Guild Wars 2

I’ll keep this short, it’s absolute poo.
stability-check
speed boost-check
jumping traps-check
mes portal-check
dungeon changes 3 times, consecutively in the same run and i don’t know if this is a bug, but i got knocked down consistantly through stability-broke the stun with SiO (warrior) and knocked down again.

To summarize, it’s not fun to spend upwards of one and a half hours working through fracts only to hit the swamp and have the party call it. this has happened twice now the first party i was with didn’t even want to attempt it and couldn’t be bothered to rerun the 1st 2 fracts either.

Anyone got any advice on the swamp fract too that would be great

thanks in advance.

just keep practicing and one day you will start to love it. Some pug groups even refuse to start a fractal run without doing the swamp as the first one

There’s a reason why, once you hit the high 20s, everyone tends to roll for swamp/water/ascalon. You’ll get good at it. Just jump over the logs and traps.

For an experienced group, swamp literally takes 5 minutes to finish if that.

After several runs you can memorise the locations of most traps, just jump, dodge or teleport/shadowstep over them. Add on to SteepledHat’s post, swamp is arguably the quickest fractal to complete.

Ya im one of those people that see swamp and scream “yaaaaaaa!”

Its the fotm level you’re at, thats all.

First part isn’t difficult once you get used to it and can be done really fast. Bloom is ok but Mossman is just a pain to be honest, not because of damage or axes but because of stealth, it makes the fight way too long and boring.

I find it hard to believe it’s a struggle with mesmer portal. There are 3 easy locations, 1 left, and the two close ones on the right. Anything else you can have the mesmer lay portal and bring it to the back.

Mesmer portal is a major overkill. If one can’t run from farthest point in time to make it, then just go in solo and practice run a few times. This part is so laughably easy, all you need is self speed boost, and it’s done in 30 seconds.

Trollhammer.7439:

Mesmer portal is a major overkill. If one can’t run from farthest point in time to make it, then just go in solo and practice run a few times. This part is so laughably easy, all you need is self speed boost, and it’s done in 30 seconds.

I agree it’s overkill. But if you can make something easier why not?

Easiest fractal to do but that can only be said after multiple failures.

In the first few weeks of fotm’s release this was a majorly hated fractal but now many of us cheer when we roll it. Once you run it a bunch of times you’ll get good at it.

Easiest map of all, confirm, except that Mossman lvl 30+ .. he is a pain.

Swamp fractal is the easiest and fastest fractal out of all fractal maps.

Once you can do it, it’s the easiest fractal out there.

But for beginners and PUGs, it’s horrible. The main downside being that no matter how skilled you are, you cannot compensate for your group. You have to have at least 3 decent runners.

Would be nice if say, the timer was doubled for groups doing fractals at levels below 10.

Mossman is not fun and is an abysmal boss, but otherwise this fractal is great.

i remember when fractal was implemented ahaha, when find a swamp was like “noooooooooooooooooooo” and now “yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” ahah, lifelost do it alot time and you will love this fractal

Honestly with a little practice this is the easiest and fastest fractal.

I run a Warrior also, always take the farthest wisp and rarely fail. For this fractal I switch to Soldiers Runes armor and pack all shouts, just in case I need to remove cripple. Skills to take otherwise:

“Shake it Off!”
Signet of Stamina
Signet of Rage

Before picking up the wisp switch to x/Warhorn or drop a banner and give yourself swiftness. Activate Signet of Rage while running. Bunny hop and learn to see tripwires.

There are spots where you can jump over the walls. Not sure if it is intended or not, but it’s not always necessary.

Shinki.8045:

There are spots where you can jump over the walls. Not sure if it is intended or not, but it’s not always necessary.

ANet has said that these are intentional and clever uses of the terrain by the playerbase.

