Guild Wars 2

Looking at instability list. Both 40 and 50 have Agonizing Expedition. If I have understood things properly 40-49 scales have the same Agony. If their future plans follow this we always have to first beat scale with intense Agony.

Based on what I have heard you really need enough AR to take only 1% per tick (6% is doable but much much harder). So only way to get through is to have high enough AR which makes every other source of Agony a big joke.

Sure, pre-patch Maw forced certain AR but at least your whole team didn’t have to get on 1%-6% range.

Or is the idea to join people with higher levels unlocked? Exactly what lots of us did to reach scale 80 prepatch…

This is rather counter-intuitive and silly decision to implement instabilities at X0 levels that basically forces you to get enough AR to get 1% per tick or just buy/ask someone to unlock X1 level for you.

Fractals are meant to be something like a raid where you need to get the gear in order to progress. It’s meant to appeal to that type of player. Infusions are the vertical progression of fractals, rather than the higher tiers of gear you would normally see in other MMOs.

Considering they’re going to release leaderboards, which will remain stagnant, I’m expecting them to regularly add new fractal levels. Maybe something like 1 level every other week or a tier a month, as long as people reach the end that is. It wouldn’t take much development time after all to increase a number, though coming up with unique names/instabilities will become more challenging over time. With each tier, they’ll probably do what raids usually do and multiply the requirements needed, which in this case is agony resistance.

The ability to skip instabilities sounds broken since they’re like tests. Eventually, they’ll probably include multiples of them and ones like Agonizing Expedition will be made permanent.

Only farming low levels is what you need to get to reach higher levels, and this is completely S … I mean my over intelligent asuran brain cannot compute the – undoubtedly clever – logic behind this choice.
I am going to get more asuras, maybe together we can work this out!

new to fractals -enter fractals level 1 – 30. get 5 +1 infusions on each level run , so 150 +1 AR. get infused ring drops and versitile in fusions +40 – 55ar.
so if you don’t meet the criteria to enter the high level fractals, you really nottrying and just looking for a shortcut.

I don’t think you understood that correctly. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said that.

Yeah Weth and haviz, you shouldn’t enter the high level fractals if you aren’t ready.

So, I’m just a little confused because I really haven’t gotten into actual fractals yet since the patch. What is the agonizing expedition? Does it make agony more effective? Does it require more?

Arc DLad.2194:

new to fractals -enter fractals level 1 – 30. get 5 +1 infusions on each level run , so 150 +1 AR. get infused ring drops and versitile in fusions +40 – 55ar.
so if you don’t meet the criteria to enter the high level fractals, you really nottrying and just looking for a shortcut.

To clarify this post: 150 +1 = 75 +2, 37 +3, 18 +4, 9 +5, 4 +6, 2 +7 or one +8.

So ideally you’ll have a pair of +7s and the leftover +5 from two steps prior. And some left over at the end. So +19. Add that into the 15 from the versatiles on those three pieces, plus 15 more from trinkets and amulet, +10 from weapons, that’s 59 AR.

Yeah, putting this at the beginning of each fractal tier was a pretty silly design choice. Having it at every 9th level would at least make SOME sense, even if it would be kind of kittenty.

You guys are not understanding. You need to have enough Agony Resistance to take only 1% of your HP removed per tick to make a fractal with the “Agonizing Expedition” instability a lot less painful, while making any agony attack from bosses a big joke since you will get barely damaged by it.

Level 40 and 50 have the instability, so if they keep doing that (with level 60-70-etc) they are basically making the agony mechanic pointless for the entire tier unless you SKIP said levels.

Healix.5819:

Fractals are meant to be something like a raid where you need to get the gear in order to progress. It’s meant to appeal to that type of player. Infusions are the vertical progression of fractals, rather than the higher tiers of gear you would normally see in other MMOs.

Considering they’re going to release leaderboards, which will remain stagnant, I’m expecting them to regularly add new fractal levels. Maybe something like 1 level every other week or a tier a month, as long as people reach the end that is. It wouldn’t take much development time after all to increase a number, though coming up with unique names/instabilities will become more challenging over time. With each tier, they’ll probably do what raids usually do and multiply the requirements needed, which in this case is agony resistance.

The ability to skip instabilities sounds broken since they’re like tests. Eventually, they’ll probably include multiples of them and ones like Agonizing Expedition will be made permanent.

This is what I was going to post.

If the only point is get enough gear then just prevent entering unless your party has enough AR. And then remove Agony because it is really pointless at 1% ticks.

That would at least make some sense.

Wethospu.6437:

If the only point is get enough gear then just prevent entering unless your party has enough AR. And then remove Agony because it is really pointless at 1% ticks.

My asuran brain cells can compute this.
My asuran cold heart would sob though.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Yeah Weth and haviz, you shouldn’t enter the high level fractals if you aren’t ready.

