Guild Wars 2

1. allow us to dodge the damaging panels
2. don’t remove condis from boss when the vuln debuff is out
3. lower the boss’s damage and remove daze from 3rd attack.
4. make fixated stay longer

right now the fight punishes melee a lot. the charr even turns around with each attack so you cant sidestep, and you cant even dodge much because evade doesn’t work on the panels. this should be balanced. i like hard encounters but not cancerous and there’s a difference

Idk I think the only cancerous thing is #2 personally

I believe the fight is fair, maybe look at KINGS guide on the fractal if you need to.

hmm you should change the title to ‘plase make faceroll easy the chaos fractal boss’ just walking away 2 steps from boss on third attack will interupt the chain making his daze non relevant the platform arent really that big of an issue since the dmg is not really that much and you can move on the non lit areas quite freely as for the condi removal i didnt know that that is actually bad they should just make consis do no dmg while shield is up but still having them on the boss fixate is actally ok dont have issues with it and if used correctly you make boss way easier.

I’d be satisfied with lowering the breakbar requirement for the pull attack when you get him below 50%.

The breakbar is easy as to break!! I’ve broken his bar all the time with different PuGs.

> be in well known raid guild
> make serious post about how to adjust a boss
> get told ‘git gud scrub’

Never change, GW2 forum.

The fight is infinitely easier with a dedicated tank – you can maintain agro 100% of the time if the tank stays in melee and no one gets farther then 1000 ish range. If everyone is positioned correctly the fixate mechanic never comes into play. I’m still not sure if toughness effects his agro but having some doesn’t hurt since you’ll be eating 2/3’s of his autos. The 360 radius on his 3rd aa does make melee kind of tedious for the dps since you have to keep backing up slightly, although in non-pugs a guardian and chrono tank can rotate group distort, aegis and stability.

The fact that the boss looses conditions when he goes invuln is probably unnecessarily punishing to condi – if they could give him an unstrippable version of resistance that would be better. Since toughness scaling is gone, though, there’s really no reason not to just bring a power team comp to this fractal. I wouldn’t mind if they made the lazer floors dodgeable, but I don’t think its an unfair mechanic since you’re given some visual warning and one or two ticks from the floor won’t down you by itself.

Sarahfull.4930:

The breakbar is easy as to break!! I’ve broken his bar all the time with different PuGs.

In the number of times I’ve done it since it came out (probably most dailies minus a few), I’ve found one party who was able to break it once, and they were able to break it every time.

Usually I have to burn 1-2 dodges just to get out because it doesn’t even get touched except for my cc.

@Breakbar: Depends hugely on the classes. Most classes cannot break it solo unless you anticipate the breakbar and precast your CC. But if you have something like warrior/revenant, you can comfortably break it every single time and forget about your team. Of course it would all be much easier if all people contributed a little bit of their CC, but you can’t expect that from pugs since most of them have reaction time of a wooden chair.

@OP: Agreed with point 3 + with daze removal from point 2. This fight definitely punishes melee a bit too much. As far as damage goes, I think it’s pretty balanced, maybe just shift it a little (someone suggested that earlier) in the sense that first two attacks of AA chain will to less damage and the last one will do more. Or add another attack that will do much more damage but is clearly telegraphed and on high cooldown.

rfdarko.4639:

The fight is infinitely easier with a dedicated tank – you can maintain agro 100% of the time if the tank stays in melee and no one gets farther then 1000 ish range. If everyone is positioned correctly the fixate mechanic never comes into play. I’m still not sure if toughness effects his agro but having some doesn’t hurt since you’ll be eating 2/3’s of his autos. The 360 radius on his 3rd aa does make melee kind of tedious for the dps since you have to keep backing up slightly, although in non-pugs a guardian and chrono tank can rotate group distort, aegis and stability.

The fact that the boss looses conditions when he goes invuln is probably unnecessarily punishing to condi – if they could give him an unstrippable version of resistance that would be better. Since toughness scaling is gone, though, there’s really no reason not to just bring a power team comp to this fractal. I wouldn’t mind if they made the lazer floors dodgeable, but I don’t think its an unfair mechanic since you’re given some visual warning and one or two ticks from the floor won’t down you by itself.

Interesting, so the Fixation is a response to a ‘tether’ range of sorts? That’s helpful.

As for the floor thing, I think the main thing is that you’re often in a spot you can’t dodge and not cross over to a bad panel. Overall though I can’t say I’ve died to that, and honestly didn’t even really realize it, just thought I had lag or I messed up.

I really wish this boss responded strongly to toughness, but I’ll have to try it again with some friends with that fixation thing in mind. I’ve found the first 50% to be pretty decent about sticking on my Guard, it’s just post 50% is when I see fixations popping up and I can no longer keep him on me.

I just grab my zealot/zerker mace shield communal defense, honor(heal on aegis, dodge, and symbol and bonus healing power from mace trait) DH. Don’t need the toughness from gear to aggro since retributive armor covers that. Just stand near him. One thing to note is that I think his 3rd auto chain can’t be blocked by mace 3 if he is targeting someone else so use it on his second attack. Blocking also removes conditions for an easy kill. Stand your ground and retreat plus a trap for cc.

