Guild Wars 2

SoliSnake.9457:

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

so you don t die….
but tell me then how you get the shield down with staff…..

Fire 5 is bad but at least will do something, but nothing compared to autoattacks of almost any other profession….

And before someone tries: cond damage doesn t count.

P.S: with D/D you get shot due to aoe bug…..also you can be cought in mid of a move with aoes…..also no reflect….and being fire Arrow hidden by most particle effects you just get 1shot by agony….

Guardian is the ultimate party support class… what the confusion here about? Having one guardian is always good. Having two guardians begins to hurt DPS but can be somewhat better than one in some very specific encounters. Having 3 guardians is a waste of party slots. So I lol @ the guy who said he finally beat it with 3 guardians. You guys just need to get better at your own toons.

Regarding the Imbued Shaman: The elementals starting to hit a bit too hard at 40+. In addition to root the spam and the sheer number of them this can get ugly sometimes. Otherwise it is pretty easy boss. You only need shields/blinds to block off the boss while clearing elementals. Both mesmers and thiefs have tools to do that. There is no reason to have to use shields or even heal skills in the regular phase.
Most PUGs I’ve seen wipe out on this boss not because of lack of shields, but because they wasted them during regular phase while eating agony and trying to rez. The arrow are so easy to dodge, it hurts my brain when I see people getting hit.

The bottom line is this boss requires a certain level of personal skill from every team member. You can’t get carried through it. You have to be good yourself. Group composition is rather secondary.

LordByron.8369:

SoliSnake.9457:

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

so you don t die….
but tell me then how you get the shield down with staff…..

Fire 5 is bad but at least will do something, but nothing compared to autoattacks of almost any other profession….

And before someone tries: cond damage doesn t count.

P.S: with D/D you get shot due to aoe bug…..also you can be cought in mid of a move with aoes…..also no reflect….and being fire Arrow hidden by most particle effects you just get 1shot by agony….

play ele D\D at him is insane!! you have to do a great job for dont die, with a staff is easy, you stay 1000-1200 range, when start ball part use fire skill 5 and after start heal party with healing skill, for his arrow just dodge them and prepare to use the mist form if you got hitted. i play 0/10/0/30/30 cleric armor, berserk staff, amulet (now the amulet is a soldier) and earing cleric, vassar and ralena ring, soldier back doned at lvl 38 wich 30 AR and was realy fun (of course you need a decent team)

My biggest issues with this fight:

1) Too hard to see arrow, and if you don’t have vigor (yay being a necromancer), you can’t simply dodge every time he does the tell in your general direction.

2) The fight is trivial with 1+ guardian.

3) The fight is almost impossible without a guardian.

Fixes to equalize, not nerf:

1) Put a skull (a la Jade Maw), ring (a la CM riflemen), or similar on the arrow target when he actually shoots the arrow (not when he does the tell). This will make it so that people who can’t see the arrow due to lack of perfect sight actually have a chance to avoid it, while ensuring that people remain on their toes: you likely won’t be able to dodge if you’re not watching for the tell, but if you’re paying attention you won’t waste dodges either.

2) Instead of doing projectile attacks, worms melee you. Keep the damage the same, keep the immobilize, but make it so that every profession has options to survive, and one profession isn’t necessary for the encounter to be possible.

Its extremly hard on lvl 40+ with pugs, its trivial with perma party. Few things to remember:

1. Shaman attack range is 1200, keep max range and if he turn to you dodge or change direction of your run.

2. On buble phase, elemental or any class with chill cast it on shaman, go under boss, guardian cast avanger shild or auromancer elemental share magnetic aura, while u stacking adds are gathering around you, aoe all, boss and adds, when shild break run in one direction, one where is your guardian, guardian pop out reflecting wall, stand behind it or in it, finish adds…..

It can be easy if all know what they doing, can be nightmare if only one is failing all the time. I dont think that shaman need nerf, he is easy until lvl 40 anyhow.

SoliSnake.9457:

LordByron.8369:

SoliSnake.9457:

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

so you don t die….
but tell me then how you get the shield down with staff…..

