Guild Wars 2

My guild and I are starting to do Fractals on a more regular basis. A couple of us are up to level 20 but most are below that. We are teaching along the way but now we are uncertain if what we are doing is completely useful. I hear of people running 29/39/50 level fractals all the time but I have to admit, we’ll have a really smooth level 15 and then get stomped on a level 9.

What I would like to know is what the group makeup is for successful fractal groups. What classes are preferable and which ones should we avoid. I know that some are fine early on but later on the game gets tougher and are they still viable?

Also, I have heard that it is best to be decked out in all zerker gear. Is it best to have 5 glass cannons? We understand the agony aspect of the game and we are gearing up appropriately but before we get too far in I’d like to know the other answers first so we can make good decisions on gear and class.

Sorry for my spelling – English is my primary language but I am a product of public schooling.

WELLL if we are talking the “best” classes (which is fairly subjective) I’ll give you my list based on importance.

Ele: We are good at nearly everything, we have projectile destruction, the highest DPS (when near a wall), might+fury, we can tank(idk why you would do that :/). There is no fractal where ele is a bad class.

Guardian: the big plus is the aegis condi removal and reflection I cant think of a fractal that they aren’t useful in.

Thief: if you get dredge they make it so much easier stealth is a very big plus

Warrior: High sustain DPS with no downsides and party buffs for more DPS.

Mesmer: before the patch I would have placed this class where guardian is but they’ve received a few nerfs and I’m not currently aware of the meta build. However, they do bring reflects and projectile destruction with some condi removal.

Necros: if played right a necro can do a lot of good mostly with blinds and weaknesses and have some niche techniques that can make certain parts of Fotm go faster. there usefull ness is defiently out classed by thieves though

Ranger: unfortunately rangers kinda suck in fotm. They do have some good skills reflects, small might stacking, buffing DPS, and pushing mobs through defiant to name a few. The problem with this class is the fact that they are much harder time doing well. So if you have guildies who are new or inexperienced (or just plan bad) I would recommend they stay away from this class.

engi: Lowest DPS (last I checked) mostly a condi spamer and I have yet to see an engi play their class right (mostly because hardly anyone plays engi). I would recommend any other class than this one.

For a smooth run I like the guard/ele/war combination, what you want for the rest of the team with a preference for a thief beacause of dredge fractal. But as usual, skill is what matters. Maybe when fractal will be more difficult (we can dream a bit !) you’ll have to make a more decisive choice of which class you need.

Also we have designated fractal openers in my group. So in case something goes wrong each person have their strengths in other classes because of many alts my group has. That way when we get dredge, I always swap out to my thief right away, regardless of the setup we have.

Have your Guardian or Warrior open. They are a literal necessity in every Fractal for a speed efficient (note I’m not talking optimally) run. Everybody else should have most other classes geared, including a second Guardian for when required, Ele & Thief.

Many different team compositions can bring you sucessful results. Some are more oriented towards optimal speedclearing others towards more usefulness when something goes awry.

My group prefers the classic approach of having at least 1 condition damage build and mildly support oriented build in the group so our team comp consists of a thief, a guardian, a warrior, a mesmer and an engineer.

For gear, zerker is nearly always better, you can provide as much support to a team in zerker gear as you can in cleric’s, because utilities like Wall of Reflection and Stand Your Ground don’t scale with healing power, vitality, toughness, etc…

For group composition, my perosnal tier list is as such:
S Tier: Guardian, Elementalist

Guardians provide so much utility in nearly every individual fractal, it’s difficult to think of a smooth run without one.

Elementalists make runs go significantly quicker with the ability to keep groups at 25 might relatively easily (when backed by blasts from allies).

A Tier: Warrior, Ranger, Thief

Warriors provide good personal dps, and are naturally sturdy, allowing for mistakes. Banners and Empower Allies are massive damage boosts to the party.

Rangers have decent personal dps, and Spotter and Frost Spirit are massive damage boosts to the party. Rangers have the ability to supplement a Guardian’s reflects with offhand Axe. Pets allow for easier pulls in certain scenarios.

Thieves provide massive single target dps, and provide highly useful utility in select fractals (Dredge being a great example). Always have a Thief available for dredge.

B Tier: Necromancer, Engineer, Mesmer

While not necessarily unviable, Necromancer, Engineer, and Mesmer have flaws that make them less desireable in fractals.
Necromancers lack many options for team support and have little to no cleave (fighting trash is a big part of fractals).
Engineers can stack vulnerability exceptionally well, and might to an extent, but are outclassed by Elementalists for the might, and group compositions frequently have enough Vulnerability anyways.
Mesmers have low personal damage in practice as fights are either too short (don’t get enough phantasms up), against trash (phantasms destroyed when targets die), or too dangerous for phantasms (phantasms just die outright). Mesmers do provide select utility and lots of reflects, but between a Guardian and a Ranger, I’ve never felt the need for more reflects, and Mesmer has few group support options.

