Guild Wars 2

I’m really torn if I should use leeching sigil on Maw.

It save a couple minutes. And I usually use karma booster so saving those extra few minutes helps.

What’s people’s opinion.

Its slower than using dark fields.

Its like the only legitimately good use for lifesteal in PvE. So i think it would be pretty silly to say its an exploit. Its certainly not cheating. You are using mechanics within the game after all.

Personally, you’re saving a bit of time on an easy fractal, I hardly feel bad when people use it. I haven’t done it myself, but I actually just set up a weapon for it today.

My thought is that an exploit is bad if you’re using it to bypass a challenge. This simply doesn’t fall into that category.

spoj.9672:

Its slower than using dark fields.

Its like the only legitimately good use for lifesteal in PvE. So i think it would be pretty silly to say its an exploit. Its certainly not cheating. You are using mechanics within the game after all.

So do dark fields still work? I made a thief recently and used SR with P/P and unload and saw the “lifesteal” appear but his health doesn’t move. At first I thought I was too far away, because pistols are what, 900 range? But I tried in a bunch of different spots and couldn’t get it to work.

The sigil definitely still works though.

If ANet cared enough about this they would increase the HP of Maw and also the damage dealt by throwing the crystals.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

So do dark fields still work? I made a thief recently and used SR with P/P and unload and saw the “lifesteal” appear but his health doesn’t move. At first I thought I was too far away, because pistols are what, 900 range? But I tried in a bunch of different spots and couldn’t get it to work.

The sigil definitely still works though.

Dark fields do work. Problem is projectile combo life steal is only about 300 hp (vs ~1000 for the sigil to put in perspective) and unload projectiles are only 20% finishers (so expected 1.6 lifesteals per unload). That and 900 range requires standing closer to Maw.

Sneak attack (the stealth pistol skill) should always be used when possible, as it offers 5.0 lifesteals (5x 100% projectile finishers) vs 1.6 for unload (8x 20% projectile finishers).

Frost Volley (Ice Bow #2) is also good to use (5x 100% finishers), although it may be better utilized on a teammate with crappy projectile finishers.

Also works with vampire runs too =)

Jade maw isn’t even a boss fight. It’s just a long annoying time gate.

Dw OP, don’t feel bad about doing it.

Can someone explain this to me how does it work? Sounds interesting. Do you have to be equipped with a weapon with Leeching sigil when throwing the crystal at the maw? Or.. ?

You basically stand directly under maw and shoot projectile finishers through dark fields (eg. shadow refuge or some necro stuff) which lets you directly damage jade maw through lifesteal. Leeching sigils work the same way, don’t need to throw a crystal.

Maw is such a boring and easy fight anyway I wouldn’t classify this cheating but then again I’m ok with people doing the “infinite crystal” thingy so meh.

Ohh I see, thanks! Yeah that boss is stalling for time.

I’ve always considered this intended. They showed with Liadri that if they want to change life stealing against zero-damage-taking bosses they can, they simply haven’t done anything about Maw. My takeaway is that they consider it clever use of in-game mechanics and that it’s fine.

It’s anet and instanced content we are talking about so it’s highly likely they didn’t even know about it.

Incoming patch notes: Changed Jade Maw to be invulnerable to life leech to make the Solid ocean fractal even longer timegate.

Dark fields can be used in pretty non specific places. I usually use them right next to the corner tentacle.

For the sigil you kind of need to be standing up on the ledge underneath maws head. And i believe you need atleast 900 range. Ive tried sigil and lifesteal traits with necro axe and it doesnt work (might be because its non projectile and out of range). However scepter necro can hit maw with both the auto attack for lifesteal trait procs and with the sigil.

Also when you do these you need to have jade maw targeted. I would think that would be obvious. But it might be why you see it not working some of the time.

ps. Im kind of hoping for more uses for lifesteal in HoT (even if they arent intended by the devs). For example low hp mobs with high armour or invuln phases.

It’s probably not an expected or designed variant to defeat Jade Maw, but you are using game features in fight that work the way they were designed. You use no loophole, no glitch. You just use a certain weapon feature or combo feature. I assume it would be easy to “fix” by Arenanet: just make Jade Maw immune not only to direct damage but also to life steal. But they did not for 3 years (it is known since fractal release), so they let players use this method.

