Guild Wars 2

A few months ago I finally started doing fractals and it is unfortunate I waited so long. They are a blast and refreshing from doing dungeons.

Now I’m in T3 and I could do T4 but I think to myself, why bother even going to T4? This is purely from a pugs point of view. T1 and T2 were simple with pugs. Yea, sometimes you’ll encounter a hiccup but for the most part it’s simple.

Now pugging in T3, that is a different story. At least half of my runs I don’t complete in T3. I am running the meta ele fire staff build/gear/weapons/trinkets. I encounter other players that are not running a meta build and that is fine. I am in a pug so I have no expectations and the LFG did not make any requirements, but I am finding maybe I should start joining a group with more experienced players for T3 and up.

As an example, I ran Molten Boss T3 today. 2 druids with staff and spamming #1. 2 warriors with no banners and then me the fire elementalist with the staff. The champion fight is dragging on and on and on and I think to myself, we may not have enough dps for this. And I may be missing something here but I felt we were not going to make it. Again, it was a pug with no requirements in LFG so it is what it is. I am not upset or anything. Just making an observation.

Has anyone else experienced T3 and up to be really difficult with random pugs? As a side note, I am looking for a guild that runs fractals. I am a casual player but I do like to perform my best and so I do. With these higher fractals it seems incredibly difficult to complete the runs with random pugs. And maybe this is where it ends with random pugs for me. If I want to successfully complete T3 and up I may need to specify in LFG certain requirements or join a guild that runs fractals.

I am only sharing this to learn what others have experienced. Like I said, T1 and T2 no problem, but T3, ouch. What has your experience been like?

Puged all the way to 98 with no problem, might be becouse Im a condi necro tho

The general consensus seems to be that T1 & T2 are cake walks for anyone who knows a little about the game, but some/many T3 and T4 instances require being a bit better. T4 daily rewards an extra chest — much better loot overall for the same effort. As a result, people don’t do T3 except while working their way up.

As a result, you get a lot of PUGs for T3 who are learning new things, struggling for the first time, and impatient to “get to the good stuff”. That could mean that PUGging T3 might be harder than PUGging T4, regardless of the level’s actual difficulty.

Finding a good guild is a good idea, for this and for other things. It might not be practical for everyone.

Getting past the third tier is pretty easy if you try on a mai trin daily. Just spam it until you get past.

Thanks everyone for your reply.

It seems T3 is where players learn if their build and strat work. I ran T3 swamp, got to the whisps and couple people didn’t know what to do which caused the group to wipe. I hope in T4 most players understand the mechanics of every fight and are using proper builds too.

I considered running Mai Trin to get my personal fractal level up so I can run T4. First I would need to find someone willing to open. I may make a LFG looking to spam 75 but need opener.

Thanks again everyone. I suppose I was looking for encouragement to get through T3 as it has been a rough ride.

iczek.9628:

I hope in T4 most players understand the mechanics of every fight and are using proper builds too.

Yes, I can confirm that. Almost all of my T4 pug runs are without having issues, wipes or many downstates. There are only some individual players making mistakes or not having a clue. Builds are fine because sometimes it is good to have a “tanky” player that doesn’t deal damage but can rez, function as a meat shield or whatever.

It works fine without putting special requirements like “T4 – Dailies – XX – XX – XX” where “XX” stands for the number of the fractal you want to run.

Often it’s good to have condi classes above level 75, so don’t persist on “full zerk meta” or anything like that.

iczek.9628:

It seems T3 is where players learn if their build and strat work.

That is also my impression and I’m reading rants & complaints about T3 constantly. This is why I’m so against an easy mode in raids because that mode should have a difficulty level of Tier 1- and Tier 2-fractals otherwise people would rant again and not be able to play them. In my opinion this cannot be called raid anymore then and would make them ridiculous!

Thank you, Vinceman, for your reply,

I finally got in to T4 and so far the runs for the most part have been smooth. I use to play melee on my ele and I still do for T1 and T2. Starting in T3 I went range because the mobs and bosses hit so hard. With 12K health I go down easily. Yes, I dodge but you cannot avoid single attack, aoe, mobs 20 feet away shooting you and such. Side note and I mean no disrespect to Anet, but I feel having mobs hit real hard is a cheap mechanic to make the fractal more challenging. Challenge should translate to an added, unique mechanic to the boss fight or maybe a mini puzzle of some sorts to solve, quick of course.

How do ele’s stay alive in T4 fractal pugs? I pug exclusively. Side note, I am still searching for a guild that runs fractals regularly.

I feel like I should bring a necro in lieu of my ele, warrior, or druid. I prefer to play the last three I mentioned but I feel I would do a disservice if I continue to not bring a necro. Every time I run with a necro especially two or more the runs feel more smooth and the mobs/bosses go down quicker. Am I feeling this way for no reason? Bring an ele, warrior, or druid would be totally fine? This is focused on T4 fractals.