This all said, I believe the ideal group for a Fractal run would be:
Guardian, Elementalist, Warrior, Ranger and a 5th depending on preference, chosen from Elementalist, Warrior, and Thief.

In my Opinion the Ideal Team Comp for FoTM is
Guardian/Thief/Warrior/Ele/Mesmer.

Guardian because of reflects.
Thief because of permablind/stealth/high single target dps/skipping kitten tons of content.
Warrior because of party dps boost(banners).
Ele mainly for party dps boost(might stacking).
Mesmer for Temporal Curtain pulls, Time Warp and insane reflects.(Temporal Curtain is strong when used right.)

Here is my ranking of each class provided it is played in a high level of skill:
Tier 1: Guardian Thief
Tier 2: Warrior Mesmer Ele
Tier 3: Ranger Engie
Tier 4: Necro

Mesmer drops to tier 3 and ranger goes up to tier 2. But that’s just opinion. Guardian and Thief cover what mesmer does, ranger has unique additions.

Tier 1: Guardian, Mesmer
Tier 2: Thief, Ele
Tier 3: Warrior
Tier 4: Ranger, Necro, Engi

Mesmer >> Guard with untraited warden, blink, portal, focus pull.
Guard > Mesmer with aegis.

It really feels like it’s just me who is very anti mesmer. It takes far too long to pump out 3 Swordsmen and they just get killed anyway. They are incredible on paper, but it’s impossible to reach close in reality.

Get two swordmen + 1 duelist then?

For working your way upwards you probably want 1 guardian, 1 warrior, plus 3 from second guardian, second warrior, thief, mesmer, elementalist.

Flissy.4093:

It really feels like it’s just me who is very anti mesmer. It takes far too long to pump out 3 Swordsmen and they just get killed anyway. They are incredible on paper, but it’s impossible to reach close in reality.

I think the problem is more that your theoretical fights aren’t realistic, you can spawn 4 phantasms at the start of any fight(if the max of 3 wasn’t there). And fractals actually has a very small amount of trash mob groups or 5 sec burst down bosses compared to other dungeons. Except of course for the ewwy fractals like dredge.

We tend to run a mesmer in fractals simply for the utility. Last night we tried out the new phalanx warrior. It worked amazingly with our usual comp. Guard, mes, d/f ele, thief and warrior. We had a ranger instead of thief last night but honestly having a phalanx warrior is hugely helpful in fractals. We always capped might thanks to it and the difference in kill times was pretty noticeable.

Ps. If you want to faceroll fractals i recommend a party composition similar to this. Stacking guardians and warriors is actually not as comfortable as people make it out to be.

Iris Ng.9845:

Tier 1: Guardian, Mesmer
Tier 2: Thief, Ele
Tier 3: Warrior
Tier 4: Ranger, Necro, Engi

Mesmer >> Guard with untraited warden, blink, portal, focus pull.
Guard > Mesmer with aegis.

Why on earth is a class that can apply a good amount of weakness, CC, battle-res, perma-25 stacks of might, soak up damage on a switch in dredge fractal and take a hit from archdiviner/mossman and not be plastered all over the walls at 49 tier 3?

Because running 5 warriors is harder than running 5 of the other 4 classes. Projectile defence op.

Colesy
1: weakness- Thief can provide better weakness than warriors anywhere but fotm 38. Shortbow 4 switch to sword pistol.

2: ring of warding/line of warding better CC in fractals

3: battle-res ,ok its pretty OP when your team is playing bad. Ideal uber pro players don’t get downed come on.

4: perma 25stacks of Might OP

5: The ideal Uber pro players doesn’t get hit I guess.

Spoj The Second.7680:

We tend to run a mesmer in fractals simply for the utility. Last night we tried out the new phalanx warrior. It worked amazingly with our usual comp. Guard, mes, d/f ele, thief and warrior. We had a ranger instead of thief last night but honestly having a phalanx warrior is hugely helpful in fractals. We always capped might thanks to it and the difference in kill times was pretty noticeable.

Ps. If you want to faceroll fractals i recommend a party composition similar to this. Stacking guardians and warriors is actually not as comfortable as people make it out to be.

Diiiiis. It was amazing.
Just go warrior-ele-mesmer-guardian-thief. You have absolutely everything you might need covered.
Phalanx warr op.

