Guild Wars 2

I know a lot of people have been having troubles with this guy so I thought I’d give out a helping hand. Every class has their uses here so don’t try to play them all the same or else you might just be hurting the team. I don’t know how all the classes work here so I’ll only be posting on what I know for sure works well.

General:
I’ve noticed that the shield he spawns usually only drops 1 tick per ability, not per hit. Noticed this when I would dagger storm underneath him and only do 1 shield removal per volley of daggers, 1 or 2 rips with pistol unload, 1 on invis pistol attack. Other similar unload skills like warrior volley do the same thing so I’d assume all such abilities have the same effect.

Also if you have walls, grab them. Smoke screen, wall of reflection, shield of the avenger, focus skills reflect, sanctuary, swirling winds, and anything else that I might be missing.

Save reflects for the elemental spawns if you don’t have much aoe. If you have a ton of aoe, gather them up and use projectile blocks to keep you safe while you mindlessly dps them down.

x per fection x reminded me that strafing back and forth is also amazing for avoiding his agony shots. Read his post.

Guardian:
Grab at least shield of the avenger and reflecting wall. Only use 1 of them vs just the shaman and his arrows. If the team has troubles taking down his shield, use reflecting wall on the boss and shield of the avenger when the mobs spawn. This will allow the team to go in and use their faster melee attacks to take that shield down. If the shield killing is fine, use the shield vs the boss (but time it so he doesn’t immediately drop an aoe on it to kill it, only reason why it’s smart keeping it for the eles) and wall of reflection on the adds. You can use wall of reflection once vs the boss if you want to and still have it up for the eles, but overall, I don’t think it’s worth the hassel of breaking the routine. The reflect will make it so the adds about 50% of their own life while attacking that wall b4 it dies. It’s kind of insane.
Best if you trait into consecrations since they are so good in fractals and both reduce the cd of wall and sanctuary, but also increase their durations. Staff and scepter shield is the best for just staying alive and doing your part vs the little eles. GS or hammer to replace either of those sets words too but that’s for only when you really know what you and the shaman are doing. Elite skill should always be renewed focus here. Better to keep yourself alive and able to help your team than to potentially keep those around you alive… assuming they don’t die b4 u can get the channel off.

Also this one is BIG. Use your F1 skill everytime it’s ready. This isn’t to do extra damage or be team centric or any of that jazz. It’s because this boss is hard enough to see as it is, turning off the insanely blinding guardian burn that applies every 2s will make it so your teamates will be able to see both who he’s going to aim at and when he’s going to shoot. This makes it MUCH easier to dodge his stuff and stay alive.

Mesmer:
Get focus skills reflect! Use temporal curtain as a wall during wall rotation (assuming you have enough walls, if not just use it to keep the team alive). ALWAYS save feedback for when the eles spawn. Just like with guard, you can use feedback once before adds spawn and have it up again when the bubble pops but it’s just overall not worth it.
I actually prefer mesmer feedback over shield of the avenger here because it’s instantly placed on the boss so the meleers get to watch as all the eles kill themselves around them and can kill the boss very easily and be able to get out alive.
Save time warp for the adds and the bubble. Any other time during this fight would be a colossal waste. The weapon combo here isn’t too important as long as you have a focus :P Best would probably be sword focus (for the evade only) and gs for the dps on the boss and ability to do some advanced grouping with gs 5.

Elementalist:
Get a focus for swirling winds and only ever use it vs the mini eles. Run mist form and w/e else you want as long as you’re able to stay alive while using it. If your team already has enough projectile blocks and reflects that you don’t need swirling winds, then you just became invaluable. Run staff and as soon as the boss uses his bubble, use the cold terrain skill thing in water. It essentially makes it so the boss doesn’t move until you break his bubble giving the team some much needed breathing room. Even if you can chill the boss on scepter/focus (no idea, hardly ever play my ele), the staff would still be better if you already have the projectile protection because they’ll want the aoe and cc more than anything else you can bring.

randomfightfan.4091:

General:
I’ve noticed that the shield he spawns usually only drops 1 tick per ability, not per hit

incorrect
mesmer greatsword #1/ele scepter air #1 removes 3 ticks for example…
Mesmer sword 2 also removes many.

