Festival of the Four Winds: two maps, a dozen activities, no expansion needed

The summer festival runs from late July to late August and is the largest of the six by surface area: two full maps, a dozen activities and a set of arenas that will teach you your class faster than any guide.

It needs no expansion. A brand-new account can walk in.

Getting there

Hot air balloons in Lion’s Arch and the major cities take you to Labyrinthine Cliffs.

The Crown Pavilion sits below western Divinity’s Reach and has its own waypoint and entry portal.

Labyrinthine Cliffs

A vertical map of cliffs, sails and floating platforms where the Zephyrites have landed. Movement here runs on special aspect skills, and half the map is built to be traversed rather than walked.

What lives there:

• Sanctum Sprint, a race on the aspect movement skills
• Aspect Arena, PvP using the same skills
• Crystal Collection, gathering crystals with aspects or mounts
• Griffon Expert and Master races, which need the griffon
• Time trials: Skimmer Slalom, Flying Dolyak, Labyrinthine Skiffs
• A fishing tournament (how fishing works)
• Merchants for the festival currencies

The Crown Pavilion

The other half, and the combat half.

Boss Blitz is the meta event: several champions across the arena, a crowd splitting to take them down, rewards for everyone who took part (how metas work).

Queen’s Gauntlet is the interesting one. Single combat, you against one boss, in a small arena. Optional gambits make each fight harder in a specific way in exchange for better rewards.

🔴 The Gauntlet is the best class trainer in the game and nobody advertises it that way. There is no group to carry you, no crowd to spread the damage, and no way to ignore a mechanic. If your rotation falls apart under pressure, you find out here in thirty seconds rather than over a wiped raid.

Currencies and rewards

Festival Tokens are the main currency, spent with the festival merchants.

Also flowing: Bags of Coins, Bags of Fish, Imperial Favor, adventure medals in gold, silver and bronze, and Astral Acclaim through Wizard’s Vault objectives (the vault).

Achievement categories include Four Winds Customs, the festival collections, and separate sets for the Crown Pavilion and the Gauntlet (why AP is worth having).

Where the easy rewards are

Boss Blitz. Show up, participate, get paid. No skill floor and no organisation required.

Adventures at bronze. Medals scale, and bronze is generous. Chasing gold on every adventure is a different hobby.

Wizard’s Vault objectives. Several of the current ones will point at the festival anyway, so you are being paid twice for the same evening.

What to do if you have one hour

Do Boss Blitz, take bronze on two or three adventures, buy whatever the merchant sells that you like the look of, and leave.

The festival returns next year with the same content. The collection that spans three seasons is meant to span three seasons. Treating a holiday as a backlog is the fastest way to stop enjoying it.

One note on the market

Festival currencies and materials are cheapest while the festival is running, because thousands of people are farming the same things at once and selling them the same week (the pattern).

If there is a festival skin or material you want, this is the month. Eleven months from now the supply will have stopped and the price will not have (how fees affect the maths).