Anecdotally it seems like the biggest factor (and likely the only) factor for agro is distance. I’ve found if i step back at all out of melee (like even just 400-500 range) he very often will turn on to the other melee dps. Once he drops agro he seems to stick on a target for 10ish seconds (with or without the prey icon) even if you get up in his face again. For a really smooth kill the tank ideally will never, ever move – the boss straddles 2 pads where he spawns so it’s easy to keep him permanently debuffed . Commanders chrono + druid or (le gasp!) minstrels chrono would be the easiest way, but guard can also work. It just takes some sustain because you will end up facetanking most of his non-daze autos.

rfdarko.4639:

Anecdotally it seems like the biggest factor (and likely the only) factor for agro is distance. I’ve found if i step back at all out of melee (like even just 400-500 range) he very often will turn on to the other melee dps. Once he drops agro he seems to stick on a target for 10ish seconds (with or without the prey icon) even if you get up in his face again. For a really smooth kill the tank ideally will never, ever move – the boss straddles 2 pads where he spawns so it’s easy to keep him permanently debuffed . Commanders chrono + druid or (le gasp!) minstrels chrono would be the easiest way, but guard can also work. It just takes some sustain because you will end up facetanking most of his non-daze autos.

I do it with my Cleric’s guard mainly running the Mace/Shield aegis rotations for that third hit. It’s not too bad. I just always seem to have issues at 50%. You’re right though sticking up on him is the key, while I have high toughness I don’t see him coming after me at all unless I go to him first.

Have you tried talking to your PuGs?! Ask them to bring one cc each and call breakbar alittle earlier so they know. It’s really not that hard.. It’s the most teamwork fractal for a reason..

Anet finally makes something with a decent atuo attack chain and you want to remove the daze that makes it the most interesting.

1. The floor pattern is relatively easy to figure out with the exception of the awkward moment when the NPC calls for a pattern change. So the only time I have found them to be an issue is when ressing since it’s a lot of stop and go.

2. Yeah, I’d have to agree with this one. Really frustrating when all your conditions go away especially if you JUST applied them. His aggro is a little odd so you will end up having him go invuln every now and then.

3. The AA, though annoying, is fine. The damage itself isn’t over the top, and the last bit of the chain is easily dealt with using dodges or by stepping away. Bonus points if you’re on a class that has access to multiple evades, blocks, etc.

4. I’m pretty indifferent on this. The biggest issue is players staying too far at range so aggro changes can really mess things up. So the solution would be for players to either become more comfortable with staying in melee-ish range (“get gud”) or by letting the fixation last longer. Though the latter could prove to be an issue if the fixationee is trying to break away for recovery after being pressure for too long (not everyone will be built for tanking).

Seems like everyone thinks I’m having trouble with the encounter. I don’t. What I’m trying to say is, I can’t use things like unrelenting assault because I would die as I lose control of my character and panels ignore evades.
As someone mentioned shifting the damage to third attack would be best imo.
Ranged players have much less factors to worry about and this should be balanced. Like, maybe make the kitty golems to aggro on players outside x range from boss. The fight should still be hard, just more user friendly.

Sublimatio.6981:

What I’m trying to say is, I can’t use things like unrelenting assault because I would die as I lose control of my character and panels ignore evades.

Many fights are set up so that certain types of skills/traits are less-than-idea. That’s why ANet offers us the opportunity to swap skills between fights. (Do the panels ignore evades? Or do they just pulse in a way that makes the evade difficult?)

Maybe I’m just used to playing mesmer, a profession that almost requires the player to change weapons, traits, and utilities for maximum efficiency, depending on the encounter. This fight definitely tries to challenge us to rethink our tactics, which is one of the things that makes it ‘fun’ for me.

tl;dr I don’t think it’s unbalanced, just because it punishes certain techniques that work elsewhere.

1 – You can completely negate the damage from the panels by jumping. (Just like that radioactive water in reactor.)

2 – This I can agree with. It’s silly he loses everything once his shield goes back up.

3 – You want to nerf this after Bloomhunger’s meganerf?…I’d rather buff it..I’m tired of the pathetic damage T4 bosses have. And if you get hit by the daze, that’s a huge fault on your end.

4 – Hmm, I never really had too many problems with the fixation, but it might be slightly better if this lasted longer.

Cancerous? This fight is far from that actually. He is one of the better bosses in fractals in my opinion.

I can agree that the risk/reward is kind of out of wack between melee and ranged, so having the kitty golems target players further from the boss would be a decent trade-off. I like that the first two boss autos do decent damage though because it forces people to be more aware of their positioning, and also makes maintaining agro on someone who can handle it actually important.

Sublimatio.6981:

1. allow us to dodge the damaging panels
2. don’t remove condis from boss when the vuln debuff is out
3. lower the boss’s damage and remove daze from 3rd attack.
4. make fixated stay longer

right now the fight punishes melee a lot….

1. Yeah I somewhat agree.. if you’re reliant on dodges because u don’t have easy access to block/invuln then yeah the tiles can be a real pain in the kitten . Plus I feel like dodges in this fight are largely useless, except if the charr guy with his oversized GS is chasing you constantly or if u need to panic dodge out of his circular spin thing. I’m 90% sure that blocks don’t work on those tiles either. Not sure if it’s good design to have something unblockable and undodgeable.. kinda seems to put down classes like warrior that are so reliant on them.

