The Bear Necessities: A Peek at the Lowland Kodan and the Story of Janthir Wilds
Hey there! This is Indigo, the Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ Narrative Lead, and Chloë, the expansion's Story Design Lead. We'd love to walk you through a high-level look at the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds story to help set the stage for launch next month.
The story of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds is a treasure trove of intrigue and lore, both past and present, and we'll be encountering a variety of allies and enemies as we venture into the long-awaited region of Janthir. We'll be picking right up where Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™ left off.
Let's dive in!
Please note: Light spoilers ahead! We'll be teasing a little bit about the region and current affairs surrounding the start of the expansion, so if you'd rather go in totally unspoiled, you'd best skip this one!
Bridging Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure
To get things going, let's look back at last year. Following the end of the dragon cycle, Tyria had no idea what the ramifications would be. As we learned in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, Soo-Won's death caused a powerful blast of magical instability that fractured all sorts of magical forces and barriers within Tyria. Aurene immediately went to work reestablishing herself as a filter for those magics, and stability was quickly restored, but we've only just begun to understand the consequences of that transfer of power.
Right at the onset of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, the commander was thrown into uncharted territory. We learned that the World Spire, a powerful conduit forged by the wizard Isgarren, was fractured following that blast. The spire was one of the few barriers sitting between us and potential calamity, and it only took a moment for the denizens of a parallel realm to worm their way in. And thus, the commander was introduced to the long-fought war between the Astral Ward and the Kryptis.
Through the story of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, the commander aids the Astral Ward in rescuing the Wizard's Court while toppling the malevolent Kyptis king, Eparch. While the fight against the Kryptis was won, there are a lot of stories left to be told about our wizardly new "friends." The Astral Ward has proven to be a worthy ally with a benign cause, but we've barely touched the surface of some of their more questionable choices—not to mention their cantankerous leader, Isgarren. We know they helped in some ways, but why didn't they get involved sooner? Where do we even start with the fractal fiasco?
Time to pull us back to the present. While the commander—now the wayfinder—was fighting back against Eparch in Nayos, the threat of the Kryptis didn't go unnoticed by the rest of Tyria. In fact, that threat was very much noticed, and nations started talking. At the start of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, the commander will receive an invitation to the inaugural meeting of the Tyrian Alliance—and oh boy, do they have a lot of thoughts about our latest demonic invaders. After everything the world has endured, Tyria's patience with destruction is limited.
While we want to keep some of the minutia surrounding the Tyrian Alliance under our hats for now (including our lavish host of guest appearances), in addition to providing the player with a new directive, the alliance also gives us the ability to demonstrate Tyria's growth outside of the main story path. What's happening in the rest of the world? How are things progressing when we're in the thick of adventure?
The Greater Janthir Region
One of the results of this first Tyrian Alliance meeting will send the commander and a very small team of allies into the dangerous wilds of the Janthir region—starting due north of Divinity's Reach, over the Krytan border. The initial focus of our mission is to establish a diplomatic connection with a small faction of kodan. The lowlanders, while hesitant, welcome us into their village—we spend some time getting to know their culture as we explore the Lowland Shore (which we'll dig into a bit more in a moment!).
Partway through the story, we'll be pulled even further into Janthir. That's when we'll make our way into the isles themselves. The bay is rich with history—bloody, brutal, sullen history. And we've never strayed too close until now! We know that Saul and his fledgling White Mantle went to the isles in search of something, leaving with an Eye of Janthir. We also know that other conspicuous figures have ventured into the region, too. On the first island we reach, Janthir Syntri, we'll begin to unravel the tragic history behind the ruined village of Gavril.
But that's a good spot to pause because, most importantly: bears.
The Lowland Kodan
One of the most exciting things to dig into has been our new faction of lowland kodan, who have called Janthir home for many generations. Despite the region being viciously dangerous and inhospitable, they are expert survivalists and have carved out a comfortable—even cozy—way of life in these lands. All lowlanders are capable fighters and learn survival tactics from the time they are cubs. The wayfinder will spend much of their time in Janthir learning about—and learning from—the lowlanders, as they have much to teach.
As a population isolated from their northern kodan cousins for so long and living in a much different environment, they're a little different than the kodan we are familiar with. Perhaps the most notable difference lies in their spiritual belief system. Unlike other kodan, who revere the will and balance of Koda, the lowland kodan hold in reverence the environment, the relationship they maintain with it, and the responsibility they have as stewards of the land. Rather than viewing themselves as enlightened protectors chosen by Koda, lowlanders act out of a duty to maintain necessary balance in a harsh place where taking is easier than giving and survival can be difficult.
These differences trickle down through other aspects of their society. Kodan leadership is typically a partnership between a spiritual mouthpiece of Koda, called a Voice, and a physical protector, called a Claw. However, the lowland kodan have a Claw as their sole leader, a feature of their society that goes back as far as anyone can remember. The Claw is not without balance, though: a council that represents key roles in the village lends the Claw perspective and advice.
As the wayfinder spends more time with the lowland kodan and begins to earn their trust, we'll gain more glimpses into their lives and their history as denizens of Janthir.
