Guild Wars 2

I’m interested how people rank the difficulty/arduousness of lvl 20+ fractals. Here’s my ranking:

1. Cliffside. Many ways to fail, and by far the longest path.
2. Dredge. Final boss isn’t really that bad but the journey…
3. Grawl. Final boss = glass cannon filter
4. Asura. Annoying more than difficult.
5. Svanir. It’s all about the elemental boss
6. Ascalon. Not that bad.
7. Jade Maw. Agony resist check.
8. Swamp/Mossman. First part can be tricky but nice how short this one is.
9. Water/Dolphin. Final boss is easy, just takes a long time. Getting thi

if you lure the jelly boss to the electric cages he’s actually dying really fast

With my usual group it’s

1) Asura – Most tedious path. Harpies and the Ettin.
2) Svanir – Giant Ice elemental and chain kb’s from veterans.
3) Water – Krait get stuck in the ceiling all the time.
4) Cliffside – Chest/Arm seals are tedious.
5) Grawl – Nice and short, chain WoR and SoA.
6) Dredge – Lots of loot.
7) Ascalon
8) Swamp
9) Jade Maw

swamp tree is quite annoying due to the huge damage attack…

It puts an aoe on the ground but it get hidden often or even worse you don t have time to evade it.

Jade maw remains the easiest….at least because several bugs can get you stuck if you die.

But cliffside stage, dredge and graw should be tuned down imho.

1. Grawl. – Long, final boss has alot of unavoidable damage ontop of avoidable damage, so even with correct movements you still take alot of damage, but without correct movements you take a ton of it.
2. Dredge. Way too long, monsters in the puzzle at the start hit too hard, 2nd boss has too much hp, final boss requires coordination and really punishes you if you miss a lava
3. Cliffside. Alot of unavoidable damage on the arm seals
4. Asura. Harpy knockback
5. Svanir. Nubs pull all the ice elementals and fail to dodge the stuns, the monsters by the fire hit too hard
6. Ascalon. Vet’s ruin your day
7. Water/Dolphin. Pretty chilled
8. Swamp/Mossman. Even more chilled
9. Jade Maw. /afk

My ranking after reaching 30+ only with pickup groups:

1. Svanir. Even when executed properly, you can die a lot from elem aggro. First part when you need to light the fire can also be tricky and result in lot of deaths.

2. Dredge. You can also die a lot on first and second part. Then it’s easy. Can take a lot of time as well.

3. Cliffside. This one is actually not too hard when you know the right tactic and have experienced players doing it. But when you don’t, it’s a real pain. Takes quite some time also.

4. Grawl is also easy when you know what to do. But most of the groups don’t know the proper tactic, making it way harder.

5 Asura. Annoying more than difficult => agreed. A bit long also.

6. Water. Easy but the medusa is a bit long to kill, making it boring.

6. Jade Maw. Not very difficult, yet you need to stay focused. Fun to play and not too long.

7. Ascalon. Too easy and a bit too short imo.

8. Swamp/Mossman. Easiest and shortest of all, but always fun to do.

Neutro.3079:

7. Ascalon. Too easy and a bit too short imo.

-vets that deals 10.000 dmg in 1 hit (total 20.000 + in less than a sec and wasn t 1hb)
-boss just oneshot anything .-. and has huge agony aoe…..

I know many of you are overgeared with 30 AR at lvl 20, but that doesn t mean you don t have to take agony attacks in account….

This is from both pugging and guilding various 20+ FotMs.

Hard/Tedious to Easy

1. Dredge – takes long and Dredge are a pain to kill. Depending on the path you’re forced to wipe at least once. At least the loot is nice.

2. Cliffside – also takes fairly long and requires some coordination. At least the final boss is fairly easy now that he’s been fixed.

3. Grawl – This depends on the group. Personally I don’t find the final boss that hard but some groups make it impossible to beat. Guardians and Agony Resistance make a big difference here.

4. Svanir – The battle vs. the Blizzard is tedious and takes longer than the rest of the fractal combined. Not hard…but the constant knockbacks make it really annoying.

5. Asura – Again, not hard but incredibly annoying due to the Harpy knockdown. It’s funny for the first dozen times but then it becomes a drag.

6. Ascalon – Trash hits fikkin hard but other than that, it’s quite easy thanks to the friendly NPCs. It also drops nice loot.

7. Jade Maw – Agony Resistance check that’s easy to overcome though. Virtually impossible to fail.

8. Underwater – Krait groups get very large but other than that, it’s easy. Squid boss is super boring and very easy. Almost no worthwhile mechanics and just a drag to DPS down, even when using the cages successfully.

9. Swamp – perfect Fractal imo. Quick when well executed and a fairly challenging boss fight at the end.

Ranking made by running fractal 20 (not over 20).

1. Dredge: The switch room is bullkitten with a somewhat glassy group. Again, I consider myself highly tankish for a staff/sword mesmer, but this room is a freaking nightmare. The bomb/frost gun part causes me no problem because of blink and portal, but it sure is painful for almost all other professions. The fact that they all have ranged attacks while you are forced to stand in one place, spread around and separated, is downright annoying and ridiculously hard at times.

2. Cliffside : The healing abilities of Chanter is way too high. Even with a coordinated group with high DPS, it is nearly impossible to achieve if the group is glassy, because you can’t just run between arm seals, you have to always stand your ground in the hallway and clear mobs. By the time you do that and you have to smash again, the seal is almost fully healed again. With tankish group where 2-3 continuously run and 2-3 stand their ground in the hallway, it works out, but the healing is still too high, making it a complete pain in the kitten and downright ridiculous when you get a DC. This fractal also takes too much time to accomplish for its difficulty and probability of failure.

3. Grawl : Hard, but this one is more balanced then others and attacks from mobs are mostly dodgeables and the number of trash mobs is decent. Nothing really to fix with this one, as long as it isn’t made harder. The boss is by far the hardest boss in all fractals, but with good coordination and not too much glassyness, its feasable.

4. Svanir : The elemental crystal fight is challenging, especially with the winds knocking you down around the fires, while you have to evade elementals attack. The periodic teleports messes up group coordination. This one seems well balanced too, in my opinion.

5. Ascalon : Well balanced, neither too hard or too easy. Final boss can be very challenging when he gets the burning great sword. Pack of mobs require some coordination to beat down, but it’s well puggable.

6. Asura : The poison room with the spinning droid may be hard with a lack of coordination and harpies may be very annoying with a lack of reflection or no line of sight AOE, but otherwise it’s generally fun and feasable. Still well balanced imo.

7: Underwater : First part is well balanced. Requires coordination and timing. The group is as good as its weakest member, unless you resort to suiciding at the boss room so people can reset in there. The boss is incredibly boring, long and easy. Its life should be decreased by a third, but he should be made more dangerous.

8. Jade Maw : It all depends on agony resistance. It’s a fun fractal, not too hard, but it shouldn’t be so, considering you have to do it almost all the time.

9. Swamp : Easy with any decent group. The one far node with the skelks isn’t walkable at all without a mesmer portal, even with swiftness and avoiding all traps, depending on the tree blockades (which seems not so random at times, blocking this node more than others). You can always let them randomize again, but still, I don’t see the point in having one almost impossible to do without mesmers.