world bosses has been added to the Daily achievement category.
• Completing the Boss Week meta-achievement awards the player the Wings of the Sunless back-slot skin. Completion of this meta-achievement requires players to complete 12 achievements from either the Tequatl Rising story or the world-boss-related dailies.
• Completing the Tequatl the Sunless meta-achievement awards the player with the title “The Sunbringer.”

NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT

Looking For Group Tool Beta

The new Looking For Group system is just about ready to be added to the game to aid players in finding additional party members for content. We will start rolling out the beta version of this feature over the next several days. The quality of the system is our paramount goal, and to ensure that the demand for the system doesn’t negatively impact performance, we will be allowing access to a subset of the player base initially. We will roll out the feature to additional players as the beta test continues.

When the feature is fully activated, here’s what you can expect:

• Players can access the new system from the second tab on the Contacts panel, which has been renamed to “Contacts and LFG.”
• Players and parties can now join listed parties or host groups looking for additional members through the LFG system.
• Players and parties can create custom party descriptions to attract additional players.
• Parties that include mutual friends and guild members will be listed at the top of each subcategory.
• A new LFG chat filter has been added so that all messages from this new system can be filtered out.
• Players can report inappropriate party listings or individual players directly from the list of displayed entries or by right-clicking their names in the chat window.
• All party postings can be seen and joined by anyone near the player’s region, with the exception of Living World’s open world content, personal story, and WvW, which are restricted to the player’s home world only.
• Party entries are separated into the following categories and subcategories:
  • Living World
    • Open World Content (world-specific)
  • Dungeons
    • Ascalonian Catacombs
    • Caudecus’s Manor
    • Twilight Arbor
    • Sorrow’s Embrace
    • Citadel of Flame
    • Honor of the Waves
    • Crucible of Eternity
    • The Ruined City of Arah
  • Fractals of the Mists
    • Scales 1-9
    • Scales 10-19
    • Scales 20-39
    • Scales 40+
  • Personal Story
    • General Personal Story (world-specific)
  • Player vs. Player
    • Team Arena
    • Custom Arenas

World vs. World

• Introducing Bloodlust in the Borderlands:
  • The lake in the center of the Borderlands maps has been replaced with new ruins of power.
  • To make way for the ruins, the quaggan and krait have been removed entirely, as well as all the content related to them.
  • The five ruins have unique art, and each contains a capture point that ties into the Borderlands Bloodlust buff.
  • If players can hold three or more of the ruins simultaneously for two minutes, all players currently in WvW on that world will receive one stack of the Borderlands Bloodlust buff, to a maximum of three stacks.
  • Every stack of the buff applies +50 to all stats, healing power, and condition damage. In addition, using a finisher on an enemy player while under the effects of the buff will award one point to the player’s world.
  • The buff is not removed until players on an opposing world can capture and hold three or more of the five ruins for two minutes and acquire the buff for themselves.
  • Control of the capture points at the ruins will slowly decay if no players from any team remain to defend them, until the ruins revert to neutral control.
  • Each ruin has a master cannon build site. The site is controlled by the team that holds the ruin and requires 10 supply to build a cannon, which can be used for defending the point.
  • Two sentry points have been added to the area around the ruins.
• Flame Ram Mastery has been added to the Rank and Abilities tab.
  • Gain Iron Hide (damage reduction) while using the Flame Ram.
  • Flame Blast now applies Structural Vulnerability (1% increased damage) to gates.
  • Reduced the recharge of Flame Ram skills.
  • New skill: Impact Slam—Applies damage to the gate and launches any enemy trying to repair the door.
  • New skill: Iron Will—Applies Iron Hide to allies in a small area.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH

Twisted Watchwork Invasions

• Molten Alliance and Aetherblade phases now occur in between Twisted Watchwork phases.
• Fixed a scaling issue with Molten Alliance manhole gadgets.
• The bulk of the bonus rewards for battling Scarlet’s invasions are now given to players who successfully defeat an invasion. There is still a small bonus reward for each additional wave defeated.

General

• Fixed an issue whereby a character’s stats were not being immediately updated when selecting new stats for an equipped item.
• AoE Loot On Interact is much more responsive and will now properly function if the “Search” dialog is on-screen for a non-resource node. The text will now be replaced with “AoE Loot On Interact” to further indicate when these conditions are met. Using the mouse to click the prompt will only loot the specified target, regardless of the previous conditions. The AoE Loot On Interact functionality and the AoE Loot key binding have not been changed.
• The inebriated citizen who kept redecorating for Dragon’s Bash out of season has finally been apprehended.  All out-of-season decor has been removed.
• Modified the LOD distance on some of the supply crates in Orr.
• Fixed an issue with the sonic tunneling tool by decreasing the falloff distance to 5 meters and lowering its volume.
• Fixed a client crash that would occur when selecting sylvari physiques.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused players to shadowstep into terrain.

UI

• Fixed some bugs with item-link colors in chat.
• Updated minis that shared the same icon to have new icons to avoid player confusion.

World vs. World

• Fixed a bug with the defend event at Lowlands Keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds to prevent the event from failing on the death of the keep lord.
• Fixed a bug with multiple supply camp capture points in the Eternal Battlegrounds that caused AI to attack an invisible enemy.
• Adjusted the shape of a capture point at Rogue’s Quarry in the Eternal Battlegrounds to better fit the terrain.
• Fixed the spawn of a missing outfitter merchant in the Blue Keep in the Red World Borderlands map.
• Fixed an issue causing players to get trapped in walls when trying to repair them.

PvP

• Fixed an issue in the Battle of Kyhlo where players were able to enter the Red Team base with rocket boots.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

New Items and Promotions

• The World 2 Super Boom Box is now available in the Gem Store in the Style category for 800 gems. This boom box plays five songs from World 2 of Super Adventure Box and is the perfect companion to the World 1 Super Boom Box, which is also still available in the Gem Store.
• The Tequatl Rising Mini Pack is now available in the Gem Store in the Minis category for 500 gems. These three risen are horrible and adorable. Put them all in the Mystic Forge with a Superior Rune of the Sunless to get a Mini Risen Abomination.
• The Permanent Vigil Megalaser Finisher is now available in the Gem Store in the Upgrades category for 700 gems. Can’t beat Tequatl? Use the Vigil Megalaser Finisher to destroy enemies in PvP and WvW instead!
• Magic find boosters are still 30% off in the Boosts category in the Gem Store. This special discount will only last until September 18.

Improvements

• The maximum number of bank tabs a player can have has been increased from 8 to 12. Players who have eight bank tabs can now purchase up to four more. Bank tabs can be purchased by clicking the lock icon at the bottom of the bank tab or by visiting the Upgrades category in the Gem Store. Each bank tab costs 600 gems.