Guild Wars 2

Even during the LS people said it was hard. I personally don’t understand. Not only did I do it easily with a pug group, I wasnt even on a level 80.

Pandabro.8743:

Morsus.5106:

Really guys, this ain’t hard. My pug wiped around 5 times, 2 of them on the first cannon volley. Dodge circles, don’t touch the walls, and don’t res.

Don’t touch walls? I’m confused. Do they do something special?

Yeah, there are glitched spots that can teleport you to the area’s entrance. Similar to the Twilight Assault’s final fight destroyed generators bug.

An elementalist scepter/focus can ress 4 dead pugs each phase….
Even easier if it uses condition cleansing traits.

The stack removal is instead a huge issue if bad pugs are alive…

I still don t like mechanics where just a single bad player can prevent the Whole Group to advance…and people running around preventing mai to lose his armor are an issue.

LordByron.8369:

An elementalist scepter/focus can ress 4 dead pugs each phase….
Even easier if it uses condition cleansing traits.

The stack removal is instead a huge issue if bad pugs are alive…

I still don t like mechanics where just a single bad player can prevent the Whole Group to advance…and people running around preventing mai to lose his armor are an issue.

While a single player has the potential to do that, the team can stack up in the player so that Horrik’s shots will hit her. If they refuse to work as a team, let Mai kill them.

Just pugged yesterday. One of the best group I had.

Pandabro.8743:

Morsus.5106:

Really guys, this ain’t hard. My pug wiped around 5 times, 2 of them on the first cannon volley. Dodge circles, don’t touch the walls, and don’t res.

Don’t touch walls? I’m confused. Do they do something special?

Whenever me or my pug touched the walls we were teleported away from them (and right into the AoEs!). Maybe that was a glitch at the time, but I figured it was supposed to be there :/

Not sure if this was mentioned yet, but if you just stick together and run clockwise/counterclockwise with IMS, you avoid most damage by running and the rest by dodging.
Important for this is to have enough IMS and to gather up right before the barrage phase starts. Then all got to stick together. I did this a few times (also during AR times), also with randoms, and it always worked out the first/second try. I rarely needed more than two.
Playing Guardian as side note. (+Aegis).

Zaxares.5419:

Battle Phase:

During the battle phases, stay close to Mai Trin. She always shadow steps to the person furthest away from her, so keeping your distance is a BAD idea (you will always get targeted). There’s no need to stack on her (that just lets Mai Trin get her 15 stacks of Bleed on your entire party); just move in small circles around her but stay close enough so that you can easily keep her in Horrik’s electric fields. Use your condition removal if Mai gets lots of Bleeding on you. Warriors with Shake it Off!, Rangers with Healing Spring, and traited Guardians/Eles can make this fight much easier.

Nice tips. I would add: a mesmer makes the battle phase almost trivial. Traited focus + Mirror + Feedback = no TP ever land (you have to ensure you are the farthest player to use Mirror efficiently, though). And you still have enough slotd for a cleansing mantra, helping the group shedding the 15 bleeds, were it to land.

Yeah, my Mesmer really helped with that fight too. She’s traited for Shattered Conditions, plus her Phantasms grant Regeneration. Throw in Phantasmal Disenchanter into the mix and Mai’s Bleeds get removed as quickly as they get thrown on.

I don’t know if I agree it’s the destroyer of pugs, I’ve not been having issues doing it in pugs unless it’s in the < lvl 10 range…but a lot of that is more due to the fact they have no idea what they are doing and weren’t particularly reliable skill wise in the previous 3 fractals either

I have not yet had a pug fail to either.

When this dungeon first came out the idea during the cannons was to group up and all run in the same direction. This keeps the cannon fire behind the group all the time. A few speed boosts here and there help the entire team stay ahead of the cannons.

I have not heard of the spread out and so small movements technique during cannons.

McSlappy.1372:

I have not yet had a pug fail to either.

Me neither, but that’s because I was there to teach them.

@ tweeve: That method can work too, but I prefer the split up method because it doesn’t rely on the group having access to party-wide Swiftness, and because there’s usually one guy who either fails to keep up, has a lag spike, or just runs in the wrong direction and messes things up for the others. It just takes one badly placed barrage to scatter the party and ruin the method.

best tactics …. each player choose a corner…
move the least possible.
Evade only when there are too many aoes and time your evade so you end up on previous aoes when they finish.