Since I am doing group content I want my focus to be on my group and supporting them every way I can and contributing to the success of the run. So on my ele when the group needs a heal I switch to water and heal then back to fire. I switch to earth and air when cc is needed. I enjoy my ele because I can be full dps but still heal as well.

Would it be really okay if I went marauder on armor and weapons for a little more health or stick with all berserker and try to improve? I feel I do a pretty good job avoiding as much as possible but there comes a time with endurance is depleted and I’ve already used #4 fire staff to get out of the bad stuff.

What have other ele’s experienced running T4 fractals? Especially in pugs. How do you stay alive? Or is it inevitable and an ele will always go down?

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

iczek.9628:

I feel like I should bring a necro in lieu of my ele, warrior, or druid. I prefer to play the last three I mentioned but I feel I would do a disservice if I continue to not bring a necro. Every time I run with a necro especially two or more the runs feel more smooth and the mobs/bosses go down quicker. Am I feeling this way for no reason? Bring an ele, warrior, or druid would be totally fine? This is focused on T4 fractals.

Those three are totally fine, you’ll find lots of groups actively looking for Druid in particular for the heals (not uncommon to see groups forming specifically requesting 4 Necros and a Druid). Just on Druid be aware of how agony reduces healing effectiveness and the instability stacks agony at high levels if you stay close to other allies for too long.
Warriors are always going to be useful as a one-man Might generation machine – not to mention the DPS increase from Empower Allies and Banners – War Banner is also a life saver in near-wipe situations, and Headbutt is some crazy strong CC for those breakbars.
Elementalists can be useful in part for the same reason as Druids – the strong heals, and Elementalist DPS has always been very solid with the right build. Utilities like Icebow offer strong CC for breakbars.

You aren’t wrong though that more Necros make runs easier often. There’s a couple reasons for this – alot of Necros use condi-damage, which is more effective than power damage due to ignoring toughness and the Protection boon against several mobs in Fractals at high tiers.

They bring rapid frequent boon removal, which is key to speedy and efficient runs at the high level Fractals were mobs are consistently stealing your parties boons, especially if you have somebody providing perma-protection or stacking that Might up to 25 – letting mobs keep that Might at 25 stacks with Protection tends to make them particularly dangerous as you can imagine.

And finally, Shroud makes all Necros innately tanky and hard to kill, which is particularly useful for situations like Mai Trin when you’ve gotta hold her in the Lightning Field to removes her defensive Shield Stacks – it’s alot easier to do this if you can just tank the lightning field when she’s on you. But it’s obviously useful just for party survival in general. Access to meaty minion meatshields also makes certain bosses, such as the Golem fight half-way through Uncategorized, easier.

The fact a Necro can do all these three things is what makes them so effective at high tier fractal levels

I feel the real key is the boon removal though. Sure a Necro can do those three things all at the same time, so the more Necros the better, but so long as someone in the party has some rapid effective on-demand boon removal (Thieves, Mesmers and Revenants can do this too), if the players are good enough a smooth run should be possible when playing as any class so long as at least one of these is present in the party and is set-up to remove those Boons.

iczek.9628:

Would it be really okay if I went marauder on armor and weapons for a little more health or stick with all berserker and try to improve? I feel I do a pretty good job avoiding as much as possible but there comes a time with endurance is depleted and I’ve already used #4 fire staff to get out of the bad stuff.

Of course. Marauder DPS is still good and a dead player contributes far far less DPS than an alive one. I run some Marauder on the trinkets of any low HP class I bring to Fractals (Guardian, Ele, Thief, granted I don’t play Ele or Thief much), that little bit of extra survivability really helps when it comes to surviving the odd mistakes or unavoidable attacks.

Pugging everything from 1 to 100 is easy. All that can be said.

Necromancers are at this point where I call my T4 Fractal build the “Miniyolomancer”. I just run into basically every encounter headlong with no regard for my personal safety and kill everything. The only difference between my build and the meta raid Necromancer build is that I run Plague Sending everywhere and my utilities are CPC, Epidemic, Rise!, and Corpse Golem (Lich only for some encounters). The general idea is that with enough minions it’s basically impossible to die even if you just facetank everything and you still clock in at a consistent 15k DPS even without Lich Form or your last utility.

The other classes are still great, but require much more effort to do well on. I definitely suggest a condition Necromancer if you’re just feeling out T3/T4 and want to learn how the mechanics have changed before using a higher skill build.

No Parasitic Contagion? I love that in fractals. Epidemic = full health in a few seconds.

That’s not a bad idea, honestly, but I already can’t die without trying very hard! It feels grossly unnecessary to get even more sustain, haha. xD