Guild Wars 2

Patch notes say this was fixed, what exactly was wrong with it?

Fractals of the Mists
Mai Trin and First Mate Horrik should now scale appropriately with fractal levels.

Was it too easy on higher difficulties / too kitten low difficulties / damage from salvo?

I’ve never noticed anything off about the fight, so what was it?

Thank you, if anyone knows

I was surprised when I read that too but I definitely can say that I found it surprisingly easier to get faster times on level 50 to solo Mai Trin than level 38. I figured it was all just clumsiness on my part but now I wonder…

I know there was some glitch that would slam you with tons of agony right when you enter the fight at like level 10. Just walking through the door with no AR would pretty much down you off the bat.

dlonie.6547:

I know there was some glitch that would slam you with tons of agony right when you enter the fight at like level 10. Just walking through the door with no AR would pretty much down you off the bat.

Yeah, on this fight you get 2 stacks of agony when you enter the room.

At 29 i got somethng like 300% damage i usually get at 50.
Not from salvo but from mai and horrik attacks.

Just had those 2 at level 50. We started as a normal group (2 war, guard, mesmer, ele) and were surprised by how much damage Mai Trin now deals. Tried it again with the same composition but now knowing what was ahead of us: did not help much. We switched to 3x guard 2x war to use aegis against all her porting shots which otherwise instadowned all people it hit. As it is not advisable to melee her anymore (due to 8k hits against heavy armor) it took way longer than before.

If she deals the same damage on lower levels a lot of groups wont be able to finish their run. I hope this is an error.

that’s what i was afraid of -.-

Auto is like 8k. The teleport shot 16k. Or so I’ve been told.
GG ANET! Genius move!

I’m not sure why they changed that one, of the three, if anything I thought it was sufficiently difficult, same with the molten bosses.

If anything, jade maw needed revamp because a single character with sufficient AR can reasonably solo it, as it’s almost entirely a mechanics fight, also i hate how it bogs down with mesmer/ranger/necro pugs, and not because it’s difficult.

So it’s use a toughness character to capture agro or range now?

Wait, what was wrong with it before? these last 5+ months I haven’t noticed anything off with trin at 50 compared to 40’s and sub.

I take it now trin is a super pain in the kitten with extreme damage?

Just did her on 40. Basically if you get hit once, or fail to block her teleport even once you are dead. You don’t even need condi removal anymore because once you get hit by her bleeding you are dead anyway.
Also cannons in cannon phase do atleast double dmg now.
I actually enjoyed this fight because it was really hard but I don’t think pugs could ever do this.

This was the best thing ever, she is so dam broken now, was on lv 40 full zerker ele, lightning whip 7-8k, teleport 15k, horric’s aoe/cannonshot 9k damage, melee attacks insta -down, basically you can’t go within melee anymore and you have to play very defensively, also if your back is turned she will destroy you. Basically she is broken as hell, we struggled with her in a full KING group, just saying this will make pugging mai trin literally IMPOSSIBLE.

Fighting her right now on FoTM 38 (pre-second patch)

She is INSANE! OHKOs, so much health, and holy crap, this is a bunch of dolyak kitten!

I think ANET added an extra 0 when they were programming in the new scaling…

15k damage from (undodgeable) teleport, 6k from a single (unblockable) whip, 8k from fire cannon, 4k per lightning cannon tick and all this was in a 40.

Looks like some intern didn’t realise mai trin scales by the amount of stacks removed by the lightning field and added base stat scaling without thinking or testing.

The hardest fractal endboss just became the hardest encounter in game. GG!

I don’t know how they did the scaling but I did notice a slight increase in damage even on the 11. If I missed the block, her conditions totally annihilated my eles health pool before I could cleansing fire. I went down every time despite dodging out of her attack and curing the conditions. I don’t recall it hitting that hard before, though it always hit hard, it definitely seemed to deal more damage and be far less forgiving to mistakes.

Yeah, I just did it pugging a level 25 (should be easy yeah?) it was really harder than it had any right to be, definitely needs to be toned down or some kind of legit mechanic introduced to manage the fight

it’s totally not in-line with the other two bosses now, molten is easy if you pass DPS check, and maw is a snooze fest, but I could see poorly organized groups being really put out by this

This is what happens when we ask for more challenging content.

At least they were nice enough to mention this one in the patch notes.

