Guild Wars 2

1) Will you please stop making massive changes to fractals every 2-3 months? This is killing my desire to play in this game mode. I do not give a monkey’s behind if you want Fractals to be a stepping stone for raids. I do not want this, because raids are IMHO the wrong content for this MMO. I will not do raids any time soon because …

1a) The game population are not supportive enough of taking learners into 10 man “most difficult content in the game” content. Sure, they are nicer than the WoW community, but there are still not at the level needed to make this a satifactory and relaxing exercise for me.

1b) “The most difficult content in the game” only re-enforces the meta because most people want easy solutions, for speed, and short-cuts for loot. Meta = bad.

2) Who are the testers who tested every rank of Cliffside (1-100) with the new Instabilities? Answer: nobody. If the job would have been done correctly they would have commented with valuable insights like …

2a) The gloopy circle AoE from the Chaos Fractal should only be appearing in the final boss fight, because the rest of the map simply does not have space for this effect (i.e. narrow corridor between arms and narrow platforms at other non-boss fight locations).

2b) The Arch Diviner should not be targeting players who are in the process of moving away from the party and dropping this same AoE away from the fight. Because this is unavoidable death.

The fractal portion of this patch makes me think the players are the alpha testers. There are no shortage of nice QoL additions, but vendors and a new map layout do not need parties-of-5.

If you feel the need to put out massive changes like this again, then please consider putting together at least 3 (better 5) different parties to do the full 1-100 set of fractals before making the content “live”. And might I suggest at least one of those parties should be casual players playing:

1 engineer
1 thief
1 condi or condi PS warrior
1 guardian
1 ranger (not druid)

Cliffside is so bad right now in Tier 4 you will want either a guild group on <insert your choice of VoIP> or a party with a dedicated healer. Molten Boss (90) and Mai Trin (100) were comfortable with the toughness changes. Cliffside (84 or 94) was just horrible with the new Instabilities.

/rant off

I did lvl 84 earier today and I actually enjoyed it because – unlike most other fractals – it didn’t feel like a complete joke compared to pre-HoT fractals.
edit: team: tempest, tempest, engi (who hasn’t for a long time) , necro, druid.

The update was really really good. Lot of new builds viable ( now power can play T4 ). Any DH build have place. New instability is fun.
Hope they continue deliver this high quality changes.
Just like minor tweaks they did with swamp this update, if they thinks its needed they will do with cliffside.

Its a learn to play issue. GW2 is getting better and better with each patch.

TL/DR: Git Gud.

I could agree that Cliffside in its current state needs tweaking.

However no, this has been said many, way too many times. If you don’t enjoy fractals at this difficulty (which is not raid difficulty) don’t do them. Do T3 instead.
T4 fractals are getting more challenging and some people like it. I don’t see why they should be left out of their need of challenging content just because some other players want to faceroll everything. You can faceroll all the fractals, just not at this tier.

The same logic can apply for raids, you don’t have to play them, you can still faceroll queensdale and get legendaries by farming the same stuff for hundreds of hours if that’s what you like, the raids being a thing is not incompatible with casual players, the game is not forcing you to play them at all.

I love that they are making substantial (but not massive) changes every few months. This is what we keep asking of them: keep it fresh. Incremental changes seemingly take nearly the same effort and aren’t as fun for us.

Plus, by trying new things, they keep getting better.

Sure, some the combinations of instabilities are hateful, but this is better than being stuck with Boon Thieves for another 2 years. Especially since if they keep on this pace, the instabilities will keep evolving towards something that’s more fun to repeat.

The toughness of later enemies actually got nerfed…And enemies no longer steal retaliation.

I’m not feeling this “turning fractals into raid-training” that you mention.

Adzekul.3104:

1) Will you please stop making massive changes to fractals every 2-3 months? This is killing my desire to play in this game mode. I do not give a monkey’s behind if you want Fractals to be a stepping stone for raids. I do not want this, because raids are IMHO the wrong content for this MMO. I will not do raids any time soon because …

1a) The game population are not supportive enough of taking learners into 10 man “most difficult content in the game” content. Sure, they are nicer than the WoW community, but there are still not at the level needed to make this a satifactory and relaxing exercise for me.

1b) “The most difficult content in the game” only re-enforces the meta because most people want easy solutions, for speed, and short-cuts for loot. Meta = bad.

2) Who are the testers who tested every rank of Cliffside (1-100) with the new Instabilities? Answer: nobody. If the job would have been done correctly they would have commented with valuable insights like …

2a) The gloopy circle AoE from the Chaos Fractal should only be appearing in the final boss fight, because the rest of the map simply does not have space for this effect (i.e. narrow corridor between arms and narrow platforms at other non-boss fight locations).

