My group and me just tried to do a fractal lvl 43. We had the following picks:
1st fractal: swamp – no problem 2nd fractal: ascalon – no problem 3rd fractal: shaman
While some fractals might be quite easy with the instability (Combat is agonizing. Get a kill for relief.) , we desperately tried to figure out any way to kill this fractal’s end boss. Killing the elementals simply kills you and there is no way to survive without killing them.
Has anyone managed to defeat the shaman on 43 so far? If so, how did you do it? If you had the same issues, please answer or like the post. Either I am simply too dumb or the elementals are just way too hard (the only solution that I see is to spam elemental powder but that can’t be intended by the developper).
@Arenanet: Did you try to fight against the shaman on this particular level? How are we meant to defeat the waves of elementals?
- Mesmer with illusions (doesn’t trigger instability)
- 3 Warriors to suicide kill most of the lava elementals (with war banners)
- 1 Guardian for reflect + survivability
It was probably the hardest encounter I’ve had so far.
I wonder if anyone has made it without having 3 party members fully dead after each elemental wave. I’m pretty sure that this fractal hasnt been tested on this particular difficilty. And using warriors as meat shield from the elementals cannot be the way this instability was planned to be dealed with.
I am happy my friends made it but I doubt any of us will be replaying level 43.
This situation is a good example of how instabilities promote the luck factor in fractals. It is doable but one of the hardest if not hardest instability/fractal composition at the moment, I believe.
Projectile absorption skills would be strong for this fight since reflects can get their caster killed rapidly. Also mesmer illusions do not trigger instability as eekzie said, so mesmer if a stong pick for this fight. Try to take advantage of projectile cover offered by warden, that is probably the only reflect across professions that won’t hurt players.
Yeah, Mai is, in principle, pretty easy. However, as far as I got it, it was (and is? have they fixed it?) technically impossible to kill her at level 37.
Warning! This post may contain traces of irony, sarcasm and peanuts.
Yeah, Mai is, in principle, pretty easy. However, as far as I got it, it was (and is? have they fixed it?) technically impossible to kill her at level 37.
They ’’fixed’’ it. She can still regen to100% hp, although she will not start bombaring at 75% every time. She will only bombard when she was supposed to.
Not easy at all since you reflect yourself to death and don’t do enough damage to kill the elementals. Easiest would be with many mesmers using clones, however not everyone can assembly a party of enough mesmers with enough AR.
For the laughs I relogged from my guardian on a rabid necro with huge condition damage. The conditions didn’t seem to be affected too much by the instability so we got the shaman to the first wave of elementals pretty fast. Then using plague form or death shroud 4 instantly downed me.
I am thinking that using minions would have the same effect as clones…but then there would be no reflects. Not going to test it out as I am never doing 43 again.
try using fire element powders or pets to kill? Mesmer can trait to projectile skills reflect for an additional skill to reflect too. While there are work-around solutions, I do wonder what the developer’s intent was for this fractal. Definitely anet needs to address the problems being found within instabilities.
We did it by using a mesmer to solo trigger the shield phases with phantasms (doesnt trigger bloodlust on mesmer). Then we burst the eles with guard using shield of avenger, 2 warriors bursting as much as they could and then me going rampager necro and epidemic + well of darkness to nuke. The final shield was incredibly painful and involved a lot of kiting of eles and if we had bad luck it would cause a wipe cause we couldnt kite them long enough for bloodlust to reset. The advantage of a condi necro in this instastability is you can burst some bleeds and epidemic and then leave them to tick while you wait for bloodlust to reset.
Thank you for all your answers.
Still, I am quite sure that this difficulty and indirect obligation to chose specific classes was not intended. It would be very nice to get a statement by a dev.
I’d also be happy with a “Nope, it works the way we want it to work. Just try harder and use your brain.” but I just wanna know.
43 and 44 are challenging fractals, some shards being particularly grueling. For the Shaman in particular…
Normal strategy is to use reflects and burst the elementals down quickly during each transition. In this mistlock the best strategy for the transition is to kite the elementals through aoe while maintaining reflects. Warrior longbow firefields, necro wells/marks, staff ele meteor shower/lava font. Take it slower and play safe and smart.
When I rolled this we used two guardians two warriors and an ele. Using staff chill on the shaman during bubble phase gave us enough time to burst half the elementals in the guardian shields. You can use wall of reflection once the majority of eles are down so the damage is minor. We had to have two players attacking and two kiting mobs then swapping to reset the bloodlust which I think was around 15 seconds.
It was definitely the hardest thing I have done in fractals and we never considered using condition bombs. Now that many players have 50 unlocked, people have the luxury of skipping 43 and facing the same problem you had.
43 and 44 are challenging fractals, some shards being particularly grueling. For the Shaman in particular…
Normal strategy is to use reflects and burst the elementals down quickly during each transition. In this mistlock the best strategy for the transition is to kite the elementals through aoe while maintaining reflects. Warrior longbow firefields, necro wells/marks, staff ele meteor shower/lava font. Take it slower and play safe and smart.
When I used wells I killed myself almost instantly. Marks are pretty safe and condi spam with epidemic works nicely. Also our guard kept killing himself with WoR so we scrapped reflects and only took projectile blocks.
I hate to say it because I agree some of the instabilities aren’t well thought out, but the best thing to do if you can is run a higher one and skip 43.