TurtleDragon.3108:

This is what happens when we ask for more challenging content.

At least they were nice enough to mention this one in the patch notes.

It’s too difficult for non-organized groups too handle

Time to get TVH-gear then I guess.

Ooof. Those numbers sound painful. We should probably ask ANet if those numbers are intended to be correct. They COULD have messed up somewhere and she’s now doing MORE damage than she’s supposed to be.

Painbow.6059:

TurtleDragon.3108:

This is what happens when we ask for more challenging content.

At least they were nice enough to mention this one in the patch notes.

It’s too difficult for non-organized groups too handle

Too early to tell. Though, if it’s as bad as everyone say it is I won’t be PUG-ing fractals anytime soon.

I’m sure they’ll find a way to safespot AFK range it.

As someone who hasn’t managed to find a Fractals guild and PUGs at the 40 level, this sounds horrifying if its really true. Its like they want to push people into using the glitches. Lets hope this isn’t as bad as it seems or its just a misplaced 0 or the like. If not, I’ll probably have to abandon Fractal if I roll this in my typical PUG groups.

This sounds terrible, please fix ANET I dont NOT wana do fotms again for another 2 months I JUST NOW started to get my rotation back from the last crappy bug.

This is a public service announcement

Very briefly about myself:

I have played Mesmer as my main since beta – I play nothing else in high level PvE.
I play 1-3 hours a day, I usually try to complete a daily 50/49 & 40/38 fractal.
I have done a lot of fractals and consider myself very proficient at completing them.

7/1/2014 Mai Trin

Mai Trin has been majorly buffed. No need to go into the details, everyone above is accurate. She 1 shots anyone who does not properly block her long-range-teleport shot. Damage from her & Horrik’s other skills has also been increased/scaled.

I have previously almost exclusively played in PUGs for FOTM of all levels, and have either found the grounds to be very competent or carriable at 49/50 etc.

It is my opinion that FoTM lvl 50 can no longer be reliably done with a random pick up group because on the 1/3rd chance you get Mai…you will be unable to complete it.

It is possible if your team is really all experienced, but I believe that even many lvl 50 fractalers don’t understand many of the boss fights and their animations – and therefore will be a liability on the new Mai Trin fight.

In a lvl 50 PUG group, after 5-10 group wipes, I explained how the fight worked and stated that I would permanently be the furthest away from Mai and block all her shots so the rest of the party only needed to worry about kiting from melee & her x3 electricity bolts. We were able to get much further this way but in the end (partially thanks to the new build and the PUGs being unable to repair their armor) we could not defeat her.

I will be looking for a high level fractal guild in the next week in order to fix my situation – I don’t want to waste 1-2 hours in a fractal and not have a chance at the fractal skin I’m looking for to show for it.

Tips for Mai Trin:

• Stealth: Use stealth during the AoE cannon phase to give your team some breathing room so they don’t have to avoid the cannons for as long. This does not “reset Mai” as many people incorrectly believe – this only occurs during the Mai Trin fighting phase, and even then only if all 5 people are stealthed (it is very easy to throw out your stealth then attack so that your’e the only one visible while the others rez). I always bring Mass Invisibility and sometimes bring Decoy as a mesmer on this fight.

• Condition Removal: Bring condition removal – her stacks of bleeding are brutal, as is the fire from Horrik’s cannon. Make sure to bring your own condition removal. I always bring Mantra of Resolve or Phantasmal Disenchanter (I’ve been favoring this recently) as a mesmer.

• Reflects: Bring reflects. You can reflect her long-range pistol shot. Instead of her teleporting to you and instantly killing you (yes, her buff makes her 1 shot everyone at high level fractals), when this attack is reflected she instead teleports whoever reflected her to herself – so make sure you follow up with a dodge

• Cripple/Chill: These are not super useful, but if you can get through her Unshakable and defiance stacks, they can slow her down for a bit to make kiting easier.

Mai Trin & General Strategy

1.) Don’t spam attacks against Mai until she has 7 or less stacks. Focus on sticking close to her and getting her in the electric AoE to get rid of her 10 stacks of Captain’s Shield. Spamming abilities not only does almost no damage when she has a lot of stacks, it also makes it very difficult to see her attack animations – the people spamming attacks will not only do no damage, they could potentially cause the death of other players.

