Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to start a tally of which fractals people think are the hardest, and the easiest. Here’s the list from my experience (lv20)…

8. Cliffside
7. Volcanic
6. Underground Facility
5. Urban Battlegrounds
4. Uncategorized
3. Snowblind
2. Swampland
1. Aquatic Ruins

8 and 7 are debatable, since I’ve had equal difficulty with both. Please post your lists!

Hmm, its kinda hard categorizing them like that…so I’d go about it like this:

Fractals with some challenge:
Underground, volcanic, cliffside

Fractals with almost no challenge:
Urban battlegrounds, snowblind

Fractals with no challenge:
Uncategorized, aquatic ruins, swampland

Really lame to categorize the fractals like this and even forgot one of them. Which scale are you on? 2 ?

fotm 22

1. Underground Facility
This is imho unfair…..f you have 2 glass cannon in party you could even quit at higher levels….

2. Volcanic, this is quite harsh….

3 cliffside
3rd floor is really too hard

Boss shows clearly equip >>>> skill…(NB i am overequipped and seeing the difficult is just agony AoE)

the others are quite balanced

You guys should state what is your current FOTM level before rating them.
It differs as you are going up the tiers.

Level 18.

Dredge is the only one I’d consider to be hard. If your party isn’t good then you can get screwed with the switches at the beginning and it can take a very long time. With a good party it’s manageable but this one is the one that relies the most on a good party.

For the rest they aren’t difficult, it’s just a matter of which ones are longer and which ones are more annoying. Cliffside isn’t hard in the slightest but it takes forever, so it’s my second least favorite.

I’m on 20. I have no wish to go further, its quite dull and repetitive already. I run with mostly the same people every time though.

Completed lvl 50. I can’t really comment on this tier yet. But If I were to rate my experience in the forties, I’d say dredge Is the most boring and tirering. There is a lot of mobs, several veterans, where most of them have good abilities. It’s a slugfest getting through, and the events that you have to do usually involves dying in order to complete. For example, there is little chance to survive on the platforms in the start. Next you have to either gun down a reinforced wall or bomb it. The latter is the hardest because of massive amounts of dredge, and the bombs can be removed, they do little dmg, so you’ll have to do it more than once and such. The fractal feels twice as long as every other fractal and it wears you out.

I’d say the one that is the most fun by being challenging is the volcanic themed fractal, simply because it requires the group to be effectively on their guard the whole time, and the group have to keep moving around. Swampland is easy if you get Mossman, Bloomy is slightly harder, but a good rotation handles him easily. Cliffside can be a little anoying in the later parts, but everything else is quite easy with decent teamwork. Lately we’ve been experiencing some weird glitches where the legendary mob would be static for two durations at the last part, instead of one.

Havn’t really been getting the snow fractal lately, but everything is pretty easy, albeit sluggish, feels like you have to spend too much time on mobs and ice elemental, and when you get to the boss you simply kite him around a bit and that’s it. The focus should be a build up to the main boss, not simply stuff thrown at you without concern or thought, just to fill out some time.

Aquatic is very easy, but it has been getting slightly harder to clear the mobs, but not really any concern. They’re certainly not on the dredge level of annoyance. The last boss feels tagged on though, an is simply a glide around and shoot kind of fight. Therefore its not challenging, nor engaging.

Honestly I liked swampland the most, as it was a fast fractal where you had to engage the boss after very little amount of fuss. Volcanic has definitely been growing on me, and has become one of my favourites over time. Simply because seems to award good play and good rotation and teamwork, moreso than other fractals.

Sinnq.6498:

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definitely agree. it is such a drag going through cliffside, dredge, and fighting the jellyfish boss, that I would totally rather have lava instead.

I think it is pointless to rate them in general.
Their difficulties differ a lot with levels and groups. Some are extremely hard with a PuG but easy with a guild run who can coordinate, while some does not make much difference while in PuG or guild group. It also varies with the people involved, some depends on profession composition too.

Hologramx.6402:

I think it is pointless to rate them in general.
Their difficulties differ a lot with levels and groups. Some are extremely hard with a PuG but easy with a guild run who can coordinate, while some does not make much difference while in PuG or guild group. It also varies with the people involved, some depends on profession composition too.

