Well who doesn’t love a dragon? Well how about three? For your viewing pleasure I went for a quick tour of the three dragons you can encounter in Guild Wars 2. Now you do have a 4th dragon Zhaitan but he can only be faced inside of the last dungeon. A quick rundown on the 3 dragons in the world are not elders.

The Shatterer is a rank given to a lieutenant and champion of Kralkatorrik. At any given time, there’s only a single dragon of this rank. Once a Shatterer dies, the title moves on to a different dragon. He doesn’t really have a good story he is the first dragon you face in  Blazeridege Steps . Visually impressive it stops just about there. He is a ridiculously easy dragon to kill can be done with 10 people. Use the siege weapons kill his adds and avoid his air phase rain down.

Tequatl is the same species undead dragon as Zhaitan but is merely a minion of Zhaitan. A Tequatl like dragon Blightghast you see in your personal story around level 30. You will get to deal with Tequatl in Sparkfly Fen Southwest corner on the beach. He is the second world dragon you face and not a very hard encounter as long as you follow dragon 101.

Next Is Jormag the Claw a ice cragon found in Shiverpeak Mountains. People thought Jormag the Claw was actually the same Jormag elder dragon it’s not. It’s actually his herald and actually what the name implies merely his “claw”. Which leave you to wonder how super bad big the real Jormag and where he is even hiding that is big. Jormag the claw is a long endurance fight drop his shield damage him repeat. With that said once you do a few rounds of it you got it and he’s going down.

Zhaitan does count as 4th dragon but he is in the final Arah dungeon. The very last one you do at 80. And in his current state he is broken and doesn’t fight back much when you get to him. Arena net already said they are working on it and the rewards from that dungeon.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts on the dragons. Are they simply too easy? Maybe they are that is a little sad. I think so as imposing as they appeared they went down without much fight. I would prefer they have one shot the raid ability it would stop the mindless lemming it down fighting. I love the game and the look on the dragons I think Arena Net could maybe sharpen those talons a bit. It could just be the warrior in me wanting more than visually impressive loot piñata.

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Over the weekend, the world first Eternity weapon has been crafted! Pita on GW2Guru tells us what it took to get it done. With over 700 hours played, he crafted two Legendaries (Sunrise and Twilight) and combined them with some other incredibly expensive materials, he created Eternity.

Q: How did you make so much gold to purchase all the components ?

A: I did not exploit nor did I receive donations from my guild. I capitalized on early gains purchasing a large
sum of gems in the very start of the game and invested the majority of it into mystic coins, conduits, bltc, etc.

Q: How did you farm so much karma?

A: I had 15% karma up 24/7 from guild boost as well kitten from banners and 50% from karma boosters. This along with having 3 level 80s allowed me to farm up to 200k karma a day without hitting DR.

It’s a pretty amazing accomplishment and the sword looks pretty amazing. You can check out the rest of his post in the link above, and you can continue reading for a video of the sword in action.

We received an interesting dev tracker post by Colin Johanson on the official forums Sunday. It seems that as part of our exciting Shadow of the Mad King Halloween event that’s starting today, we’ll be getting to see an extra special one-day event occurring on October 28th. A fairly specific time of day was even given as to when players should be around for it. Here’s the post, which begins with an answer regarding whether or not normal Black Lion keys open the special event chests:

Originally posted by ColinJohanson (Source)

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You use normal keys to open the chests yes, there won’t be an additional chest type for Halloween, it’ll simply be that the existing black lion chests have new items that can be found in them during the 10 day Halloween festivities.

And also since I’m sure someone will ask this, yes there are loads of other Halloween rewards you can earn over the course of the festival that don’t come out of these chests!

And finally, make sure to be around on Sunday October 28th mid-day pacific time, you’re NOT going to want to miss it!

Sounds fun! Most GW1 veterans are speculating that the mini-event will most likely run throughout the day on a looped schedule of sorts as to allow players from all time zones to take part. Let’s hope this is the case.

Colin Johanson went on a frenzy over the weekend with a half dozen posts on the forums telling the community that they are focusing on changes to not only sPVP and new content, but class balance as well. Here are a few quotes to read, unfortunately there is no detail to the changes in the pipeline, but confirmation that they are there.

WvW Updates and Free Transfers:

Originally posted by ColinJohanson (Source)

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Just wanted to quickly add we’ve got people working on fixing issues with free server transfers as well, its proven far more complicated than we originally intended/expected to get done but is absolutely being built and is coming as soon as we can possibly get it in and bug-free.

We’ll also be working on a number of other WvW features we’ll talk more about in the coming months once they’re closer to being implemented!

FOV Fixes and Updates:

Originally posted by ColinJohanson (Source)

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We’re in the middle of working on additional fixes for the FOV, we’ll have an update on this very shortly. We’ve been doing some very promising tests internally, will role out more info soon once we’re sure everything is working!

Future Content:

Originally posted by ColinJohanson (Source)

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A number of the activities/mini-games are things we decided to table for a while in favor of focusing on features and areas we felt were more important for the game. That being said, if you like activities, make sure to stop in and visit during the big Halloween festivities running from Oct 22nd-Nov1st!

