Guild Wars 2

The other day I was running a fractals 49 and I learned something new. We got Molten Boss Fractal for our final one and one of the players in my party (all PUGs) said to clear “enraged” from the Firestorm. I had never heard of this, but since the run had been extremely smooth so far I figured I’d play along.

As we fought the final bosses, this player would call out every time the Firestorm had the “enraged” buff. We would then focus all attacks on him for a short time until the buff was removed (50 stacks = 50 hits) and then we went back to killing the Berserker. I wasn’t entirely sure what the buff actually did, but I was noticing how all of our HP stayed rather high during the whole fight, and it seemed to be going very smoothly.

Before I knew it, we had finished off the Berserker and we were working on the Firestorm! No wipes, not even any downs during the first phase! I got an uninfused ring for my efforts, but that’s a whole different topic…

Anyway, I was curious about this buff and its removal as part of the fight mechanics. I’ve done somewhere around 550 full runs (PRL 50), and I had never heard of it! It turns out that it is nothing new, it’s on the wiki and is apparently common knowledge. In case you are like me (an unknowing noob), this is what I learned:

“Every time one of the bosses loses 25% health, the other one will become Enraged, significantly increasing the rate at which he uses his skills and consequently his damage output.” – from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Molten_Boss_Fractal

I felt pretty dumb upon realizing this, as I consider myself to be a fairly experienced fractal runner. I thought I knew all of the currently used strategies, but clearly I’m mistaken. So this new experience got me thinking:

What other tips and/or strategies are there for fractals that I’m unaware of?

Please share, if you’re willing, your FTW tips that make fractals just little bit smoother. I’m not talking about exploits, safe spots, or stacking (nothing against those, I just don’t wanna start a flame war about the morality/legality of using those things). I just want to learn more about my favorite game mode! If you have something to share, please do!

p.s. Look me up in game if you ever want to run some fractals!

Clearing the Enraged stacks is the “intended” way, but on lower level Fractals, if your party is skilled/has good enough DPS you can simply burn down one boss without bothering to clear Enraged from the other boss. I agree that on higher level Fractals you probably need to clear Enraged though, since the Enraged boss will do so much damage the risk of it one-shotting your party will be unacceptably high.

As for my tip:

Characters that use pets (including minions, summoned elementals, clones/phantasms etc.) are AWESOME to have for the Frizz boss fight and the Thaumanova Anomaly. Why? Because those pets are completely immune to the laser walls (it passes right through them without any effect), and because pets can’t fall through the floor at the Anomaly. Coupled with their tendency to grab and hold aggro from the bosses, it means the rest of the party can usually deal damage in relative safety while all its attention is focused on some hapless Bear or minion, making the fights laughably easy.

This is quite the bad strategy. It’s counter-intuitive but it’s faster/better/safer to just burst down one of them. Berserker usually. Clearing enraged stacks takes too long, people tend to die because jumping is too hard and even a bad dps group should kill one of them in 1min.
If your group has a guardian it can aegis the first 2 hits of the berserker. This is more for squishies like eles because it doesn’t hit that hard. Also wall of reflection for firestorm.

One of them has bugged enrage stacks. Dont remember which but 1 loses 1 stack per hit and the other loses 1 per skill activation (like the grawl shamans shield). Bursting them down is usually the safer option for organized/high dps groups.

You probably know about this but ill share anyway. If you get harpy you can faceroll Old Tom with either untraited wardens or get an ele to use the earth elemental elite (best tank eu) to tank the projectiles.

If you land aetherblade boss fractal and you’re pugging on warrior, you can just stay at Max range and block every single one of mai trin’s teleport shots. It may not sound like much but it really significantly lowers her damage and stops her from running around so much. I’d say it’s enough to make up for the DPS loss if your team kind of sucks.

A Mesmer wielding Scepter can do the same with Illusionary Counter. It’s especially funny when you’re on the other side of the arena ressing someone, you see Mai aiming at you, and you block the shot on cue. Mai gets 5 Torment stacks for her trouble and you go back to ressing.

Might be common knowledge but a thief with shadow refuge can use it on the missle phase in Mai fight and the rockets won’t target anyone during the duration. Just make sure you are ready, because when you come out of stealth and are all stacked up, there’s going to be a whole lot of red rings on the ground near you….

There are many tricks (and some mesploits) in Fractals that if I listed them, they might get ‘fixed’ horribly by Anet. So I don’t know, should I spill the bean? Decision, decision….

@Stone: I’ve actually heard people warning against using that tactic, since if all aggro is lost, like all other enemies, Mai will regen her health back to full. If you use the stealth tactic, make sure there’s still one player unstealthed to catch the aggro.