True. Some of those wisp groups I’ve pugged has been hilariously bad. But that stems from the players, not from the map. Therefore there belies a certain way to ascertain a maps difficulty. Play with a group over the course of several fractals, and the pattern becomes easier to determine.

At high fractal levels, in order of difficulty:

Dredge
Grawl (Volcanic)
Cliffside
Snowblind
Uncategorized
Ascalon
Swamp
Aquatic

Rationale/analysis:

Dredge – Worst fractal design. By far the longest and most tedious. Door section requires death or spy kit usage. The boss fight lasts way longer than it needs to.

Grawl – I think this one is well designed. The boss fight seems dynamic and mechanically interesting.

Cliffside – The chest, arms, and final boss can all provide a challenge to groups. Overall I think it’s well designed, but they need to fix the falling death glitch.

Snowblind – This fractal needs retuning. At high levels, the campfire with waves of archers is the hardest part, followed by the ice elemental, and the final boss is an easy snooze fest. It should build up in difficulty, not the other way around.

Uncategorized – Harpies are the “hardest” part. You’ll get past them eventually, but it may take a while if you don’t have many reflects. Final boss is fairly easy with the ceiling trick.

Ascalon – This is actually one of my favorite fractals. Lots of loot, fun fights, and epic feel. It feels like the right length that a fractal should be, too.

Swamp – I like this fractal as well. At low levels it’s extremely frustrating, but at 26+ when people know what they’re doing it’s fast and efficient.

Aquatic – Wow this fractal is horrible. The final boss needs to be like 1/4 the current duration. If the boss fight doesn’t have phases, then it shouldn’t last more than 2 minutes.

lv40

Would almost agree with the list of Limnage, some of the fractals rating are class depending.

dredge
grawl
cliffside
ascalon – uncategorized – snowblind (order of those is partly class depending, can’t decide here)
swamp
underwater

reasons:

Dredge:
It’s a good rewarding frac esp due to the 2nd last event with an insane amount of mobs starting at lv30. Doors are without a thief in party rather hard to do, with one that knows what to do its easy (esp for right door [bombs]). However, the final bosses are a joke at higher lvls. For the dredge boss if you miss one double dodge of his agony attack you are least downed and you can never evade all 3 waves at a 100% rate because there can always hit 1 attack in beetween your both dodges. For the ice elemental I still can’t figure out which of his attacks causing the agony.

Grawl:
Vets at the first champ are getting harder and harder to kill in time esp. if your team consists of some def players. Once they managed to kick one down, they start to do an almost insane amount of dmg + pulling your whole group. Final bossing I have nothing to say about though, but at least you are able to dodge everything 100%. Without reflects/absorbs this frac is probably the hardest ones at higher lvls because you won’t be able to ress without them.

Cliffside:
After all those fixes it meanwhile rather easy to kill the final boss which decreases the difficulty a lot. Arm seals are the only hard part but still easy to do if everyone knows what to do. Grab attack + light attack of the final boss are the only risk and easy to dodge for every class (esp without having issues to kill the mobs now).

Ascalon:
Easy and rather fast frac esp. due to all the vet npcs you got. Only annoying thing here are warriors and mages – you barely can see the attacks of those mages while doing insane damage. However, the final boss again is more or less a joke. Agony attack got a short range and even for those with low attack range (thief-.- only one with 900 on normal hit though) there is more than enough time to dodge/run out of range. Meteor is dangerous but good visible.

Harpyies:
nothing more to say… annoying but thats it. Just annoying.

Snowblind:
Archer’s AoE hit a lot of not dodging out fast enough but they die faster than most other mobs. With a guard, mesmer or thief (better 2 of them in total) they become a lot easier due to reflects/absorbs. Talking of a personal view, I can let my party skip the first fire by doing it alone with stealth skills and some spy kits.

Swamp/Underwater:
nothing to say, by far the easiest ones.

Level 31

1 – Aquatic (But longer and more boring than Swamp)
2 – Swampland
3 – Ascalon
4 – Snowblind
5 – Underground Facility
6 – Cliffside (Post fix)
7 – Uncategorized (Without cheating)
8 – Volcano

SET.3275:

Really lame to categorize the fractals like this and even forgot one of them. Which scale are you on? 2 ?