When you meet people who hate swamp fractal to the point of leaving when they see it, is a solid proof that they are noobs. id guess its mostly seen on the lower level of fractals where people have had less practice in fractals. coordinating is the most important factor in this fractal. count down from 3 when all is ready, and take orb on 0 is the wasy way to do it.

if you happen to encounter people who leave by seeing swamp, then I hope its not the party leader. if party leader dont leave yo should easily get in a replacement from guild or gw2lfg.com.

as stated in earlier posts, practicing alone in this fractal is a quick and easy way to improve yourself. swamp is one of the quckest and easiest fractals and is almost a must have on lvl 20+ as first fractal with ascalon and water.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

yeah, it’s fine to jump over stuff. I built the swamp fractal to be a sort of skill test – new people will struggle with it, learn things, get better, and mastery of the fractal becomes a test of knowledge and skill beyond just the combat system. Plus its an opportunity to explore different uses for utilities outside of combat.
I’ve pondered randomizing the locations of the traps, but I think having them placed as they are is more along the lines of my original intent for the fractal.

While we have your attention and are talking about fractals randomization, Rob, I’d like to recommend you make the Dragon Shaman boss in the Snowblind fractal use random positioning for his Ice Storm skill instead of the fixed pattern he uses currently. Having them follow predictable patterns makes the boss very dull and boring (can dodge the whole thing with 2 one-foot sidesteps), whereas if they were randomized you’d really want to pay attention. If you do this to increase his difficulty, lowering his HP a little bit to compensate would make the boss much more engaging and less repetitive, and probably make me actually have fun against him.

Swamp is one of those fractals that’s really only a problem in the earlier levels, before new players have got it figured out. Swamp, or Water, are the fractals people always want to roll for, because they’re the quickest.

If the current wisp locations look too difficult for your group composition, pick up one and drop it to reset, until you find a composition that looks doable – different locations are easier for different classes.

Shinki’s suggestions for warriors above are all solid. Mesmers can set up portals for other players too, which is particularly useful for players that can’t jump over the tree walls.

With a little practice, this is the fractal you’ll sigh with relief upon seeing.

Mossman isn’t even all that bad in the 30’s. Make sure to zoom in on your map so you can track his icon when he’s stealthed, and have a better chance of evading him. If someone dies, just have someone kite him while someone else is rezzing the down so you don’t wipe. If you have Mossy’s aggro on you, don’t try to rez the down, however – that’s a good way to wipe.

Bloomhunger, well. Bloomhunger is easy peasy, but I haven’t had him in ages.

TheAngryLuddite.1834:

Mossman isn’t even all that bad in the 30’s. Make sure to zoom in on your map so you can track his icon when he’s stealthed, and have a better chance of evading him. If someone dies, just have someone kite him while someone else is rezzing the down so you don’t wipe. If you have Mossy’s aggro on you, don’t try to rez the down, however – that’s a good way to wipe.

It has nothing to do with him being hard, it has everything to do with his absolutely massive health pool and the fact that he stealths for 50% of the fight (sometimes he stealths back-to-back). His fight takes way too long, is very unsatisfying, and the only real threat that he carries comes from throwing agony-axes while he is invisible.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Shinki.8045:

There are spots where you can jump over the walls. Not sure if it is intended or not, but it’s not always necessary.

ANet has said that these are intentional and clever uses of the terrain by the playerbase.

Plus its an opportunity to explore different uses for utilities outside of combat.

This is the kind of thing I love about your dungeon content. The polar shift from the GW1 “Your only interaction with the world is murder” to thinking your way around content in more dynamic ways is fantastic.

An entire fractal based around tossing the sphere in Arah would be fun on a bun.

Also, thanks for the confirmation Robert.

Rising Dusk.2408:

It has nothing to do with him being hard, it has everything to do with his absolutely massive health pool and the fact that he stealths for 50% of the fight (sometimes he stealths back-to-back). His fight takes way too long, is very unsatisfying, and the only real threat that he carries comes from throwing agony-axes while he is invisible.

I don’t disagree. I’d say that goes for a lot of fractal bosses, right now.