2. I don’t run condi build (no condi set yet but prob should use) so I don’t know what u mean

3. Why would you want to nerf him? Do you not realise his mechanics are kinda brainless as they are now. All he does is chase people around and use a simple autoattack chain (similar to warrior AA). It made me laugh the first time I noticed the boss actually.. and then my group proceeded to wipe right after that. The funny part was how I died.. I ate up ton of dmg from the tiles cos I had no idea where I was going then the charr guy came out of nowhere and downed me with a single swipe.. then auto-attacked me to death which was embarrassing to watch (and my group did stand by and watch this happen, I was among the first ones to die). If you ask me his AI is very brainless as it is now. I mean hes so blinded by chasing someone that hes willing to and actually walks voluntarily on those harmful tiles even though he knows it’ll break his shield if he does so? It’s like someone walking barefoot on hot coals without anyone driving or forcing them to. Hes actually a terrible warrior-boss too.. all he does it swing his sword around like an oversized club, no fancy attacks at all. If you’re too close to him all u need to do is dodge or move away on every 3rd consecutive hit tbh. The stun doesn’t even stun you (u can still move to avoid tiles). That’s important because 99% of the time the thing that’s going to mess you up are the tiles, and the fact that they make it so hard to rez someone downed anywhere that whole fight, it’s pretty much impossible unless boss is not chasing either of you and u would still need to interrupt res to avoid tiles. The boss by himself is kinda a distraction from the main problem (watching thr tiles) and only annoying thing he does is his spin and pull thing at 50% but as long as ur ranging you should be fine. You can even stay inside his AoE the whole time.. just use a combination of stability and a sustained block stance (or invuln, or sustain heal and double dodge). If you want to make this fight more interesting then sure nerf his autohits but make him able to leap and rush (similar to warrior GS skill) to someone so he can catch up to them, rather than chasing someone at close to 1/2x speed. He’s actually easier than other bosses once you figure out that he’s essentially like a rat in a maze filled with traps that are lethal to everyone, not just him. I actually had a group do the t4 chaos one only a few days ago where not a single one of us wiped or even downed that entire fight, that’s how easy it was. I was melee too, I was very close to getting downed near the end but somehow I survived it (it’s the tiles that can down u on low health imo, which means its ur own fault). And yes in case u were wondering that was with a pug

So the fights really easy.. like I mentioned he has only two interesting mechanics you need to be aware of (you can even discard these if ranging him whole time).. only TWO! The archdiviner in Cliffside (easy boss actually) even has better designed AI because he teles to farthest player and then knocks them down if not dodged properly in time. Actually KNOCKS them down! So yeah nerf his damage but pls add some interesting element like a knockdown/launch that would be fun to see how effective it is in that limited space and given the nature of the fight. I do agree balance it so melee is easier or not so punishable as it is though.. it basically forces u to range since u will get the benefit of better dps output as well as an easier time with boss, since u don’t need to worry about his damaging auto-hits. I don’t range either.. and my dps is kinda awful and it must be if I’m only managing to hit him 50% of the time and I have to keep interrupting my channeled bursts because he’s either going to swing his sword at me or spin around or chasing some random person who’s not me the whole time (unless minions or something so yeah I love when he gets fixated on them). Like its way more punishing and lethal for melee than even Bloomhunger at most times.. especially the way it’s designed. That’s all I want to see get fixed tbh

Coldtart.4785:

> be in well known raid guild
> make serious post about how to adjust a boss
> get told ‘git gud scrub’

Never change, GW2 forum.

Shush. We have the friendliest community in MMO’s!™

I think the Chaos boss is rather uninspired, to be honest. The conditions going away with the shield is bad design and was already fixed for Grawl boss, so it should be fixed here as well. Additionally, I think you should be able to evade frame the floor as well because it’s silly to have attacks that are unevadeable (it’s the primary active damage mitigation technique in-game).

I don’t have strong opinions on the other points, but I do think the fact that the boss just auto attack spams until he gets a breakbar is really silly. He needs some other mechanics for variety—Maybe a big PBAOE with a wind-up or a line attack or something.

Sarahfull.4930:

I believe the fight is fair, maybe look at KINGS guide on the fractal if you need to.

Yeah Subli, look at KINGs guide on the fractal if you need to.

Extra attacks would be awesome, make him interesting like bloom. Just.. Not sure if that’s possible, people can’t seem to cope with his atuo attack chain yet alone anything alse to be added.

Loop.8106:

Sarahfull.4930:

I believe the fight is fair, maybe look at KINGS guide on the fractal if you need to.

