ArenaNet releases two more blog posts detailing more changes coming in the next patch.

Yesterday, ArenaNet released a blog post detailing the major changes coming to Lion's Arch and the release of the Specialization system. Today the studio released another two blog posts revealing a handful of other changes coming with the next Guild Wars 2 content patch.

Most of the first blog post goes over the Account Wallet which stores all of the account bound currencies in one place. Most of the changes here are UI Changes:

• The full Wallet UI is moving from Heroes Panel to Inventory.
• Clicking the currency bar at the bottom of the inventory flips the inventory window into the Wallet window.
• The currency bar will show Gold, while the other currency shown will update to show what currency is relevant in your current location.
• ex: In Fractals of the Mist it shows Fractal Relics while in WvW it shows Badges of Honor.
• The full Wallet UI is now a list of currencies that can be filtered, which allows adding currencies to be easier.
• The following currencies are being added to the Wallet:
• Pristine Fractal Relics
• WvW Tournament Claim Tickets
• Geodes
• Bandit Crests

The other change mentioned in the first blog post relates to the changes in skill points with the introduction of the new Specialization system. Skill points are being converted into a new currency called Spirit Shards. These Spirit Shards will be used in places where Skill Points are currently used as a currency, such as Miyani who stands near the Mystic Forge and sells items like Philosopher's Stones to players. Along with Spirit Shards are the following changes:

• Players will no longer level up past 80 to continue gaining skill points.
• Tomes of Knowledge will still function the same on sub-level 80 players, granting one level for each use.
• Tomes of Knowledge when used on level 80 characters will grant 1 Spirit Shard.
• Writs of Experience (consumable experience given as daily rewards) can be exchanged at Miyani at the rate of 20 Writs for 1 Tome. They will still work as an experience gaining consumable on sub-level 80 characters.
• Level 80 characters will sometimes get Spirit Shards as loot off of monsters.
• Scrolls of Knowledge will be automatically converted into Spirit Shards.
• Sources that previously gave Scrolls of Knowledge will now give Spirit Shards directly.
• Any skill points on a character will be automatically converted to Spirit Shards when you first log in with that character.

The second blog post is more combat oriented, focusing on changes coming to conditions. The quick run down is as follows:

• Intensity-stacking damaging conditions will now stack to a much higher number. Previous stack limit was 25. New stack limit is still being tweeked, but that players will likely not reach the cap even during world bosses with many players around.
• Burning and Poison are being converted from duration-stacking conditions into intensity-stacking durations. With this both of these conditions will have their per tick damage reduced. The reduced healing effectiveness part of Poison will not stack, but will be active whenever there is at least 1 stack of poison on a target.
• Confusion currently on does damage when something attacks. With this patch, Confusion will do damage-over-time in addition to damaging when the target attacks. With gaining the additional DoT effect, the damage from when the target attacks is being reduced.
• The damage that conditions do is being reworked to scale better with the Condition Damage stat and give more reason to stat into it. Players that don't spec into condition damage will do less damage with their conditions, while fully kitted condition damage characters will end up doing more damage with their conditions.
• Non-damaging conditions will remaing unchanged. This means Vulnerability will still only stack to 25.

The last thing mentioned in the blog post was movement abilities that would leap players around the battlefield. Currently movement impairing things such as cripple and swiftness affect the distance that these travels, which can lead to the skill feelling odd in many cases. With the patch, these movement abilities will always travel a set distance whether the player has cripply, swiftness or any other movement speed increase or decrease.

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

Follow me @MattstaNinja