The only one I can think of that’s particularly fun right now really is the dredge fractal boss – I used to hate that boss when I started playing fractals. It would take ages, and often my parties would just give up and quit. Now that I know how to do it (as does pretty much any PUG upward 20), it’s fun and quick in almost every case. Kind of like the Swamp (pre-mossman).

About half of the bosses right now have exhaustive health pools, but are easy to take out. I’d say it’s something like this right now:

Not So Bad:

Asuran Golems – Small health pools, generally easy all around
Ascalonian Captain – Agony AoE blast is avoidable, goes down fast with vets on him before that
Dredge Suit/Ice Ele – Easy as long as your party knows what they’re doing (although the fractal is painfully long, but hey, at least you get drops on this one)
Bloomhunger – Goes down pretty quick, is relatively fun

In Between:

Grawl Shaman – Can wipe various party compositions until ragequit, but if you can survive it goes quick enough

Yawn:

Jellyfish – No danger whatsoever, massive health pool, although cages speed things a bit… if your party sticks together
Svanir Champ – Easy, large health pool, safe spot, ‘YOUR WEAKNESS MAKES ME LAUGH’
Cultist – His health pool at the very beginning of the level is massive and a mind numbingly boring fight, as it’s not at least split up into phases like the last bit
Mossman – As you said above

Health pools down, difficulty up would generally be favorable on the last few, I think.

I think Mossman would be alot better if he didn’t stay stealthed for half the fight and caused you to kite him until he unstealths because he 1 shots you at 40+ since you can’t even see him do his charge up move and will many times hit you while or instantly coming out of stealth, which wasn’t the case before January.

Sometimes he stealths like 3 seconds after he unstealths, which is the main reason he drags on.

It’s interesting how different opinions play into it.

I particularly enjoy the Dredge, Grawl, and final Cliffside bosses. I think that Bloomhunger is a tragic bore because he’s so easy and trivialized by projectile reflections, and that Ashym is depressing because it’s so bloody easy to go the entire fight without dodging and still never getting hit. The first cliffside boss is a complete waste of time, I agree, and the dragon shaman and jellyfish are mind-numbing as well. Strifey, above, and I seem to agree totally on Mossman as well. I also don’t particularly love the Asura boss because his agony projectiles are homing and speedy, and generally are not an interesting thing to dodge. If he had aoe circles that he spawned that inflicted his agony instead, it’d be a much more enjoyable boss fight.

Needless to say, I want the bosses to become harder and more interactive. I want Fractals bosses to not be tank-and-spank like many of them are currently. It’s terrible, to me, how some very small changes to their mechanics could make them so much better as bosses, and yet I don’t think Rob and the dungeon team are really pursuing those changes.

I wish I could convince them that it’s worth it! This is supposed to be the hard content!

Rising Dusk.2408:

It’s terrible, to me, how some very small changes to their mechanics could make them so much better as bosses, and yet I don’t think Rob and the dungeon team are really pursuing those changes.

I wish I could convince them that it’s worth it! This is supposed to be the hard content!

From the relatively small amount of communication about fractals from the team on the forums right now, I’m guessing fractals are presently on the backburner, while they focus on the living story/wvw updates currently in progress. It would be awesome if this month’s update (or next month’s update), had some surprise fractal updates, but it doesn’t seem likely right now.

So far all I’ve gleaned from dev posts is that they are ‘monitoring’ the dissatisfaction with the maw chest, and that additional fractal content is planned at some point (new levels, new ascended gear).

I’m thinking a major fractal overhaul is due, and will certainly happen – probably giving due attention to the more lackluster bosses, in addition to the brand new content – but I’m also thinking it may not be for a few months yet. Would love to be wrong on that, however.

When experienced teams roll for the first fractal, this one is definitely a keeper. Try practicing and then rolling with some people who know what they are doing instead of PUG’s, and you will be happy whenever you see this one. Also, I love this one in general because of all the fun little exploration and tree climbing you can do just for kicks.

I used to hate swamp, but now I enjoy it, however, how do you spot the traps? I was never able to see them, and just put up with the inconvenience.