Heading North to Janthir
The inhabitants of Tyria are on the cusp of a new era. It's time for nations to ally and work together on a more global scale. Those seeds of alliance were planted under the threat of the Elder Dragons, but the need did not end with the Elder Dragons. As new threats rise, it's good to have friends on your side. What better place to start than with people living next door? The lowland kodan might prove to be valuable allies...if we can earn their trust and convince them it's worthwhile to join the global conversation.
We're so excited to be able to give some first looks into the narrative of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds! There is so much fun existing lore and history to dig into and build upon with new stories and characters. We can't wait for you to experience it all!
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.
Guild Wars 2 Summer Sale Begins Today!
With summer in full swing and our next expansion on the horizon, there is no better time to immerse yourself in the world of Guild Wars 2®! Explore past adventures and experience the latest expansion, Guild Wars 2®: Secrets of the Obscure™, now on sale for the first time!
Head on over to the official Guild Wars 2 website or right here on Steam from Thursday, June 27 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) until Thursday, July 11 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) to take advantage of these discounts.
In a world finally safe from the Elder Dragons' corruption, new threats rise to seek power. Embark on an epic journey and uncover the mysteries of the Wizard's Tower as you defend the skies against incursions from the Mists. Unlock access to weapons that were previously exclusive to elite specializations for each profession, and an updated path to unlocking your skyscale mount.
Both Standard and Deluxe editions of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure expansion are now available at a 20% discount.
Expansion 3: Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons
The future of Cantha is now. The dragon cycle that has sustained and blighted Tyria for ages is collapsing. Mortal hearts and choices will define this moment in history—and echo in the future forever. Unlock new elite specializations, Masteries, and more, including access to fishing and skiffs.
Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons® expansion is available now at a 50% discount!
Experience the entire dragon cycle saga from beginning to end with Guild Wars 2—The Complete Collection. This bundle contains an entire decade's worth of content! Included are Guild Wars 2 Living World® Seasons 2–5 and the first three expansions: Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns®, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire®, and Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons®.
You'll also get two Level-80 Boosts, allowing you to instantly level up two characters and jump straight into our latest content, with two Shared Inventory Slots to easily share items with every character on your account.
This collection is available now at a 50% discount until July 11. For players only interested in the expansions, the Standard and Deluxe editions of the Elder Dragon Saga Collection are discounted by 60%.
Expansions 1 and 2—Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns and Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire
Unlock mounts, gliding, and more with the first two expansions for Guild Wars 2. This package grants you access to a new profession, the revenant, as well as eighteen elite specializations to change the way you play. Experience the joy of movement with the best mounts in MMOs.
This expansion bundle is available now at a 75% discount!
Guild Wars
In addition to the Guild Wars 2 sales detailed below, we're also discounting the original Guild Wars ® and all its expansions and editions by 75%! Now is the perfect time to experience the game that started it all. Fill your Hall of Monuments and unlock bonus items and titles that transfer to Guild Wars 2!
Play the Spear Beta Event Today!
Greetings, Tyrians!
Today marks the arrival of the highly anticipated spear beta event. Spears are finally making landfall, and now is your chance to test them out across all professions and provide valuable insight and feedback! The event runs from June 27 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) until June 30 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7).
If you have a Guild Wars 2® account in good standing, you are invited to try out the spear beta—you don't need to prepurchase Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ to join the fun.
How Can I Participate?
Every Guild Wars 2 account in good standing, including Play-for-Free accounts, will automatically get character slots marked "Beta" when the beta event begins. Clicking on one of these slots will allow you to create a character using any of the nine Guild Wars 2 professions.
From there, explore the open world or try a game mode dedicated to group play. You'll find options to join World vs. World and structured Player vs. Player in the bar located at the top-left corner of your UI. To tackle the Fractals of the Mists instanced group content, visit Fort Marriner in Lion's Arch and enter the portal.
Beta characters will disappear at the end of the event, and any gameplay progress earned while playing on them—including rewards and currency—will not be saved.
After you've had a chance to play, we'd like to hear what you think—what you enjoyed, what you think could be improved, and why you liked or disliked certain build changes in the beta. Head on over to our forums and leave us some feedback!
Previous Beta Feedback
We have heard your feedback from the last beta events regarding our "under construction" icons for temp skills being a pain point. In an effort to improve the experience, we created these temporary icons. We hope these will help to address some pain points, confusion, readability issues and enhance the experience for those testing the new spear weapons.
To highlight these improvements, here is a showcase of the new temporary skill icons that players can anticipate, along with a simple breakdown of what each icon represents.
Ground-Targeted AoE: Launches an attack at a specified area on the ground. Beneficial Effect: Applies boons or other helpful effects to you and your allies. Projectile: Shoots one or more projectiles at a targeted enemy. Player-Based AoE: Executes an area attack centered around the player. Movement: Moves you a certain distance when activated. Utility: Offers a variety of options, such as stealth and other versatile actions. Melee: Delivers an attack directly in front of the player. Line AoE: Unleashes an area attack in a straight line ahead of the player. Healing: Restores health to you or an ally. Defense: Provides defensive actions like blocking or evading attacks. Cone: Executes an attack in a cone-shaped area in front of the player. Crowd Control: Uses a skill to disable your enemy.