Elementalist:
Get a focus for swirling winds and only ever use it vs the mini eles. Run mist form and w/e else you want as long as you’re able to stay alive while using it. If your team already has enough projectile blocks and reflects that you don’t need swirling winds, then you just became invaluable. Run staff and as soon as the boss uses his bubble, use the cold terrain skill thing in water. It essentially makes it so the boss doesn’t move until you break his bubble giving the team some much needed breathing room. Even if you can chill the boss on scepter/focus (no idea, hardly ever play my ele), the staff would still be better if you already have the projectile protection because they’ll want the aoe and cc more than anything else you can bring.

Ele doesn t have weapon swap…you either run a staff OR a focus.

Just use scepter focus and forgive staff

Staff have issues:
1) your best aoes requires you to stand still for many seconds getting additional damage from fire…
2) attack rate is slow and skills hits just once….thus uberbad for shield.

BUT having the chance of attacking at 1200 range menas you can tap AD and just evade every Arrow without even looking at monitor….(still not enough contribution to the Group).
Also Crowd control is better

Scepter/focus on the contrary:
-3,5 low CD surviving skills….i.e. air4, earth 4, earth 5 and earth 2 reduces damage
-fast hitting Attacks like air 1 and earth 1
-huge damage aoe like fire 2-3 (elementals are often slow enough so you don t actually need crowd control….
-swirling winds cover a huge area.

With scepter focus it becomes really much easier…..
They are the only weapon with a decent enough CD/skill duration to grant you to have access to skills you need when you need them

Their downsides is they possibly works only in pve against static targets….but at least here they are awesome.

Warrior:
Go long bow and either gs or something shield. Grab whatever traits and utilities you like as long as you do 2 things.
1: Run res banner. Doesn’t matter if you like singet of rage or if you never use the banner. The mere fact that you have it there and ready to go can be the difference between life and death.
2: Get agro on you. When the boss’ bubble goes up, the adds won’t have a target yet. Drop your long bow f1 skill on the mobs near the boss, then rush over to the mobs on the other side and get them on you. Kite them and group them. Your team will provide the walls necessary (assuming you have some) and will do their job and take down that bubble before they get to work on the mobs. Just stay alive while you have all the agro and play defensive. Your team will come to the rescue shortly. Also, if you’re using fear me, don’t use it near the boss. It basically just gives him a speed boost and sends it flying towards a captive. Never fun when that happens.

Thief:
Dagger dagger and short bow. Get withdraw, roll for ini, smoke screen, shadow refuge, daggerstorm. The only thing here that would be acceptable to switch out is roll for ini and to swap it for the signet that recharges your endurance on activation and cures a condition on everybody in the radius. The reason why roll is better is because you will be using sbow and d/d. Odds are you are going to blow all your ini on the boss killing the shield and will be stuck in melee range so the roll will get you out and prep you to get back into the fight. It also is a guaranteed evade whereas the refill end signet could cure the burning on you but leave the immobilize, getting you killed.
Also get w/e traits you like as long as you fit in concealed defeat. You almost guaranteed will go down at least once this fight so you will now be able to say that it was a strategic down, the smokescreen on that down could have saved lives. Besides, if he drops an aoe on you after you down, you can blink to safety while still maintaining the protection from the wall.
When the boss bubbles, drop the sbow, whip out the daggers and go to town on him. You will be able to drop him insanely fast since auto attacks drop his shield faster than any abilities. You will be using death blossom from time to time for the evade while still breaking stacks. After his shield is down, if you’re in a pickle, use dagger storm. You will do wonders for your team and it will also have the magical powers of making sure weapon swap back to your sbow will be up as soon as you’re done dancing and killing the elementals. Don’t underestimate dagger storm. Even if you’re hardly reflecting projectiles, it still deals heavy aoe damage in situations like this where mobs are in mass numbers and grouped up as they are there. Because of how useful dagger storm is here I WOULD suggest signet of malice over withdraw if you didn’t need the immobilize cure and the extra evade… but you need both those so run withdraw.
BTW, going in with daggers on thief is the 2nd fastest way to break his shield. You are tied with necro (since they can dagger too) and are beat only to…

Ranger:
Rock the short bow and short bow. If you don’t like short bow then I’d suggest using short bow. Get arrows pierce. The reason behind this is because you’ll have 1 job this entire fight. As soon as he pops his shield, swap pets for the haste and melt his shield. It will be at about 10 stacks by the time your pet swap haste is over. The reason why arrows pierce is because each arrow will rip off 2 shield ticks! 1 when it first hits the shield and 1 when it exits. Short bow. After you do this just pray your team can kill the eles. If they are grouped up nicely and you have piercing arrows, swap to lbow, use the aoe and unload. This one is easy for you. Not going to lie, you don’t bring much to the table here but what you do bring is freaking amazing.