If I had to go for an ideal setup that doesn’t include swithing characters for certain fractals along the way (like bringing a thief in for dredge). I Think I’d go with one guardian, one mesmer, one thief and one of the new phalanx warriors.
Spot number five is open to discussion for me, mostly because I don’t have that much experience when it comes to elementalists or rangers in fractals for example. But from a theoretical standpoint I’d most likely go with one of those two.

As usual you can substitute particular skills and utilities with those from other classes, but those usually do their part extremely well. An engineer can probably actually cover a lot of that the other classes do if you are lacking anything in particular. They can be Jack of all trades, but of course most classes will outperform an engineer in their particular field of expertise.
I’ve seen a lot of necromancers in fractals, but most of what they do the mesmer or the thief can do equally well if not better and they bring additional things to the table the necromancer can’t do. Sad as it is.

As for equipment, as most already said, berserker is mostly the way to go. Though I have to admit that I like to throw in some knight in the higher levels.
The “true” fractal crowd might berate me for this advice, but I like the additional safety that comes from that in the face of screwups. And those can happen, no matter how well you might be playing.

hendo.1940:

Iris Ng.9845:

Tier 1: Guardian, Mesmer
Tier 2: Thief, Ele
Tier 3: Warrior
Tier 4: Ranger, Necro, Engi

Mesmer >> Guard with untraited warden, blink, portal, focus pull.
Guard > Mesmer with aegis.

Why on earth is a class that can apply a good amount of weakness, CC, battle-res, perma-25 stacks of might, soak up damage on a switch in dredge fractal and take a hit from archdiviner/mossman and not be plastered all over the walls at 49 tier 3?

1. Weakness: D/F ele with Glyph of Elemental Power
2. Crowd control: not particularly amazing in comparison to guard, mesmer or ele. War sacrifices DPS for more CC with hammer. Thief and guard can blind.
3. Battle res: Rare. Rally is faster.
4. 25 stacks of Might: Phalanx war is OP. Kudos to any wars who run Phalanx in fractals.
5. Switch puzzle at the dredge fractal: group doesn’t have to take any hits if there are thief and mesmer. 7 minutes max.
6. Archdiviner/Mossman: why would anyone want to take a hit from them? Tanker and Reflection are pretty OP here.
7. Warriors have fun at Grawl level 49.

I would consider bring war to tier 2 if they are 1. Norn and 2. Phalanx.

Silberfisch.3046:

If I had to go for an ideal setup that doesn’t include swithing characters for certain fractals along the way (like bringing a thief in for dredge). I Think I’d go with one guardian, one mesmer, one thief and one of the new phalanx warriors.
Spot number five is open to discussion for me, mostly because I don’t have that much experience when it comes to elementalists or rangers in fractals for example. But from a theoretical standpoint I’d most likely go with one of those two.

As usual you can substitute particular skills and utilities with those from other classes, but those usually do their part extremely well. An engineer can probably actually cover a lot of that the other classes do if you are lacking anything in particular. They can be Jack of all trades, but of course most classes will outperform an engineer in their particular field of expertise.
I’ve seen a lot of necromancers in fractals, but most of what they do the mesmer or the thief can do equally well if not better and they bring additional things to the table the necromancer can’t do. Sad as it is.

As for equipment, as most already said, berserker is mostly the way to go. Though I have to admit that I like to throw in some knight in the higher levels.
The “true” fractal crowd might berate me for this advice, but I like the additional safety that comes from that in the face of screwups. And those can happen, no matter how well you might be playing.

A good ele in fractals:

• sustains themselves
• kills things fast
• makes full use of D/F and staff
• knows when to put up Swirling Wind
• stacks might
• applies blind, chill (except for 38), cripple, immobilization, weakness
• uses CC intelligently
• shares conjured weapons
• knows when to use FGS or Earth elemental
• understands the class beyond the meta dungeon speedclear

2. Crowd control: not particularly amazing in comparison to guard, mesmer or ele. War sacrifices DPS for more CC with hammer. Thief and guard can blind.

Tremor hits five targets for a two-second knockdown which can be enough to give the party breathing room.

3. Battle res: Rare. Rally is faster.

And what if you have nothing to rally on? You know, like some of the bosses?

6. Archdiviner/Mossman: why would anyone want to take a hit from them?

Because people aren’t perfect and either get lag or make mistakes. Cut the tryhard BS out, not everyone can dodge every single hit.

7. Warriors have fun at Grawl level 49.

Playing a warrior is fine for grawl @ 49.

I want to say thanks for all the information that you have all offered. I’ll be bringing it all back to my team and we’ll see what we come up with. Most of us have multiple alts and should be able to adjust to any composition. We’ll see how we do as we get farther in.

Again, thanks for the help!

