Guild Wars 2 Adds Challenge Mode Raid and Dismount Rush Event

ArenaNet rolled out a new Guild Wars 2 build on September 29, adding the long-promised Challenge Mode versions of the Nexus of Eternity raid, the Solitary Throne fractal, and the Nexus of Eternity Convergence, alongside a limited-time event called Dismount Rush. It's the first major follow-up since "Code of Creation," the finale chapter of the Visions of Eternity expansion, launched on September 15.

01What Changed in Today's Update

The official patch notes list four headline changes: Challenge Mode for the Nexus of Eternity raid, Challenge Mode for the Solitary Throne fractal, Challenge Mode for the Nexus of Eternity Convergence, and the Dismount Rush bonus event, on top of a long list of bug fixes and balance updates across every profession. The build is tagged 207,890 on the Guild Wars 2 Wiki's official changelog.

ArenaNet's 50-second look at the Nexus of Eternity raid and Convergence rewards, posted August 28 — the content that gained Challenge Mode today.

02Challenge Mode Goes Live for Nexus of Eternity and Solitary Throne

Nexus of Eternity and the Solitary Throne fractal shipped as standard-difficulty encounters with "Code of Creation" two weeks ago, and today's build finally unlocks their harder Challenge Mode variants for players chasing legendary armor and title rewards. The rollout wasn't perfectly smooth: ArenaNet's forum staff confirmed that new issues turned up in testing over the preceding weekend, and Challenge Mode for the raid encounter specifically was held back at launch and switched on later in the day, around 2 p.m. Pacific. A same-day "Update 2" hotfix followed, confirming the raid's Challenge Mode was live and fixing a bug where the boss Vloxx could fail to transition properly between phases, plus a break-phase timer that was cutting off ten seconds early.

If your group wiped repeatedly on Vloxx's break phase earlier today, that timer issue is now patched — worth another attempt with the fix in place.

03Dismount Rush: A New Way to Earn Magic Find and XP

Dismount Rush is a stacking buff event running from today, September 29, through October 6. Complete events in Heart of Maguuma or Central Tyria without touching a mount, and you'll build stacks of a magic find and experience boost, with extra daily rewards once you reach three stacks. ArenaNet frames it explicitly as an experiment: the patch notes say mount use has been "a common piece of feedback" heading into a planned Hall of Monuments update later this year, and this event is one way the studio is testing how players respond to reduced mount reliance.

04Leyspring Hollows Bug Fixes and Other Changes

Most of the rest of the patch is cleanup for content introduced in "Code of Creation." Leyspring Hollows, the cavern zone at the center of the expansion's finale, picked up several fixes: skill effects that were scaling too large against the Twisted Creation during the Depths of Cruelty meta-event, player skills getting obstructed by Kuda's energy shield, and dialogue that wasn't playing at the end of the Ruins to Riches minidungeon. ArenaNet also fixed a door spawning underground in the Hearth's Glow homestead map and a texture glitch on Isgarren's in-combat wizard glow, alongside a long list of profession balance changes spanning every class from Elementalist to Warrior.

05Profession Balance Highlights

The skill split list is long, and most of it targets PvP and WvW specifically rather than open-world or raid builds. A few changes stand out: Engineer's Napalm had its PvP power coefficient trimmed from 0.28 to 0.24, Ranger's Druid line lost some of its WvW healing with Natural Mender dropping from a 15% to a 10% outgoing healing boost, and Revenant's Vindicator got a straight buff in WvW, with Reaver's Curse now doubling incoming healing and barrier instead of just increasing it by 100%. Elementalist's Tempest also picked up more WvW sustain, with Overload Water's pulse healing power scaling tripling from 0.1 to 0.3. None of these change PvE raid or fractal builds directly, so Nexus of Eternity groups shouldn't need to relearn rotations before jumping into the new Challenge Mode.

06What's Next for Guild Wars 2

With Visions of Eternity's story content now complete, today's patch reads as maintenance rather than a new content drop — but it confirms ArenaNet is still actively supporting the expansion's raid and fractal scene while it plans the next phase of the game, including the previously teased Hall of Monuments update later this year. Anyone chasing the Nexus of Eternity's legendary-tier rewards now has a clean, working Challenge Mode to farm, and Dismount Rush gives everyone else a reason to log in before it ends on October 6.