Necro:
Staff and dagger something. No choice there. Staff for the same reason ele staff. Every time he bubbles, drop the chill on him to make him stand still for a while. Not sure if death shroud 2 works here but if it does then great! Before you go in for the shield kill with daggers, make sure you drop a few other short cd aoes from your staff. if you go in with ds 2, save the 4 and only use 3 if you can aim it away from his captive (too many warriors use fear me in a bad way to make me afraid of all fears (see wut I did thur :P)). Also I’m not sure exactly what traits or utilities would be good for this boss but what I do know is get life transfer heals nearby allies and signet of undeath. The life transfer heal can give over 3k heals and signet of undeath has this stange thing going on for it. It actually has a good passive AND active. Don’t usually see that with signets. Also don’t run the spectral wall. It’s confusing for the team. People seeing that on the ground will assume it’s a projectile blocking wall and will hide behind it to their deaths. People will also not lay their wall down if they see another is up. Sure people may know better, but when you’re in a chaotic boss fight, you don’t always have time to think of these things.

Engi:
I don’t really know much about anything here since my engi is only lvl 36 and I crafted 10 of them. If when you toss grenades and they break 1 layer of shield per grenade then that’s amazing. Use the chilling grenade first (same reason as all other aoe chills), then wreck his bubble, then go to town on his babies.
If they don’t beak 1 tick each grenade (which I don’t think they do but not certain), same theory/idea about flame thrower. Probably doesn’t because 10 ticks a second, sounds like SOMONE would have thought to balance that for this fight. Still, run grenades and pistol shield for this fight. At fractal 48 my buddy saw an engi solo the shaman from after the last bubble died with 10 eles left alive. He killed the eles then killed the boss just from swapping from pistol shield to grenades, always using all of his abilities. Not going to lie, it took forever. Engi dmg is low in dungeons compared to most other classes but they have the potential to do amazing things. A good engi is about the same as a good mesmer or thief. They can do things that will carry teams more than you can imagine.
Also, get shrink potion and supply drop. The reason for drop isn’t for the added targets for the boss and dps, no, it’s for the few medkits that drop for anyone who needs them.
I side note about engi, mes, and thief in dungeons though. A bad or average of any of those classes is significantly < same skilled guard or warrior or ele with similar build. Althought a good engi, mes, or thief will always be better than a good anything else. The reason for this is because they have a significantly higher skill ceiling than all other classes in pve. Ele WOULD fit in this category too but their skills just don’t shine nearly as well here when played well. Don’t get me wrong they shine… just not as brightly as in a wvw or open area pve (not dungeon) setting.

I hope this helps you guys out and I also hope I didn’t get distracted without realizing it :P Post got long and I have the attention span of a goldfish

LordByron.8369:

General:
I’ve noticed that the shield he spawns usually only drops 1 tick per ability, not per hit

incorrect
mesmer greatsword #1/ele scepter air #1 removes 3 ticks for example…
Mesmer sword 2 also removes many.

Good to know, still doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t work that way for many abilities.

Ele doesn t have weapon swap…you either run a staff OR a focus.

I know……. please reread what I typed and you’ll see that I knew what I was talking about there. Pretty sure you just misread and decided to help out.

Staff have issues:
1) your best aoes requires you to stand still for many seconds getting additional damage from fire…
2) attack rate is slow and skills hits just once….thus uberbad for shield.

1. don’t use the fire 5, that’s a bad idea. Use the cc stuff that keeps your team alive, mobs crippled, and bleeds stacked. The aas and non-rooting aoes are what you’re going to want to use… and you’re not using them on the shield, you’re using them on the mobs. ONLY use the frozen ground on the shield to slow the boss. Again, I thought I covered this in my post but apparently not.

You missed the most basic of all things, the thing that will save you over and over no matter whats going on.

If you strife left to right a certain way at around 1200 the agony attack will not hit you, just like 90% of every range projectile attack from bosses. In the case of the grawl you do this and then when he drops the aoe on you instead of the agony dart you just dodge out and strife left to right again.

x per fection x.2096:

You missed the most basic of all things, the thing that will save you over and over no matter whats going on.

