Guild Wars 2

and as i said i don t have issues to do that at 48….

I almost only play fractals, i have 260 pristines….
So anything regarding l2p is wrong.

What i said is….lava shaman has issues.

Different screen size, resolutions, colour settings, particle effects, professions, races etc etc etc can change the experience thus there are issues.

But again what really ruin this games and too many people still can t seem to understand (despite all l2p answers) is this game is terribly unbalanced.

What is easy with some professions GROUPS is impossible with other.

This boss needs 1 guardian and 1 warrior…..if animation were that easy to see, guardian would not be needed that bad because most profession has few seconds reflect to manage shield.

(and not to mention the mess of the shield itself that just is immune to some weaponsets and too easy to remove with others).

TL:DR 1st thing to do: change shaman colour pattern.
2nd thing is change how shield detect hits
3rd thing lower elementals HP

Here is something to free you from your Guardian dependency.

If you are at range 900-1100 and you constantly walk left and right, the agony arrow will miss you.

(1) The arrow will take 500ms flight time.
(2) The game will read your current trajectory and place the shot at the exact spot where you will be in 500ms
(3) If you change walking direction after he fires the arrow, it will miss, provided you will have walked far enough from the predicted point of impact. Hence the use speedboosts and the the left right movement.
(4) This does not require a dodge roll.
(5) This does not work up close: arrow flight time!

You might look like a nervous Nellie, but you never get hit. You only need reflection for the grubs and that can even be done by one Mesemer and one Thief.

The bubble is just the bubble, have you Ele put down frozen ground (or something similar by another profession) and be done with it.

Balance in the context of this encounter is not just how much life and damage is dealt. It is walking speed of your character, how well your group spreads out to know who is being aimed at, how well the group can contract before a grub phase, how fast the agony inflicting arrow is. Most of all, how readily reflection is available to each class and how the uptime/downtime ratio is on that.

Sadly, groups only focus on the uptime/downtime ratio of reflection, which can be a key to doing this encounter, but by far not the only one. Up to the extreme of doing the encounter with four guardians on level 80.

FourthVariety.5463:

Here is something to free you from your Guardian dependency.

If you are at range 900-1100 and you constantly walk left and right, the agony arrow will miss you.

well 900 is max range for elementalists here so it don t work so easily…
I posted this thing first on this forum i quite know it.

The bubble is just the bubble, have you Ele put down frozen ground (or something similar by another profession) and be done with it.

i also learned months ago that staff is the better way to be a burden here….
The low attack rate is making u uneffective at shield removing…..
Not to mention fire and water 5 are a suicide.

Scepter/focus or dagger/focus are the best here….
And none of them let you attack at a decent range….

Balance in the context of this encounter is not just how much life and damage is dealt. It is walking speed of your character, how well your group spreads out to know who is being aimed at, how well the group can contract before a grub phase, how fast the agony inflicting arrow is. Most of all, how readily reflection is available to each class and how the uptime/downtime ratio is on thakittens

all about dps

Reason why i prefer a warrior over a guardian if players are skilled.
If Group lack some experience then guardian all the way.

After last nerf most elementals Attacks get through antiprojectiles…
Thus you need kill them fast.

6-9 seconds of reflections are perfect if those are enough to clean all elementals.
and any class can achieve that uptime while only few can achieve that dps.

you don t need any reflections before shield so uptime is not relevant.
is just annoying to use only autoattacks to prevent covering boss animation

Its clear dungeon team play dps warriors they are the answer to every single dungeon in this game…..living story was the last proof. (you may want to see how dulfy clear the bot).
Guardian is only to get more room for mistakes…

TBH I love this fight and don’t think it needs a nerf. It’s one of the only checks of skill in the game and one of the few fights where just pushing full DPS is not the answer. However I believe it’s perfectly doable with most team comps I remember doing it at level 38 with 4 Warriors and me on Engineer. No Reflects at all.

What we need is not this fight to be nerfed, but more fights like this in the game. I think I would enjoy running dungeons more if there were more fights which involved this amount of class skills and team co-ordination.

