Guild Wars 2

I have (obviously) not gotten to play many cliffsides since the patch, but so far

Beginning to arm seals:
It was ok. The way up seemed a little to easy, but also less frustrating. The path between the seals was just…running up, you could add a little more challenge to that, but alright.
The lowest were obviously not much of a challenge, wouldnt mind if spawns or health would be increased a little.
The chest seal was really nicely done. The cultists are dangerous but killable, the stacking is gone for now and you have to move well. Its also nice to not take so long.
Really good job on chest.

Arm seals.
The probably most feared part of cliffside if not of fotm.
Now: easy. You dont even need to stack anymore, we were able to run as a group and even do a short 2-3 split for 82.
Now, I liked the old way, it was challenging. Its a little too easy now, I would appreciate if the need to be able to solo the far seal would become valuable once more.
It made certain classes (like my thief) shine in less used areas (stealth)
Its nice you got rid of the need to stack behind that wall, it will also decrease the impact of social akwardness and last laugh I hope.
The fact that it is much faster and much smoother now is great.
If you find a way to promote special tactics a little more without interrupting the flow of the game, i’d be grateful.

Now, to the boss.
This one is really nice. I guess thats what you talked about when you wanted to implement raid mechanics to fotm.
We wiped ~2 times trying to figure out the mechanics. After that it went pretty well.
The animation for the aoe slam is good for an attack, but a little too short to actually kill the breakbar with an uncoordinated team. You have exactly enough time to notice it and dodge, but usually not enough time to put some hard cc on it. But that might just be a matter of practice.
The small swing at <50% threshold is kinda op. It is almost not telegraphed and kills most players in one hit, even with a fractal defensive potion.
We spent a lot of time powerressing whenever the skill was used.
Either put a little bit longer animation on it, or disable the ability to use it two times in a row. (He downed one player, and then immediately killed him and downed the one who tried to ress)

All in all: Im really happy with the changes. I never really disliked the old cliffside, but now it is actually fun. Could require a little more coordination on the way up and a little less damage on the bossfight tho.

Turns out there is always someone on this forum who completely disagrees with what I say and has to tell me Im wrong.
So go ahead.
Alternatively just post your own impressions and feedback.^^

Resetting seals encounters is a PITA. It’s really hard to get out of combat. I accidentally dodge rolled into kitten, while I had the hammer, during the arm seals section and it took about 15 minutes to figure out how to completely reset the encounter. Occasionally when we got out of combat we’d hit the reset button and the mobs at the first seal would instantly aggro to us.

Last boss is good, though I do agree that the hammer cone is really not breakable or even worth doing since it’s very easy to avoid.

Asrat.2645:

Arm seals.
The probably most feared part of cliffside if not of fotm.
Now: easy. You dont even need to stack anymore, we were able to run as a group and even do a short 2-3 split for 82.
Now, I liked the old way, it was challenging. Its a little too easy now, I would appreciate if the need to be able to solo the far seal would become valuable once more.
It made certain classes (like my thief) shine in less used areas (stealth)
Its nice you got rid of the need to stack behind that wall, it will also decrease the impact of social akwardness and last laugh I hope.
The fact that it is much faster and much smoother now is great.
If you find a way to promote special tactics a little more without interrupting the flow of the game, i’d be grateful.

ok so not to tell you youre wrong, but keep in mind that “too easy” for you isnt necessarily a good gauge. the arms were a pug killer to the point where some of the more casual longtime players in my guild spent over 4 hours just doing no pain no gain cliffside and thauma 2 nights ago. just so they could have core fractal hero completed. i know exactly what was going on in that run, even though i was only there until they got to the arm seals and wiped once (except me) and i had to sleep. its been the same for them every time they do cliffside in the last 3 years, and its entirely intimidated some of them out of doing the higher scales. (which would be ok if they ever intended to pug fractals, but in general they wont even start a fractal or a dungeon without 5 of their own, so it really just means they miss out on one of the cheaper methods to acquire best in slot gear and resort to crafting)

as another person used to carrying the arm seals, im very glad for the changes to them. my flavor of carrying was bringing an engi and designating myself to pull one side so it never regenned, and i could afford to let people have the crutch of a partner or 2 on the unpulled side.