2.) One of her attacks is a long range pistol shot that results in a shadowstep (teleport) to whoever she hits. She always targets the person who is farthest away from her. It has a huge tell: She turns to face whoever she is targeting and raises her arm and points it at her target Babe Ruth style. It takes about 1-2 seconds, and gives players plenty of time to see it coming. BLOCK this skill. You cannot dodge/evade it – mistform or a block is the only way you’re not getting shot by this (beyond reflects).

3.) Her other attack involves spinning around and shooting 3 lighting bolts out of her skirt. These can be dodged/evaded but cannot be blocked. These usually deal ~1/2 health to a squishy character. They cannot be reflected. The tell on this skill is much shorter and harder to see coming, so just be ready to dodge as soon as you see her twirl.

4.) Rez people as quickly as you can, especially if they aren’t completely dead. Only one person should go to rez, everyone else should attempt to take her aggro. Be mindful of who the furthest person away is – if you are the rezzer and its you, get ready to cancel rezzing to block the attack. If you aren’t the rezzer, make sure you get further away from Mai than the rezzer and get ready to block the attack in an attempt to keep the aggro off the person rezzing.

AoE Phase

The AoE cannon phase can be completely skipped by doing the following:

Have a mesmer portal by the second button that opens the doors leading to the arena. After everyone gets teleported in, the mesmer can portal back and wait by the door during the entire fight. The mesmer can open the door when the AoE phase begins, and if everyone leaves right after the phase ends and the mesmer stays – this can continue for the rest of the fight. Also – other classes can do this too if they warrior greatsword skill 3/sword skill 2/ranger lunge towards the door before it closes after everyone gets teleported in. I would only recommend this for high level Mai fights and when everyone knows what they are doing. Having only 4 members can be an asset (easier to get her in Horrik’s electrostatic shots/aoes) if people can handle dpsing Mai but struggle with the AoEs. This also only works if done at the very beginning of the fight or if the group wipes & respawns. Once that door closes behind you its either the cliff or the sword.

Other Tips

• Stealth whenever you can.

• Move as little as possible. Mai & Horrik employee T-Rex cannoniers who can’t see you if you don’t move. The less you move, the less AoEs there will be. Small precise movements away from the other players on your team will lead to an easier cannon phase for everyone.

• Heal/swiftness whenever you can to raise the odds of you surviving getting clipped and avoiding aoes.

• Do. Not. Rez. If you are very skilled/used to this fight, then you’ll ignore this advice anyway because you know exactly how it works. Generally speaking – never try to rez someone downed from the AoEs. By standing/moving near them, you ensure their death as stacks of AoEs will target you both. Only touch them with a small amount of rez/healing if you know exactly what you’re doing and are ready to roll away at a moments notice.

• Stay away from the two short edges and the wall with the door in it. The edge with the cliff on it (leading to the airship) is the furthest away from where all of the cannon shots come from – and it therefore gives you the greatest amount of time between seeing the red AoE circles and the shots actually landing.

Mesmers -

• Bring Scepter/Sword and Sword/Focus as your two weapons. Throw down Focus 4 as a reflect/cripple and focus 5 for another reflect and dps. Use offhand sword 5 (Phantasmal Swordsman) for some dps.

• More than anything, you become a blocking machine with these weapon sets. You should be able to upkeep reflects (Feedback, Temporal Curtain, Phatasmal Warden) for a huge majority of the fight, and if you make sure you’re the furthest from Mai at all times, you can easily block every single one of her long-range-insta-kill-shots with sword 4 (Illusionary Riposte) and Scepter 2 (Illusionary Counter). Not only can it help your team immensly, but it will also make you feel like a B.A. because you negate about 25-50% of her fighting capabilities. Also you get some consistent minor ranged dps from the scepter auto attacks.

• Also, your clones can block her long range pistol shot if they are physically in the way of the projectile right after she fires it – but don’t rely on this method O.O I have seen her bullets curve.

If anything I have stated is wrong or misleading or you disagree with it:
State what you have the issue with, why you think it is wrong, and what you believe is more correct in its place. I’m not an expert and just want to raise the level of PUG fractal expertise so I can go back to doing 50s with random players >.<

Dude, as the mesmer in my fractal group you pretty much listed everything I’ve been telling my group. Well done.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Painbow.6059:

TurtleDragon.3108:

This is what happens when we ask for more challenging content.