Nia.3964:

Not sure if this was mentioned yet, but if you just stick together and run clockwise/counterclockwise with IMS, you avoid most damage by running and the rest by dodging.
Important for this is to have enough IMS and to gather up right before the barrage phase starts. Then all got to stick together. I did this a few times (also during AR times), also with randoms, and it always worked out the first/second try. I rarely needed more than two.
Playing Guardian as side note. (+Aegis).

That’s a really risky tactics, even if it works when performed perfectly. You need to run really close together for it to work. If one person lags behind a little, that person usually ends up dead due to getting hit by aoe’s aimed at the whole group. If one person gets ahead of the group for some reason (groups speed buff failing, and different base running speed, for example), then everyone except him may end up killed if they happened to blink at that moment. And of course if something would cause the group to scatter, it’s general mayhem from now on.
Not to mention it requires lot of moving and dodging that is completely unnecessary.

There is far easier method to do it, after all – one that has been mentioned in this topic several times already. Everyone just picks their corner of the room (the 5th one may stay in the middle), and stay there. In case of aoe, walk just outside the circle. And stop again until next time you get targeted. If you do it that way, it’s much harder to die.

TL/DR: stay calm. It’s the running that kills people in the barrage phase.

Thanks for the info about staying in corners during the cannon phase. I will have to try that next time I do the fractal.

The issue here is not always, that players are not good at movement/dodging. I haven’t done this phase in fractals, but I did it a few times during Sky Pirates of Tyria. The cannon phase always slowed down my Computer, my frame rate went to hell and it really felt like WvW-Mega-Zerg. Under these Condition one simply cannot avoid the circles properly.

And no, I don’t have a computer thats too crappy. But Mais cannon phase is worse than most of the world bosses.

i don’t find the encounter that hard, outside of one shot charge from mai at high lv and the fact that you can’t dodge over circles
however instabilities can make it really depressing

Alora.6841:

The issue here is not always, that players are not good at movement/dodging. I haven’t done this phase in fractals, but I did it a few times during Sky Pirates of Tyria. The cannon phase always slowed down my Computer, my frame rate went to hell and it really felt like WvW-Mega-Zerg. Under these Condition one simply cannot avoid the circles properly.

And no, I don’t have a computer thats too crappy. But Mais cannon phase is worse than most of the world bosses.

Really? I’m running GW2 on a 2.7GHZ dual core CPU and 2 low end AMD crossfire cards and I’ve had no fps issues during Mai’s cannon phase.

Zaxares.5419:

I find it’s mostly a case of people not knowing what to do in the fight. To those people, here’s how to make it much easier:

Setup:

Bring lots of condition removal. Blocks and skills that grant Vigor are also helpful. Long-distance res skills can be useful during the cannon phases, but more often than not the guy who goes down will be killed before you can get it off.

Important things to know:

1. Mai Trin has Captain’s Shielding that makes her take 10% less damage for each stack she has. The only way to remove her Shielding is to have her stand in the electric fields fired by Horrik.

2. Mai Trin will automatically res Horrik if he is killed, so there’s no point to killing him unless you’re after the achievement. Note that there seems to be a bug where as long as you damage Horrik during the fight, you’ll get his achievement at the end anyway.

Battle Phase:

During the battle phases, stay close to Mai Trin. She always shadow steps to the person furthest away from her, so keeping your distance is a BAD idea (you will always get targeted). There’s no need to stack on her (that just lets Mai Trin get her 15 stacks of Bleed on your entire party); just move in small circles around her but stay close enough so that you can easily keep her in Horrik’s electric fields. Use your condition removal if Mai gets lots of Bleeding on you. Warriors with Shake it Off!, Rangers with Healing Spring, and traited Guardians/Eles can make this fight much easier.

It’s difficult, but possible to dodge Mai Trin’s shadowstep. You can also block the attack, which results in Mai Trin remaining in her old position. Reflecting her projectile will actually teleport YOU to her. (At least, that’s how it used to work during the initial dungeon. Not sure if that’s still true.)

Cannon Phase:

At 75/50/25% health, Mai Trin and Horrik will teleport up on the platforms and start raining down cannon barrages. The best tactic for this part is to have everybody split up and go to a different corner of the room. (The 5th person can remain in the center.) This is because each player gets his own set of AoE barrages; if players are too close together, the barrages overlap and leave you with no room to move.