Fire 5 is bad but at least will do something, but nothing compared to autoattacks of almost any other profession….

And before someone tries: cond damage doesn t count.

P.S: with D/D you get shot due to aoe bug…..also you can be cought in mid of a move with aoes…..also no reflect….and being fire Arrow hidden by most particle effects you just get 1shot by agony….

play ele D\D at him is insane!! you have to do a great job for dont die, with a staff is easy, you stay 1000-1200 range, when start ball part use fire skill 5 and after start heal party with healing skill, for his arrow just dodge them and prepare to use the mist form if you got hitted. i play 0/10/0/30/30 cleric armor, berserk staff, amulet (now the amulet is a soldier) and earing cleric, vassar and ralena ring, soldier back doned at lvl 38 wich 30 AR and was realy fun (of course you need a decent team)

i have even a more offensive build than your.
at 38 will probably be easier (did 36 only) than at lower levels due to the fact people are more experienced…

Your output damage is really bad with staff with that build:

Pro:
Nearly immortal due to range and AD trick during normal phase

Cons:
Attack rate VS shield is almost null
Dmg vs elementals is too low
Party support is too limited even if you use aura sharing
best spells require you to stand still (damage+ arrows+ elementals attack)
Build not compatible with other weapon sets

D/D*:

Pro:
-decent aoe dmg
-good attack ratio vs shield
-Good crowd control
-lure more melee Attacks from shaman

Cons:
-difficult to evade Arrow at melee
-NO reflection/protection skills at all

So i wouldn t use D/D either

S/F:
Pro:
Slightly less immortal than staff due to 900 range
More party support (air 4, earth 4)
Damage is acceptable with dragon tooth etc
Attack rate VS shield is decent with air 1-2
Really immortal during shield phase (air 4, earth 4-5)
compatible with D/D builds

Cons:
Slightly less immortal than staff during normal phase (900 range vs 1200+)
Less healing capabilities

S/F wins hands down against any weapon set.

Notes that staff is easier to play and i hate scepter/focus…..it took me months to convince me using those but they are so superior than i really had to.

*note that this is about ele comparison….dmg dealt is outright bad compared to most other professions….for PvE ele needs desperatly some buffs…for EVERY build and weaponset any nerf will destroy the profession PvE wise….its already hard enough with what we have.

@verd i may agree with many of your points but on your part you should start using PvE sigils also ._.

Sanel, while I completely agree with you, the “run to the guardian” part of your strategy is precisely why I have a problem with this fight.

It is simply not reasonable to assume that everyone has a guardian in their group.

and imho warriors are even more precious….
1HB and any other insane aoe burst from warriors get rids of elementals in few seconds…..

@verd, i understand, if any class that is in party with you have some skill that can destroy / reflect projectiles you can use same tactic. Keep in mind that on lvl 40 + shaman adds hit like a world champion boss on my ele they do 4-6 K dmg with 1 hit and agony arrow is most likley to down you from hit. Its rlly important that all move in same direction after buble is broken on shaman so adds dont spread all over map and also is easyer to rez downed players.

I ran this today with my full crit build thief, who only has 10k health. I usually play fractals with my Necro who has 32k health. As the thief I didn’t get downed, although some of my allies did. I really don’t think its that hard, except for the casual gamer. 10k health is about as low as you can go. Even most rangers and warriors are getting around with well over 20k.

This was probably easier on my thief than Necro because I was able to “carry” whereas my Necro is more of a "support"build.

Played lvl 28 last night. I was the only warrior with 2 necros, ele and ranger. After being wiped 3 times. The ranger had the nerve to question my gear. He based the reason we were getting wiped was because I wasn’t wearing zerker. What a joke! I was wearing PPC armor exotic(from TA) and I had back up armor (mad kings) if needed. I had no problem bursting the boss shield and kiting worms while whirlwind charged. I ran rifle with piercing damage as filler. 2 full circles of the Island and my team would be downed. I already get 50% crit chance BEFORE I take food. This boss is only difficult when ppl can’t properly play the class they are using.

that made me smile ^

No. Do not nerf this fractal. It is difficult, but not impossible. A challenge and I like it. I am only on FOTM 15, but the group I run Fractals with found it really rewarding when we figured out how to do it with minimal downs/defeats (This is a team of two ele’s, one necro, one guard and one thief). Reflect fields/projectile absorbing/blocking skills are your friend here, my friend.