Yeah Subli, look at KINGs guide on the fractal if you need to.

id love to know how i can “git gud” on a melee class with kitten heals (warrior) when 3 hits takes most my hp and the third daze ruins any dps or might building i was going to do. let alone the fact he has to be on the panels constantly which i cannot get close enough to damage on.,

sophiewhite.3149:

id love to know how i can “git gud” on a melee class with kitten heals (warrior) when 3 hits takes most my hp and the third daze ruins any dps or might building i was going to do. let alone the fact he has to be on the panels constantly which i cannot get close enough to damage on.,

I run into similar problem so I can sympathize. Best advice I can give u is learn to adapt or give up try another class they might be better suited for the fight. I don’t run banners on the boss, waste of effort when the guy is running around like crazy and I can’t stop him. I take fury and dolyak signet and some kind of invuln so i can ignore dmg while I’m using skill 2 on gs. Yeah it only works for first two hits cos the next one stops u cold and interrupts ur hits unless u move away. So the way I learned to adapt is get close, headbutt invuln and burst for 2-3sec and ww/evade away before he interrupt hits me. Then there’s also berserk f1 along with ww to keep up dps when u don’t wanna get hit.. get used to range on that f1 u don’t need to be too close to him either so u can whack him on the go. The panels gave me trouble to but it’s really easy just understand that 8/10 times the adjacent tile if it’s purple then on the next tick it’ll be safe, while urs will turn purple. So do a quick hop and its enough. Other times u can run past quickly if ur caught in a cluster of purple titles, use some mobility and a class like that has enough tbh. So yeah not the most ideal and comfortable playstyle but it works better than u might think. When he’s chasing u (fixated I mean) you are going to run either way even if u are ranged, so ur dps will drop close to 0 unless he gets fixated on someone else. In this group I had we wiped once on this boss, both times me and another warrior were staying alive most of the time (he wasn’t the only one ofc) so it was interesting to see that yeah, class rly doesn’t matter overall as much as familiarity with the fight.

sophiewhite.3149:

id love to know how i can “git gud” on a melee class with kitten heals (warrior) when 3 hits takes most my hp and the third daze ruins any dps or might building i was going to do. let alone the fact he has to be on the panels constantly which i cannot get close enough to damage on.,

I don’t know the warrior class at all although I’ll try help. Yea, in this fight you won’t the full100blades on him. The only opening I can think of is when he goes for his breakbar move (bb). So maybe something like headbutt into 100b?
How does that healing stance fair in this matchup? Turning damage into healing could be helpfull and might allow you to stand on the coloured floor for health and to get strong hits in.
The only other thing I can think of is sidesteping is faster than your backstep so you may want to be kinda side on and just hit him with the tip of your weapon if that makes sense while you chase him or be chased around the floor.

This is more in general, Don’t forget you can’t read your PuGs mind and they can’t read yours. Feel free to ask everyone to bring one cc and even offer to call out the bb move. The first one is at 50% then every 18sec aftetwards so you could call it out earler like 15-16 to give people a heads up.

sophiewhite.3149:

id love to know how i can “git gud” on a melee class with kitten heals (warrior) when 3 hits takes most my hp and the third daze ruins any dps or might building i was going to do. let alone the fact he has to be on the panels constantly which i cannot get close enough to damage on.,

try using gs rifle instead of gs a/m so that you have a weapon swap that is useful. i mean, you are swapping your weapon once in a while, right? its one of the things you should be doing in t4 fractals unless youre playing necro.

Camping melee should only work when you can both outmaneuver the purple squares and multiple people are melee or close too (optimally all party) so you are not focused by the boss all the time. Just have a longbow as your second weapon, its not bad in warrior as I heard and your weapon swap cooldown is even lesser than others so you can jump to melee when opportunity rises.

I forgot to mention this bc I didnt even realise it at the time but OP has a strong case because the 3rd hit (which dazes anyone nearby, and so basically discourages the use of melee dps since it interrupts any melee dmg being dealt to him) actually has a circular radius extending around him maybe till arms length, a little bit past his melee hit range. It’s similar to GS f1 kill on warr I guess in that someone in close proximity behind him would also get hit by the daze, putting all their skills on cd at same time. Honestly the entire mechanics of fight discourages any sort of melee builds since its hard to land a hit on him without it coming down to trading blows with him. His circular attack alone (and the fact it’s on his AA chain means he uses it maybe 30% of the time if he’s allowed to stand still, vs. basically never if his chain gets interrupted by him constantly moving around) would strongly dissuade prolonged melee combat. So even if a rangers pet is holding his attention, me sneaking up behind him solves nothing since I still have to backpedal away unless I want to get smacked by the last hit on his AA chain. Not to mention, the fact that his shield is constantly reapplied means he needs to be kited to the purple tiles. If I’m remembering it correctly, this is only a problem past midway through the fight or so when the area of purple tiles becomes larger to the point he’s basically surrounded on all sides by them, making it impossible to get close to him in order to sustain dps (a problem that anyone ranging him shouldn’t have).

Ill be honest, as melee class I am sometimes intimidated by fights that are more severely punishing towards melee combat. I honestly can’t name any encounters in fractals that would similarly discourage ranged combat, or at least not handicap them more than their melee counterparts would be. I see some punishing mechanics every now and then especially geared towards ranged users in open world.. but off the top of my head can’t think of an any in fractals (maybe in the molten fractal one to some degree). I like challenges like approaching bloomhunger from a melee perspective. But while they should be harder or more punishing towards melee, I feel it should also at the same time be more rewarding if used correctly or say in a certain way. This encounter is probably the worst example in fractals atm of mechanics being balanced and equally considerate of both melee/ranged builds.

