Guild Wars 2

The agony is extremely difficult to dodge. The shield phase is way more difficult than it needs to be. The burning that automatically gets applied to you if you stop for a second makes trying to rez people an awful affair (you can remove it, but it applies again a second later). People regularly reset if this is the first fractal to come up. Doesn’t that tell you that something isn’t quite right with this encounter?

People also reset dredge and cliffside

…better nerf those too.

Ppl reset marsh too, lets nerf that.

Razor.6392:

People also reset dredge and cliffside

…better nerf those too.

Cliffside is a learning curve, dredge is nerfed now. Im not sure about grawl shaman, I personally dont have problems with it, but somehow end up wiping regularly. It could be that Im a necro main or that my pugs dont build enough survivability or that they are just bad, im not sure.

Razor.6392:

People also reset dredge and cliffside

…better nerf those too.

Dredge gets reset because ice elemental IS a problem. Cliffside gets reset because it has no business being as long as it is for a fractal.

Challenge is good, so i hope they DONT nerf him, besides alot of classes have skills that can reflect the agony(guardian/enginner/Mesmer etc)

Ppl only skip cliffside because of the time it take to end the dungeon.

They really should introduce timers on dungeons and leaderboards

Cliffside is way to long compared to other fractals, however equally volcano is far to difficult compared to other fractals.

It really should be put in line, you shouldnt need multiple guardians to make it a decent fight.

(Volcano gets batkitten insane after 30)

I think main problem for volcano is that it scales to harshly compared to other fractals, the jump from 10-20-30 is MUCHHH higher then for any of the other dungeons.

1-9 and 10-19 volcano is actually perfectly fine as it is.

I agree that challenge is good and I also hope they do not nerf him, but as for cliffside fractal I dont know of any good player that resets cliffside because its hard, at least those who I know that reset cliffside is because its so long with very bad loot, which is why I personaly love to start on dredge, love the loot and its very easy, maybe long, but every step of they way is rewarding, I just wish they would increase the loot on cliffside, I like the way it is except for the loot

Shaman is only an issue at higher levels where it becomes challenging, which is what it’s supposed to be. If you want it easier go to a lower level.

Unless you actually don’t want added challenge and just want the loot? Then that’s a whole other matter.

Shaman isn’t really a huge deal til 40+ in my experience (playing as a guard). And at that level, it really is probably the hardest boss fight for all the levels but there has to be one that’s the hardest right?

Even at 40+ if you get two guards you’re usually set, add in a thief and you’re golden.

Me Kill You.9035:

Shaman isn’t really a huge deal til 40+ in my experience (playing as a guard). And at that level, it really is probably the hardest boss fight for all the levels but there has to be one that’s the hardest right?

Even at 40+ if you get two guards you’re usually set, add in a thief and you’re golden.

one would think jade maw should be the hardest, yet he remains the easiest :P

If you rapidly strafe left and right while fighting him, his arrows will never be able to hit you.

challenge is good when is based on skill….

Not on knowing workaround or having skills not accessible to every professions……
Also its a game and they are meant to be fun…not a nuisance…

Problems in game are currently (in order of importance)

Shamans at lava stage
Shaman boss
Arm seal on cliffside
MOSSMAN invisibility

The Whole dredge stage…..
First part requires spykits (spykits =/= skill)
Champion wastes lot of times and doesn t have a good strategy tobeat him, just 2 different abuses taking long…
corridor to boss is really annoying…how much health does those vet have? its already long…..

Since patch time to complete fractals increased of 10 to 30%.

P.S. preventing the mandatory L2P saying i can do any fractal and i did so many that i reallyknow them well (and i find them fun aside they are getting worse because real issues are not addressed while other things that makes them little shorter are Always looked at…)

Nokaru.7831:

If you rapidly strafe left and right while fighting him, his arrows will never be able to hit you.

It can still hit you, quite often actually, even if u are abusing your keyboard really hard with that strafing. Since the arrow projectile speed buff it’s arrows are quite speedy.