2b) The Arch Diviner should not be targeting players who are in the process of moving away from the party and dropping this same AoE away from the fight. Because this is unavoidable death.

The fractal portion of this patch makes me think the players are the alpha testers. There are no shortage of nice QoL additions, but vendors and a new map layout do not need parties-of-5.

If you feel the need to put out massive changes like this again, then please consider putting together at least 3 (better 5) different parties to do the full 1-100 set of fractals before making the content “live”. And might I suggest at least one of those parties should be casual players playing:

1 engineer
1 thief
1 condi or condi PS warrior
1 guardian
1 ranger (not druid)

Cliffside is so bad right now in Tier 4 you will want either a guild group on <insert your choice of VoIP> or a party with a dedicated healer. Molten Boss (90) and Mai Trin (100) were comfortable with the toughness changes. Cliffside (84 or 94) was just horrible with the new Instabilities.

/rant off

+100, they should at least test this crap before it goes live

I personally love it, there were some amazing changes done. I also don’t believe the core idea is to “make it a stepping stone to raids”. Only bloomy was designed to be this way (also a lot easier now post-patch btw and a bit faster since no timegate).

The original goal for lvl 50+ was to make it more difficult than the pre-HoT fracs. Instead they gave it an awful amount of toughness making power builds terrible and a crazy amount of vitality making the fights feel extremely boring and stretched out. On top of that they had some horrible instabilities punishing skillful play, like losing boons on dodge and the boon thieves instability.

IMO with every patch they’re getting closer to what they originally set out to do and for the first time since HoT launched I enjoy doing them again. (this coming from someone who did 40 and 50 daily pre-HoT)

The only instability that’s a bit too punishing imo right now is toxic trail. The radius is too big as well as pretty hard to see which punishes melee builds too much. The fact that it’s unblockable doesn’t help either. But considering they’re actually working on fractals now I do believe they’ll tweak it a bit to make it more in line with other instabilities.

i like intabilities you can play around unlike boon thievery and lethargic flux bomb is interesting the fractal merging thingy is just LMFAO the trail might need some tweaking and the new social awk is not bad it will take some time to learn but it more controlable. Overall the new instabilities in t4 reward skillful play and fractals just get better and better more polished wat the game actually needs.

even tho i would ask for an internal cd on afliction xD

i added yesterday viper necro,brazil build,enjoy.
deleted by moderator,is this comunist site? or truth is just punished nowdays?
making this reedit thread,its is beyond reason.

Maybe you should just start writing intelligible posts, that would help a lot.

did you just defended censorship in purest form? PC in most hidious form?
wow

First, your brilliant post is still there. You just posted it in another thread and not in here, so stop whining.
Second, this is ANet’s forum. That means that they have domestic authority and that so-called “freedom of expression” is irrelevant for the most part.
Third, your posts still hardly make sense and give cancer when one tries to read them.
Fourth, it’s absolutely glorious to spam the entire forum with a one-line post.

i think you got me,dont fight for your freedom of speech,got it.

You didn’t get anything.

i think you are 100% right.

Being within shouting distance of toxic trails is like being submerged in kerosene-soaked cyanide-laced plutonium that is on fire. It’s a little much when it hits like 20k damage in 3 seconds.

well you can allways use same ranged class.

I do, but enemies run to you and fractals like cliffside require hammer use.

hammer is now bugged,so its hard for everyone

I agree 100%. The changes were almost universally bad in fractals.

Latest patch has some fixes

Yes, two. There’s about 30 more to fix.

Daddicus.6128:

I agree 100%. The changes were almost universally bad in fractals.

not all bad. it’s just the recycled content thrown into every stage is. new name for fractals = “recycled wars 2”

littlebabyprincess.9786:

Daddicus.6128:

I agree 100%. The changes were almost universally bad in fractals.

not all bad. it’s just the recycled content thrown into every stage is. new name for fractals = “recycled wars 2”

To be fair, people would LOVE lupi from arah to be recycled into a fractal boss. They wouldn’t even need to change much/anything

Please add an option to the merchant to sell him fractal potions (regular and large), either for relics or something else. Getting the infinite potions makes the regular ones useless, for those that choose to get them.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I love that they are making substantial (but not massive) changes every few months. This is what we keep asking of them: keep it fresh. Incremental changes seemingly take nearly the same effort and aren’t as fun for us.

Plus, by trying new things, they keep getting better.