I main a warr in fractals, and this boss is primarily the reason I stopped doing the Saturday Night Fever Frac (so named because the final boss fight looks like it is fought on a 70’s disco dance floor). The mechanics really force you to go ranged to survive, and as a warr, I hate dusting off my ranged weapons. Seriously though, one minor change would make this frac much more enjoyable – make the frequency between the dance floor change longer. Currently, the squares go from safe to deadly every 2 seconds (or at least it feels like 2 seconds). Changing the interval to 5 seconds or greater would allow us to enjoy the fight more and spend less time staring at our feet.

Pretty sure the change interval is 5 seconds or more on 88.

CptAurellian.9537:

Pretty sure the change interval is 5 seconds or more on 88.

point is even if it was 10 sec it wouldn’t change much. assuming you get him to purple tiles – he stays on purple that entire time. It only becomes a problem as u progress in fight and tile patterns start getting more complicated. its very easy to have him stand in a large area of purple tiles. so entire time until tiles change it renders him basically invulnerable to melee damage, which is not balanced in that sense. Plus his hits do cleave through huge chunk of your health.. so even if u have a lot more time to stick in place and melee him, theres still risk of him turning and hitting u or his circular attack interrupting ur hits whether it lands or doesn’t.

n3rf pl0x.

kthx.

As other people said on above, the fight indeed is heavily punishing to melee: in fact, there is no way to stand on the same 4 panels most of the time (which would be an “acceptable” melee locking him into position) without confusion cleaving through whatever heals you bring, on top of the third, circular auto attack.

However, I think rather than changing this, Anet should introduce more range punishing content for Fractals; as it is right now, there is absolutely no instance at all where it is not the absolutely best idea ever to simply bring two (or five!) necros and cleave through every damage with jagged horrors. There is nothing as interesting as Sloth or VG split phase, or even escort where you’d be punished for going away from your team. Even Bloomhunger is absolutely doable once you’re a 5 man ranged team. Snowblind boss has an attack that you can dodge into him to avoid, but it’s not really punishing to range players since they won’t even be on the range of the attack anyway.

Since fractals have no time limit it is the perfect content to force players into bringing original hybrid builds that can off-range or off-melee when required to. But no, let’s make some “elite” content that has a clear cut meta for everyone to blindly follow. Fractal team could learn a lot about making use of the environment from raid team (they are actually, but Bloomhunger is still not quite there yet).

Just leave it to the GW2 community to unwillingly make the most hilarious responses.

I agree that losing conditions on barrier-renewal and the daze on the auto are bad design choices. There is always a difference between difficult and frustrating/annoying, those two “mechanics” fall into the latter category, the daze more so than the condi cleanse imo.

@maxwelgm: Stacking necros is never the best choice, it is merely the laziest solution. Also, going ranged is punishing in itself as you lose more group buffs the further you are away. Not to mention that you can technically do fractals (and raids) with whatever build you want and it’d work out

maxwelgm.4315:

However, I think rather than changing this, Anet should introduce more range punishing content for Fractals; as it is right now, there is absolutely no instance at all where it is not the absolutely best idea ever to simply bring two (or five!) necros and cleave through every damage with jagged horrors. There is nothing as interesting as Sloth or VG split phase, or even escort where you’d be punished for going away from your team. Even Bloomhunger is absolutely doable once you’re a 5 man ranged team. Snowblind boss has an attack that you can dodge into him to avoid, but it’s not really punishing to range players since they won’t even be on the range of the attack anyway.

Mai Trin does her teleport attack onto the target which is furthest away from her at the start of the cast, think the Archdiviner does the same with his rush attack. The Thaumanova Anomaly, Frizz and the Grawl Shaman (not demonified) both do “random” (Anomaly more random than the Shaman) reflects which can easily obliterate a staff elementalist or anyone standing between a staff elementalist (or other projectile users) and the boss. IIRC Ashym also only does his gs jump attack against ranged players.
These are the range punishing fractal boss skills I can remember, some trash mobs also have similar skills. The reflects of course will barely affect necros (only when they shoot their dagger 4 in one, and that is always fun to watch), but multiple necros is only the “best” option for pure pick up group: a good nekro should only die in extreme situations making multiple downed or wipes improbable.
Groups that have played together for some time could achieve faster clear times with other compositions (if they want to, some players are comfortable just getting things done).

Bohantopa.5729:

These are terrible examples.. with every one u list u are actually proving our case more and more, that most fights are generally skewed in favor of ranged users. Is there some other reason that 90% of groups for fotm I find have more ranged players than melee ones? Many time I am only one meleeing boss (like bloomhunger, mai trin and chaos boss most often). You are clearly unaware of many things.. ur just throwing up examples of any boss that punishes ranged users in any way, when fact is melee users are punished more and often. Or do u think I’m wrong? Let’s go over the ones u list then.