Spear Weapon Preview
As our fifth expansion, Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, sets sail for release on August 20, players across all professions will have the opportunity to embark on a new combat journey. The long-awaited spear is finally making its debut on land! Join in on the conversation by catching up on our general spear Q&A and also learn how rangers, necromancers, and guardians wield spears. Additionally, check out our recent blogs detailing spear skills for warrior, thief, and engineer, as well as mesmer, elementalist, and revenant.[TAG-108]
A First Look at Homesteads: Exclusive Preview from PC Gamer
The long-awaited Homesteads are finally arriving in our upcoming expansion Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™, and PC Gamer has an exclusive first look at what players can expect!
Homesteads are a significant evolution of the home instances players are familiar with (although they aren't replacing home instances—those will still be around!), offering an enhanced experience for personalizing and upgrading your in-game sanctuary. Items previously collected in home instances can be seamlessly integrated into the new homesteads, ensuring continuity and familiarity. Players can increase their comfort level through various activities such as harvesting nodes, watering flowers, fishing, swimming, chopping trees, watching cats do cat things, and much more, all within the confines of their homestead.
Customization is at the heart of the Homesteads feature, allowing players to tailor their space to their aesthetic preferences. New and existing decorations will be craftable through the new personal scribing crafting discipline. Additionally, players can stable their mounts at their homestead, giving them a much-needed rest after long journeys. Alt characters will also be making an appearance, adding another personal touch to each homestead.
For a more complete overview of Homesteads, head over to PC Gamer's exclusive preview. Keep a lookout on the Guild Wars 2 channels for more details about how Homesteads work, plus everything else you need to get ready for when Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds launches on August 20!
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.
Spear Me the Details: Mesmer, Revenant, and Elementalist
When Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ launches on August 20, each of the nine professions will have access to a new set of spear weapon skills that have new skill effects and animations! If you missed the expansion details, be sure to check out our Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds announcement blog first.
In case you missed our previous spear blogs, catch up on the general spear Q&A first. We also released one blog detailing how rangers, necromancers, and guardians wield spears, followed by last week's blog about spear skills for the warrior, thief, and engineer. This week, game designers Taylor Brooks, Karl McLain, and Cal Cohen from the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds combat feature team are ready to discuss the mesmer, revenant, and elementalist respectively.
Spears Bring Clarity to Mesmers
The mesmers of Janthir look to the beauty of their environment to guide their spear. Through careful study of recursive designs they find in nature, they are able to weave their magic in similar patterns. Each pattern produces a unique effect, giving a spear-wielding mesmer a variety of ways to approach a fight.
The core of mesmer's spear gameplay is the second weapon skill, Mind the Gap; you'll channel energy into your spear and swing it around in a circle. This skill is special because you will want to hit enemies with the outer edge of its area of effect. If you correctly position yourself and secure a hit in the right area, you will do more damage and gain Clarity. The Clarity effect allows you to imbue the next pattern you create with stronger magic, increasing its effectiveness. The exact effect of Clarity will be different for each skill, so you'll need to plan ahead to gain the most value from it.
The fourth skill, Phantasmal Lancer, allows you to dash at your foe, striking them with your spear. As you dash, a phantasm is created at your starting location. The phantasm will dash through you, striking your initial target and enemies past it. If you use Phantasmal Lancer with Clarity, instead of summoning a phantasm behind you, you will summon two phantasms at your flanks that dash toward the enemy and meet to perform a simultaneous strike!
Mesmer spear is a mobile, high-damage weapon with dynamic gameplay. You'll want to focus on your positioning in fights so that you can gain Clarity, then choose which abilities you want to empower with it. Due to the unique requirement for careful spacing, this weapon might take some getting used to—but once you get the hang of it, you'll find yourself weaving a pattern of victory.
Revenant Spear Is a Destructive Masterpiece
Revenants who first heft their spear in battle often say that it reminds them of creation through destruction. Wielding dark power from the Mists, they paint the battlefield through constant pressure and debilitating effects. Let's dive in and talk about how this condition-based hybrid weapon works.
We'll start with the fifth weapon skill as the primary ability. Abyssal Raze is a ground-targeted skill with three charges that strikes up to five enemies. You'll gain up to two stacks of Crushing Abyss per cast every time this skill strikes a foe, which amplifies the next use of Abyssal Raze. At five stacks you'll reach the maximum effectiveness, causing every stroke of the abyss to deliver the most potent effect. With three ammunition charges available for this skill, let's discuss how you'll refresh ammunition using your other spear skills and maintain tremendous pressure on the battlefield while keeping Crushing Abyss active.
The other four revenant spear skills enable the use of Abyssal Raze by reducing its ammunition cooldown and keeping you and your enemies positioned opportunistically on the battleground. Your first skill is a hybrid of ranged or alternating melee strikes, and each of them reduces Abyssal Raze's cooldown by a very short amount when striking a target. Your second skill is a bread-and-butter area-of-effect attack on a target that reduces your Abyssal Raze cooldown by nearly a full ammunition count. The third skill reduces Abyssal Raze's cooldown by a static amount and is a movement ability that leaves abyssal mines in your wake, threatening foes who dare chase you as you paint your masterpiece of destruction. And the fourth skill serves as a delayed area crowd control ability to help you land the most optimal damage as enemies attempt to flee your gaze.