In my guild, we always use dark fields and frost bow if we happen to have a necro and an ele. It’s still a challenge because of the strict coordination that is necessary, and the reward is a shortened fight. You skip no essential or especially difficult part of the boss fight – you still have to avoid the Maw attack for the first half of the fight, get rid of the Jade adds etc.

There is an even simpler fix. Boost Jade Maws health to that of regular bosses and scale up the crystal damage. But i really hope they dont do that. It was bad enough when they fixed killing tentacles from doing damage to Jade Maw.

Taku.6352:

It’s anet and instanced content we are talking about so it’s highly likely they didn’t even know about it.

Incoming patch notes: Changed Jade Maw to be invulnerable to life leech to make the Solid ocean fractal even longer timegate.

Yeah, no offense Rising, I seriously doubt they intended it but I seriously doubt they care even more.

Reason: If you kill maw before killing all the colossus everything bugs. Therefore I doubt they intended you to be able to kill maw without the crystals which drop from colossus.

Let’s face it- if they change it …what happens?

Nothing.. The content is so easy anyways (even FoTM 50), crystals so easy to get.
Will take about 1 min longer (worst case).

It’s probably going to take many man hours to fix and go through qa – for the time saving it may grant a team on a run and other bugs which are out there.
Is it worth fixing?

IMO : probably not – dedicate resources elsewhere and build content please.

I agree that I don’t think it was intended when the content was created, but I know that they are aware of it, and we all know that they haven’t addressed it yet. We will never get confirmation that it is an exploit or intended specifically, but I am fairly confident that if they wanted to address this, it would’ve been fixed a long time ago.

I could always be wrong, though.

Even if they didn’t want to address this and thought it wasn’t worth “fixing”, surely it is obvious that it wasn’t intended and could have been considered a game bug (thus, using it is technically an exploit). Of course, that doesn’t mean I oppose doing this in any way whatsoever, we’re just arguing semantics here.

Truthfully they should just remove the jade maw. They added two real end bosses to fractals, they’ve shown that they’re not reluctant toward removing content from the game, can we even consider the Jade Maw to be content at all? it’s just a boring time gate, I wouldn’t mind the end boss roll be between molten and mai only, if they didn’t replace the maw with another new frac which is also another possibility.

Btw, if there’s any anet dev looking out for end boss ideas.. fractals are about revisiting the past and alternate dimensions, so how about a fight with Giganticus Lupicus before he became undead? :> Or rather, before they became undead.. hah.

Nikaido.3457:

Btw, if there’s any anet dev looking out for end boss ideas.. fractals are about revisiting the past and alternate dimensions, so how about a fight with Giganticus Lupicus before he became undead? :> Or rather, before they became undead.. hah.

Best…idea…fractals……

Shut up and take my money.

The thing is I’ve seen it happen where the maw died before all the jade colossus’ spawned and basically make the fractal uncompletable. So it really only saves you a couple of minutes of (ranged dps/blind field melee spamming) tentacles and waiting for laser to fire so crystal can be thrown.

So basically it just allows to to speed up the fight, not bypass any of the mechanics of it.

So no.. not really cheating.

Yeah you really need to wait till the second phase. And even then if you go overboard and damage him too much it can still bug.

I had forgotten all about those bugs. Honestly, I wouldn’t be sad if they fixed it only to avoid people trying it and accidentally breaking their run.

Its unbearable on 50 unless you lifesteal though. :<

Another way to speed it up is have an engi, let your whole party die except the engi, and let him create infinite crystals.

spoj.9672:

Its unbearable on 50 unless you lifesteal though. :<

i bear it every time…

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Another way to speed it up is have an engi, let your whole party die except the engi, and let him create infinite crystals.

Why engy? You can do this on any class.

Doesnt really speed it up seeing as you still have to wait for Jade maw to charge each crystal. If you kill things you should always have spare crystals for every laser.

fishball.7204:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Another way to speed it up is have an engi, let your whole party die except the engi, and let him create infinite crystals.

Why engy? You can do this on any class.

Yeah, but with engi you don’t have to spend money on kits.

@Spoj, yeah if your team is 100% efficient but my pugs never are.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

fishball.7204:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Another way to speed it up is have an engi, let your whole party die except the engi, and let him create infinite crystals.

Why engy? You can do this on any class.

Yeah, but with engi you don’t have to spend money on kits.

@Spoj, yeah if your team is 100% efficient but my pugs never are.

cake guns ftw
its easier for engi though

Cake gun and Ponybow are the only real ways to kill Jade Maw.