• Mai trin does a very obvious tele attack that has a huge tell. U have more then enough time to swap sets to block or reflect if needed, even simply using movement skills will allow u to escape and not take damage. You fail to mention how her lightning whip attack can one-shot easily if ur stacked on top of her (happened to me occasionally) or deal significantly more dmg the closer u are to her. Her attack has a much shorter tell as well, as well it can’t be reflected or blocked either from what I’m aware, can only be dodged. Not to mention the fact that she applies bleed stacks with every auto hit, so if ur melee u can run up to 30 stacks and down easily if not cleansed. Do ranged users have this problem? Then there is aoe’s which almost always target an area close to Mai grin, which means if ur melee u will often have to interrupt ur hits. Does this happen to ranged users? No, because they have enough warning to move out of aoes while still hitting boss (don’t even need to dodge most times). This is probably worst example that u gave. Remember what I said about fights being more punishing for melee then ranged builds. Listing random examples of how ranged classes are inconvenienced doesn’t prove anything. For every single one u name I can name two other mechanics that are more lethal to melee players. How about subject 6? There’s another right there.

• Archdiviner’s mechanic that punishes ranged classes is a joke. How do I know? I’ve been far enough from him that he targets me. It’s easily dodgeable and has a significant enough tell. First he pauses, looks in ur direction (easier to see if spread out), then blinks and then reappears a moment later next to u. U have easily more than a second’s notice to dodge or move out of the way. That’s even more warning than Bloomhunger’s leap/pounce gives u. What about his melee punishing mechanics? Random aoe’s that spawn around him (most times on top of him), aoe hammer attack that usually one-shots players directly in front of him, and charged melee hit that stuns or KD’s melee users. You see? I just list 3 mechanics that are more punishing for melee classes for the one u gave.

• Thaumanova Anamoly is an easy boss once u get used to the mechanics. I’ve even duo’d him with rev starting from 25% when whole group alrdy wiped. The only other guy was a necro who was ranging whole time, he barely took dmg while I came very lose to downing once. PS u might wanna read up on wiki before making these claims. Not sure if it’s updated but it says that he only reflects hits when he starts spinning around and drops those orbs onto platforms. So at that time ur only bothered abt moving and dodging them – just stop to catch ur breath and u take no damage. What’s so hard abt it? I’ve even been one-shot when melee once when I was 60% health. Insta downed then I fell down. Explain to me what happened? It’s a rare chance sure but that was frustrating since I had no warning he’d do that. And yes something downed me before I fell, and wasn’t those orbs either.

• Grawl shaman – another terrible example, no group I’ve ever had has wiped at him. Thaumanova anomaly is arguably an easier boss and I had multiple group wipe on him sometimes. He also has a large windup aoe that only hits melee – e.g. if u panic and move away early, u lose out on like 10sec of dps each time he uses it. Whereas ranged users have anything similar that limits their dps? No using a glass ele here doesn’t do anything to prove ur case. Ele are generally squishy by design so u are just listing the only ranged class that is easy to down. No one ranging this boss even manages to die, so ur complaining over nothing yet again.

• Ashym is another similar example that works against u. He has more mechanics punishing melee than ranged, this is easy for anyone to see. He has that agony pulse thing that only affects melee players stacked close to him. His aoe he uses past 50% will more often than not target any npc’s or players stacked close to him. His whirl does significantly more damage if ur close to him afaik, whereas ranged u actually have a chance to dodge out of the way (slim chance, but better). I can confirm his leap also hits in melee range as he’s done to me once, as well him throwing orbs with GS hits u hard in the face if ur stacked close to him.

nagr.1593:

Is there some other reason that 90% of groups for fotm I find have more ranged players than melee ones?

90% of people act as if ranged is the safer option, regardless of content, pretty much everywhere I go in the game.

Typically, melee does more damage and it’s easier to share boons/buffs, so game developers trying to balance it against ranged often introduce mechanics that raise the risk. When the game launched, it was all too easy to 100B on cooldown, without worrying about much; you just needed to be a little careful. Now, the mechanics reward those who are lot more skilled than the majority of us (including myself): if you can survive at close range, stuff dies more quickly, which is another way of staying alive.

In other words, I think it’s perfectly okay to see a greater number of mechanics that make melee more difficult compared to those that make ranged more difficult. To me, it’s an acceptable way of increasing the risk of high-reward game play.

Besides that, Chaos boss just isn’t that hard, as long as people understand the mechanics. If everyone survives (rather than dying to stuns on the confusion platforms, etc), then the boss dies regardless of whether people are that efficient or not. (Of course, lots of people currently have trouble surviving, but I think that is more a matter of practice/experience, not of an imbalanced fight.)

I’m not against ANet tweaking the fight. Some of it isn’t that ‘fun’. I just don’t think it’s urgent, even though my usual group still struggles with it.

nagr.1593:

I just posted the skills that are mainly punishing ranged damage dealers. There are other skills which target ranged and melees equally and of course some which only affect melees.
Now to my “bad” examples:

Mai Trin:
Yes the teleport shot can be blocked/reflected, of course you need to have the appropiate skills for that. A basic staff zerker ele has 1 reflect on a too long cd. If an elementalist wants to have more reflects they would have to give up an utility slot and still have too long cds. To have enough projectile defece and still be efficient an ele would have to go d/f so basically melee. Also if multiple people are ranged, it gets difficult to know who the actual target is.
Her spin shot (the lightning) shoots 1 projectile per target, if you clumb up multiple will hit one person, so stand around her at melee not all at one point (and check if you have other players behind you), hide behind a pet or just dodge it, it has an at least a good a tell as the teleport shot.
Her normal attack can easily be avoided by going max range melee, breaking her bar or stepping behind her. The aoes are targeted around a (random) player, they hit range and melee equally (I wish they would always spawn around her, would make reducing her stacks so much easier).

