Guild Wars 2

Why is this Frac so hated? is it because we have to skip the first part to go in a cagematch of death by running around on trim or porting in. If they dont want us to do that why dont they just block it. Even once you get past that part there is still a boss like fight before the actual boss. And what about the bomb doors? on higher level fracs does Arenanet really expect us to wipe a minimum # of times just to get the door blasted open. or are we supposed to have the perfect combination of theifs, guardians and mesmers each time? what if we just have necros, engin and rangers are we supposed to just give up or die even more than other groups would. Its like they want us to plan for this inevitable fractal each time. I wish they would simplify or redo this one. or maybe make it less probable to get it in the first place. I did the dredge frac 3 times in one day on teirs 1-3. What fun . . . . Any thoughts?

It’s just the bomb part that kittenes a lot of people off.

True dat. ill be honest i dont even know what to do to even start the frac normally because we always skip in. im sure its a pain though.

I’m fine with the fractal, except for the clown car. That’s the only thing that should be nerfed.

We don’t even blink at this anymore. We used to all groan when it came up, but we have learned the tricks. Just another fractal to us now.

as fun as they are we shouldnt have to “trick” a game just to get r done. Unless this is all built in for us to find. The clown car is all about boon removal once i get there i at least know its going to end.

the bombs…..then the darn clown car, the unprecedented endless hordes of blind rats capable of ranged attacks which wipe you in about 2 shots, bombers that would put Hiroshima and Nagasaki to shame, bugs and glitches that no longer work there. Basically it is a time sink, and to make i worse, you cant skip it anymore because it tend to appear after fractal 2 or 3, which basically makes it a curse on higher fractal levels.

In order words, its ANet’s way of telling you; “we dont give a f about you, this is what you get for trying to have fun. Good luck finishing this under 40 minutes without having to use a repair canister or go out to repair once”

Well, I most certainly didn’t mean tricks to be taken so literally. We are not side stepping any content during the fractal. We know how to do the bombs so we get through it easily, but do the content as it was presented. The clown car isn’t an issue either. We simply take them down because we know how to fight them.

No gimmicks. No weird hiding places. No unfair advantages. We just figured out how to run bombs and fight the clown car. If you cannot figure it out on your own as we have, there are plenty of vids showing how to do much of the GW2 content out there. I’m sure the bombs and the clown car are among them.

I thought u were referring to the beginning skip tricks. in response to Fortus the way it works now it seems to go easiest to hardest. or if your 2nd fractal is cliffside(good frac imo) you are certain to get dredge as the third. That is how it has been for me since the fractal update. i have not had it going any other way.

I said I don’t mind anything except the clown car only because the clown car is way too long. I don’t see the point of it being so long.

I’m not even sure why most people ‘skip’ the first part of the Dredge fractal, as doing it the way it was intended is almost always faster.

the bomb door is my only problem with this fractal.

Other than that, it’s manageable.

The whole thing is way too long if you do it properly.

1. They should just cut out the first part starting with door to cage part open straight away.

2. Next thing they should nerf the bomb door part so people don’t have to die countless times just to get it open.

3. Tune the clown cart part a bit better, especially the bomb dropping veterans.

They “fix” CoF p1 but can’t make dredge fractal enjoyable even with the perfect set-up, or possible without it… Anet, get your priorities straight!

Tbh, skipped most of the thread so if this was already said/addressed, meh. Only read OP.

I think high level fractals is meant to be challenged by organized groups only, having a few right classes is not too hard. I only go in guild groups. We all have multiple classes so we swap to have 1 mes and thief in the group, nothing else is required whatsoever. Though having prot on clown car is nice from a guard.

