Guild Wars 2

Hi! I’m longing for a good challenge in PvE and I wonder if higher levels in FotM will give me that?

I currently haven’t proceeded further than level 29, because I suspect that the higher levels will be more of a matter of your AR and knowledge about the tactics than an actual dynamic and active challenge.
Fairly similar to how dungeons work: If you’re moderately geared @ level 35 and in AC for the first time, you’ll have a challenge in your hands. However, once at 80 and in exotics or ascended, with the knowledge of all the mechanics and tactics, it’s simply a breeze with a fairly good group.

We used to have fractals 50-80 and less AR before, that was a true challenge.
Now in order to test ourselves we must do level 50 with less than 5 people and no guardians. Some people like to solo too

Do carry on to level 50 though, it is still the only enjoyable “end game” experience in GW2.

Darox.8069:

Do carry on to level 50 though, it is still the only enjoyable “end game” experience in GW2.

Thanks for the reply =)
How much, and in what way does level 50 fractals differ from your ordinary dungeon path, in your opinion? How much does it differ from a level 25 fractal?

Phadde.7362:

Darox.8069:

Do carry on to level 50 though, it is still the only enjoyable “end game” experience in GW2.

Thanks for the reply =)
How much, and in what way does level 50 fractals differ from your ordinary dungeon path, in your opinion? How much does it differ from a level 25 fractal?

Fractal Level 50 has mobs that have much higher hp, and do much more damage. It sounds like a very boring way to scale the game up, but by increasing the hp and the damage dealt to you, there are multiple strategies that are used in lower level fractals that are very hard to replicate at the higher levels simply because you will get facerolled if you don’t know what you’re doing. With that said, once you get used to the mechanics for every encounter in each fractal, level 50s become a breeze as well. Basically, it will take some time to get used to the difficulty increase from 25→50, but in the end all it takes is a little bit of time to get used to it. From my point of view, fractals are more difficult than your ordinary dungeon path simply because it requires much more teamwork than ordinary paths do.

Because enemies hit much harder and lives much longer, timing dodges and knowing full well what the team can and need to do as well as what the enemy is capable of doing becomes much more important if you want a smooth run.

For example, in the ice level fractal, you’d want all your party member to walk around the cabins instead of straight to the marked camp site. Aggroing every ice elemental is deadly and can easily wipe some party members. You’d also want to bring block/reflect projectiles and stability for that part of the fight as well. In lower levels, you can breeze these enemies since they don’t hit nearly as hard or has much HP. In higher levels, a few projectiles will down any player. (I think one projectile takes at least half of my HP away from a zerk thief build)

I think if they add more fractals past 50, they should do something more interesting than just making the mobs hit harder and adding mistlock instabilities. Add more mechanics to the fractal bosses to make them more challenging and interesting. This way, the more high end content(+50) would be able to see these more interesting phases and boss evolutions. Obviously if they are going to make it more difficult, please more it more rewarding.

As someone who PVE’s occasionally just to make money, I even find fractal level 50 quite easy, besides some exceptions with dredge where things are tuned a little too high in terms of mob respawn rate. What the OP has stated is one reason many people have left gw2. They feel the lack of a PVE endgame or challenging PVE endgame. Hopefully in 2014 we see some answers too this.

Phadde.7362:

How much, and in what way does level 50 fractals differ from your ordinary dungeon path, in your opinion? How much does it differ from a level 25 fractal?

In lvl 25 fractals, pugs bring playhowIwant builds, in lvl 50s it’s only bunker builds using ranged weapon exclusively. It’s also where you find ignorant bunker guards who don’t care that you look for zerk geared players. They think they’re special snowflakes because they were carried to 50.

No Pulse.2967:

In lvl 25 fractals, pugs bring playhowIwant builds, in lvl 50s it’s only bunker builds using ranged weapon exclusively. It’s also where you find ignorant bunker guards who don’t care that you look for zerk geared players. They think they’re special snowflakes because they were carried to 50.

Just to give an alternating viewpoint:

I ran FotM 50 last night in a melee Meta build PuG and was glorious. We finished in 40 minutes with no wipes. I rarely find non-zerker bunkers at 50 but it’s obvious when you do.

More often than bunkers I run into Bearbow rangers who think killing spirits on Bloomhunger is still worth the time, and are typically allergic to stacking. They usually ragequit when Bloomy murders them rather than the melee stack but sometimes they stick it out. I lament that it’s these people that truly bring a bad name to Rangers, because every once in a while you get one that can carry their own weight.

Fotm is the only thing I find truly enjoyable as endgame. Although I only use zerk and melee most bosses, you don’t usually find that. If you want some build diversity, you should run fractals.

The only thing I hate is cleric warriors, rangers and guardians that just can’t hold their own weight and are actually a burden to the group. If you join a play how you want group, you should play only ranged with the crappiest utilities, traits and elites with PvT/ Cleric armor (it makes the run 100% more enjoyable just to lol at yourself).

I can’t stand doing FotM anymore because it feels so insulting to put forth so much more effort only to have a reward guaranteed to be equivalent to what I could have found from a 6-10 minute dungeon path.

Also, harpy fractal is one of the least enjoyable experiences on the game.

However, Mossman + Imbued Shaman + Mai Trin (not the snore-fest cannon phases) + Molten Duo might be some of my favorite encounters in all of GW2. It’s really too bad that I have no choice but to put up with so much insufferably monotonous nonsense just for a chance of getting to fight them… well, Mossman is always found on the first fractal so he’s not so rare for me to find. The others, though? It’s once a blue moon if I get to fight Imbued Shaman and it’s been over a week since I’ve gotten a boss fractal other than Jade Maw.