So, I’m just a little confused because I really haven’t gotten into actual fractals yet since the patch. What is the agonizing expedition? Does it make agony more effective? Does it require more?

I have 55 ar.

But I do not see the point of having this instability at X0 levels (40, 50, …). It basically makes whole agony mechanic pointless or forces you to skip those levels. Before this great and awesome update you could do tier 40-49 with 45 AR. This update lowered required ar (55ar to get 1%/tick, before that was 6%/tick) yet you need more ar to do first level of that tier.

I do not compute.

Let’s say for 40 u need 50AR.
Get the gear, it’s easier that 31-39.
Don’t get the gear, it’s probably harder than 41-49
??

How would it be easier than lv. 31-39? At best it could be the same difficulty, but we know enemies scale up in health and damage, so that can’t be true, either.

Lopez.7369:

How would it be easier than lv. 31-39? At best it could be the same difficulty, but we know enemies scale up in health and damage, so that can’t be true, either.

It could be easier because with ar you are playing a level with and easy instability: Minimal dmg and healing reduction every once in a while. On the other hand, lower level might have a nasty instability and almost as strong enemies.

Can’t you just do a 41 twice and skip 40?, ofcourse 50 you can’t skip this way but 40 there is a workaround.

This patch was made by dredges

Azzer.8137:

Can’t you just do a 41 twice and skip 40?, ofcourse 50 you can’t skip this way but 40 there is a workaround.

Yes, that’s what some people will surely do. And that’s what everyone that was arguing for reset was saying, that we haven’t done new instabilities thus we do not deserve having our reward level at 50 from the start.

Yet skipping scales is perfectly fine. Very logical, I must admit.

haviz.1340:

Azzer.8137:

Can’t you just do a 41 twice and skip 40?, ofcourse 50 you can’t skip this way but 40 there is a workaround.

Yes, that’s what some people will surely do. And that’s what everyone that was arguing for reset was saying, that we haven’t done new instabilities thus we do not deserve having our reward level at 50 from the start.

Yet skipping scales is perfectly fine. Very logical, I must admit.

While one can skip level 40, doing so is clearly an exploit. Anet put the instability there for a reason, if you can’t pass it you are not supposed to progress.

Konu.1826:

While one can skip level 40, doing so is clearly an exploit. Anet put the instability there for a reason, if you can’t pass it you are not supposed to progress.

Can’t argue with that.

So you need so much AR just to get through level 40’s instability that AR becomes a non-factor for 41-49. That does seem to be a design mistake.

Konu.1826:

haviz.1340:

Azzer.8137:

Can’t you just do a 41 twice and skip 40?, ofcourse 50 you can’t skip this way but 40 there is a workaround.

Yes, that’s what some people will surely do. And that’s what everyone that was arguing for reset was saying, that we haven’t done new instabilities thus we do not deserve having our reward level at 50 from the start.

Yet skipping scales is perfectly fine. Very logical, I must admit.

While one can skip level 40, doing so is clearly an exploit. Anet put the instability there for a reason, if you can’t pass it you are not supposed to progress.

Anet put the possibility to gain a lvl while playing a higher lvl than your reward lvl for a reason, if you can pass it you are supposed to progress

Your sarcasm detector is broken.

haviz.1340:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Yeah Weth and haviz, you shouldn’t enter the high level fractals if you aren’t ready.

So, I’m just a little confused because I really haven’t gotten into actual fractals yet since the patch. What is the agonizing expedition? Does it make agony more effective? Does it require more?

I have 55 ar.

But I do not see the point of having this instability at X0 levels (40, 50, …). It basically makes whole agony mechanic pointless or forces you to skip those levels. Before this great and awesome update you could do tier 40-49 with 45 AR. This update lowered required ar (55ar to get 1%/tick, before that was 6%/tick) yet you need more ar to do first level of that tier.

I do not compute.

I hope you knew i was being sarcastic with my first sentence. I was mocking the guy above me.

This update is silly. We know this.

They butchered fractals.

yea, a lot of errors in the patch, but overall i like the direction, just gope they patch oversights fast.
If the levels in multiples of 10 are supposed to be agony checks, they should actually be built around the minimal agony requirements for the level range, not the highest.
The whole agony issue is a bit weird, because on one side its supposed to be a gear check, but they also use it on certain mechanics to make the fights harder/more interesting.

perhaps, they should cap your AR at a certain level for these fractals, making them challenging, and also letting people know essentially what ar they should be aiming for.

In the future perhaps they need to come up with more interesting interactions with agony. lets say a unique class skill which becomes more powerful/effective based on how much AR you have negated or something.

Zelyhn.8069:

Only farming low levels is what you need to get to reach higher levels, and this is completely S … I mean my over intelligent asuran brain cannot compute the – undoubtedly clever – logic behind this choice.
I am going to get more asuras, maybe together we can work this out!

Asuran intellect doesn’t scale well with numbers, but Skritt communal intellect does. Maybe you should get more Skritt?