Lifelost.5627:

To summarize, it’s not fun to spend upwards of one and a half hours working through fracts only to hit the swamp and have the party call it.

Mesmer portal makes this unfairly easy. Only problem is people dont understand that all they need to do is make it to the mesmer. I play a mesmer so its puzzling how people dont get it. Swamp can be painlessly easy and quick OR can break up groups after a lot of painful attempts. I guess thats why you see a lot of “LFM fotm 10, pls be experienced” posts on GW2LFG.com.

Lifelost.5627:

I’ll keep this short, it’s absolute poo.
stability-check
speed boost-check
jumping traps-check
mes portal-check
dungeon changes 3 times, consecutively in the same run and i don’t know if this is a bug, but i got knocked down consistantly through stability-broke the stun with SiO (warrior) and knocked down again.

To summarize, it’s not fun to spend upwards of one and a half hours working through fracts only to hit the swamp and have the party call it. this has happened twice now the first party i was with didn’t even want to attempt it and couldn’t be bothered to rerun the 1st 2 fracts either.

Anyone got any advice on the swamp fract too that would be great

thanks in advance.

People love swamp.. swamp is like the easiest fractal ever… it’s on par with aqua fractal

This is reaaaally funny to me. It mirrors exactly what I was thinking when I was below Fractal level 5. As you go to higher levels and become more experienced, you start to want to have that fractal because many others are just so long and tedious, while this one can be done easily with 3 half way skilled people. Which at higher levels everyone should be.

So yea, read Dulfy’s guide for a little bit, and even try to explain some basic mechanics (like you can actually see the traps when you look for them) to your party and you should be fine. Most swamp runs take 10 minutes max for me.

I actually pray to roll the Swamp. Fastest fractal out there while others take like forever … just a matter of balance so you don’t spend 2hours in it.

About advices, else than repeat your runs so you’ll learn the pattern there is not a lot to say.

Robert, if you’re still around, could you comment on Mossman? Was it intended to be invisible so long/often and was it intended for him to attack before coming out of stealth?

Is this Mossman’s payback for not being able to climb trees? Will he ever forgive us?

It seems the issue people have with Mossman is similar to issues people have with thieves.

Here’s my tip:

If things are invisible, it does not mean they are invulnerable. You can still hit and hurt them even if you don’t see numbers appear. Roll a thief and go invis in the middle of an enemy zerg AoE. You’ll still die even though they didn’t know you were there.

For the Mossman fight, someone above already stated if you zoom in on your minimap you can SEE HIM moving around. If he is inching towards you, guess who he is targeting?

Put up reflect walls,bubbles, etc or just dodge his axe throws. Extra dmg to him and his wolves if you reflect it.

When you get pass level ~10 on your personal reward level, you’ll pray for swamp level as one of the three because you’ve learned the map and realized how easy it is then half of you will forget your first time struggling here and rage at people still new to this.

His stealth significantly reduces the feasibility of DPSing him for many reasons.

Things that his stealth does:

• Every single projectile or beam auto-attack in the game cannot target him in stealth, significantly reducing DPS
• Mesmers cannot use clones on an invisible target, reducing both DPS and damage mitigation
• Many other skills cannot be used on invisible targets
• Melee attackers are not going to wail at the air to DPS him because they are liable to get axed in the face with agony or his double-swing, lowering DPS significantly
• He sometimes restealths immediately after unstealthing, reducing the window of opportunity to do anything in response

The real problem here is that he is stealthed for too long, and this drags the fight out painfully if everyone plays sufficiently so that no one ever dies. He deals too much dps to just sit there and attack in stealth much like we used to do to Simin back in the day.

I’m not saying he’s impossible, I’m saying he’s unreasonable. He’s not fun, and he takes way too long. Give me Bloomhunger any day of the week. That boss is so bad I can solo him at L48 if need be, and a full team can roll him in a minute or so.

Rising Dusk.2408:

His stealth significantly reduces the feasibility of DPSing him for many reasons.