Ratty.5176:

one of the few fights where just pushing full DPS is not the answer.

I remember doing it at level 38 with 4 Warriors and me on Engineer. No Reflects at all.

That doesnt make sense at all….
Its all about dps if you do it with 4 warriors….(and infact it is).

Bread.7516:

But my main problem in this fight is the obnoxiously huge enemy HP bar and portrait. Maybe because of the angle i normally play with. Either introduce back the custom UI in gw1 or give us the option to disable the HP bar. For now what i do is tilt the camera sideways just so i see what the shaman is doing.

This is my issue as well. As an engineer, I have many useful skills for this particular fight, and I run grenades for the AoE on the elementals, Elixir gun to keep weakness/bleeds/cripple on the boss while removing conditions on my party members and keeping up a heal/condition field at my location. I use the Heal turret for the water field combos and overcharge condition removal, as well as the toss elixir U for projectiles (sometimes I trigger the regular elixir if we need to destroy the lava elementals faster for Rallies).

But as this poster said, keeping my camera angle so I can see the boss, prep my GT wall, GT AoE grenade spams on the elementals, find low health party members for HT/Super Elixir, and being able to swap back for my magnetic bubble when I see the boss warming up to one-shot me and my dodge-roll is not going to be ready… all while I have to KEEP MOVING is not just difficult with that portrait in the way… it is nearly impossible to do it all perfectly every time.

And that is what we are talking about, this isn’t a fight that you can just mess up on and not wipe, and I noticed that all the folks talking about their party make-ups have not mentioned the extra heals/support from the guardians/elementalists while bragging about how easy this boss is.

I have my UI akittens smallest setting, and I need that stupid mob targeted thing out of my way so I can do my jobs.

Maybe you Pr0s should explain the fight in detail for folks who don’t understand what to look for/wait for to either dodge, reflect, or just heal through?

failed fract 9/10?

It not me but I will leave this here

you are the reason we can’t have nice things OP.

pls buff the loot instead and make other bosses as challenging as volcanic!(lornarr, jellyfish come to mind..)

pullnointer.1476:

you are the reason we can’t have nice things OP.

pls buff the loot instead and make other bosses as challenging as volcanic!(lornarr, jellyfish come to mind..)

I would pay to have the Jellyfish become 3 times as challenging, if it in turn had 50% of the HP. The fight is so boring even at 48 you can practically go and make dinner. It’s currently just a giant HP sponge.

I’m noticing a distinct trend…

People who can’t complete the Grawl fractal tend to prefer the Dredge fractal while those who can complete the Grawl fractal with ease utterly despise the Dredge fractal.

kanderous.7512:

I’m noticing a distinct trend…

People who can’t complete the Grawl fractal tend to prefer the Dredge fractal while those who can complete the Grawl fractal with ease utterly despise the Dredge fractal.

I must admit the Grawl Fractal is moving up my list of Fractals I would prefer to do.. I recon it’s now hovering around the middle at higher levels. I must say even the Water fractal can sometimes be more annoying than the Grawl.

The nice thing about the Grawl Fractal is that with a good team it’s fast.

With the Water fractal it takes about the same amount of time.. but the final fight is SO boring.

pullnointer.1476:

you are the reason we can’t have nice things OP.

pls buff the loot instead and make other bosses as challenging as volcanic!(lornarr, jellyfish come to mind..)

its not…
with proper agony he would be downed so many times…….

the first difficulty spike is at 26 before that is easier than most dungeons.

26-38 is almost the same.

40-48 only change is the fact agony oneshot most professions.

You don t care much if a mob oneshots you for 18.000 or for 25.000 ._.

I don’t do high lvl fractals yet, so I don’t know what this looks like at lvl 48. But since the complaint was about lvl 10, what happens at lvl 48 is not relevant.

My only complaint with this fractal is that I have no fingers left after spending the whole time moving up and down and left and right. We never use reflection and the only case we had issues was with too many berserkers in the party. Otherwise this boss is fine and please leave as is.