Iris Ng.9845:

Silberfisch.3046:

If I had to go for an ideal setup that doesn’t include swithing characters for certain fractals along the way (like bringing a thief in for dredge). I Think I’d go with one guardian, one mesmer, one thief and one of the new phalanx warriors.
Spot number five is open to discussion for me, mostly because I don’t have that much experience when it comes to elementalists or rangers in fractals for example. But from a theoretical standpoint I’d most likely go with one of those two.

As usual you can substitute particular skills and utilities with those from other classes, but those usually do their part extremely well. An engineer can probably actually cover a lot of that the other classes do if you are lacking anything in particular. They can be Jack of all trades, but of course most classes will outperform an engineer in their particular field of expertise.
I’ve seen a lot of necromancers in fractals, but most of what they do the mesmer or the thief can do equally well if not better and they bring additional things to the table the necromancer can’t do. Sad as it is.

As for equipment, as most already said, berserker is mostly the way to go. Though I have to admit that I like to throw in some knight in the higher levels.
The “true” fractal crowd might berate me for this advice, but I like the additional safety that comes from that in the face of screwups. And those can happen, no matter how well you might be playing.

A good ele in fractals:

• sustains themselves
• kills things fast
• makes full use of D/F and staff
• knows when to put up Swirling Wind
• stacks might
• applies blind, chill (except for 38), cripple, immobilization, weakness
• uses CC intelligently
• shares conjured weapons
• knows when to use FGS or Earth elemental
• understands the class beyond the meta dungeon speedclear

As I said, my practical experiences to elementalists in fractals are rather limited, simply because there are so few in my regular fractal crowd. I don’t think elementalists are useless or anything. So I went with what I know from personal experience works fine.
I enjoy thought experiments and theory crafting to a certain point. But I won’t give advice purely based on them. At least not in an environment like GW2.

Anyway thanks for the summary of what elementalists in fractals do or don’t do.

hendo.1940:

2. Crowd control: not particularly amazing in comparison to guard, mesmer or ele. War sacrifices DPS for more CC with hammer. Thief and guard can blind.

Tremor hits five targets for a two-second knockdown which can be enough to give the party breathing room.

Tremor is good against trash, as well as blind (except for dredge, but projectile blocking is OP there). Knockdown is good against the kitty golems at the Raving Asuras where Baron is the most concerned. However, mesmer and ele can stunlock him pretty easily.

3. Battle res: Rare. Rally is faster.

And what if you have nothing to rally on? You know, like some of the bosses?

I can only see Mai as one of those situations. However, if you run with equally good players, it is really not necessary.

6. Archdiviner/Mossman: why would anyone want to take a hit from them?

Because people aren’t perfect and either get lag or make mistakes. Cut the tryhard BS out, not everyone can dodge every single hit.

There you have said it. Taking hit does not benefit the group at all. It isn’t a good quality to place warrior above all other classes. Warriors are still recommended for people who have latency problems.

7. Warriors have fun at Grawl level 49.

Playing a warrior is fine for grawl @ 49.

True, it doesn’t affect personal skills. They have it fine under the protection of other classes which bring projectile blocking during the adds phase.

In the end, I just want to echo Spoj’s statement. In fractals, having the right utilities is OP.

Embrace The Bold.7619:

WELLL if we are talking the “best” classes (which is fairly subjective) I’ll give you my list based on importance.

Ele: We are good at nearly everything, we have projectile destruction, the highest DPS (when near a wall), might+fury, we can tank(idk why you would do that :/). There is no fractal where ele is a bad class.

Guardian: the big plus is the aegis condi removal and reflection I cant think of a fractal that they aren’t useful in.

Thief: if you get dredge they make it so much easier stealth is a very big plus

Warrior: High sustain DPS with no downsides and party buffs for more DPS.

Mesmer: before the patch I would have placed this class where guardian is but they’ve received a few nerfs and I’m not currently aware of the meta build. However, they do bring reflects and projectile destruction with some condi removal.

Necros: if played right a necro can do a lot of good mostly with blinds and weaknesses and have some niche techniques that can make certain parts of Fotm go faster. there usefull ness is defiently out classed by thieves though

Ranger: unfortunately rangers kinda suck in fotm. They do have some good skills reflects, small might stacking, buffing DPS, and pushing mobs through defiant to name a few. The problem with this class is the fact that they are much harder time doing well. So if you have guildies who are new or inexperienced (or just plan bad) I would recommend they stay away from this class.

engi: Lowest DPS (last I checked) mostly a condi spamer and I have yet to see an engi play their class right (mostly because hardly anyone plays engi). I would recommend any other class than this one.

Engies = 25 Vuln, Perma Weakness if their smart enough to use Skale venom, Stealth for dredge and minor team might stacking. Their a good class just no one plays them right.