At least they were nice enough to mention this one in the patch notes.

It’s too difficult for non-organized groups too handle

Too early to tell. Though, if it’s as bad as everyone say it is I won’t be PUG-ing fractals anytime soon.

I’m sure they’ll find a way to safespot AFK range it.

It’s really not too early to tell, this will make pugging fractals impossible. We found Mai Trin difficult and failed a couple of times in KING (a fractal guild) with the composition 1 guard 2 ele 1 war 1 mes

Well said advice for Mesmer. This is the exact setup I ran (switched to sword/sword + sword/focus for a bit to do more melee damage) a while back, but I will be switching back to it now given the new damage of her whips.

Maybe she was buffed so that the new gear can be put to use.

Just came away from a 49 PUG group. The first three fractals went as expected. A wipe here or there but perfectly good for a PUG group. I was crossing my fingers we wouldn’t get Mai, but we did. We had to abandon the fractal. Everyone was being one shot and we simply had been in the fractal way too long (something like 1.5 hours just for her. We had a lot of fighting spirit) and had real lives to attend to. I’m sure professional groups will be able to do it, but I will not be PUGing fractals at all until this is fixed. Fractals aren’t worth the time + 1/3rd chance of having to toss in the towel. Its nigh impossible.

Painbow.6059:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Painbow.6059:

TurtleDragon.3108:

This is what happens when we ask for more challenging content.

At least they were nice enough to mention this one in the patch notes.

It’s too difficult for non-organized groups too handle

Too early to tell. Though, if it’s as bad as everyone say it is I won’t be PUG-ing fractals anytime soon.

I’m sure they’ll find a way to safespot AFK range it.

It’s really not too early to tell, this will make pugging fractals impossible. We found Mai Trin difficult and failed a couple of times in KING (a fractal guild) with the composition 1 guard 2 ele 1 war 1 mes

kitten , that sounds rough. I had enough reasons to hate that fractal before this patch :/

I would say that whoever is taking care of fractals needs to totally changes the way he works.

One mistake is ok, 2 can be but each time they touch fractals they make it less fun,more unbalanced and more frustrating, that obviously without even fixing rewards.

Just for coherence.

Check fractal population after similar Patches… GG

MysticHLE – I also ran sw/sw and sw/fc, but that was when most groups could just stack near her and tank Horrik AoE dmg and Mai melee hits – fast dps was a boon.

With the severe damage increase to all forms of damage, the fractal has become almost entirely about having extremely strong mechanics…it is very easy to dps Mai 25% with no stacks – the hard part now is getting there while carrying constantly downed PUGS.

I think the fact that her pistol shot cannot be evaded (and require block/reflect) is utter BS, and should be looked into. I really cannot think of any other attacks in PvE where evade does not work.

CytoSlide – yeah, I hear you. With this new change, I think builds will just need to be re-evaluated though – more towards utility instead of dps.

- Elementalist: Focus Air 4 can cancel her shot, Focus Earth 5 can tank the hit, and Earth 4 can (probably) reflect?
- Warrior: Mace 2, Sword 5, and Shield 5 all can block her shots. These can even be traited for reflects, making the warrior a better dedicated pistol shot blocker/reflector than Mesmers!
- Guardian: Aegis, Wall of Reflection, Shield 5, Focus 5
- Mesmer: Focus 4, 5 (traited), Sword 4, Scepter 2, Feedback
- Thief: Smokescreen, Dagger Storm…
- Ranger: Axe 5 for reflect, GS 4 for block
- Necromancer: Death Shroud? =\

So…most classes do have a few ways to deal with this new change – but it won’t be easy, and it will take skills and coordination to get it right. But hey, if PUG Arah can melee Lupi and stack reflects now, then I have faith in the FotM 50 community too.

We got Mai Trin on lvl 25 – me and my friend were joining for low level fractals just for fun – usually lvl 30- can be done even with totally messed group – not anymore if you get this encounter. She is about lvl 60-70 difficulty on lvl 25 now. According to the dmg at least.

Was on ele and managed to survive most of the attacks, but still:
- She one-shots you with the teleport, unless you block/mistform
- She one-shots you if you catch more than one of the ranged shots
- She two-shots you in melee

Probably this dmg wouldn’t be an issue if:
- You can dodge her teleport
- You can block her ranged shots
For now it just takes all you have to simply survive.

