Guild Wars 2

I’m curious about what are the exact changes that have been made to each of the Fractals, if any. In the case of the new Fractals, post any changes that have been made since their Living Story appearances. Use this thread to post your findings, and let’s keep it objective. I’ll endeavour to update this thread with new information as it’s provided.

General
- Sigil stacks and skills (e.g. minions) now appear to reset in between individual Fractals.

Swampland
- Mossman has been taking swimming lessons; you can no longer flee from him by swimming underwater. (It’s also been reported he sometimes bugs out in the water and stops attacking, although he can still be attacked and damaged.)
- Mossman’s wolves now have the ability to summon additional wolves, like their open world counterparts. Kill them quickly to avoid getting overwhelmed by packs of wolves.

Aquatic
- The Jellyfish boss possibly has a new skill (more info needed).

Snowblind
- The maximum zoom out distance while fighting the Elemental Source has been increased (excessively so, according to reports. This may be a bug.)
- Legendary Shaman Lornarr now occasionally summons falling ice shards to attack the party even while he’s fighting on the ground. (May have gone into the patch prior to the Fractured update)

Urban
- Your Charr allies are no longer as squeamish about avoiding combat and will take the initiative in attacking Ascalonians. (Some have reported that they no longer suffer Agony damage too.)

Uncategorized
-

Molten Furnace
-

Volcanic
- Grawl totems are now larger and easier to spot.
- The camera’s max zoom distance is no longer increased when fighting the Legendary Infused Shaman (possible bug?)

Cliffside
- As of the 27th November patch, the Archdiviner no longer fails to break out of his stun in between seal smashes. (Needs verification.)

Underground
- In the first section of the fractal, if a player dies on the pressure plates, they will now be moved off the pressure plate.
- The pipes in Rabsovich’s room were identified as an unsafe work hazard by the Moletariat due to the tendency of hostile surfacers to hide in them, and have been removed.
- The Legendary Dredge Mining Suit has taken his finger off the mute button.

Thaumanova
-

Aetherblade
-

Jade
- The camera’s max zoom distance is no longer increased when fighting the Jade Maw (possible bug?)

Molten Boss
- You can no longer stack underneath the Molten Berserker to remain safe from his stomps.

Mai Trin
- The number of Shielding stacks Mai Trin loses while standing in electric fields scales according to Fractal level. At level 10, she loses 3 stacks per second (as opposed to just 1 per second in the original dungeon). At level 31, she loses 1 stack per second.

Reserved if needed

dredge fractal
- if you die on the pressure plates, they push you away

swamp: mossman can swim now; his wolves call more wolves, that call more wolves, that call more wolves and so on, untill you have huge mob of wolves following you
cliffside: fixed stacking bug
jade: camera doesn’t zoom out anymore….
aquatic: jelly seems to have new spell but i never got hit by it so idk what it does

is it just me or does the molten berserker boss doesn’t go berserk anymore when he’s low on health?

Did Cliffside yday, the exploit with stacking is still there.

wasted.6817:

Did Cliffside yday, the exploit with stacking is still there.

^This is true, though it happens sometimes and some other it doesn’t.

Snowblind appeared to have more patrols after the elemental section, but it might just have been luck that a few grouped up. Hard to compare objectively so I’m curious what others think.

Snowblind definitely has more patrols. At least, I noticed more of them at lvl 32.

In the first section of the dredge fractal, if a player revives on the pressure plates the door will now remain open (needs confirmation).

The pipes have been removed from the room with the dredge general and the clown car.

The grawl totems in the volcanic fractal are larger.

I think the final diviner on the cliffside can still drop his hammer again and skip phases.

I think the mining suit end boss now has some typical dredge dialog that he didn’t have before.

Remember that resetting fractals at the start of a run can cause extra enemies to spawn if the fractal reappears later.

I think other assorted changes were made in the fortnight preceding the patch as well. These might include blocking off the jumps to get up under the Jade Maw.

Blocking off the jumps in Maw was done prior to this update.

Snowblind:
Can now zoom out to space basically on elemental. Like my character might as well be a pixel. And during the snow effects you can’t see anything as opposed to minimal view before. However you are obviously not required to zoom out this far. It is cool to see the entire elemental.

Dredge:
There seems to be more dredge at the bottom of the beginning of the fractal, but unsure.