In the short-term we’re currently focused on adding a massive wealth of additional content and features for players to do in the game using the players core skill-bar, which you’ll start seeing in the Shadow of the Mad King update in October as well as our massive November release.

Long term we’ll absolutely be adding more activities as well, but we want to make sure we’ve got loads of stuff to do at level 80 in PvP, WvW, and PvE using your characters core skill-bar first and foremost, and we’re dedicating our focus in that area. Down the road, we’ll continue to expand on the scope of activities available in the game as well.

Class Balance:

Originally posted by ColinJohanson (Source)

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Yeah just to clarify, the update before Shadow of the Mad King will be a written blog post update summarizing a bunch of information about upcoming features and pvp additions.

We realize there are a number of key features required to both grow and expand the pvp community, and we’re both actively developing all of those, and ready to talk about some of them in more detail next week.

As for class balance and skills, other teams not directly working on the pvp features are working on that stuff and will give updates once they have a clear plan in place. What we don’t want to do is post and say, “We’re doing x and this is how it’s going to work!” and then come back say, “no we lied we are actually doing Y”. We have a strict policy of talking about features and changes once they are far enough along we feel comfortable they are going to work, so we’re actually always delivering on our promises.

This week with crazy movement in WvW there isn’t much to talk about in the current matchups. Instead, we focus on a few WvW builds with Thork of Fist of the Empire and Teer of PRX. Check in as we discuss Mesmers, Thieves and Warriors and different ways you can dominate your game.

Continue reading for the full episode.

Yesterday, ArenaNet released a cool video for Shadow of the Mad King, the Halloween event heading our way on October 22nd. It’s worth watching for the baby costumed quaggans alone.

We also found out a little more about the event. Shadow of the Mad King will be a four-act event, with the first act starting on October 22nd, the second on October 26th, the third on October 28th and the final act on October 31st. We don’t know the details of what will change between each of the acts, but it’s safe to say it’s probably worth checking out each of them.

More information on the new event items being added to the Black Lion Trading Company was also revealed:

All kinds of tricks and treats are coming to the Gem Store this Halloween. Costumes that grant spooky skills, tonics that transform you into ghouls and ghosts, creepy crawly minis to follow you around. And don’t forget to pick up your free devil horns before they disappear!

The Black Lion Chest is getting a spooky upgrade for Halloween. Between October 23 and November 5 each Black Lion Chest you open has a chance to give you one of six exclusive Halloween-themed weapon skins!

Free devil horns? Those will look rather silly on my charr main– in other words, a must have!

ArenaNet also released a wallpaper of one of the awesome artwork designs for Shadow of the Mad King. To check out the wallpaper, video, and all the details, head on over to the event’s official page.

ArenaNet announced yesterday that select retail stores will now be selling Gem Cards for Guild Wars 2. Players can purchase Gem Cards and use them in-game to receive Gems without having to utilize a credit card. Here’s the official announcement:

“You can purchase gems in-game from the Black Lion Trading Company, but starting this week you can also purchase Guild Wars 2 gems in real life at select retailers. These cards, which make a great gift, contain a serial code that can be redeemed in Guild Wars 2 for gems.

If gem cards aren’t in stock at your favorite retailer yet, be sure to ask if and when they’ll be arriving.

For redemption instructions and additional information about gems, visit the Guild Wars 2 Support page.”

Update 10/17: ArenaNet has released a list of retailers where Gem Cards can be purchased.

Over this past weekend, Colin Johanson, Guild Wars 2′s Game Director had a few words to share on the philosophy behind PvP ranks and ArenaNet’s stance on the addition of competitive, instanced PvP such as the new paid tournaments coming to the game in Shadow of the Mad King, Guild Wars 2′s first major content update. He also hints on more PvP content in the future:

Originally posted by Colin Johanson (Source)

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Rank is intended to be a metric to show much how you’ve played of PvP, and how experienced you are over-all as a result. The various banners that come with rank is a bit of a prestige thing that says “I’ve played me a ton of PvP!”

The addition of our new paid tournaments, and the features that will follow after it will be how we answer that clear question of: “who is the best”. We think it’s important to have both. As we begin our new live releases, starting with Shadow of the Mad King (and the new pvp hero tab and paid tournaments) you’ll see pvp feature additions come very regularly going forward!

All the best and happy n00b stomping,

As a random note, I kind of like any game developer who’s comfortable saying a phrase like “n00b stomping”.

This week on Guildwars 2 Junkies Podcast, we finally have our new name! The show is now called “Guildcenter” as we bring you all the news and notes from around the world focusing on PVP! This week we showcase a new fan made video, discuss the news and notes of the week, including the upcoming Halloween update!

Our guest this week is Soulstitch, formally of Team Legacy, who has now moved on to his own new server (JQ) and guild, Calculated. He gives us the dirt on the demise of Ascension Alliance and Team Legacy, how Freelancer failed at staying competitive as the number one alliance in the game.

We discuss coverage and all the techniques used by the best. We even get some news on RUIN and the great move they recently made.

Click the break to watch the full episode and download the audio.