We managed to clear her in about an hour and half after replacing two partymemebers who didn’t have enough AR for that level (it was fine until this fractal) and making about 11-12 tries.

I would say that this was actually fun and competing, but only once. And I could only imagine how much dmg she has on lvl 49 or 50 now, didn’t see her there yet.

I guess its time to get toughness/vitality gear.

Did a lvl 50 Mai Trin tonight and got a Mellaggan’s Whorl. Worth it!

afaik evade works on pistol.
You have to evade the real attack (almost invisible), if you get hit by that, the shiny attack that comes later is unavoidable.

But that is not the issue.

The issue is staying melee against a boss that apply dozens of conditions and deals massive dps while another boss shoots massive dps on you that you can t even avoid…because you have to remove stacks.

I’d just like anet to show us how to fight that with pugs and if they fail… they should simply revert changes nobody asked for, but since it would mean admitting a mistake, won t happen as in usual anet style.

because she deals so much damage its almost impossible now to meele her… we lured her around like hell until she randomly walked into the blue circles. we failed some times and on one try she oneshoted three of us as we entered the room (teleport and attack where she is whirling around and fires some lightning bolts). if the mechanics would be doable it wouldnt be such a pain… fortunately i’ve been in a well organized group were ppl had the possibility to switch to their guard (three guards at the end)… w/o aegis its devenitely a perma-ress-show…

Skaazi.8264:

Did a lvl 50 Mai Trin tonight and got a Mellaggan’s Whorl. Worth it!

I feel…. the pain.

Mai Trin is now everything the anti-metas want, I think. Fast attacks, high damage, damaging aoes, blah blah blah. Now everytime they complain about a boss being stacked we can just ask them how they like fighting Mai Trin at 50.

one thing i am kind of wondering about….

why ONLY mai Trin and Horrick?

regardless of the amount of buff they got and what it may or may not entail… why only them?

Soon they’ll introduce some constant DoT to Molten duo that will require people to use healing gear to survive throug the unskippable cutscene.

(Edit: Yay flood control!)

Taku.6352:

Soon they’ll introduce some constant DoT to Molten duo that will require people to use healing gear to survive throug the unskippable cutscene.

(Edit: Yay flood control!)

No, don’t give them ideas!

DigitalKirin.9714:

Mai Trin is now everything the anti-metas want, I think. Fast attacks, high damage, damaging aoes, blah blah blah. Now everytime they complain about a boss being stacked we can just ask them how they like fighting Mai Trin at 50.

Its not.

I Always carry with me a www set on my ele and i perfectly know how to build a nearly immortal tank (in any other situation even lupicus).

It was not enough at level 29

DigitalKirin.9714:

Mai Trin is now everything the anti-metas want, I think. Fast attacks, high damage, damaging aoes, blah blah blah. Now everytime they complain about a boss being stacked we can just ask them how they like fighting Mai Trin at 50.

You’re implying the PHIWs actually do things besides faceroll around open world/living story and whine on the forums.

LordByron.8369:

DigitalKirin.9714:

Mai Trin is now everything the anti-metas want, I think. Fast attacks, high damage, damaging aoes, blah blah blah. Now everytime they complain about a boss being stacked we can just ask them how they like fighting Mai Trin at 50.

Its not.

I Always carry with me a www set on my ele and i perfectly know how to build a nearly immortal tank (in any other situation even lupicus).

It was not enough at level 29

Even with a full banner bunker warrior (possibly the most unkillable thing in the game, something I ran in ranked TPVP), whether with the new TVH or mixed primary Healing Power (cleric/magi); you might not be able to survive. Even if you did, with the inconsistent aggro, the AOEs, and the cannon phase, the rest of team will go down. And once they do, you’re a full tank, you will do no damage. It will never end. It will be the twilight zone.

Everything they wanted. /nod self

No such thing as a full tank in end-game PvE.

GUYS its intended this is the new super hardcore unpuggable stuff we all wanted!, we are also supposed to waste time in that new living story to get our new TOUGHNESS+HEALZ+VITALITIEZ armour as ANet wants us to all be super support tankers!

Really though, I am not looking forward to the fight and its probably un-intended as it sounds like its breaking fractals for PUG groups.