Guild Wars 2

Hi All,

I am only just looking into Fractals now so have a long way to go in terms of scale and am looking for some character progression suggestions.

On the plus side, I do already have 5 level 80’s to choose from and would like peoples opinions on which class would be the best to obtain infused gear for and use as my ‘fractal’ character?

• Elementalist – mostly zerk at the moment with a few Pvt ascended
• Warrior – 1 exo zerk/strength set, 1 exo Pvt/melandru set, EA/phalanx build atm
• Engie – full ascended dire set with nightmare runes, maxed condi % and dmg
• Ranger – exo zerk/ranger runes set, playing GS+S/x melee coz it’s fun
• Necro – exo assassin/rabid with eagle runes, power/well build atm

All of them have ascended trinkets except for a few earrings.
I would say my favourite in terms of play style are:
engie > ele > necro > war > ranger
(Note, not that I don’t enjoy them all In fact mesmer/guard/thief would be those I enjoy least)

Cheers!

Elementalist and warrior are two of the most desired classes atm along with guardians.

Eles are good in fractals due to their party buffing, area damage, AoE blind, conjures and few other tricks that are not as easy to do on other classes. Warriors on the other hand are desired because they are a rather easy class to play effectively due to their self sustain and party support capabilities.

I personally run 90% of my fractal runs on my engineer because it’s very enjoyable to play and it has a lot of utility to support your party. Do be warned that condition builds are subpar in group content and if you plan on doing fractals on an engineer be prepared to get a set of zerker/assassins armor with scholar runes.

In the end it pretty much comes down to playing what you enjoy the most, sure some classes don’t provide as much as other but I’d rather have people playing the classes they enjoy and are good at instead of forcing them to use other classes.

Good to know engies are still viable in Fractals, even if it’s yet another zerker meta :\

I thought at higher level fractals zerker gear was a bit of a liability though, requiring a bit better survivability?

Ele was my main but lately he feels even squishier than just a few months ago.. and of course there is the FGS debuff coming up :\
I guess I can go for Agony resist on zerker trinkets and swap them between characters at least, then get a set of exo for my engie.

Survivability comes mainly from your personal skill of dodging and using your skills to mitigate the damage. Blinds and weakness are extremely strong in fractals since most of the fights are against multiple trashmobs. Also knowing boss/mob mechanics goes a long way to increasing your survivability on higher levels.

Wethospus website is an excellent way of getting familiar with the dungeons/fractals as well as boss mechanics before you even get there.

http://gw2dungeons.net

Survivability also comes form HP and thoughness.
The difference between being oneshot and 2 shot is huge.

Expecially when you get hit by 11.000 damage invisible ranged heal area every few seconds (ascalon)

Or an invisible melee attack at 1200 (cliffside archdiviner 1st encounter)

Or once again a 10.000+ damage meteor hitting at the same times the ae appears (ascalon and sometimes lava shaman)

But also because even the best player commits many mistakes during a fractal run.
And most Attacks with sjort tells hits for 10-11 to max 16K.

Ele (staff) on his side has the advantage to be able to range (600-300 or less) preserving all its dps

But since you already have 2 sets on war i’d go with war.
Ele would be better if you had full zerk + some spare equip (staff+scepter+focus + few pvt or celestial trinkets if possible)

Also there is still lot of people that thinks 3 war are mandatory

I have no idea about this invis attacks. Zerk engi is fine, its almost like a little test of how much do you know your own class in lvl50 it IS fun and I enjoy it alot.

Im on Na, come join me sometime for a fractal

He probably means Archloser’s and Mossman’s what-feels-like 600 radius/range (depending on the attack) cleave and the monk’s empower (is that empower? Never bothered checking) in urban battlegrounds.
Shaman does Firestorm from FGS btw, it usually hits for 4k~ on higher levels iirc, but it can crit for around 10k. As can the arrow.

Engineer survivability is pretty great considering you can trait for permanent vigor and take shield+toolkit for 2 duration blocks while also having decent access to blinds. It’s just lacking passive heal signet but the turret is fine especially if your team chips in with some blasts when needed.

I played a Condi engi pre patch to level 80 fractals. Zerk still better, but condi engi is ok. Food is essential though.

Elementalists and Guardians are the strongest fractal classes currently.

Eles provide perma fury, high might, conjures, blinds, very high aoe damage and good single target, also FGS is amazing but even without fgs eles are still very good.

Guard provides all the necessary defensive support apart from being a little weak on the blinds.

Warriors are also great for offensive buffing.

Basically anything but necro and ranger has a place in fractals. Necros lack any kind of unique group utility and the damage buff rangers provide doesn’t make up for the lack in utility