1. Keep moving. You won’t burn.
2. Ressing: If you res, res only when you are at full hp or close and don’t res past your half hp. If grubs are up, rally instead. Res downed asap, but dont res dead ppl when the ads are up, get rid of them first and then slowly ress.
3. If the shaman eats the captives it regains hp. But when it goes back down it does not respawn ads. So if ads are bothering you let the shaman eat while you kill them and just dps him back.
4. Use fast attacks to take the bubble down (rangers, berserker phantasms, no gs) while the rest kill grubs.
5. Have a stun breaker ready before he spawns the ads
6. Make sure everyone is in full HP and as much as possible with cd’s up before you dps it down to where the ads spawn. Do not dps it blindly.
7. Try to have someone who can give regen – you die here by lots of small dmg, not by large attacks.
8. Avoid the lava pits even when empty. If you die in one you can’t self res and its very difficult for others to res you.
9. Get some AR. Even if you don’t have rings put it on the amulet you bought with laurels.

I realise above instructions are basic and not how it is done at high lvls. But at lvl 10 that will suffice. It is really not that difficult once you realise what is needed. Just very different to the other stand and spam 2 bosses.

i do not agree woth point 9….

Fotm 10 is for people that wants the rings….
They shouldn t waste laurels and stuff on AR….it has to be their choices if to use a gold infusion or an AR infusion.

btw if its for lvl 10:

stay ranged 1200 and tap right-left strafes while using low dps or autoattack
save all your defensive skills for when he puts the bubble on
That happens every 25% boss hp

Byron, I did not suggest anyone should spend laurels on infusions.
But they buy the amulets with laurels anyway and they can put the simple 5 AR infusion on them which they can buy with 75 fractal relics, meaning 2 runs of a lvl 8 fractal.

Yes, they can put gold or mf infusions on it as well. They can also run with mf gear. But having that 5 AR makes life much easier until you get the rings from fotm. Which in my view makes it is a pretty sensible choice, especially if you are having trouble completing some of the bosses.

The thing to note is +5 AR does not cost laurels. SO buy the Necklace with Utility slot, put in Versatile Infusion, you can always put in the Gold Find to the slot later once you don’t need the AR. So you don’t need to waste laurels.

I like this fractal…

1. Its challenging
2. Its not AFKable

I run this with pugs all the time at 10’s and 20’s for daily rewards and it is really not that hard… People exaggerate and just need to learn how to play better.

Heck I did it yesterday at level 10 with a group that had no agony resist and only one other than me had ever done more than level 2 fractal’s… So yeah.
IT IS A GREAT FIGHT DO NOT CHANGE IT ARENANET

last 2 posts by warriors/guardians users.

I wonder if some day they will make war and guard on par with other pve profession if we will still have so many people asking for difficult content.

NB i do it at lvl 48 with pugs…..but i am honest enough to recognize when there are class requirements/walls that makes things difficult.

This battle is almost impossible or extremely easy depending on party composition.

Reflect + dps = easy at any level…expecially with dps you put up some invul skill and clear elementals…
While shaman itself can be soloed easily.

Not enough dps = don t even try…..if you don t clear elmentals fast you don t have enough evasions/skills to even think surviving

Oh and did i mention the oneshotting bug post shield that is still to be addressed?

BTW the priority is PvE balance so we will see much less “L2p” and “where are difficult dungeons” posts (or much more depend if they will nerf OP or buff Others)

LordByron.8369:

last 2 posts by warriors/guardians users.

I wonder if some day they will make war and guard on par with other pve profession if we will still have so many people asking for difficult content.

NB i do it at lvl 48 with pugs…..but i am honest enough to recognize when there are class requirements/walls that makes things difficult.

This battle is almost impossible or extremely easy depending on party composition.

Reflect + dps = easy at any level…expecially with dps you put up some invul skill and clear elementals…
While shaman itself can be soloed easily.

Not enough dps = don t even try…..if you don t clear elmentals fast you don t have enough evasions/skills to even think surviving

Oh and did i mention the oneshotting bug post shield that is still to be addressed?