Sure, some the combinations of instabilities are hateful, but this is better than being stuck with Boon Thieves for another 2 years. Especially since if they keep on this pace, the instabilities will keep evolving towards something that’s more fun to repeat.

Fractals aren’t fresh. They can never be “fresh” again – because they’re old. Making them more annoying isn’t going to get more people to do them.

I run fractals almost every day, and I have to agree with OP on evils of Random Bomb(name?) and Mist Convergence instabilities. They seemed to have messed with Mai Trin’s Bomb phase as well, as there are way too many overlapping circles to run away from now (dodge seems forced). I like most of the other changes/fixes, esp. lowering the damage from poison and removal of lethargic.
My core problem is basically the randomness. I play either viper necro or dps thief in fractals, and could incrementally learn how to get better at a Fractal’s mechanics, sometimes to the point of carrying a team of newer players. What the devs have done is turn a “fungeon” learning area into a chaotic zoo. Who thinks it’s “fun” when a tentacle spawns and forces out one of your dodges during last phase of Mai Trin? Who enjoys bombs in the cramped corridors of Cliffside? The only chaotic fractal should be the eponymous one — Chaos. Yes, I can still carry, but I might attribute that to the fact that I was able to quickly buy infinite mobility on necro (other two infinites don’t hurt, either). In general it’s a complete mixed bag… “Ok team, we’re gonna go try this strategy and hope we don’t get completely kittened by a rabbit that might magically spawn and one-shot one of us”. And here I was thinking that Bloomhunger’s new " must-dodge-bring-mobility-pot" mechanics were the end of it.
Indeed, as OP implied, not every fractal is Chaos and needs merging, nor is every fractal a raid (Hi Sabetha timed bombs, hi Snowblind final boss enrage, as if dps was lacking). I must admit, however, that the Sloth-like fixation addition for underground facility was good.

TLDR – usually run fractals with guildies but from time to time I like to lead pug runs. Basically, idk what to tell rest of the team now, something like “cross your fingers and hope the chaotic RNG will not make this experience miserable” ?

icy`

Hmm i remember doing aetherblade t4 a couple of days ago. The fight against the guards in that pit with random mai trin cannons, flux bombs, maw tentacles was one of the most exciting fights i had in a long time.

The poison instability can be very annoying though. Today on snow blind we literally had no room to move on shaman. We managed to kill the boss although it was a messy fight.

Sarahfull.4930:

littlebabyprincess.9786:

Daddicus.6128:

I agree 100%. The changes were almost universally bad in fractals.

not all bad. it’s just the recycled content thrown into every stage is. new name for fractals = “recycled wars 2”

To be fair, people would LOVE lupi from arah to be recycled into a fractal boss. They wouldn’t even need to change much/anything

I’d actually like to see this. Or at least some risen-themed fractal with lupi at the end.

Only valid meta for fratals T4 are 4 necro+druid no other classes alowed

Im passing away fractals for now with friend as we wont roll to necros(druid)

What a wonderful nonsense. I’ve had no substantial problems (apart from the usual ups and downs with randoms) with pretty much any kind of mixed group after the patch.

CptAurellian.9537:

What a wonderful nonsense. I’ve had no substantial problems (apart from the usual ups and downs with randoms) with pretty much any kind of mixed group after the patch.

Can confirm. Just beat Mai Trin lvl 100 flawlessly and smoothly with:

Dragonhunter
Druid
Herald
Berzerker
Daredevil

I don’t understand why people are having such an issue with the new instabilities. They are new mechanics that you need to play around, so you can’t play in exactly the same way you did before the patch, but you can still play around them.

Toxic Trail – Use pulls to force mobs together and burst them down. Alternatively use slows to limit their movement. Groups of small mobs can be killed fast enough where it doesn’t become an issue, and bosses are usually located in rooms large enough to move around the poison.

Flux Bomb – Move out of the group when you get this. If you are going through trash, place it where you came from, not where you’re going to. If you time a dodge roll right as the bomb drops, you can avoid all damage from it.

Adrenaline Rush – I have not noticed the enrage be a problem so far, so I don’t have much insight. Make sure you can sustain normally and know when to res or not.

Social Awkwardness – The visual indicator made this instability much better. Don’t stack up too much.

Mists Convergence – Although the most random, this can still be played around. The mechanics usually need at most one dodge roll. If a mob spawns, it will despawn in a few seconds so you can just run away from it. Watch for the symbol above their head as that is much easier to see than the rabbit. For the rabbit and tentacle, you can burst them down if they are in a particularly bad spot. If you get an aoe on the ground, just move to a safe spot and wait for it to be gone.