With all these new spear abilities coming in hot, we're excited to watch the masterpieces you create on the battlefield. Happy razing!
Elementalist Spear: Etching for Power
The elementalist wields a spear as a long-range, power-damage weapon capable of conjuring powerful elemental forces such as volcanos, whirlpools, and lightning storms. The spear has a couple of minor defensive tools but is primarily focused on damage and crowd control, leading to a "glass cannon" style of play that will be more comfortable when you're unleashing spells from a distance rather than ending up in the thick of combat. In today's post, we'll cover a few of the skills and some of their shared mechanical aspects.
Starting things off with the fourth air attunement skill, we have Twister, a ranged, ground-targeted area-of-effect skill that (unsurprisingly) creates a twister at the location that damages and inflicts vulnerability on enemies in the area. This skill—as well as the fourth weapon skills in other attunements—has an additional effect against enemies that are within a smaller inner radius near the spell's center, rewarding precise placement. When Twister strikes enemies near its center, it will also bring those enemies up to float in the air.
Next up is Harden, the third earth attunement skill. This is a personal defensive skill that grants the user barrier and also enhances their next strike from any spear skill to inflict daze on their enemy. The other third-slot weapon skills have some similarities: each is a utility-focused skill that protects or empowers the user and grants a bonus to their next spear skill. All of these skills also have a relatively short casting time—or none at all—which is important for today's final elementalist sneak peek.
The fifth weapon skill slot contains the most potent skill of each attunement, assuming you can fulfill the requirements. Each skill starts off in its base state, a quick cast that etches a spell circle into the ground. As an example, the fire skill Etching: Volcano creates a spell circle that grants might to the elementalist. The skill then flips over into Lesser Volcano, a ground-targeted spell that erupts to create several damaging strikes. Unlocking the skill's full potential requires the spell circle to be completed before reactivating the skill. To do so, the user must simply use three other skills while standing inside the etched circle.
This process isn't limited to spear skills, so instant-casting utility skills can be utilized to speed things up. Once the spell circle is completed, the skill flips once more to its final form—in this case, Volcano—allowing the user to unleash the full potential of the effect. The full-power Volcano erupts for a longer period of time, creating additional damaging areas and inflicting more damage than its lesser version. Other attunements utilize the same etching process, but each has their own flavor and skill effects.
Try Spears Yourself June 27!
Tomorrow, we'll be showing off all of the new spear skills during a Twitch livestream at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7). In addition, there will be a beta event from June 27 at 9:00 a.m. until June 30 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) where everyone can try out spears and give us feedback!
Let the summer spear fun commence!
Spear Factor: Warrior, Thief, and Engineer
When Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ launches on August 20, each of the nine professions will have access to a new set of spear weapon skills that have new skill effects and animations! If you missed the expansion details, be sure to check out our Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds announcement blog first.
Our blogs last week provided a general Q&A for how spears will work and a sneak peek at the new skills for the ranger, necromancer, and guardian. This week, game designers Chun-Hong Fung, Cal Cohen, and Karl McLain from our Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds combat feature team are ready to discuss the warrior, thief, and engineer respectively.
Warrior Spears: Damage from a Distance
The warrior spear is a power-based weapon inspired by ancient Sunspear techniques, capable of striking multiple opponents at range. Even though most of their skills can attack distant foes, some of them gain increased effectiveness when used on closer targets, making opponents think twice about closing the gap.
The warrior spear autoattack is Mighty Throw, which hurls the spear at a single enemy, shattering on impact and sending spear fragments into other enemies around the target. Proximity to the target matters, as the closer the target is to the warrior, the more fragments are created.
Maiming Spear is a ranged area attack: the warrior launches the spear into the air, dealing initial damage and crippling foes in the area of effect. This cripple is helpful to prevent enemies from escaping the aftershock that follows, which is larger the closer the targeted area is to the warrior. If breathing room is required, Spear Swipe propels the warrior backward in an evasive maneuver before sending a gust of wind forward to knock enemies back.
Finally, the spear burst skill, Harrier's Toss, allows the warrior to leap up into the air, evading attacks while hurling the spear down with explosive force and dealing more damage the more adrenaline is spent on the burst attack!
Chain Attacks with the Thief Spear
Thief spear is a melee hybrid weapon that can be utilized by both power and condition damage builds. It also draws some inspiration from an old system in the original Guild Wars® that assassin players should be familiar with. Let's dive right in!
The second and third spear skill slots share some characteristics. Each has three different states but will always be in the same state as the other. By default, they will both be lead attacks. Striking an enemy with either lead attack will flip both slots into the next state: follow-up attacks. In a similar fashion, striking an enemy with either follow-up attack will flip the slots into their final state: finisher attacks (yes, they're both combo finishers).
After using one of the finishers, both skill slots will flip back to their lead attack state, ready to start a chain over again—although the fourth and fifth skills and the stealth attack all gain additional bonuses when following a finisher skill, so you may want to weave in one of those before using another lead attack. One last note on the skill chains: using other skills during the chain sequence will not reset the chain, but failing to strike an enemy with the follow-up attack will.
Now that we have a quick overview of the mechanic, let's take a look at the full slot 2 chain. You'll be able to mix and match skill slots throughout the chain (for example, 3, 2, 3 totally works), but we won't be covering all of the skills today.