I’m on FOTM lv20 (as I put in parenthesis on my original post), and I’ve done around 300 fractals. I didn’t forget Jade Maw, I merely left it out since its a “bonus” fractal, and isn’t that hard to begin with.

Level 11

9. Underground Facility
8. Volcanic
7. Snowblind
6. Swampland Fractal
5. Cliffside Fractal
4. Solid Ocean Fractal
3. Urban Battlegrounds Fractal
2. Aquatic Ruins Fractal
1. Uncategorized Fractal

Im level 11.

Ive barely found any of them hard. The only one I have is the dredge. Its harder the lower level your playing though. Levels 1-3 can be a real nightmare as it takes a bit of experience in understanding what your supposed to do. I noticed a fair bit of an increase in difficulty in “uncategorized” after you hit 10. The boss does agony damage (which most people dont have resistance for at this level), the harpys knock you off the jumping section and for Old Tom you seem to need 3 on fan + batteries when prior to level 10 1 person could work all 3 whilst the other 4 attacked.

(lvl27)

9. Underground Facility
8. Volcanic
7. Cliffside
6. Uncategorized
5. Snowblind
4. Urban Battlegrounds
3. aquatic Ruins
2. Solid Ocean
1. Swampland

reasons:

9. Underground Facility:
it is long,it is hard, it makes a lot of ppl rage at each other and have a few mechanics that’s not generally known ( namely the bomb run and the ice elemental boss). it brings a lot of loot though, so its a good fractal to farm but thats basically the only +.
8. Volcanic:
as earlier posts said, if your party don’t have the dps or the cc to take down the schamans, then you are gonna have a bad time.( this isn’t a problem until higher 30s i’d imagine) the last boss is probably the hardest boss to do with a pug. although its a pretty easy boss until the adds spawns.
7. Cliffside:
only hard part is the 3:d floor. if there is 1 person who kills the last mob from the first 2 mobs at each seal. then this phase will become a lot harder. but that’s about it.
6. Uncategorized:
I hate this fractal soooooooooo much. this fractal alone is tempting me to do a necro shroud build somehow. because 1. the knockdown area is so big the circle sometimes cant be seen on the platform. 2. the visual effect are pretty poor because it’s a bright sparky thing that on a bright background. 3. the harpies them self have no visual give away that they are using the ability. 4. even if i could see the red circle on the platform. i would’t see it because i have to look up in order to place down aoe / target enemies)
5. Snowblind:
i was unsure if this was at 5 or at 4. but i decided it was a 5 because it’s annoying. part1 is quite easy. all u have to do is kite. and like others before me have said: “if u don’t feel for it just use a few spykits”. the middle boss is kinda annoying due to the removing the ability to see anything. but it’s a structure so you cant lose progress upon wipe.
4. Urban Battlegrounds:
same difficulty as the snowblind i’d say but slightly less annoying. hardest parts is the boss and the taking of the center but with proper control of the npc’s this shouldn’t be to much of a problem.
3. aquatic Ruins:
easy, i don’t think i’ve ever gotten my Armour broken here, ever. unless i forgot to remove my breather during the 2nd part.
2. Solid Ocean:
i have this as a second easiest because it is always the same difficulty. the first adds a seen as high level loot chests just waiting to get opened. the boss fight it self only scale with agony. witch only become a problem at higher levels ( or not having enough with resistance) if u don’t have a guardian.
1. Swampland:
this is pretty much like the solid ocean, it remain the same difficulty. however in the first few (1-10) levels this fractals is often regarded as the hardest.

SET.3275:

Really lame to categorize the fractals like this and even forgot one of them. Which scale are you on? 2 ?

If you consider Jade Maw even remotely resembling something hard one should question what scale YOU are on.

Just wow… What an idiotic troll post.

8. Volcanic
7. Underground Facility
6. Cliffside
5. Urban Battlegrounds (this gets hard after lvl 50+ since every warrior 1hits you)
4. Uncategorized
3. Snowblind
2. Swampland
1. Aquatic Ruins