For the Grawl fractal, If you have a necro or a ele on team, everyone else should just learn to aoe the grubs, necro warhorn 5 (3-6 hits depending on his positioning pre second) + Dagger 1 (4 hits pre second and half) can pop the entire shield when protected really fast(even faster with wells), also there is the immobilize that stops him from getting to the humas , ele burning speed and dragons claw are pretty much the same.

Really, the fix is to make the agony arrow shot easier to see. The grawl shaman attack are kidda difficult to detect. He does shoot fast arrows and his aoe practically has no warning animation

loseridoit.2756:

Really, the fix is to make the agony arrow shot easier to see. The grawl shaman attack are kidda difficult to detect. He does shoot fast arrows and his aoe practically has no warning animation

Pan your camera to look at the Shaman instead of staring at the ground under you. He has easy tell when he raises his bow.

The only problem in Fractals is max difficulty lvl 49! All other is challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ONKy1j2Kcs
Enjoy!

Asgard.7395:

The only problem in Fractals is max difficulty lvl 49! All other is challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ONKy1j2Kcs
Enjoy!

inb4 lol 3 guardians.

EDIT:
wow that wasn’t even worst part about this vid. Wiping out left and right. Eating agony arrows like pancakes. The guardian on camera is pretty bad. Watching him trying to rez people hurt my brain.
If this was my run, first of all I would be kitten the nub team, but more importantly I wouldn’t be sharing the video of this.

Don’t even need reflecting skills. Just keep him in middle, burn the shield, burn adds and continue :p Nothing to it actually. Everyone just has to pay attention! Guess people are so used facerolling all content in gw2, they stop paying attention…

We went fotm 38 last nite, 2 wars 2 thiefs (one pug) and a guardian, all with 30-35 AR. 1st map ascalon, all ok, 2nd map underwater, even better, 3rd map .. dang, shaman. What to do , what to do .. .we give it a try, even if morale is low. 1st time, wipe at 3rd buble, 2nd time wipe 1st bubble … we talk, change some tactics, and BOOM : 3rd lucky try we manage to kill it.
So : is duable, is hard, maybe hardest map in all fotm. The elementals have a lot of HP and the shaman hits hard.
Advice : use a frost gun to slow the shaman before he bubbles, kill the elementals then hit the bubble. Both boss and elementals are very hard, if not impossible to manage. Also dodge a lot (skills and food with endurance helps ).
And after we killed the Maw I was rewarded with 2 blues and 3 greens. Ty Anet for nerfing fotm drops and boosting “AFK world bosses” or “spam 1st skill world bosses” or “OMG overflow again, can’t get my guarantee rare OMFG OMFG ANET world bosses”.

LordByron.8369:

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

Staff attack rate is too slow for the shield part.

Staff can handle it pretty well actually. Toss some bleeds on it through Eruption and Shockwave, and use the elite Air Elemental (which has a multi-hit auto attack). Also, you can hit it with Lava Font and Meteor Shower while also auto-attacking it.

You’ll get plenty of hits out of those skills.

bleed doesn t count…someone posted it on wiki time ago and was corrected promptly…

Lava fon t won t either.

Meteor shower is unreliable and requires you to stand still :| so you take a lot of damage…

Solution…

Equip Scepter/focus and becomes extremely easy at lvl 38…..the amount of reflect/invul uptime paired with low cooldowns is astonishing compared with staff.

Also 3hits fast autoattack for the shield.

its quite sad…
Now all eles that i meet in fotm seems to go straight to get a focus if they don t have one…..

Remember: if your ele has a focus and know how to use it ele becomes the second best class for this boss….otherwise one of the worse.

Trollhammer.7439:

loseridoit.2756:

Really, the fix is to make the agony arrow shot easier to see. The grawl shaman attack are kidda difficult to detect. He does shoot fast arrows and his aoe practically has no warning animation

Pan your camera to look at the Shaman instead of staring at the ground under you. He has easy tell when he raises his bow.

i beg to differ. I am level 44 fract and he is friken hard to see when all adds hits like truck and his animation is hidden behind his shield.