The Mantis Sting lead attack is a quick melee strike that inflicts bleeding and crippled. This will flip into Entangling Asp, which poisons enemies and will also immobilize enemies that are affected by a movement-impairing condition.
Finally we have the finisher skill, Falling Spider. This skill inflicts bleeding, poison, and vulnerability, inflicting additional stacks against enemies that are either immobilized or under the effects of crowd control. Each skill's bonus trigger conditions are fulfilled by the previous skill in the chain, but these conditions are all things that the thief has broader access to, so there are opportunities to get these bonuses even when chaining skills together from different skill slots.
Engineer Spear Is Shocking!
Surviving in certain lightning-prone environments can be a difficult task for the common Tyrian. Engineers, with their indomitable desire to create and adapt, have found a way to turn their knowledge against their enemies as weapons of mass destruction. Let's talk about how we'll be using the spear to dart around the battlefield and dominate targeted foes.
The engineer's spear combat style is melee oriented with hybrid damage, encouraging you to pick a target and run directly into battle while utilizing a variety of control and damage skills. Your primary skill for this weapon is called Conduit Surge. This skill dashes to your targeted foe and applies the focused effect to them, charging them for future attacks. Every other weapon attack will apply a bonus effect or work to maintain the focused effect on your foe. One thing to note about Conduit Surge is that if a foe is defeated while under the focused effect, this skill will refresh and allow you to pursue your next target.
The Lightning Rod skill is constantly available while wielding a spear. The engineer will create a segmented lightning rod that spins around them, dealing bonus damage to focused targets and gaining an amplifying effect (with a bonus for hitting a focused target) for the next skill on the same slot—Electric Artillery. When the lightning rod is completed and hovering over your shoulder, you can choose to launch your charged rod at an enemy, immobilizing them and applying damaging conditions based on Lightning Rod's success.
The weapon's fifth skill and battle-ender is a skill currently called Devastation, which allows you to leap to a targeted area and deliver a massive EMP-style attack, inflicting focused foes with a continuously damaging effect.
We look forward to watching you tear around the battlefield, mixing both spears and kits together to cause fear and chaos!
Upcoming Spear News
We'll be showing off all of the new spear skills during a Twitch livestream on June 21 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7). In addition, there will be a beta event from June 27 at 9:00 a.m. until June 30 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) where everyone can try out spears and give us feedback!
Our blog next week will have more information on the final three professions and their spear abilities. Happy adventuring until then!
Spearheading a New Weapon: Guardian, Ranger, and Necromancer
In case you missed the news, we've announced that our fifth expansion, Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™, arrives on August 20, and with it comes a brand-new way to fight with spears…on land. As promised in yesterday's spear primer blog, we're back and ready to dive into the details of how the guardian, ranger, and necromancer will utilize the terrestrial version of spears.
Game designers from the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds combat feature team, Chun-Hong Fung, Taylor Brooks, and Cal Cohen, are here today to discuss the guardian, ranger, and necromancer respectively. So, without further ado, let's get into it.
Guardian Spears Are Quite Illuminating
Unlike the kodan that settled in the Shiverpeaks, the kodan of Janthir have long separated from their reverence for Koda. Instead, they've turned to the nature they're surrounded by to guide their relationship with the world—the sun and all the benefits life seizes from it included. Certain spear bears look to the sun to channel inspiration in battle, aiding their allies and illuminating a path forward. Guardians have learned from these kodan and wield their spears in a similar manner, focusing on supporting allies and debilitating enemies.
While some of these skills can be used to provide support at a safe distance, their true potential is realized on the front lines when the guardian is fighting alongside their allies. By fulfilling specific conditions, certain spear skills will cause the following spear attack to be illuminated, which makes them stronger or grants them additional effects.
While you can only empower one skill at any given time, those skills can in turn grant the illuminated status to your next skill, allowing the guardian to chain multiple illuminated skills together with precise positioning. Let's look at how a few of these skills work.
The second skill, Helio Rush, causes the guardian to charge forward in the direction they're aiming, dealing damage to enemies and healing allies that they pass through. Striking an enemy during the rush causes the next spear attack to be illuminated. The illuminated version of Helio Rush increases the healing and additionally grants them resolution. Thus, this skill is best used in the thick of the fray, when you're able to go through both allies and enemies at once.
Guardian weapons aren't complete without a symbol of some sort, and the spear is no exception. The fifth skill, Symbol of Luminance, knocks enemies back as you cast it. The symbol pulses resistance to allies who don't have it already and weakness to enemies. Symbol of Luminance is unique in that, unlike other spear skills, it does not have a way to grant the illuminated effect—but for good reason! While standing within the symbol, any spear attacks you perform are automatically illuminated, regardless of whether you are currently in the correct state. With the illuminated version of this skill, this property applies even if you leave the symbol and lasts for as long as the symbol does, including the additional duration granted by Writ of Persistence, an existing guardian trait.
Go Stealth with Ranger Spears
Spear-wielding rangers excel at hunting their prey. They whittle their quarry down at range and then they finish them off with a surprise attack at melee range. Ranger's spear features a new type of autoattack that some of the other spears will utilize as well. When at range, you'll throw a spear at your target, but when you move closer to your foe, you'll transition into using a melee chain! This bimodal model will help you always keep up pressure.