Imo fix Cliffside arm seals first, then make the stupid dredge map 10 minutes shorter and then, only then balance this boss.

If you’re standing at max range, it doesn’t hit you. Even if it does, it should be so infrequent your team can revive you right away with little consequences. Save anti-projectile stuff for the adds, and you’ll be fine. It also helps to chill the boss right before it phase changes, so it moves extremely slow while trying to reach the captives.

900+ range won t hit you, i usually keep aggro alone to help other ress players.

maybe rarely it hits you the same but happen so seldom that we can presume it miss 99% of times.

But its not a good reason to change this boss mechanic…..
Its not that doable means “fair and fun”….consider than usually when anet find such things they fix them without considering issues that makes player’s life harder.

Proofs:
-champion in dredge
-Cliffside 1st fotm patch
-mossman last patch

He just needs to not heal and we’re set. Everything else is good.

My problem with shaman is that you NEED a specific composition, with reflects and high dps to succeed, while other bosses take simply longer if you dont have those.

I’m all for challenges, and i’m ok with dungeon speedrunners requiring specific classes. I’M NOT ok with bosses requiring the same thing just to beat the level – if that was intended and in line with anet phisophy, why remove the trinity in the first place?

So no to a nerf, yes to a rework to the shield/heal mechanic, maybe making it require teamwork and not just “ALL BEHIND WALL, TIMEWARP AND SPAM”

I also think that the high dependecy on reflection to get the worms under control is too much. If you play a Guardian (I do), it is like flipping a switch and suddenly the entire encounter is one of the easiest in the game. Especially on fractal difficulty 30+, the volcanic fractal is reson enough to wait for a bubble guardian in much the same way you would have waited for a healer.

Don’t get me wrong, it is by no means impossible to do the encounter without refelection. It is just mighty inconvenient and particularily when you recruit PUG from gw2lfg you are better safe than sorry.

Not to speak of how utterly madening it can be to try and read the target of his agony attack beyond a veil of flashing pixels. He is by far not the worst offender when it comes to that, but certainly not what you would call pleasing to your eyes.

The past two days I have joined two teams, one on level 20 Grawl Shaman, one level 24 Shaman. They had both had multiple fails in a row and almost gave up.

I came in as the only guardian, used Shield Absorb, Reflect Wall, and either Sanctuary or Signet of Judgement.

I got downed a few times but insta rally and both times were a sucess. Just shows it only takes 1 player with proper AR, skills, and gear to beat this fractal.

Guardian/Mesmer (reflects) > Harpy Fractal
Guardian/Mesmer (reflects) > Volcanic Fractal
Guardian/Thief (reflect/stability/stealth) > Dredge Fractal
Warrior (battle standard)> Ascalonian Fractal
Durable Keyboard (facesmashing) > Swamp Fractal
Guardian (stability)> Snow/Svanir Fractal
Guardian/Mesmer (stability/portal) > Cliffside fractal
Guardian/Mesmer/Ele (sinks) > Underwater Fractal

You get the pattern. Make a guardian or find a good guardian friend, I guarantee you, your fractal life is that much easier.

Its like saying, get a warrior.

15-20k+ 100b. Permanently. Your fractal life will be easier.

JJBigs.8456:

Its like saying, get a warrior.

15-20k+ 100b. Permanently. Your fractal life will be easier.

Only if that 100b reflected projectiles and granted stability, then yes.

It should imo….

Think of it. 100b whirring at the speed of light. How should that NOT reflect.

JJBigs.8456:

It should imo….

You’d think swinging your blade 100 times could block/reflect projectiles.

Wtb > 100b animation re-work to actually 100 swings or 100 swords.

Agony is really easy to dodge, he has a tell or you can stay at range and just strafe back and forth to not be hit. Burning doesn’t do that much damage and you can outheal it if you need to rez someone, when you start moving just using condition removal..