Aquatic:
Think the baby jellyfish have an added attack, but unsure (we were taking more damage than we remembered, but it could have just been a flop fight).

Mai Trin:
Her invul stacks tick off 4 at a time in the AoE. Presumably this is because we got her at a level 10 fractal. I imagine at higher levels it is slower.

Alright, removing the bit about the removed stacking exploit at the Archdiviner.

More mobs do seem to spawn the higher you go in Fractals, so I’m leaving the Snowblind “increased mobs” out for now until we have more confirmation. (On a side note, I confirmed for myself a few nights ago that the mobs in the forest DO drop loot. It’s a shame that most PUGs like to skip them.)

@Stooper: When you say that the grawl totems are larger, do you mean they’re visually larger? Has that actually changed gameplay other than making them easier to spot?

The blocking off the path behind the Jade Maw (which you can still kind of do) went in before the Fractured update, so I’m leaving that out.

I can’t math it’s late. At level 10 Mai Trin, she goes from 10—>7—>4—>1—>0, so that’s 3, not 4.

Snowblind: The Son of Svanir Shaman now sometimes drops AoE ice shards in fewer quantities while he’s on the ground fighting.

@Tulki: I think he started to do that after the mini Fractals patch prior to Fractured. Still, it’s new enough that I guess we can include it.

oh idk if it is new or not but on molten map you can mine mithril and get azurite

At 31 Mai trin lost stacks one by one so it does appear to scale.
Urban seemed unchanged apart from the charr morph actually working on the entire team.

Tulki.1458:

Snowblind: The Son of Svanir Shaman now sometimes drops AoE ice shards in fewer quantities while he’s on the ground fighting.

This is not new at all, shouldn’t be included.

Thaumanova
-Remove Scarlet. She doesn’t need to be there at all. Let it be an all asura fractal.

Qawsada.4251:

Thaumanova
-Remove Scarlet. She doesn’t need to be there at all. Let it be an all asura fractal.

Don’t you have enough threads about that?

Treeline.3865:

Qawsada.4251:

Thaumanova
-Remove Scarlet. She doesn’t need to be there at all. Let it be an all asura fractal.

Don’t you have enough threads about that?

There never enough. When someone shove a lore breaking character into something I like to do in my spare time, then I turn full forum warrior for this crap.

Vulcanic fractal:

- grawl totems are now bigger and easier to spot
- the camera at last boss is now a “normal camera”, making it very hard to see both the shaman and the elementals (probably a bug)

I’m not reading the rest, but from what I noticed:

1) Mossman bugged out in the water and stopped attacking, he did however stay there and was able to be hit

2) Ascalon: The NPCs charge in more. This makes it more challenging to pull/LOS unless you coordinate with somebody to stay behind. Also, they seem to have gotten AR, because they did not all wipe at the very first AR attack.

3) The zoom was also reduce on fire shaman in the grawl fractal.

Updated with more info.

btw mining mithril in molten map has high chance for azurite.. got 6 today from 1 run o.o

Haven’t seen the Molten fractal yet, but that’s actually great news. Is it only Mithril nodes there? The Azurite Orbs only dropped from the Ori nodes in that map.

Zaxares.5419:

Haven’t seen the Molten fractal yet, but that’s actually great news. Is it only Mithril nodes there? The Azurite Orbs only dropped from the Ori nodes in that map.

there is no ori node, but there is about 5 mithril node on map, 1 in every small room in the tunnel and they have good chance for azurite crystals

Dang. What I really wanted was more chances to get Azurite Orbs. Ah well. Maybe we can petition ANet to put in a transmorgrification recipe from Azurite Crystals to Orbs.

maybe they will… why would they otherwise add those hehe

Honestly, it already wasnt worth it to do fractals these changes only made it worse. I can’t see myself running them anymore.

The mining nodes in the new fractal are really a bad thing since you want all your group together and not messing about mining while people go down the tunnel.

Stooperdale.3560:

The mining nodes in the new fractal are really a bad thing since you want all your group together and not messing about mining while people go down the tunnel.

why would someone do it
go to room 1 → clear mobs → mine → go to room 2 → clear mob → mine… etc.

who in their right mind would walk down the tunnel full with mobs one shotting anyone on sight?