Rangers learn from the animals of Janthir to deftly wield their spear. Using Mongoose's Frenzy, they'll slash their spear in front of them as if they were a wild animal using their claws. Falcon's Stoop throws a spear with the velocity of a raptor. Panther's Prowl will kick up nearby brush, stealthing the ranger and their pet—and that's when the fun begins.
Ranger spear features a new type of stealth attack. Unlike a thief, stealthing upgrades ranger spear's 2 through 5 skills into new versions that share a cooldown with their base skill. Mongoose's Frenzy flips into Wolf's Onslaught; you swipe your spear as before and then follow up with a jab with the same force as a bite from a wolf's gnashing fangs. Falcon's Stoop becomes Owl's Flight, launching an owl spirit that is wider and unblockable to fly through enemies.
Weaving in and out of melee range, rangers will use their spear to chip away at their prey before they go into stealth to finish the kill. Their unique stealth attacks will allow them to decide how they want to tactically approach any scenario.
Get Up Close with the Necromancer Spear
Now let's take a look at some aspects of the necromancer spear. This spear is a melee power damage weapon that also brings some disruptive elements, a bit of mobility, and some strong burst potential through cooldown resets.
Many of the spear skills create soul shards, life-stealing objects that behave similarly to thief's venoms, but they will only be consumed by strikes from the spear's second skill. This allows them to be consistently built up to a maximum of six to reach a singular moment of power, instead of being immediately consumed by the next strike. These shards deal increased damage against low-health enemies and grant increased healing while your health is low, giving more opportunities for powerful execution sequences or the ability to sustain when nearing death yourself.
As mentioned above, soul shards will be consumed by Perforate, skill 2 on the spear. Perforate is a multihit attack that strikes enemies seven times, enough to consume all active soul shards. Perforate also deals increased damage against low-health enemies, which, combined with the low-health bonus damage of soul shards, makes it a potent skill for finishing the job.
In order to get full value out of Perforate, you'll need to generate some soul shards first, so let's look at another skill that might come in handy.
Skill 4 is Isolate, the singular long-ranged skill on the spear that serves as a gap closer. This skill throws a spear at the enemy, inflicting chill and vulnerability, and on successfully striking a target it flips into the follow-up skill, Distress. Activating the follow-up skill will teleport the necromancer to the target struck by the initial spear and generate soul shards. Additional shards are generated if the enemy does not have any nearby allies of their own, so this skill is great at creating opportunities to pick off lone enemy targets. Teleporting to an enemy will also fully recharge Perforate, so you'll always be ready to consume your newly generated soul shards. Isolate will also recharge itself when exiting Death Shroud, giving access to a lot of potentially powerful sequences. Skills 3 and 5 also generate soul shards (among other things), but we'll talk about those a bit more at a later date.
What's Next?
Speaking of later dates, we'll be showing off all of the new spear skills during a Twitch livestream on June 21 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7). In addition, there will be a beta event from June 27 at 9:00 a.m. until June 30 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) so everyone can try out spears and give us feedback!
Thanks for reading, and we'll be back next week with more information on three more professions and their spear skills.
Straight to the Point: A Primer on Spears in Janthir Wilds
Ho, travelers! My name is Taylor Brooks, and I am a combat designer here at ArenaNet. I'll be your guide to our new combat feature in Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™, the Kodan Spear Training Mastery. By training with the lowland kodan of Janthir, you'll learn how to use your spear on land in new and exciting ways. Starting tomorrow and over the next few weeks, we'll be detailing how each profession utilizes the terrestrial spear. For today, I thought it would be a good idea to cover some of the general spear information you'll need to know.
Q: Will spears be one-handed or two-handed weapons on land?
A: Spears are two-handed weapons both on land and underwater.
Q: Will spears on land just use the same skills as when used underwater?
A: No! Every spear has an entirely new set of skills for each profession when used on land. They also have brand-new skill effects and animations that we are excited for everyone to see!
Q: If every profession is getting a spear, does that mean they will all feel the same?
A: Spears are a versatile weapon, and their gameplay will reflect that. Some professions will employ the spear as a ranged projectile weapon, some will wield it as a melee weapon, and others will utilize it as a magical focus to cast powerful spells.
Q: How can I unlock spear usage on land?
A: The ability to use terrestrial spears will be available when Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds launches. They will be locked behind the first Mastery in the Kodan Mastery line, which is discovered early in the story, or as a purchasable unlock in WvW. We want everyone to be able to use your spears early and throughout your journey in Janthir. As with all other combat features, Kodan Spear Training will be unlocked automatically in PvP for those who own Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds.
Q: Can I use my current underwater spear on land?
A: Yes, spears can be used interchangeably in the aquatic and terrestrial weapon slots. But it is important to note that to equip a spear in both slots, you will need two spears.
Q: Which spear skins can I use on land?
A: All current spear skins will be able to be used on land. We also plan on adding spear skins with all future weapon skin collections.
Q: Will there be a new legendary spear?
A: There will be a new legendary spear released with our first major update following the expansion release. Additionally, the Legendary Armory will be expanded to store up to four Kamohoali'i Kotaki in case you want to wield all the spears, all the time!