The only hard part about him is the shield part without reflects, since the large amount of lava elementals at high levels is the most dangerous part.

I always said the same thing (nerf blah blah) but what they should really do is make its agony animation attack MUCH MORE visible. When everyone is spamming their skills, its extremely hard to see wtf is going on with his animation

I personally feel they should attach a sound to all agony skills much better que for when it’s about to happen.

Nuka Cola.8520:

I always said the same thing (nerf blah blah) but what they should really do is make its agony animation attack MUCH MORE visible. When everyone is spamming their skills, its extremely hard to see wtf is going on with his animation

Just have your team surround him in a circle. Then he has to actually turn towards you to fire that arrow and it’s much more visible.

Everyone should be able to dodge that anyway, but getting focus fired by him can be an issue ( if he does Fire Arrow → Ground AoE Fire → Fire Arrow all to the same person ).

If you are a thief, using #3 on shortbow once or twice evades most of his attacks pretty well if you are decent at catching the queues for his attacks — like him turning to shoot a fire arrow at you! (and obv smoke screen is helpful here).

I’m a glass cannon, and I never have any problems with this boss, or the dredge boss for that matter. You don’t need specific skills, you can use the dodge button.

Ruin.3461:

I’m a glass cannon, and I never have any problems with this boss, or the dredge boss for that matter. You don’t need specific skills, you can use the dodge button.

I don’t have a problem with this encounter in full glass cannon on my warrior, but I will have a problem if my party fails to dodge. What I can do is bring my guardian, cushion the countless mistakes my teammates make, finish the encounter, and swap back to my warrior for jade maw.

I’ve soloed the Grawl Shaman from ~15% of his max health to zero. Then I died the next time this chance came up, but point is, it’s very doable. He only has two attacks, and the more serious, agony-inflicting one has a very blatant tell. I just wish that they’d give his meteor shower a tell, because right now there isn’t one, aside from him ‘standing still longer than usual, and sud-OHGOD’. The hard parts are when you have to actually pay attention to both him, and the many oozes littering the area. Getting caught in a multitude of their roots is usually a death sentence – although most classes have an easy way to get through it (guardian can pop their invuln, warrior can whirling blade through it, engineer can gear shield, etc), it’s usually getting distracted from one of the SHaman’s arrows that gets players killed (or rooted so they can’t avoid it). I do feel that they need to tone down the number of adds that spawn – or at least cap it, as at 36 there are faaar more than enough to be considered ‘challenging’, I’m basically running around grenading a horde of red slime while dodge rolling arrows.

The boss definitely needs brought in line with all the other bosses. Currently there is just far too much to pay attention to at the same time and that forces mistakes and mistakes end in death.

Think about it! In any other fractal boss you might have 1-3 things to pay attention to at any one time. The legendary shaman though has at least 7. You need to keep moving, avoid fireballs, avoid AOE rain of fire, avoid lava pools, break the shaman shield, kill/avoid the lava grubs, and avoid the PBAOE the boss does as well. All of those are vital to success. There are no other fractal bosses that are comparable.

I’m all for difficult dungeons but in the case of fractals they should all be balanced at the same difficulty level. I don’t think anyone here would disagree that the legendary shaman is by a wide margin the hardest fractal boss.

think they should completely remove immobilize from fire eles

The main problem I have with the Grawl Fire Shaman is that he sometimes casts his “big” AoE immediately after the shield breaks, without the warning animation (swoop). This can kill players in a single hit, with no warning.

Apparently the server “thinks” the swoop animation played, but, since he was shielded, it wasn’t actually shown on the game client. All his other attacks’ timers should be suspended while he’s shielded, and restart only a couple of seconds after the shield breaks.

Nokaru.7831:

If you rapidly strafe left and right while fighting him, his arrows will never be able to hit you.

