Lots of changes in this one, and it's only one part of a series of patches.
Some noticeable ones:
- New Living Story events (Ongoing story events that will permanent change the game world like the Lost Shores event) have been added to Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau.
- A new currency has been added: the laurel. Players earn one laurel for completion of the daily achievement category and ten laurels for completion of the monthly achievement category. This new currency can be spent at laurel vendors in all of the major cities to obtain over 90 items
- Polished dungeons and removed the ability to use waypoints while any player is in combat.
- Attribute calculations for dynamic level scaling have been rebalanced. In general, this means weaker when adjusted down, stronger when adjusted up. Rewards when adjusted down have been increased to compensate. It is now possible to receive your own level of loot from any level of enemy.
- Players can once again preview armor and weapons that cannot be equipped by their character.
- Players may now log in to a world other than their home world as a guest.
- Character load times in WvW have been improved through the use of preloaded placeholder models.
- All weapon and armor skins now have the option to be converted to PvP skins. When activating a skin you will be given the choice to either apply the skin to a PvE item or convert the skin to a PvP-only item. Either action will consume the skin. This change applies to all unused weapon and armor skins in the game, regardless of when the skin was first released.
- Renown regions now reward karma upon completion.
- In PvE, if a player is awarded loot by killing a creature and the loot is of uncommon rarity or higher, a chest will appear that contains the loot that would previously have been on the corpse. If the rarity of the loot on the creature is lower than uncommon, the loot will remain on the creature’s corpse.
- Players can now reconnect to the Fractals of the Mists if they are disconnected.
- Players can now connect to a fractal map even if they are not part of the original group that created the fractal instance.
- Players can revive at a checkpoint in fractal maps if the entire party is out of combat.
- Players are no longer prevented from entering fractal maps. The difficulty of the fractals is shared, and players will receive rewards based on their “reward level.†(Your personal highest completed Fractal level)
For bug fixes and improvements, and class rebalancing, check the patch note's URL.
For more explanation on the new achievement system and currency, read here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/new-rewards-and-the-achievements-system/
For more explanation concerning the removal of "graveyard zerging" or "res-rushing", read here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/robert-hrouda-on-upcoming-changes-to-dungeon-mechanics/