Q: Since engineers and elementalists can use spears on land in the expansion, will they gain the ability to wield spears underwater too?
A: Professions that currently cannot use a spear underwater will continue to not be able to use a spear underwater.
Q: Do you need to own Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds to wield spears on land?
A: Yes, this combat feature requires ownership of the expansion.
Q: Will there be a beta test for spears?
A: Yes! There will be a beta event from June 27 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) until June 30 at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) that will give everyone a chance to try out spears and give us feedback. We'll be announcing more information about that beta event soon.
Q: Will there be a livestream?
A: There will be a stream featuring your favorite developer (me) along with Cal Cohen and Roy Marks. We'll show off all the new spear skills and do a deep dive into what you can expect with them. Be sure to tune in to our Twitch channel on June 21 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7)!
We'll be back tomorrow and in the coming weeks with more information about the new spears and their skills. We are very excited to give everyone a taste, and so I'll leave you all with some teasers as to what you can expect to see!
A spear skill reminiscent of an old fan favorite.
A new type of autoattack mechanic.
A set of spear skills featuring a new spin on an existing skill type.
A set of spear skills with multiple ways to reset the cooldown of its key skill.
A melee spear skill that rewards careful positioning.
A set of spear skills that features a reimagining of a mechanic seen in the original Guild Wars.
A spear skill that inflicts a debilitating effect with a new unique effect.
A set of spear skills that require precise aiming at range.
Announcing Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds
A fresh adventure is on the horizon! Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™ arrives on August 20, bringing with it another year of story chapters and content updates. Bristling with mursaat ruins and harrowing to navigate, the fabled Isles of Janthir have been carefully guarded by the wizards of the Astral Ward—and to most of Tyria's denizens, they are a distant legend. But recent events have inspired the world's leaders to create a Tyrian Alliance and dispatch the wayfinder to befriend new allies. As you seek out the lowland kodan colony in Janthir, you will explore, fight, and learn more about the mysteries of Tyria's past.
We've got a little bit of information to provide about some key features of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds in this blog, and between now and launch, you can stay tuned for even more details.
Beginning August 20, 2024
Prepurchasing any edition of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds before the expansion launches at approximately 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on August 20, 2024, 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. You can purchase Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds through the official store or from the in-game store, Steam, or official retailers.
A New Adventure Beckons
At the launch of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, you'll explore two new maps as you seek an alliance with the lowland kodan who call the Isle of Janthir home, master new ways to fight and explore, and unlock a homestead (an account-wide personal housing instance) of your own. Over the course of three quarterly releases that follow the initial launch, you'll have the opportunity to challenge new content, explore additional story in a third new map, craft a legendary spear and backpack, and obtain new Wizard's Vault rewards, cosmetic items, relic effects, and more.
Homesteads
We're excited to add our take on account-wide housing with Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds. Your journeys will lead you to your own homestead, an account-wide personal instance with a structure and land for you to decorate and cultivate. The Homesteads feature is unlocked and developed through an associated Mastery line as a place to express yourself, share space with your friends, and access nodes and unlockable resources from your personal story home instance. Before we launch on August 20, we'll be back to share loads more information and a look at homestead decorating.
Wielding Spears on Land
Previously only available for underwater combat, spears will now have all-new skills for each profession on land. Spears can be used interchangeably in the aquatic and terrestrial weapon slots, but you will need to equip multiple spears to use them in both slots. The unlocked spear skins in your wardrobe will work with both versions, and if you've made Kamohoali'i Kotaki, the legendary spear, you can equip it through the legendary armory in either slot!
Raids and Encounters
Additional challenging encounters will become available alongside new story chapters in the three major releases that follow Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds. In the first of these releases, anticipated to release around November 2024, you'll get to challenge a new raid comprising three encounters. The story of these encounters will be accessible in two ways: through a classic 10-player raid instance (our eighth raid), or with large groups in open-world events.
The Warclaw
In Janthir Wilds, the warclaw mount will be featured with new mechanics. Previously only available through World vs. World, the warclaw will be introduced to players in the story of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, including new skills for PvE play. At the same time, we'll be revisiting the warclaw's WvW skills to provide a refreshed experience that builds on what we've learned about mounts since first implementing the warclaw.
Developing a New PvP Mode
And we've got one final thing to share for now: Over the course of the coming year, we'll also be seeking input from the community on a new PvP game mode we aim to implement. We have a prototype of a map and mechanics that we'll be ready to start beta testing later this year, and we'll iterate on and refine that, taking into account your feedback on the beta tests.
Stay Tuned
Again, you can visit the official store or hop into the game to purchase the upcoming expansion, Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds. Between now and launch on August 20, we'll be sharing additional information about the features and content like the new spear skills, Homesteads, raids, and more.
Secrets of the Obscure: Looking Back and Forward
Hey, Guild Wars community,
Josh Davis here, Game Director for Guild Wars 2®. Last week's content update was a significant milestone for us—both technically and symbolically. It marked the final major release for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™(SotO), our first foray into the annual expansion model first announced in early 2023.
