Guild Wars 2

I like the direction Anet went when changing the way of respawning in Fractals and their mentality to remove spawn rushing. However, what surprised me is that the Elemental Source fight in the Sons of Svanir fractal, which is basically the DEFINITION of spawn rushing, wasn’t changed. The campfire part before that was successfully nerfed and I appreciate the change of Archers to the Greatsword dudes but it’s surprising that the Elemental Source fight remains unchanged. Now what is the problem with the Elemental Source fight?
(Before anyone that does Fractal with his guild posts: “DUHH IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT CUZ YOU ARE SOO BAD LOL”, – I am talking about an unorganized, pub group here which is the kind of group most people will do fractals with. These groups usually have pretty bad team comps and with the new patch even some unexperienced people from lower fractal lvls. Therefore, everything I talk about in the next part of this post is only true if we assume that we are dealing with a normal, average group of average GW2 players and thereforeunorganized team. The scale I am talking about is 30+)
Problems with the fractal and why the Source fight should be changed:
I want this fight to change on a mechanic level and from a game designing perspective (pretty much the same reasons why Anet removed spawn rushing in the first place) so my reasons for changing the fight/ suggestions are the following:
-Unlike the Grawl fractal which can not be spawn rushed, the Elemental Source fight (which is not as hard to do as the Grawl fractal but still a really hard fight) consists of one simple objective: Destroy the source. The source is an object which does not regenerate health and the fight basically revolves around the HP bar of this very object. So if you wipe you just respawn and just attack the source again until it’s destroyed.
-The fight itself is very hard and outright nerve-wrecking. The amount of knock-downs the Source dishes out is over the top and totaly unescessary. It simply aggrevates the players and there is ZERO gameplay value found here. The storm that criples you is equally annoying and does not fullfill any interesting function. But what makes the fight the pain in the kitten that it is is the combination of the Frostbite debuff and surprisingly powerful adds, Veteran Ice Elementals.

For people who don’t know: During the fractal a debuff called Frostbite is apllied every second which stacks in intensity. With it, the dmg it deals increases exponentially. Frostbite can be dispelled by approaching or creating a source of warmth, such as lighting a bonfire with Rusty Torches found in the fractal.
-The frostbite mechanic is the main gimmick of this fractal and I have nothing against it. It changes your mindset and makes you appreciate warmth and the campfires scattered around the fractal, it’s a design choice and well-used gameplay device/mechanic. In general, it’s not one single mechanic that creates problems in the fractal, it’s the combination of them all.
? The Frostbite mechanic promotes rushing. You usually want to finish or go trhough a part as quickly as possible because otherwise the Frostbite will stack up and deal too much damage. It also forces you to gather around a campfire, especiqally during the Elemental Source fight.
The problem which occurs here is that, together with the Elemental Source’s annoying AOE knockdowns and the Veteran Ice Elementals ridiculous AoE dmg this can become a problem: The frostbite mechanic severely hinders your mobility and shrinks the zone in which you can act. This is amplified even further during a storm, during which Frostbite is apllied even faster.
Frostbite forces you to pick up Rusty Torches and light Bonfires (which isn’t a problem in itself) but the Torch animations are really clunky and you can get caught in an Ice Elemental’s AoE. Furthermore, especially during a storm, Frostbite makes people play carelessly. Everyone tries to find a fire as quickly as possible which makes them pull all Ice Elementals which usually ends in your team wiping. Which leads me to my next point:
-The Elemental Source’s attck that teleports you to a random point in the zone is outright stupid. The are several spawn points you can end up in and all of them are totally fine. But there is one special case: There is a chance that you will be spawned directly next to the Source, on the opposite side of which you entered the fight. This instanlty agrros 4-6 veteran Ice Elementals on your way back (unless you are invisible) which is basically an auto-loose. If a pub gets ported to this location he will (as a natural reaction to Frostbite during the storm) run back to the group in search of warmth, pulling all Elementals with him. This is a big problem, especially because of the fact that:
- Veteran ice Elementals are too strong. They hit for way too much. Their deadliest attack is easily invaded but the problem that occurs is the ridiculous CC that the source dishes out. You will usually end up getting knocked on the ground which is followed up by an Ice Elementals aoe spell which deals (at 3800 armor) around 7k damage. Their missile attacks deal 4k, which is alot but not too bad. The real problem is the damage and zoning they do with the aoe Attacjs,
-Rezzing is rly hard in this bossfight because of the Source’s over-the-top crowd control and the ice Elemental’s zoning potential. The urge to light fires makes rezzing even harder and it’s an all around frustrating experience.