If players are split up, the barrages are light enough that you can mostly sidestep the AoE’s. Dodge if necessary, but try to avoid moving into another player’s zone.

If somebody goes down, use a long-range res skill if you have it, but if they die, don’t try and res them. That just results in you going down as well. Instead, move the fight with Mai closer to the dead person and res them while avoiding Mai’s attacks.

TLDR: In battle phases, stay close to Mai. In cannon phases, split up.

This is a very helpful post. Thank you

Alora.6841:

The issue here is not always, that players are not good at movement/dodging. I haven’t done this phase in fractals, but I did it a few times during Sky Pirates of Tyria. The cannon phase always slowed down my Computer, my frame rate went to hell and it really felt like WvW-Mega-Zerg. Under these Condition one simply cannot avoid the circles properly.

And no, I don’t have a computer thats too crappy. But Mais cannon phase is worse than most of the world bosses.

I play on a 5 year old computer and it was fine for me. Maybe it’s time to check your video card drivers?

A warrior can solo it at lower levels (1-30). Afterwards, it will depend on the instabilities.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

A warrior can solo it at lower levels (1-30). Afterwards, it will depend on the instabilities.

i think it is easier to make list of what warrior can’t solo in this game….zzzz

Zaxares.5419:

If somebody goes down, use a long-range res skill if you have it, but if they die, don’t try and res them. That just results in you going down as well. Instead, move the fight with Mai closer to the dead person and res them while avoiding Mai’s attacks.

I was able to do something similar except I kited her while someone else revived everyone. It seems that you can be just outside melee range and kite her fairly easily and if you’re within a close proximity to the other alive player(s), she won’t shadowstep to them.

Yep. Mai’s damage comes mainly from her massive Bleed stacks. If you keep moving, she tends to only get 2 – 4 stacks on you, which is very manageable. Her other attacks (electric bolts and her shadow step) can be dodged or blocked; the tricky part is keeping Mai’s attention on you and making sure you’re not too far away so she starts teleporting to the people rezzing.

Oh, and of course, the person kiting Mai should also try and get her Shielding down while they’re at it. No point in wasting time!

Doggie.3184:

I just stand still looking pretty for the most part (with sunglasses on) and step slightly to the side between rings most of the time. o.O
You don’t even need to run around XD

yep, just find the empty space between and roll when they surround you.

I play on a 5 year old computer and it was fine for me. Maybe it’s time to check your video card drivers?

Rest of the content, that does not have 50+ Players on screen works fine, so I guess….no.^^

If the game would run bad overall, I would not have said what I said.

Just a thought:
Considering it isn’t affected Mistlocks, and the fact Mai is always on the move targeting the furthest player from her, would it be simpler to stack Torment on her?

I consider Molten to be the noob destroyer.

Really smooth run ( few hiccups ) but the second molten hits the 4th fractal, you know who’s brain dead or not.

When this was living story after dozens of pugs failing, the only group I was able to get it done with was with the most skilled people in my guild. And even with then we wiped 5 or 6 times before getting it done. And we (that group in the guild) make everything else ever made before and since look like we are using god mode it is so easy for us to complete. The problem is no matter what strategy we use in this fight during the bombardment phase the entire area is AoE and there is no place to sidestep or dodge to avoid and so the whole group goes down. Personally I would like to see a toggle options that lets us choose which boss fights we want to do and be done with it. Or change the fight to reduce the aoe of the bombardments. I loved fractals until I had to face Mai Trin again. I just keep getting rage quits now. Wasting my time as I get nothing for the time spent prior to the rage quits.

I just really hate the annoying teleporting as you touch the sides. You could be dodging the barrage just fine, but you get too close to the walls, and it randomly teleports you right into one of the blasts. That needs to be fixed for sure.

I’ve never had a major challenge with this fight (in the bad way) If anything its very fun if your aware of how it goes.

My rules are pretty much. stay near (out of melee) till her shield is down. Then run like a little girl when she teleports to me before she can bury me in bleeds and conditions. The biggest rule that I try to remind people about, spread out for the barrage. It is alot easier to avoid the spray if people spread out enough that your not getting 2-3 peoples worth raining down on top of you and the area ahead.