BTW the priority is PvE balance so we will see much less “L2p” and “where are difficult dungeons” posts (or much more depend if they will nerf OP or buff Others)

This is exactly it. People in this thread saying: “L2P” have their parties composition optimized with the OP PvE powerhouses.

I am not saying people Faceroll it at 48, but for mixed groups that don’t build for certain mechanics, even lower level fracs can be very challenging.

I tried to solo it on my Warrior on level 10. Really showed how crap Warrior actually is, unless you have someone carrying you.

Wethospu.6437:

I tried to solo it on my Warrior on level 10. Really showed how crap Warrior actually is, unless you have someone carrying you.

2 things.

first, I wanna watch videos of those attemps.

Second, I kidda wish pvE content is balance with pvp in mind.

Warriors lack class complexity which is apparent when they try to solo more difficult content. If all classes are equal like pvp, then encounters should also be just as balanced which mean there shouldnt be class dependencies

Not much to tell. At melee dodging every attack. Sometimes its dive bomb instantly kills me when I get unlucky (it does damage before circles even appear and also hits clearly outside of circles).
Then Elementals appear and 1) I can’t break shield on time and 2) they just kill me.

It’s not like Mesmer who has clones helping with shield and aggro and anti-projectile against Elementals.

Wethospu.6437:

Not much to tell. At melee dodging every attack. Sometimes its dive bomb instantly kills me when I get unlucky (it does damage before circles even appear and also hits clearly outside of circles).
Then Elementals appear and 1) I can’t break shield on time and 2) they just kill me.

It’s not like Mesmer who has clones helping with shield and aggro and anti-projectile against Elementals.

awww… i thought u made some awesome trick and manage to finish the first wave and died on the second

I admit the grawl shaman animation is kidda invisible.

dive bomb is consistent. It is usually after his shield breaks

Wethospu.6437:

I tried to solo it on my Warrior on level 10. Really showed how crap Warrior actually is, unless you have someone carrying you.

Good to know

We just did a 38 no problem, with 2 Eles, 1 Thief, 1 Warrior and a Mesmer. I believe we had no deaths at all, and very few downs.

I guess if you get there with a team with no AoE, and Refection it might be impossible. Which really leaves you with a very small amount of teams.

TBH I think a piercing build trap Ranger would even be a better addition to the group than a Warrior on this fight, Warriors really don’t bring much to this fight unless the team has a couple of Guardians to allow them to survive long enough to do damage.

Seriously, the only composition that should actually have a little bit of trouble with this fight is 5 warriors. Otherwise, it is a L2P issue

Wethospu.6437:

I tried to solo it on my Warrior on level 10. Really showed how crap Warrior actually is, unless you have someone carrying you.

I’ve heard that if you have piercing rifle, it takes off 2 ticks of the shield. Not 100% if that’s true or not but that’s what I heard from my warrior friend. I tried it on my thief and I found out that unless I reroll a human, I just can’t kill the shield fast enough. I positioned the grawl at one end, it went to the other to eat the furthest prisoner possible, I went in with daggers the entire time, and I could only get him to 15 stacks left. I was sad.

That would be weird because projectiles won’t pierce if they get blocked.

I’m also pretty sure it works the same way with rangers. If it does and I’m not just talking out my kitten then their sbow would really melt the shield in seconds.

Nikaido.3457:

LordByron in particular is complaining despite having both an elementalist and a mesmer if I’m not mistaken.

i never fail it yet i complain maybe i m not an elitist that only wants easy runs for my Group..

I’ve had pugged runs with incredibly good elementalists that did a remarkable job in this fractal.

this is actually impossible….
Out of the 3 phases and paired with nerfs elementalists get useless in one of them.

You can go D/D: this works for elementals part but is useless for the rest (i still have to see someone being able to survive decently with D/D here at higher lvls).

You can go staff…You slow down shielded shaman and that is all you will do (if you stop to cast meteor storm or water 5 you end up eating so much damage…and earth 3 CD is too long to be useful and its even personal).

