I know there have been many topics on this but I have not seen anything that answers my question.
Anyone have any tactics to beat this guy on 30+ that does not involve a guardian?
I was in a group that did not have a guardian and we just could not even come close. As soon as the first elementals spawned we were toast. Everyone in the fractal all had same ideas, but all revolved around using a guardian which none of us had. I know the usual:
dodge
move quick back and forth
break shell first then elementals
rally off elemental when you go down
we even had 2 mesmers both using feedback
but there are just so many spawns that it overwhelmed us without having a wall of reflection and sanctuary to hide behind
Phantasmal berserker + phantasm warden on shield + into the void for extra AOE and interrupts to the elementals. Mesmer feedback to prevent arrows + Null field + phantasmal disenchanter for removing fires. Do NOT run shatter builds. Not nearly enough mesmer run focus. Unless you are a pro dodger, dont wear your glass cannon gear. Also Time Warp ONLY for emergencies, rezzing teammates or speedclear the eles when party overall hp is low, not for DPSing the lava shaman. Not even to destroy bubble coz at most the lava shaman just heals, better to keep party alive.
If all else fails and u get hit by the arrow, Healing Pod.
And PS: I learnt the above-mentioned not by dying and retrying constantly, rather it was a combination of tips and trying out different tactics at lower levels when there is less risk of doing so.
Apologies to those who may find my posts on GW2 forums offensive and hateful.
What i normally do at Shaman is having 2 guardian 1 mesmer and 2 dps, keep up the guardian shields, plus feedback of the mesmer and the 2 dps take down the boss. Stack and when u see the fire storm dodge roll to the same side(right or left) all togethe, for the shield part just use sanctuary, or the 5th skill of the shield of the guardian, so u can stay at the same place and dps the shield down, then cos u are stack the add will come to u, it shoudl be easy to dps them down.
I as thief am using quite useful combo myself shadow refuge + daggerstorm or if ranger present and he nows what to do then his mass heal combo field also to burst them down, daggerrstorm is so good because it also reflects elemental projectiles. If 2 thief are doing that then those spwans are piece of cake in no time. One pops shadow refuge and both go dagger storm it , it is 3 second of invicible and MASSIVE damage to majority of of them, after that bomb claster remaining, because even if only few are dead most are very close to death anyway. After that it is very clever to dmg shaman so that when next wave spawns you have all skill ready and not on cooldown. All classes i presume heve some AoE skills, so ready them for spwans to burst down rapidly and quickly. Honestly I had problems only with groups who cant grasp the thing about not spaming skill the moment it is out of cooldown, when the moment comes they die so quicly because all important skill are on cd.
Basically dodge, strafe, drop shield asap, then run away from shaman, swap weapons target lava elementals, you don’t want to kill them but use them to rez and when everyone is in the clear health-wise finish them.
Ranger + frenzy = no bubble in 3sec.
Thief is great with smoke screen.
Guardians are incredible but not “must be”.
I love popping endure pain on my warrior 100b + whirlwind out (marking most of the elementals at that time which makes rally easy).
My only problem is with dodging agony arrow. Many times I just dont see it but most of my guild mates does so it’s rather personal and not something that needs a change (although I would love this arrow to be blue).
2 days ago in a pug team we’ve faced this as a third fractals. 5 wipes 2 people leave. We get 2 more from gw2lfg and do it with 1 try with ZERO issues. People just cant die and have few skills on their bars. EACH class can be great for this encounter and each can s***.
“Reality is an illusion created by a lack of alcohol.”
basically, all you have to do is dodge like a pro and don’t die. That’s the whole trick behind it. As soon as you start ressing people usually you’ll wipe.
of course all the projectile reflecting stuff helps but it isn’t necessary if you dodge the stuff. else i use timewarp when shield spawns (on 75 and 25% because of the big cooldown) that usually brings the shield down in ~5 seconds. else just aoe the kitten out of the mobs. I run a full berserker build greatsword/sword+pistol.
Edit: I’m on lvl 43 and run this fractal on 48 a few times.
pretty much everytime i do a 30+ in a pug with no guardian as asuran mesmer I dothe following:
let them take down the bubble(hopefully others are good at taking down bubble if not this would get real painful) as I used focus 4 ability dead center under boss sucked eles in one spot dropped feedback bubble then dropped radiation field to give them poison +50% fumble. Then i charged in with sword 3 used sword 2 on them so was invuln for 3 secs then shatter1 shatter2. Focus 5 for illusory warden so I can hide from all that aggro for a bit longer.
By the time the bubble is down over half the eles were down or almost down too, made it real easy for everyone else to mop up. At that point i switch to GS for mop up skills. In almost full zerker gear at 30+ you have to get as many almost dead as you can so 1. you can rally lol and 2. others have an easier time rallying as well.
I save Time Warp for last ele phase to ensure a clear
In every non guardian group on 30+ grawl we wiped until I did this and then one shot it when I did this, I hope this helps OP
BTW poison fields are underused in higher lvl fractals………start using them more people!
Mallet the Mad
Knight Templars
SoR Mesmer of Madness
Do the captives the shaman heals off of respawn? If not, would it be a viable route to ignore the shaman and take care of the adds first? I realize this would make the battle longer, but also easier since you would just worry about the adds, then the shield, once he’s finally run out of captives to heal off of. That is instead of trying to do it all at once.
(I am only fractals level 20) Also I have found that for the group I run with, most wipes happen when we try to revive someone who has gone down. DAT AOE. Seems to be easier to just let them get defeated and kite the shaman while reviving bit by bit from the defeated state.
If you did what they did, you would have what they have.
You have what you have because you do what you do.
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