As far as most of it goes, the first part takes like 2 mins (excluding swapping char time if we need to), port, kill like 10 mobs or w/e is on the first side you port in. Thief stealths for the other panel, someone takes console, someone pulls the 1 mob that spawns.
Next is either bombs or cannons.
Cannons we skip all the mobs to and just pull the 3 mobs with cannons, then we stealth and cannon the wall, you should be able to do this within 8 mins.
Bombs we kill the mobs in the first room, then we pop a portal, stealth, get 5 bombs, time all the bombs to drop at the same time and port out, the dredge do not go for the bombs if you time all the bombs within ~2 seconds and everyone takes the portal back. Wait 2 mins for bombs to respawn then go again, really no idea why people say “wipe” at this part. I never die once, and we do it in about 3 mins.
Clown car does indeed take a while since it’s really really time gated, rabso is a joke if you remove his prot.
Boss is roflmao. Dredge is really nice as his agony is a simple double dodge and no additional summons. Ice ele is an easier agony but has the annoying adds that soak up some attacks. Though admittedly my group should honestly start doing this melee.

All in all, should be ~15-30 mins fractal, not that bad considering it’s the third fractal only. I just wish it wasn’t so time gated on the clown car.

I actually enjoy Dredge fract. What I don’t enjoy is when people would rather do the shortcut or not do it at all.
It’s really not that difficult. The caged in part is a bit painful if everyone doesn’t know what they’re doing but otherwise I’d say I hate cliffside a whole heap load more. The number of times someone has fallen with that hammer and we’ve all had to suicide I cannot count and I don’t think I’d want to try either.

Dredge map is only doable with 1-2 guardians. If not then you have to result to gimmicks. There has to be a hard map that dictates the rest as easy lols.

For your assurance, always get a party with a mesmer and a thief => easy dredge skip.

Iris Ng.9845:

For your assurance, always get a party with a mesmer and a thief => easy dredge skip.

Always, always… No: always make sure people can switch to those classes (except the instance owner, ofc).

Dredge isn’t a bad fractal, it is just long. To fix this, they should keep everything the same up until the champ dredge. After you kill him, you are done, remove the dang clowncar. Fancy up the last boss and make him a 4th fractal boss. That would eliminate a lot of the unnecessary length but still keeping it challenging. They did the same thing for the molten facility, they can do it for dredge.

The most pressing issue is indeed the bomb part of dredge. The spawn is absolutely ridiculous and I fail to see how to “legit” do this part without “exploiting” it with stealth skills.

Anet need to recognize not everyone have 3 hours to continuously sit in front of a computer screen. Dredge atm is the most time consuming fractal by a ridiculously large margin.

People do realize that doing suicide runs for the bomb door isn’t the only way? It’s just what most players settled on because it requires the least amount of effort. There’s another way that is in most cases quicker.

I really don’t understand some of you guys… Is like some of you ACTUALLY like this fractal, when its just a HOT POT of a mess.

Basically, here are the issues with this fractal:

1- People skip the first part of the door opening sequence because in higher level fractals the dredges hit VERY hard, and can spawn unlimited amounts of them. It is also time consuming, and those vets have so much HP is a chore to bring them down.

2- It is like is ALMOST necessary to carry a guardian/thief/mesmer to this fractal. If a party of necros get this fractal, they are pretty much screwed.

3- The door bombing sequence is just horrid: is it really necessary to have a death fest here?

4- The amount of time this fractal needs for completion is ridiculous.

5- The clown car…. wow. How many dredges can fit on that thing? It is boring, stressful, and way overstayed its welcome.

Can ANET FINALLY revise this thing and make it ENJOYABLE? because as of now, I have never been in a party that, when encountered this fractal, didnt curse or exhaled out of frustration. At the very least, they can tone down the amount of dredges present at one time!

I actually enjoy this fractal as it can be a lot of fun.

1) There are ways to minimize the amount of time someone has to spend in the rooms on the plates to open the gates. You should not need to stand on them for more than a few seconds at most.

2) You do not need a thief nor Mesmer. Guardian is very useful with their reflects against shockwave attacks and basic ranged projectile attacks. Let me ask you this: how do you get past the harpies in their fractal? I also want to point out that an all necro group is a fail group solely by its composition.

3) It does not need to be a suicide run. Players just choose to make it that way because they don’t want to put the effort into actually doing the mechanic for that event.

4) It can be done in 30-40 minutes on average in higher levels. Lower if they fixed the next point.

5) This is the one thing that I agree that should be fixed. It takes about 10 minutes just spamming attacks and really poses no challenge. It needs to be reworked.

