Play Guild Wars 2 for a chance at beta key loot. Plus a tease of the first Specialization to be announced?

ArenaNet today announced how players will be able to get access to the next Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns PvE closed beta event and it is pretty nifty. Starting on Tuesday, April 28th, monsters in the two maps added during the Living World Season 2 (Dry Top and the Silverwastes) will have a chance to drop a rare portal item. Upon looting these portals, the player's account will be flagged to gain access to the next PvE closed beta.

While the blog post does not give any concrete dates for either the beta or when these portals will cease to drop, it does say that these portals will only be available for a limited time. Additionally, the portals are going to be account-bound, so every player will have to go get his/her own if they wish to play in the next beta. The beta flagging will occur once the item is acquired, so if you accidently destroy the portal don't worry as you are already set to participate in the beta.

In addition to this beta news, ArenaNet has teased an image depicting the new Mesmer Elite Specialization. Last week we got an overview of the new Specialization system and during the follow-up livestream, ArenaNet said that they would start going into each professions Elite Specializations starting with the first revealed this week. Given this news and today's teaser, it seems that the first Elite Specialization to be revealed will be that for the Mesmer.

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

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