You can go scepter/focus, be almost immortal and just watch your party die while you are tickling elementals.

But i think to people that sees me surviving alone for 5 minutes against shaman and 10 elementals at 48 seems i m awesome….(yet i know i m a burden).

Mesmer on the other hand IF built phantasm dps with focus/blade/GS mastery does everything needed……

Now there is a build i use sice 2 weeks with wich i can do everything….
And a profession i tested deeply and used since launch that has serious issues being useful

tell me how can this be a l2p issue…..

The player is the same….
Or maybe instead that there are serious pve balancing issues….
That by the way everyone knows.

Just yesterday 4-manned shaman as an ele without a single guardian. So it is l2p. Oh and it was my first time as an ele at 48 lvl.

can i see a vid? i m so interested to see how did you do that

Sure, I always record my runs.

You can do it again….don t you?

While haviz is right, we did have a mesmer too, although I was mainly focussing on taking the bubble down instead of helping the rest of the team survive. Swirling winds is really just as valueable at this boss as any of the guardian reflect/absorb skills is.

Swirling winds last only 6 seconds while traited shield of the avenger 30 with inactives periods. Still waiting for the nerf to shield of the avenger.

well ye I may have exaggerated a bit, the shield can now be destroyed by the aoe though, which can render it useless if the shaman is smart. (not sure since hp update, my apologies)

actually somehow swirling wind has issue against elementals attack post patch….or at lesat it used to some days ago before i quit ele for fotms

I found this Video… actually it’s me and done over 3 months ago.. sadly enough scale 80 is the cap. and there are no further challenges after 80 in this game. And it wasn’t a challenge as big as expected

btw the build I use is not that good compared to todays build ( scepter / Focus is more save and easier to Play as we’ll ) on top of that some other spells instead of elementals would make it way easier again. and with the new asc stats out there it be bit easier as we’ll . you can do it on such scales as we’ll pretty brain akitten mode with 4 ele’s and 1 guard . ( another Group I joined to boost to 80).

gl hf and start complaining that the Content is to easy;)

Every play dodgeball? Same concept, move and change directions. I’ve had to kite the boss for over 5 minutes while the party res’d.

Difficult fight, but fun. Do not nerf. We need more difficult content.

LordByron.8369:

last 2 posts by warriors/guardians users.

I wonder if some day they will make war and guard on par with other pve profession if we will still have so many people asking for difficult content.

NB i do it at lvl 48 with pugs…..but i am honest enough to recognize when there are class requirements/walls that makes things difficult.

This battle is almost impossible or extremely easy depending on party composition.

Reflect + dps = easy at any level…expecially with dps you put up some invul skill and clear elementals…
While shaman itself can be soloed easily.

Not enough dps = don t even try…..if you don t clear elmentals fast you don t have enough evasions/skills to even think surviving

Oh and did i mention the oneshotting bug post shield that is still to be addressed?

BTW the priority is PvE balance so we will see much less “L2p” and “where are difficult dungeons” posts (or much more depend if they will nerf OP or buff Others)

Lol? Im a necro, so… not a warrior or guardian

great, this has officially become a showoff thread, while I agree that the original post was a bit pointless, it would be nice to see some actual constructive feedback on these forums for once.

Probably the only “constructive” feedback we would get here would be:

• learn to dodge an arrow
• bring as many projectile defense as possible

Though, it would be nice if some good people playing less wanted proffesions would give some tips.

are we really discussing if its a bad thing to change a boss colour pattern?

Then lets face eles problems:

Staff:
disadvantages:
only 1 short reflect (personal if untraited) on long CD
best skills require standing still, thus taking damage
attack rate/unreliability makes you a burden during the shield part
Lack of invulnerabilities

Advantages:
water 4
1200 range

Scepter/focus
disadvantages:
Attack unreliablility, attunements and stuff makes you a burden in Killing elementals
900 range is risky

Advantages:
long uptime of reflects/invulnerabilities……makes you almost immortal..(not useful btw)

D/D
disadvantages:
-Quite extreme risk……i never saw anyone managing to stay alive at higher levels.
-complete lack of reflects/invul
-shield part will probably result in an instadeath due to shaman aoe BUG
-range … .____.