My bomb method (if stealth is not available). Pseudo suicide run. I equip any blues/greens I have gathered along the way, I lead run up to the door aggroing everything, and run around while the team plants and runs. If there is a mesmer, they can make a portal for the team. 1/2 the time I can make it back alive as well. While it doesn’t yield 4-5 bombs each time, I average 2-3 bombs each round.

Ayrilana.1396:

People do realize that doing suicide runs for the bomb door isn’t the only way? It’s just what most players settled on because it requires the least amount of effort. There’s another way that is in most cases quicker.

But the bomb timer only respawns after a while, I use stealth + mesmer warp but we still have to wait for the bomb to respawn.

Tachii.3506:

Ayrilana.1396:

People do realize that doing suicide runs for the bomb door isn’t the only way? It’s just what most players settled on because it requires the least amount of effort. There’s another way that is in most cases quicker.

But the bomb timer only respawns after a while, I use stealth + mesmer warp but we still have to wait for the bomb to respawn.

If done correctly, you should only have to wait for the bombs to respawn once.

Ayrilana.1396:

Tachii.3506:

Ayrilana.1396:

People do realize that doing suicide runs for the bomb door isn’t the only way? It’s just what most players settled on because it requires the least amount of effort. There’s another way that is in most cases quicker.

But the bomb timer only respawns after a while, I use stealth + mesmer warp but we still have to wait for the bomb to respawn.

If done correctly, you should only have to wait for the bombs to respawn once.

Ayrilana, take no ofense but: you rather have this fractal completely untouched just because you can make it and run it efficiently? I can honestly say that I have succeeded in running dredge fractal without death/down several times, but it all depends on how good the group is and also the composition. Just because of those few nice times doesn’t mean I want to go ahead and tell devs “this is fine, no tuning necessary”. Dredge sucks most of the time, and if you haven’t already, please try it with a pug group.

It’s hard for me to imagine a method that doesn’t require stealth and be so ideal you’d do it with just two runs, I’m curious to learn such a strategy.

At the moment the quickest way I found for my group composition is thief SR, pick up bombs, mesmer lay portal before they lay down the bomb, and everyone take the port back.

Aden Celeste.3650:

Ayrilana.1396:

Tachii.3506:

Ayrilana.1396:

People do realize that doing suicide runs for the bomb door isn’t the only way? It’s just what most players settled on because it requires the least amount of effort. There’s another way that is in most cases quicker.

But the bomb timer only respawns after a while, I use stealth + mesmer warp but we still have to wait for the bomb to respawn.

If done correctly, you should only have to wait for the bombs to respawn once.

Ayrilana, take no ofense but: you rather have this fractal completely untouched just because you can make it and run it efficiently? I can honestly say that I have succeeded in running dredge fractal without death/down several times, but it all depends on how good the group is and also the composition. Just because of those few nice times doesn’t mean I want to go ahead and tell devs “this is fine, no tuning necessary”. Dredge sucks most of the time, and if you haven’t already, please try it with a pug group.

It’s not that I got lucky with groups. It’s that most people are doing the same old strategies that actually make it longer and more difficult than it needs to be. Doing suicide runs to bomb the wall is like choosing to do the console event on CoE P1 one person at a time. It still works but there’s a better, more efficient way. Asking for a nerf to the CoE P1 console event because it takes so long is a bit ridiculous when there’s a better way. The same can be said about the bomb event in the dredge fractal as well as the console/gate part at the very beginning.

Tachii.3506:

It’s hard for me to imagine a method that doesn’t require stealth and be so ideal you’d do it with just two runs, I’m curious to learn such a strategy.

At the moment the quickest way I found for my group composition is thief SR, pick up bombs, mesmer lay portal before they lay down the bomb, and everyone take the port back.

Only the dredge at the steps respawn infinitely. Additional dredge in the back spawn after every two bombs explode. It takes seven bombs to take down the door. There are five bombs total which respawn after like two minutes. I’m sure you can work out a strategy with this information.