Archdiviner:
It’s more of a rush than a blink (you can see him run for a short time), it’s easy to dodge i give you that, still it’s a skill only used against ranged targets. Of course i forgot about his reflect (only during first phase i believe) which stops every projectile user from dealing damage. Also if you are not at max range but just a few steps away from him dodging his hammer smash is harder than at melee, you actually have to use a dodge, as melee you can just run out of it by stepping behind him.

Thaumanova Anamoly:
That it can be duo’ed from 25-0 is nothing special, done the same with the chaos boss. And i’ve not wiped more often in chaos than in thaumanova.
About the reflect, yes I know he reflects during his spin but when does he start his spin? It could be the moment i finish my cast or even while the ball is in flight (and due to having quickness I’ve just finished a second cast). The animation that he will start his reflect is really short and fireballs cant be "un"cast. A single fireball can take me below 40% (or kill me if I’m not at full health or fully buffed).
I have never seen his “Star Smash” attack (even when i meleed him i’ve never been launched), which is his only attack that only targets melee. What has happened to me as ranged and as melee is being focused (gaze → bomb → gaze → bomb etc) which forced me to keep moving and healing while the rest of the group dealt with him.
What could have killed you could have been the new instability where the pvp laser hits a large area. The aoe circle is not visible on the platforms, if if came down behind you you would not notice it. It deals a ton of damage. But that is not a skill of that boss and also affects ranged dps. Next time it happens, check you combat log.

Grawl shaman:
He reflects while he spins. So while you cant get close, projectile users also wont deal damage. He also only starts spinning if someone goes closer than max range melee (a tactic that i rarely see nowadays), so for him it’s the melees fault if they (and the range dps) cant deal damage.
His “windup” is not the whirl but the earth explosion (cant remember the name). Easily avoidable by dodging when the earth ring circle gets close to the red circle or by breaking his bar while he channels.

Ashym:
Except for his auto attack, all his skills can also target ranged dps (and even his auto becomes ranged in later phases). His agony pulse (the fire explosion) hits players at range, not sure about the range but it’s at least 900.
Melees just have less area to dodge which is the case everywhere, but you should have more buffs than the ranged guys (and should also have an easier time seeing the tells).

Now about changes to the chaos boss: some changes would be nice, especially 1 (so far it’s another exception to the “rule”: everything can be dodged) and 2 (it’s a big disadvantage to the condi damage dealers).
I would be fine with one of the changes of 3, so either reduced damage or removal of daze. Otherwise it will be the same as (most) other bosses: everyone cuddle at him and deal damage but I’m also fine with keeping it the way it is.
I’m against change number 4. I’ve had groups where the fixated person did not pull the boss through active fields while the boss had the shield up. Also a lot of people just run a big circle while they are fixated. This keeps the boss somewhere in the middle (letting his aoe reach almost the whole platform) and keeps the boss moving, so stationary attacks (firefields, 100b, etc.) can barely hit him. That change would mainly help experienced groups (that should not have a problem) and could hurt pug groups.

For number 2… Maybe he has an unstrippable Resistance while the shield is up. This way no damage is happening. But we don’t have to reapply conditions.

Fixated should last longer I think.

If something will be done, either lower the damage OR remove the daze, not both

Bohantopa.5729:

Is there any mechanic used by a boss in fractals that only punish ranged users, and punishes them more than other mechanics used by the boss that similarly punish only melee users? That was my point.. and the answer is almost always no.

Here my point again is that you are nit-picking.. read my post again thoroughly, please. Blocks/reflects are not only thing that works at mai train.. timed correctly, movement skills also work in avoiding dmg and the wiki similarly corroborates this. You have burning retreat on staff with a much lower cd.. surely u can use that. Even in worst case scenario, so you will be forced to take a reflect/block as a utility skill. Do you realise other classes are forced to do something similar? Warrior has to take a utility for condi cleanse. Why should your class similarly not have to compensate for lacking in something else? Don’t argue that it’s because melee should have higher risk than ranged. It’s already the case in this fight, u only have to deal with one hit she uses only every 15sec or so and even then it’s not guaranteed she’s gonna target u. Whereas melee has to continuously deal with other issues.. bleeds on every auto, aoe half the time landing right on top of boss (need to interrupt dps only if melee), not to mention dodging her whip attack which has a shorter tell than her tele one.. if you aren’t aware that it requires much quicker reaction time to dodge this especially if closer than u clearly haven’t done this before. Your argument that the solution to dealing with her auto hit is to jump being her or stay at max melee range makes no sense. I stated most times I’m the only one meleeing this boss, which means 9/10 times she will hit me in melee. Going behind her solves nothing.. she turns with every auto hit. Max melee range does nothing, she just comes up closer to you. Honestly I’m starting to wonder if you’ve ever meleed this boss before. Melee is unsustainable for long without external heals.. thus in pug groups a necessity to jump out of close quarters and heal up, deal with bleeds etc. When I do this, there’s a good chance she can tele to me too when I get far enough. Thus it’s not a mechanic specifically against ranged users.. and also how I know that her tele by itself is not that damaging. It’s much lower dmg compared to her whip and auto bleeds, which u would only know if melee. When I’m anticipating her whip attack many times I have to stop dps and hang back a while, bc it’s borderline impossible to see when ur so close to her and channeling a burst skill. I can dodge it, but it has a shorter tell. You have lot more room with her tele attack that doesn’t punish u as much.

