Mist Champions are the latest addition for the new Stronghold PvP coming with Heart of Thorns.

ArenaNet has announced the latest feature coming with the new Stronghold PvP game mode coming in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Collectively called Mist Champions, this new system will allow players to customize the heroes that they summon during Stronghold matches.

In previous betas of the new game mode, players saw two of these Mist Champions as set heroes for each team. Now, players will be able to choose as part of their build whether they want to summon the warrior Turai Ossa, the pirate Grumm Svaard or the newly announced Mist Champion Nika, an assassin that Guild Wars: Factions players might find familiar.

In addition to being able to select your champion, ArenaNet has improved them by giving each a unique passive effect, elite skill and an all new War Cry that triggers an effect across the map when the champion is summoned.

Turai Ossa focuses on defending his allies. His War Cry will create a protective shelter that blocks enemy attacks for all allies on the map. His passive has him pulsing aegis to nearby allies as well as granting protection to nearby allies whenever they block an attack. Finally, his elite skill taunts all the enemies in the lord room while granting himself a huge retaliation boon.

Grymm Svaard takes control of the battlefield with the help of his nearby pirate ship, the Nomad II. When summoned, Grymm calls in a barrage of cannonballs that targets every enemy on the map, knocking down and burning those hit. His passive pulses fury to nearby allies with any critical strikes landed while near Grymm having a chance to call in another cannonball on the target. His elite is the Nomad II Broadside which unloads a barrage of cannonballs down on the lord's room.

Lastly is Nika who focuses on granting stealth that blinds any enemies that are attacked from within the stealth she grants. Her War Cry will stealth all allies on the map while her passive will pulse out stealth to those nearby. Finally, her elite will apply stealth to herself before she quickly dashes about the room to damage all enemies, occasionally leaving stealth to do a unique attack that dazes and blinds her target.

Turai Ossa will be available to all players while Grymm Svaard and Nika will each need to be unlocked through their own respective reward tracks. While the reward track for Grymm Svaard will be available to everyone, Nika's and Mist Champions released in future content releases will require Heart of Thorns to unlock.

In addition to the Mist Champions, ArenaNet also outlined the Mode Preferences option. This option will let players pick which mode they want to play in—choosing Stronghold, Conquest or both—and will only be queued up for those selected modes. For more information, check out the full blog post on the Guild Wars 2 website.

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

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