By Shannon Doyle, OnRPG Resident Tyrian
As promised Colin Johanson wrote an extensive look at what the rest of 2013 holds for Guild Wars 2, spoilers free. It touches on every aspect of the MMO from PvP to Crafting and is bound to change plans for a lot of players. If you’re looking for a bullet point of the novel sized entry scroll down to the end of the page for the TL;DR version.
Crafting
There are a lot of big changes coming to crafting later this year. At some point crafting skills will go up to level 500 using new materials which are themselves crafted, using materials that are lower down. And, much like the charged quartz which was just introduced there will be a limit of one per day to aid in creating an economy for such items. There will also be new account bound crafting materials which will also be a once a day, per location occurrence. What types of places? Jumping Puzzles, giant world bosses, dungeons, and others. Salvaging Fine and Masterwork items (blues and greens) will give you a chance to get a Magic Find Consumable. Which brings me to….
Magic Find
Sometime this year Magic Find armor will be a thing of the past as MF is taken out of item stats all together and made an account wide stat that improves the odds on all your characters. Improving your MF will be done through consumables and the achievement reward system.
Legendary
Legendary weapons are hard. Getting the precursor is the hardest part. But that will change this year as a way to craft the precursor is introduced. It will require level 500 in crafting professions, and the new materials which will be introduced. Players who do craft a legendary will also be able to pick from a list of already existing stats combos so transmuting will no longer be required anymore. And on top of all of this there will be new legendary weapons introduced.
Ascended Gear
New Legendary weapons aren’t the only thing on the table. The new materials and level 500 crafting will be all about Ascended Gear. Armor and Weapons both will be getting the Ascended treatment. The weapons will have the stats of the same level as Legendary Weapons but not be as time consuming to create, or as pretty to look at. Ascended Gear will also be found as rare drops throughout the world however, they will be account bound.
LFG Tool
The LFG tool is officially “upcoming!”
New Skills and Traits
To try to combat releasing new gear every few months while still offering progression new skills and traits will be introduced. These will be obtained by unlocking them. There will also be new ways to earn skill points introduced to encourage players to try different things.
Rewards
New rewards will be introduced to give players even more options, and better choices while completing content. Much how chest events give one guaranteed reward chest a day so too will Champions. These chests will include things like crafting materials, unique skins, and skill points. This will make places like Orr and Southsun Cove where Champions are everywhere much more appealing. Dungeon completion will be getting a change as well. Players will be given bonus gold for each dungeon path completed each day. These rewards will be guaranteed and vary depending on the difficulty and length of each path. The bonus gold only counts once a day, per path, thereby encouraging players to look beyond the favorite paths.
TL;DR
Crafting to 500
No more Magic Find Stats
New Crafting Materials
Ascended Gear to be Crafted at 500 level
Green and Blue Level Drops Worth Salvaging
Crafted Legendary Precursers
New Legendary Weapons
New Skills and Traits
LFG Tool “Soon”
Champion Chest Reward
Dungeon Gold Bonus
WvW Orbs Returning
PvP Rewards Improved