Yes he is very easy to see when nothing is going on, but you have to realize his arrows might as well be invisible during the add phase.

I am doing support often, so I have problem turning my camera to see his bow. Usually, I am looking at his back

loseridoit.2756:

Trollhammer.7439:

loseridoit.2756:

Really, the fix is to make the agony arrow shot easier to see. The grawl shaman attack are kidda difficult to detect. He does shoot fast arrows and his aoe practically has no warning animation

Pan your camera to look at the Shaman instead of staring at the ground under you. He has easy tell when he raises his bow.

i beg to differ. I am level 44 fract and he is friken hard to see when all adds hits like truck and his animation is hidden behind his shield.

Yes he is very easy to see when nothing is going on, but you have to realize his arrows might as well be invisible during the add phase.

I am doing support often, so I have problem turning my camera to see his bow. Usually, I am looking at his back

Guardian: 2 shields
Mesmer: 1 shield
Elementalist: 1 shield
Thief: blind field

Those are all the tools you need to ignore what shaman does while you disposing of his bubble and adds.

lol at threads like this. Nothing about this game is difficult. If you are unable to complete something, such as the shaman fractal, ask for help — not a nerf. The problem with asking for a nerf is that they might ACTUALLY nerf it!! lol. I’ve stopped playing this game because ANet attempts to cater to everyone, but really only waters it down for the masses (which is great from a business perspective, I suppose). Don’t get me wrong, my 1200 hours in the game were great, but you guys should be careful about what you wish for.

TL;DR: Use these forums to ask for help, not nerfs. Feedback is good, but begging for nerfs is never good.

Trollhammer.7439:

loseridoit.2756:

Trollhammer.7439:

loseridoit.2756:

Really, the fix is to make the agony arrow shot easier to see. The grawl shaman attack are kidda difficult to detect. He does shoot fast arrows and his aoe practically has no warning animation

Pan your camera to look at the Shaman instead of staring at the ground under you. He has easy tell when he raises his bow.

i beg to differ. I am level 44 fract and he is friken hard to see when all adds hits like truck and his animation is hidden behind his shield.

Yes he is very easy to see when nothing is going on, but you have to realize his arrows might as well be invisible during the add phase.

I am doing support often, so I have problem turning my camera to see his bow. Usually, I am looking at his back

Guardian: 2 shields
Mesmer: 1 shield
Elementalist: 1 shield
Thief: blind field

Those are all the tools you need to ignore what shaman does while you disposing of his bubble and adds.

there… you said the problem. The encounter literally became a class filter. The user cannot see and dodge the shaman so we have to reduce the encounter to a reflect profession fest.

Adding more visible animations is a nerf, but i think its as some warrant because some of us want to fight this battle with classes other than guards

-The agony is extremely difficult to dodge.

When the Harpy Turns to your direction and lifts the bow, guess what’s coming? I don’t mean to sound like an elitist, but this situation it is very appropriate to say “learn to dodge”.
I’ve solo’d the last 25% of this boss multiple times as a FULL GLASS thief on level 2x because the rest of my party died for whatever reason. The only thing I can’t handle is the amount of grub elemental with their spam imobo.

-The shield phase is way more difficult than it needs to be.

Don’t get yourself killed taking it down. It’s about the number of hits and not dmg. Imobo, and chill work VERY well here. (Rangers gasp can drop entangle and leave the boss there for 20 seconds while you take care of grubs if needed).

-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).

Don’t bother removing it, it’s just wasting your skill usage. It’s the HOT FOOT condition applying the burn. Use skills to res people (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revival#Skills_that_revive_allies). If you didn’t know your class had a skill that can res allies, you should learn to play your class.

-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?

I don’t because this is the 3rd fastest fractal instance imo after Swamp and Underwater.

Kamahl.3621:

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.

He does have a tell for the meteor shower.

Flies up with a big red circle=knockback attack
Flies up with no circle=METEORAGA!