The new expansion's here! The new expansion's here! (Note: No story spoilers because 1) we haven't finished it, and 2) we wouldn't do that to you guys, because … we love you.)
Audio Version

What We Did This Week
 

Allona

WHERE TO START!?
I know I said I was going to mostly do Halloween stuff … but no, that has happened almost not at all
Labyrinth’ed once … I was convinced to turn on my commander tag because there wasn’t one on the map. I sucked and got everyone killed at the Lich … I’M SO SORRY!
Made pretty great progress on the Clocktower, but no completion yet!
Participated in Maven’s guild expedition for Lost Precipice
MoCK did a Fractal … one … ‘cuz we COULD!
MoCK made a couple PvP teams … that’s how we unlocked the Guild Expedition
Had a crazy good time on Sunday with MoCK rampaging across Verdant Brink. I wish I had recorded it actually.
Guild missions with Maven. They were fairly chaotic because the new system was throwing everyone off.
MoCK completed the Guild Expedition and has a Gilded Hollow Guild Hall! We managed it with 14 people and it was challenging but not nut-punchingly hard.
Got up to chapter 6 in the new story … and that’s all I’m going to say about that.
FOUND OUT THERE’S AN ‘ENEMY’ NAMED CELLONA IN AURIC BASIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Celeste

All the gliding
Did a lot of exploring since I went for Updrafts before mushrooms. I’ve spent a lot of time just wandering around the canopy and dying.
a fractal
I’m still pretty new to the story missions and I have done almost nothing for halloween, which is okay I guess but I think I am going to buy a mini moa with a pumpkin head
Guild Expedition for Gilded Hollow

 

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Report from Lion’s Arch
 
Heart of Thorns is here!
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-October-23-2015
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/heads-up-iteration-incoming/

Defiance Bars! “The defiance effect has been replaced with the defiance bar [or breakbar]. Creatures that previously used the defiance effect will now have the defiance bar. Control-type attacks will now decrease the defiance bar and stun the enemy once the bar is depleted.”

A: I cannot believe how much of a difference this has made … I GET it now!

Revenant Profession!

A: I made one, and used my lvl 30 scroll on him to get over the hump … I plan on getting the rest of the way organically

Elite Specializations!

At launch 400 to unlock fully… EXCEPT that number has been lowered to 250 after a fair amount of folks complained about it.

Colin Johanson - “We’d also always said you’d need to unlock your elite specialization, but we were never explicit on the details of how characters do this and the hero-point costs associated. We always viewed the elite specialization as one of the major rewards in expansion—but between the betas and lack of unlock info, we didn’t do a great job properly aligning expectations on how your elite specialization is earned. This left some players in a position where they expected to have their elite specialization very early on (or immediately!) in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.”

C: 400 points is a lot and there really wasn’t a lot of notice ahead of time that you would really need to stockpile that many points in order to be effective in the Elite Spec. People were expecting to have the elite spec to play through the new content not to play the expansion to *unlock* their elite specialization.