ArenaNet outlines the new precursor crafting and new map bonuses coming in Heart of Thorns.

In a new blog post released today, ArenaNet overviews a few more features coming with Guild Wars 2's first expansion, Heart of Thorns. The first is precursor crafting which will give easier access to one of the items required to make the special Legendary weapons. The other feature will also help players craft their Legendary by providing materials through the new map bonuses.

To begin precursor crafting, players will need to dive into the new mastery system coming with HoT to unlock precursor specific collections. It will not be only one collection however, as each precursor will have three different tiers of collections. Completing the first tier will unlock the second, with the second unlocking the third tier. While the third tier will be the final precursor, all three tiers will be rewarding exotics, some with all new skins.

Tiers one and three will be focused on the theme of the weapon. The blog posts uses The Moot as the example. Moots are large parties thrown by Norns, one of the playable races of GW2. As such, the first and third tiers will be all about Norns and the party. Tier 1 will have you go out in typical Norn fashion hunting fierce creatures and taking trophies to show off. The third tier will then be about go out and getting drunk and dancing the night away. The middle tier will be more reserved, seeking out great minds, bartering for knowledge and proving your ability to craft at a workbench.

As for the skins, the first and third tier will have new skins (which means the precursors themselves will have new skins) while the middle tier rewards an exotic with the existing precursor skin. The new skins will not be random, but a less awesome form of the end Legendary. The first tier will look like an old rubbish version of the Legendary, while the third will look like the Legendary just without that extra spiffiness.

For the current Legendaries, the precursors can still drop out in the world and unlocking one of these skins will also unlock the previous tier skins without having to complete those collections. However, with the new Legendaries the precursor and Legendary will be account-bound, keeping the prestige of these new items high.

The other new system is Map Bonuses. Every map in the game with the exception of the starting zones will have these map bonuses come HoT. By completing events, jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons on a map you'll be awarded periodically with additional rewards. For most maps this is crafting materials. The example given was Cursed Shore, which might give "ancient bones, charged cores, charged lodestones, or giant eyes during one rotation, and powerful venom sacs, glacial cores, glacial lodestones, or globs of ectoplasm during another rotation."

The exception to the crafting materials as the reward comes in the form of maps with their own specific rewards such as geodes in Dry Top and bandit crests in The Silverwastes. These maps will have their current system updated to award these currencies through the new map bonuses system.

While ArenaNet was giving the overview of these systems, they commented that specifics will come later including what the new Legendary weapons will look like.

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

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