If you strife left to right a certain way at around 1200 the agony attack will not hit you, just like 90% of every range projectile attack from bosses. In the case of the grawl you do this and then when he drops the aoe on you instead of the agony dart you just dodge out and strife left to right again.

glad I have you here to reming me of that Only problem with this is that if your team is using shields and if you’re in the shield rotation, you won’t always be able to keep up the staff up 100% since you’ll need to position yourself to drop a shield. Overall this is a great tactic though and everyone should learn how to use it.

randomfightfan.4091:

Good to know, still doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t work that way for many abilities.

consider testing others….

Actually most skills multy hit……few don t.

I know……. please reread what I typed and you’ll see that I knew what I was talking about there. Pretty sure you just misread and decided to help out.
1. don’t use the fire 5, that’s a bad idea. Use the cc stuff that keeps your team alive, mobs crippled, and bleeds stacked.

that is not the point….
Trust me i hate with passion scepter and i did everything in my power to keep using another weapon…

But staff is just bad.
Crowd control except for water 4 have a short duration and a long CD and is plainly bad.

As said you don t contribute to shield damaging.
Also your dps is lacking……and if you need to save somoen you simply cannot.

Also your best heal spell requires you to stand still being pratically a waste.

Shortly never use staff…use ALWAYS scepter/focus…..
I think i explained why…every single elementalist that saw me in this stage agreed with me after they saw themselves….(lvl38 mostly)

CC is not your work….and when you have ccess to so many reflect/invulnerabilities is not even required…..

Let it to rangers/warriors/etc or just avoid it and kill that shield/elementals fast….you can with scepter focus

Where do you recommend placing? It seems like most pugs I run with spread out in a big 5 person circle, that way you don’t share the fire/burn attack.

It seems like to utilize your wall rotation, you’d have to all 5 stack together and spam A/D.

its done to understand who the shaman is aiming to….mostly..

if you stay near its hard to understand….

you can stay spread well even if you’re doing wall rotation. if you just stack on top of eachother, his aoe will slowly wilt you down. That’s why it’s best to put the wall closer to the boss, effectively givign you more room to move around and spread. Also if you keep the boss either in the top or bottom middle area, that’s generally best. Away from most lava spouts and far away from captives. Also when you’re there, the eles come to you and funnel themselves instead of just surrounding and slaughtering you.

Good tips on the classes. Since you have going in depth about that, I’ll add in some tips about the overall strategy.

The dynamic and focus of the fight changes a lot based on what level the fractal is at. The bottom line is as a team you shouldn’t have too much trouble in the normal phase, the parts between every quarter of health. If the team is going down during that, then the team is missing some basics.

Hardest part of the fight is of course how the team handles the transition phase where both the grubs and shield is up, and this depends a lot on the team composition. Preferably you don’t have to deal with the boss and all of the grubs at the same time. The team has to to plan how quick you take down the boss’s shield. Doing so too fast is not actually a good idea since you don’t want fire storm aoe and the arrows to hit where you stack up. You can have a 1-4 split or 2-3 split depending on how quick you attack and how much aoe power you have. General rule is take down most of the elemental before taking down the shield.

Scattered tips:
- Always keep an eye on the boss. Players tend to tunnel vision during transition phase. But it’s crucial to know what the boss is doing all the time. As soon as the shield is down, everyone’s attentions should be on the boss. If you have a few elemental left over they are not as deadly, you can just kill them with collateral damage.
- Spread out when boss is active. Relatively speaking of course, you can still stay as a group to better utilize reflection skills, but at least 300 range from one another. At level 40+ the AoE storm is actually harder to handle. You will definitely need 1 dodge to get out of it most of the time since each tick does too much damage to walk out of it, so you don’t want more people doing so if you don’t have to, endurance is important.
- Have at least 2 people on boss at all times. If you need to res someone, don’t go all out on it. It is possible for 1 player to kite the boss, but having 2 to 3 is much more easier. Only res when you don’t have the boss’s attention.
- Take pressure off other players if you have to, following from above, most players can’t solo kite the boss indefinitely.
- Elemental slaying potion, +endurance regen food or utility.

It’s one of the few harder fights in fractals at the moment, along with the last encounter of cliffside (if doing normally). Last time I did this was on level 55, so mostly talking from that perspective.

if there’s anything else people would like tips on let me know and I’ll try help out as best I can