If only the other idiots valuable members of my team didn’t keep running towards me and making me get hit by “their” arrows…

Ioflux.4369:

Guardian/Mesmer (reflects) > Harpy Fractal
Guardian/Mesmer (reflects) > Volcanic Fractal
Guardian/Thief (reflect/stability/stealth) > Dredge Fractal
Warrior (battle standard)> Ascalonian Fractal
Durable Keyboard (facesmashing) > Swamp Fractal
Guardian (stability)> Snow/Svanir Fractal
Guardian/Mesmer (stability/portal) > Cliffside fractal
Guardian/Mesmer/Ele (sinks) > Underwater Fractal

You get the pattern. Make a guardian or find a good guardian friend, I guarantee you, your fractal life is that much easier.

As a mesmer I find that guardians hate to share there reflections OR maybe the ones I group with forget they have them skills… you know.. "pew pew … wha reflect? wall?… no like to pew pew… " In just about any content I almost never see any guardians using them. Granted I PUG all the time but really?

The only hard part in grawl fractal are the adds. Those fire elementals hit too hard for a regular mobs on higher levels. When a critical number of them hit you at the same time it’s just one-hit down. And at the same time you can’t dodge ‘cause you’re immobilized.

On the other hand without adds he’ll be kinda faceroll. A tricky one to balance.

Cliffside is easy to fix – just reset acolytes properly on wipe during hands seals.

Finally had a group that beat him with no trouble.

It had 3 guardians. Is that what it takes? What happened to playing how you want?

travosaga.6089:

Finally had a group that beat him with no trouble.

It had 3 guardians. Is that what it takes? What happened to playing how you want?

You can play how you want, dont expect to clear all content however you want. Else I wish I could do all dungeons solo w/o wearing exotics cause its how I want.

Ioflux.4369:

travosaga.6089:

Finally had a group that beat him with no trouble.

It had 3 guardians. Is that what it takes? What happened to playing how you want?

You can play how you want, dont expect to clear all content however you want. Else I wish I could do all dungeons solo w/o wearing exotics cause its how I want.

Well I don’t know if anybody is expecting to clear dungeons solo. Being able to play the profession of your choice is a different story however. Not being forced to go tank/healer/damage and playing your favorite profession is supposed to be one of the selling points of the game over a game like, I dunno, WoW.

travosaga.6089:

Well I don’t know if anybody is expecting to clear dungeons solo. Being able to play the profession of your choice is a different story however. Not being forced to go tank/healer/damage and playing your favorite profession is supposed to be one of the selling points of the game over a game like, I dunno, WoW.

I’m usually doing it with a quasi-static group being solely guardian. My guardian has 916 toughness and 1116 vitality, I don’t think I’m good enough for tanking.

Another group falls to the Imbued Shaman on level 20. The elementals are out of control. Do they need to root/does there need to be so kittening many?

travosaga.6089:

Another group falls to the Imbued Shaman on level 20. The elementals are out of control. Do they need to root/does there need to be so kittening many?

Obv you need more DPS.

This boss can vary from too easy to almost impossible depending on party/weapon set.

Shield punishes some professions/builds and reflect makes the fight too easy.

Nott to mention the aoe bug after shield.

This boss is a good test of whether your group is any good or not. It’s only difficult for people that have not yet mastered their class.

DancingPenguins.9875:

This boss is a good test of whether your group is any good or not. It’s only difficult for people that have not yet mastered their class.

If you see most cases is only a test to see if you brought 1+ guardian and 1+ mesmers….

And some classes are over punished

An ele is forced into scepter for example and could have a bad build for that weapon set.

D/D is unviable
Staff attack rate is too slow for the shield part.
S/F is the only

Many classes suffers the same issues.

If you have 2 mains for high lvl fotm you can see for yourself how much you can contribute with different classes.

Actually, I’ve done it at lv 26 as a D/D pretty easily (though I was not very unlucky regarding targetting by arrow and AOE, but still easier than I expected and can be done). What did you mean by high level ? That’s very subjective.

best boss in game after lupi, for ele is realy fun, i always use a staff

ppl-s reset anything but swamp, so all I want is CD on reset!!!