Considering I never once have run a fractal without pugs, getting all 5 of us to go for the right bombs at once will waste more time organizing than just do it with 3 runs. :/

Tachii.3506:

Considering I never once have run a fractal without pugs, getting all 5 of us to go for the right bombs at once will waste more time organizing than just do it with 3 runs. :/

Assigning who gets bombs is no different than CoE P1 with the console. It just takes a little communication.

There is a lot of difference tbh.

CoE p1 is just having one guy defend while the others press F. Same goes for cofp2 solo run, cofp1 gate, etc. You only need one guy to volunteer, here everyone need to precisely know where the bombs are, which ones to go for, drop them roughly in the time frame, and thus is the reason I won’t waste my time with the organization.

It’s not difficult to hold down ctrl and see where they are. It’s not difficult for someone that does know where they are to quickly explain it to the group. It takes way less time than trying to kamikaze the door.

My method don’t involve suiciding the door though, lol.

But it requires 1 or more people running a bomb over and over hoping for the dredge do not remove it. I’ve done your strategy and sometimes it works quickly and other times it takes forever. It’s not very consistent and you’re relying solely on the party having a mesmer which may not be the case for a lot of people.

Ayrilana.1396:

But it requires 1 or more people running a bomb over and over hoping for the dredge do not remove it. I’ve done your strategy and sometimes it works quickly and other times it takes forever. It’s not very consistent and you’re relying solely on the party having a mesmer which may not be the case for a lot of people.

MagicSlurpees.4851:

Bombs we kill the mobs in the first room, then we pop a portal, stealth, get 5 bombs, time all the bombs to drop at the same time and port out, the dredge do not go for the bombs if you time all the bombs within ~2 seconds and everyone takes the portal back. Wait 2 mins for bombs to respawn then go again, really no idea why people say “wipe” at this part. I never die once, and we do it in about 3 mins.

Yes it relies on a mes and thief, but it’s 100% reliable. Also, you shouldn’t be going into high fracs without an organized group that’s ready with multiple classes anyway, that’s just silly for if you want it done quickly.

I will say I do hope the clown car does get a nerf eventually. I wouldn’t mind double the amount of mobs spawning per wave but spawning doubly fast, preferably w/o invuln.

It may be reliable for you but I’ve seen plenty of groups that can’t pull it off with both a thief and a mesmer portal.

What I’ve been trying to argue is that you do not need specific classes just to get through the dredge fractal and that there’s always the likelihood that there’s another way to do something. Just because something is listed on the wiki, does not mean that it’s the only way to do it. Like you said, high level fractals require an organized group which I think some people tend to forget.

Just the fact that with your method you HAVE to switch to mesmer/thief proves the point that it should be fixed. In my opinion it’s not good design if you have to relate on a certain class to do the content.

nexusone.2367:

Just the fact that with your method you HAVE to switch to mesmer/thief proves the point that it should be fixed. In my opinion it’s not good design if you have to relate on a certain class to do the content.

No. Just because one method relies on having two classes does not mean that it needs to be fixed. There are always more than one way to do something. Just because one out of several methods doesn’t work like you want, does not mean that something should be nerfed.

What I’m seeing is this:

• CM skips at the end can be done with a thief’s shadow refuge. Therefore a thief must be required so the dungeon needs to be fixed.

• CoF P1 has the boulder hallway. One method is to use a Mesmer to port everyone through. A Mesmer must be required then so the path needs to be fixed.

• For the mounds in AC, many groups use an Ele for frost bow. Since this method requires an Ele, the dungeon needs to be fixed.

The point of the three examples above is to illustrate that just because one method appears to require certain classes, there may be other ways to do them and a fix isn’t necessary.

I don’t think the issue is that the Fractal is undo able as it. There are strategies which can be used to make it easier. That being said it, the dredge fractal is not “fun.” And with the most recent changes to how fractals are encountered it means this one shows up alot more then it used to, and we don’t get the option to reset it if we just don’t feel like doing it like we used too.

I don’t like this fractal, its not fun. I can do it with a Guild group, or I can Pug it. But that is not and will never be the point. I don’t find it fun at all. Its long, way to long.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the Clown Car would just die along with the boss. But I don’t expect this fractal will change. If anything good was gonna happen to it, it would have been done during that big fractal update.