As for thaumanova boss.. again with a glass ele example. You agree he is an easy boss, how can u accuse him of having punishing mechanics? The entire point of the fight is to spread out, everyone even melee is lacking in buffs and heals and generally weaker as a result. Warrior has no condi cleanse on weps.. so sometimes the condi is enough to down me when I’m low health. Do u see me complain? No I swap to another class like rev when it’s obvious I can’t survive his focus fire along with condis from both his hits and some instabilities. I don’t complain how warrior is weak there cos of only condi cleanse on utility with a long cd. Just like you complain how you can’t “uncast” a fireball. You can’t uncast any skill, ever, especially if it’s an auto hit as opposed to a channeled one. If you have a problem with this then pls don’t blame the fight but instead blame the game.

When you bring up Archdiviner’s rush attack on ranged targets.. yes his targets have to be further away but doesn’t necessarily mean they are ranged dmg. Given the frequency with which he teles from one ranged player to another, it’s hard to keep up with him as melee even with a class like warrior. At that instant, bc he’s further away from you he might well decide to target you, despite u being a melee class. This happens often even after an invuln phase.. after the seal is struck, u need to close distance to him. Sometimes he will target you even as u move towards him. As well, on high lvls the windup on his hammer aoe is somewhat short. Short enough that, yes u will indeed have to dodge as melee. Besides your argument as it is.. that u have to waste an extra dodge as opposed to melee users.. It’s a weak one, anyone can tell u that. You won’t have time to just walk out when ur melee as u think, u could be channeling a skill and be forced to dodge. So if ur further back, simply dodge backwards once. What’s so hard about that?

Grawl shamans spin attack.. I honestly don’t know when it’s ever a problem since I’ve never seen it. The wiki doesn’t even mention it.. I have to wonder if it’s an actual mechanic. Either way, a mechanic that he rarely uses and maybe once in the fight hardly counts. I never see anyone down on him, especially if ranged.

(Sorry I have to make second post.. but I don’t think I can trim the previous one down any more)

As for Ashym.. imagine this scenario: most of your group is melee. Thus most stack on him, resulting in him casting his fireball aoe on himself. What’s the best course of action here? Nothing, just stand around and wait him out.. unless u wanna go in and risk downing as a result. Thus, another dps loss only for melee. I’m not sure about his agony pulse thing but it’s similarly a dps loss. The range is maybe not 900 but a quick dodge backwards will mitigate most dmg. As opposed to max range.. well then, u don’t have to waste a dodge at all do u (as per your previous argument at one point). Besides the wiki does also clearly state again and again, ranged is the best and safest option for this fight.. which only agrees with my point that literally every fight is like that.

Let’s take chaos boss again as example.. constant melee hits that deal tons of dmg and also have a chance to daze u, whereas in comparison his mechanics that specifically target ranged only? None, absolutely none. Yes he does chase but he’s not fast enough to catch anyone, he only punishes melee and only does hits in close combat, and hits hard. The problem with tiles.. is maybe even worse than I thought. Can someone confirm that invuln does in fact protect u from dmg and confusion on tiles? I wasn’t rly paying attention but I think my invuln on warrior still let me take hits from tiles.. which is odd. I wouldn’t mind a little variation in his attack pattern either. Either get rid of daze, or limit it’s frequency and add another move as well. Something similar to jade armor, a small aoe tell around him followed by him whirling around in something similar to a bladestorm and anyone close to him can take insane dmg or risk getting pushing off the edge easily. It would make it more challenging but also it would make melee more useful than it is in the fight. How long can u sustain dps when ur forced to dodge out every 3rd hit, or risk getting downed by his punishing hits? Best case scenario your dps is halved.. adding the problem with tiles as well. Whereas ranged is still strong, throughout the entire fight yes? Yes I agree make melee high risk high reward but right now it’s just stupid hard.. and it’s not even noticeably rewarding as much as it is punishing and relentless. Classes like warrior don’t even have the sustained heal to deal with his constantly punishing hits, I shouldn’t have to be afraid of him downing me every time I get close or the tiles changing right under my feet, if his auto hit takes me down to low health then the tiles could finish me off especially with confusion added on bc there’s an added retribution on counter hit.Tell me ranged have this same problem. Again, difference between challenging and stupid hard as it is. Make melee have high risk but don’t discourage it altogether (they have done somewhat similar thing with bloomhunger imo).

About removing his condis when he goes invuln.. well, that’s kinda what invuln means. He’s protected from all hits including condi for the duration.. that means even if condi stacks weren’t removed, it still shouldn’t affect him. I dunno maybe I’m wrong but that’s how I see it