insanemaniac.2456:

ok so not to tell you youre wrong, but keep in mind that “too easy” for you isnt necessarily a good gauge. the arms were a pug killer to the point where some of the more casual longtime players in my guild spent over 4 hours just doing no pain no gain cliffside and thauma 2 nights ago. just so they could have core fractal hero completed. i know exactly what was going on in that run, even though i was only there until they got to the arm seals and wiped once (except me) and i had to sleep. its been the same for them every time they do cliffside in the last 3 years, and its entirely intimidated some of them out of doing the higher scales. (which would be ok if they ever intended to pug fractals, but in general they wont even start a fractal or a dungeon without 5 of their own, so it really just means they miss out on one of the cheaper methods to acquire best in slot gear and resort to crafting)

as another person used to carrying the arm seals, im very glad for the changes to them. my flavor of carrying was bringing an engi and designating myself to pull one side so it never regenned, and i could afford to let people have the crutch of a partner or 2 on the unpulled side.

I certainly dont want back to what we had. I’d just wish there was some sort of tactics required.
It did happen to be a good (pug) team, but we were literally able to run far with two people whilst three of us stayed directly at close and killed of the spawns.

Asrat.2645:

insanemaniac.2456:

ok so not to tell you youre wrong, but keep in mind that “too easy” for you isnt necessarily a good gauge. the arms were a pug killer to the point where some of the more casual longtime players in my guild spent over 4 hours just doing no pain no gain cliffside and thauma 2 nights ago. just so they could have core fractal hero completed. i know exactly what was going on in that run, even though i was only there until they got to the arm seals and wiped once (except me) and i had to sleep. its been the same for them every time they do cliffside in the last 3 years, and its entirely intimidated some of them out of doing the higher scales. (which would be ok if they ever intended to pug fractals, but in general they wont even start a fractal or a dungeon without 5 of their own, so it really just means they miss out on one of the cheaper methods to acquire best in slot gear and resort to crafting)

as another person used to carrying the arm seals, im very glad for the changes to them. my flavor of carrying was bringing an engi and designating myself to pull one side so it never regenned, and i could afford to let people have the crutch of a partner or 2 on the unpulled side.

I certainly dont want back to what we had. I’d just wish there was some sort of tactics required.
It did happen to be a good (pug) team, but we were literally able to run far with two people whilst three of us stayed directly at close and killed of the spawns.

thats not really a bad or lesser tactic, to have someone(s) holding off one side while the others head to the other side. and at its core its no different than making sure 1 side is never regenning the seal. but it is a lot less complex and risky. it may be less personally rewarding… but thats kinda the price you pay for stripping out the need for an instant, costly wipe and reset due to a single error.

its what i did in sub 40s while doing the daily non-swamp. usually solo. its really easy for your party to understand, even without communication. hopefully what we get out of this is that the tactic becomes a 2-2 split, with the hammer runner floating between. and hopefully people will be less intimidated by the hammer with that spiffy new icon over your head. but it doesnt really take long enough to be super important that we do exactly that, which is another good thing.

The most important thing is, after all:
Even tho it was kinda ‘too easy’, it didnt make the fractal any less enjoyable.
Ofc it didnt feel as rewarding as finishing 94 for the first time, but at least we stood there and we’d be like: ‘well, that was pretty cool’

We had a hard time last night at 59 because of the exploding fanatics. However, overall we were pleased with the changes.

• Climbing up is now easy as long as it’s easy for one person, so no more feeling that you’re holding everyone back because you are bad at jumping.
• Resets (once you figure out how) are closer to the current objective.
• The boss fight is now the most interesting battle, instead of trivial.

I’ll have to run it a few more times to get a feel for how balanced it is (Arch Diviner is a bit like Mai Trin, without the charm).

One question I have about it is. Why does the hamemr 4 sometimes NOT break the seal. literally, it sometimes takes me 2 or 3 attempts before it works. Is it something to do with distance away from it?

Well if you position yourself in a way where you are simply out of range that should be quite easily confirmed by running a few tests. It also helps to target the seal before hitting.
If this was a bug it would be very strange indeed to only occur ‘sometimes’ and not everytime.
For now I would suggest you make sure to be positioned perfectly, and if it still shows unexpected behaviour, report it.

I love the changes. I used to dread Cliffside because it was such a long, annoying slog (especially knowing that on any given day, your PUG grp might not be up to the task of doing Arms and you have to find new ppl). I only did it for daily recommended or progression (once). Now I quite enjoy it. Much faster, last boss is actually meaningful, telegraphs are good to where when I get hit with something I feel it was a fair screwup on my part. Arms is not annoying, chest is not an annoying stack. Well done, anet.