Things that his stealth does:

• Every single projectile or beam auto-attack in the game cannot target him in stealth, significantly reducing DPS
• Mesmers cannot use clones on an invisible target, reducing both DPS and damage mitigation
• Many other skills cannot be used on invisible targets
• Melee attackers are not going to wail at the air to DPS him because they are liable to get axed in the face with agony or his double-swing, lowering DPS significantly
• He sometimes restealths immediately after unstealthing, reducing the window of opportunity to do anything in response

The real problem here is that he is stealthed for too long, and this drags the fight out painfully if everyone plays sufficiently so that no one ever dies. He deals too much dps to just sit there and attack in stealth much like we used to do to Simin back in the day.

I’m not saying he’s impossible, I’m saying he’s unreasonable. He’s not fun, and he takes way too long. Give me Bloomhunger any day of the week. That boss is so bad I can solo him at L48 if need be, and a full team can roll him in a minute or so.

When I am on my warrior, I wail at the air using the minimap and my attack animation to locate him. Auto attack won’t trigger phase 2,3 if you are not connecting. The trick is to be mobile and not stand still wailing at the air waiting to be double axed. His axe is going to be throw whether you are close to him or not. Just hope there is no one else in range or more than 2 people near you or you get double hit by it.

If you are the one of 5 being targeted, maybe you won’t want to be near him anyway and just look on your minimap to see how close he is to you.

Mesmers can drop AoEs via ground targeting skills with a GS, staff, torch, or use your 1h sword skill to detect him with auto then flurry him asap if you’re daring. When I fight him on my mesmer I found phantasm duelists are ideal for this. If you are a pure shatter build, I’m sorry then.

Every class has some kind of ground targeting AoE that can and will hit him. I also play with auto target off so projectiles are fine unless the skill is like the gs auto beam on mesmer.

I have never seen him stealth after re-stealthing, but I have seen him throw axes while stealth and remained in stealth.

I still find him easier than Bloomhunger. To each their own I guess.. since i’m a freak that enjoys fighting shaman harpy too.

I enjoy the Grawl boss too because it is an actually interesting fight, but that is neither here nor there. The key point you seem to be missing from my posts is that Mossman is not hard, he is easy, but he is a stupid boss that is not interesting in any way and drags on due to his mechanics and HP pool. That is my only point. He needs to be made more interesting, a lot like the dragon shaman or the jellyfish also need to be made more interesting.

Furthermore, I want to emphasize that just because he is an easy boss does not mean that his mechanics are worthwhile or should not be improved. Indeed, part of making the boss more interesting is making him stealth less and spend less time in stealth. Players want to spend more time fighting the boss than running for their lives or trying to guess that they’re fighting the boss. A predictable and telegraphed stealth teleport axe strike would be an awesome move for Mossman, but him running around chasing players in stealth for 30 seconds is not an awesome move.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I enjoy the Grawl boss too because it is an actually interesting fight, but that is neither here nor there. The key point you seem to be missing from my posts is that Mossman is not hard, he is easy, but he is a stupid boss that is not interesting in any way and drags on due to his mechanics and HP pool. That is my only point. He needs to be made more interesting, a lot like the dragon shaman or the jellyfish also need to be made more interesting.

Furthermore, I want to emphasize that just because he is an easy boss does not mean that his mechanics are worthwhile or should not be improved. Indeed, part of making the boss more interesting is making him stealth less and spend less time in stealth. Players want to spend more time fighting the boss than running for their lives or trying to guess that they’re fighting the boss. A predictable and telegraphed stealth teleport axe strike would be an awesome move for Mossman, but him running around chasing players in stealth for 30 seconds is not an awesome move.

Even less awesome when you chill him while he’s stealthed. Maybe make him stealth, teleport, then channel double strike asap on someone would be more interesting. Maybe i’ll throw this up in suggestions.

If it became like lupi’s shadow walk he will become an lol fight to an already easy fractals level imo.