Advantages:
clears elementals fast

Note:
Surviving even alone for 10 minutes doesn t mean being useful.
i’d rather have a warrior bursting half elementals and dying in the process than an ele wandering around tickling stuff even with zerker+potions…

Note i cleared this fractal somethng like a hundred times…..but somehow i feel some professions are not contributing enough.

LordByron.8369:

Note i cleared this fractal somethng like a hundred times…..but somehow i feel some professions are not contributing enough.

If this is pointed to ele than I can just laugh out loud. since you haven’t metioned the most imba skill for this fractal for an ele…

I really hate the attitude that most ppl search for certain proffesions… all of them are extremly strong if played right…

and I guess it’s possible to beet every fractal in every class combination. at least there is no fractal I can think of witch wouldn’t be pretty easy with 5 good ele’s on scale 80. guess same for guards with other classes it might be hard if you have a team with warriors only I guess maybe they can dps it out still but not too sure ( I imagine the Dredge one is hard if they don’t time the doges perfectly). Still…

If you think that other classes don’t contribute too mutch or as mutch as you it might be that they’re just not good at playing their class.. or maybe you just not realizing what they do for their team ( invis blind , tanking the adds while you dps)..

Just stop it searching for some classes or saying some classes are bad…

btw I’m really curious in the highest lvl you completed grawl:)

I couldn’t help myself but laughing out loud, while reading through this.

Reminded me of a party I ran fracs with yesterday.
Well, at least they tried to.

Scale was 30, I think – so something to chill out, if you’re used to harder ones.

Our second frac was the shaman – I was on their ts as a random.
They started to freak me out instatly, since the only thing they had in mind was flaming the last boss and whining about getting that fractal.
I stayed silent – it was too soon to insult them. They’d just kick me or worse – get on my nerves even more.

At the end of the day I should have left instanteniously.

They kept blabbering that we would need a guard or we’d die.
At least the second part was true. We did die a lot.
So one of us changed his char and we went on.

I tried to coordinate them – two of them ended up lying in the lava regularly.
After telling them how to dodge the arrows properly for about a hundred time, I stopped also that efforts.

“We need a second guard.”

That made me doubting my sanity.
Did they really say something like that!?
Sure as hell they did.

Didn’t help much either.

BUT!
This frac is fine as it is.
The Problem is the fact that most players just can’t play their char properly.
That is also the reason engis are particularly disliked – most of them don’t really know how to play their char… because he’s different. I am an Engi on high fracs btw.
The Boss itself may be challenging, especially when you start to come closer to lvl80, but that’s fine.

A game, which doesn’t challange you, will bore you soon enough to death.
So don’t change it! Don’t give in for another time, A-Net!

Call me an elitist.
But I do confess to like the thought of somebody biting into his own keyboard, after loosing a battle against me.
This sadism is healthy – as long as you’re challenged.

Um, weird
I only get to 30 (with 2 toons). But since 20+, I’ve NEVER heard any complain about that fractal. Only about dredge. Before lvl10, yes, people (and I also did) complain. After 20, people know how to fight that and just do their job.

This boss is really well balanced. It always makes for an exciting fight. I’ve been in teams that would instantly moan about restarting as soon as the Fractal comes up. But then usually I’m able to convince them to push on, and we do fine.

Then again, I’ve also received desperate whispers from people whose run had come to an abrupt halt due to repeated deaths at this one boss… often resulting in a party member leaving.

The main issue with this boss, is that one or two bad players can really make a big difference here. Swap them out for better players, and you do fine. Sad but true.

Really? I found this rather easy, (not asking for it to be made harder Anet) due to any reflection. The boss itself is rather easy it’s the oozes that get you. If you throw up a wall of reflection or something like that it’s not trouble. Just keep moving and range him.