-All these factors promote spawn rushing. To rephrase it and summarize it again;
Frostbite: Frostbite makes you automatically go into rush mode and forces you to light bonfires with torches the latter of which have clunky animations. Plus, if you drop the torch, you have cooldown on weapon swap which is also annoying.
Elemental Source CC: Unreflectable over-the-top AoE (and sometimes even chain-) CC which annoys the living hell out of you, especially if you are in a corner and/or trying to revive some1.
-Fight has certain phases and teleports you around: The fight has certain phases in which it teleports you around the battlefield. There is one problematic location the source can teleport you to which makes you aggro alot of Veteran Ice Elementals that WILL f your day up. Wiping is often the easier solution to the problem and it’s not worth the hassle to kill the Veterans if you can just wipe, respawn and come back with the Elementals having lost aggro.
-Veteran Ice Elementals are tough: The Ice elementals deal tons of dmg and together with the source’s CC they can easily make your group wipe, ESPECIALLY if you pulled too many during the storm.
-Checkpoint is really close to the Source boss fight.
-Source doesn’t regenerate HP: This factor promotes spawn rushing like no other.

TL;DR-Version:
The Source bossfight is an interaction of certain mechanics which make the fight too hard for unorganized teams/bad team comps. Over the top CC consisting of chain knockdowns, cripples and chills are simply annoying and add nothing to the fight.
Veteran Ice Elementals spawn in too high numbers and deal too much damage. The most problematic part is that the Source’s teleportation mechanic can make you pull Veteran Ice Elementals without you even standing a chance.
Furthermore, the check point is very close to the bossifght when the bossfight itself is structured in phases and the boss is unable to regenerate HP. All these parts add to a mentality of giving up (especially because of the frustrating CC and bullkitten that can happen during this fight) and just spawnrushing the source.

My suggestions on improving this boss fight are the following:

Quality of Life improvements:
-Rusty Torches’ animations should be improved to be less clunky. Additionally, if you drop a torch, you should not have cooldown on Weapon Swap.
-*The Elemental Source’s “Crippling Storm” should be entirely removed and the KD-missile should be slower and more obvious so it can be more easily avoided.

General improvements:
The teleport point which is located directly next to the Source on the opposite direction of where you entered the fight should be removed and the Veteran Ice elementa’ls aggro range should be shortened.
The Veteran ice Elemental’s missiles should no longer aplly Chill. The damage can stay the same.
-The Veteran Ice elementals should not spawn everywhere on the battlefield but a certain number should be spawned close to each member of the group. This change might be a bit surprising if you read the whole topic but let me explain:
The only reason why the Elementals spawn everyhwere on the battlefield to keep the players from running around the whole battlefield and it’s also the reason why one member is (almost always) teleported very close to them is so that he pulls all of them to the group. Because otherwise, the fight would be too easy and a group would only have to deal with one or two (at most) Vet’s during one phase.
To make it more difficult I think 4-5 (depending on Fractal Scale) should spawn close to the group but they should come in waves. 2 during the storm rages and 2 more when it ends so it’s easier to deal with them.
-The Elemental Source should regenerate HP when there is no player nearby but the fight in itself should be nerfed. This should incorporate a fairer bossfight:

How it should be:
If every individual plays well you will do it on your first try. If your group screws up you should loose and you should be punsihed and forced to do it all over again.

How it is at the moment:
If every individual plays well you will still loose if the Ice Elemental teleports one member of the group to a certain location wich will make this member of the group pull every veteran Ice elemental in the vicinity to the group (unless he can turn himself invisible). You will most likely wipe but it doesn’t matter because the Elemental Source doesn’t regenerate health and you can respawn and damage it again. Rinse and repeat until it’s destroyed. This way to do the fight is frustrating and boring but, if you have an unorganized team/teamcomp nescessary.

Therefore, the fight should be nerfed (Veteran Elementals) and the CC reduced while the Source itself should be buffed (turn the “Crippling Storm” into a damage dealing AoE-move or something) and be able to regenerate health if the group wipes. Along with Quality of Life improvements, I am sure this will make this fight way more enjoyable and less of a frustrating chore.

(Sorry for this wall of text, English is not my mother tongue and I have certain problems of getting to the point/expressing things in a concise way. I still hope that people get what I’m saying here: People who know about fair game design and understand Anets design philosophies should get what I mean.)
Have a nice evening

/E: and sorry because of the structure/multiposts, forum was giving me error messages like there’s no tomorrow)