As we conclude one chapter with the final content update of SotO, we are eagerly preparing to unveil the details of our next expansion. Before we all get swept up by next week's news of what's coming for Guild Wars 2, I want to take a moment to reflect on the development of SotO and some of the high-level learnings that we've taken forward with us into our fifth expansion. You won't learn about the specific features, setting, or story of our next expansion in this blog post (that's for next week), but you'll have a better understanding of how we're approaching its development.
Retrospective
A quick history refresher. A little over a year and a half ago, we announced that we we'd be transitioning from the long-standing Living World model to smaller, more frequent (annual) expansion releases. This was a significant shift, but the new direction was born out of an examination of the pain points experienced by our players and our developers. The reasons we laid out for this change, and what we hoped to achieve by it, were simple but deeply important:
Deliver content updates in a more consistent and timely manner.
Provide better support for the systems and game modes that make up the Guild Wars 2 experience.
Enable ArenaNet employees to enjoy a better work-life balance.
Now that we've completed a full expansion release cycle, I can confidently say that we've made significant strides toward these goals. But as with all things, there's room for improvement—both in terms of the content we deliver and the processes through which we deliver it. For today, I'm going to focus on some of what we've learned on the content side of things.
Story
The conclusion of the Elder Dragon saga in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons® presented us with a unique opportunity to delve into a different kind of storytelling. We aimed to focus on deeper narratives grounded in the characters and circumstances around the player character. However, with SotO our ambition led us to take on a broader scope than was feasible. We introduced a lot of new characters, and the plot was too complex for what can be reasonably handled within an annual expansion. This left some character interactions feeling rushed and story threads unexplored. More isn’t always better.
We learned a lot from this experience and have a much greater understanding of story scale within our new release structure. For our next expansion, we're going to tell a more grounded story set in a new region of Tyria, with more of a focus on local threats and the global conversation around those threats. Tyria, despite all its challenges, has continued to stir. While we leave Nayos and the Kryptis to enjoy their newfound freedom, the story will pick up on some threads started in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure—continuing with the Astral Ward arc, their moral ambiguity, and their relationship to Tyria.
Map Design
In SotO, we delivered three new open-world maps. The first two, Amnytas and Skywatch Archipelago, came with the expansion's launch in August 2023. The third map, Inner Nayos, was released with the first quarterly update in November 2023 and was then expanded on in our second and third quarterly updates with new playable space and event content.
After extensive adventuring in Inner Nayos in recent months, it's clear that using a single map as the main focal point for three releases is not ideal from a player or developer standpoint. Our decision to do so originally stemmed from production constraints and overlapping development timelines between expansions, but we've since identified some ways to mitigate those issues—both in terms of release structure and process improvements.
For our next expansion, our first two maps will be released at the expansion's launch just as they did in SotO. However, the final map will arrive in the second quarterly update and be expanded upon in the third—meaning it will be expanded on for two total releases like Bjora Marches and Drizzlewood Coast. Not only does this give our team a bit more time to develop the third map, it also means that the story during the next expansion cycle will better leverage all three maps and take you back to familiar areas from your past adventures. While the first quarterly release after the expansion's launch won't include the third open-world map of the expansion, as it did with SotO, there will be plenty of new content to keep you busy in that timeframe—in terms of story, open world content, and encounters. I know that's a little vague (again, check back in next week), but rest assured, that first quarterly release will include something really exciting that players have been requesting for over 5 years.
Features
MMOs are made up of numerous gameplay systems and content types, each with a different role to play in the game experience. As games go on, they tend to accumulate more and more systems and features from expansions and the like, which…is fine…if there's effort put into maintaining and updating those systems. Looking back over the game's history, I think this maintenance and upkeep is one of the areas where we've fallen short, at times even falling into the trap of releasing new features for the sake of releasing new features even if they overlap with something that already exists. This is something we've been referring to internally as "putting a hat on a hat."
Over the last two years, we've put much more of a focus on upkeep and iteration of systems and avoiding unnecessary bloat where possible. We put more of a focus on maintaining live game systems, and with SotO we even went to the extent of entirely reworking existing features to make room for more modernized solutions. The Wizard's Vault is a good example of this strategy working out well for us, and you can expect to see a new system being introduced in expansion 5 that adds a meaningful new way to spend your time in Guild Wars 2 while using this as an opportunity to greatly improve the player experience with related, existing game systems.
Overall, we were a bit conservative with features in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure—trying to strike the right balance between scope, schedule, and risk while navigating a new content structure. We've ironed out a lot of the kinks here, and it's allowed us to be a bit more ambitious with our next expansion. Next week can't come soon enough!
Such a Tease
We closed out one of our recent blogs—which introduced the Cosmetic Inspection feature and recapped some of the quality-of-life changes that have gone into the game thanks to the development approach we took to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure—with a screenshot preview of an area you'll discover in our next expansion. We thought today would be a fun opportunity to build on that, so I'll leave you with an additional environment preview.
On behalf of ArenaNet, I want to express my sincere gratitude for your continued support, your passion, and your feedback! It's not lost on us just how incredibly lucky we are to have such a dedicated community behind us, and we look forward to discovering more of Tyria's secrets together with you for years to come.
Thanks for reading! I can't believe that we're just a week away from announcing what's next for Guild Wars 2. I'm really excited about what we've created, and I think you will be, too.