Three for the uncategorized fractal

One, if everyone is melee range of a harpy that harpy will never use its knockdown. This means most parts you don’t have to worry about getting knocked off. Some harpies however like to agro even if you don’t hit them (or cleave hits them) those harpies can attack you with knockback if you aren’t melee with them as well. But don’t worry that really only happens towards the end of the second harpy jump segment.

Secondly If you have stablity/invul/reflect/absorb and the person next to you gets hit with the knockback you will get knockbacked. #splashdamageOP The only thing that will save you in this case is dodge.

Lastly if you try to skip you AGRO EVERYTHING, seriously, don’t do this. The reason why is the people behind you will get agro from all the mobs you agro and it will never go away. That’s why I kick on site if I see some kitten do that with out warning.

I know the regulars here probably know this but a ton of pugs don’t.

Also you can do that hot reactor room thing in thummanova, some classes can do it with two coolant cores and some can do it with one. Thankfully more and more pugs are doing this (ooze takes to long).

Embrace The Bold.7619:

Three for the uncategorized fractal

One, if everyone is melee range of a harpy that harpy will never use its knockdown. This means most parts you don’t have to worry about getting knocked off. Some harpies however like to agro even if you don’t hit them (or cleave hits them) those harpies can attack you with knockback if you aren’t melee with them as well. But don’t worry that really only happens towards the end of the second harpy jump segment.

Secondly If you have stablity/invul/reflect/absorb and the person next to you gets hit with the knockback you will get knockbacked. #splashdamageOP The only thing that will save you in this case is dodge.

Lastly if you try to skip you AGRO EVERYTHING, seriously, don’t do this. The reason why is the people behind you will get agro from all the mobs you agro and it will never go away. That’s why I kick on site if I see some kitten do that with out warning.

I know the regulars here probably know this but a ton of pugs don’t.

Also you can do that hot reactor room thing in thummanova, some classes can do it with two coolant cores and some can do it with one. Thankfully more and more pugs are doing this (ooze takes to long).

Ooze is like a 45 second fight, and you’ll have to do all 4 rooms at 40+ anyways.

Thaumanova rector fractal, lasers of death room: as a warrior you can just defiant stance/endure pain +stability cheese your merry way to the activation panels.

Jzaku.9765:

Thaumanova rector fractal, lasers of death room: as a warrior you can just defiant stance/endure pain +stability cheese your merry way to the activation panels.

Shhhh don’t tell them that

Also I have never done thuma on 40+ but I figured that was the case. Also I generally don’t get good groups for fractals so ooze takes to long.

Speaking of Ooze, it may not be immediately obvious, but since it blocks, unblockable CC (or CC enhanced by Signet of Might’s active) will interrupt his block phase so you can get back to dpsing.

Embrace The Bold.7619:

Jzaku.9765:

Thaumanova rector fractal, lasers of death room: as a warrior you can just defiant stance/endure pain +stability cheese your merry way to the activation panels.

Shhhh don’t tell them that

no worries, he left the best part out.

@Sonic: That’s… actually a really good tip! Can’t believe I never thought of that. Of course, since he’s a Champ, you’ll have to make sure he doesn’t have Defiant stacks when you pull this off.

New Tip:

This is probably common knowledge to other Fractals veterans, but I’ll post this for the benefit of newer players. In the Uncategorized (harpy) Fractal, during the portion with the energy bars falling down the slope, you can actually dodge through/block the bars. This allows professions with long-lasting blocks to easily complete the run by dodging twice through the first two bars, and then activating their block skill (Shield Stance etc.) for the last portion.

Zaxares.5419:

@Sonic: That’s… actually a really good tip! Can’t believe I never thought of that. Of course, since he’s a Champ, you’ll have to make sure he doesn’t have Defiant stacks when you pull this off.

New Tip:

This is probably common knowledge to other Fractals veterans, but I’ll post this for the benefit of newer players. In the Uncategorized (harpy) Fractal, during the portion with the energy bars falling down the slope, you can actually dodge through/block the bars. This allows professions with long-lasting blocks to easily complete the run by dodging twice through the first two bars, and then activating their block skill (Shield Stance etc.) for the last portion.

Or put up a projectile reflect and have the most hilarious game of reverse guitar hero.

Jzaku.9765:

Zaxares.5419:

@Sonic: That’s… actually a really good tip! Can’t believe I never thought of that. Of course, since he’s a Champ, you’ll have to make sure he doesn’t have Defiant stacks when you pull this off.

New Tip:

This is probably common knowledge to other Fractals veterans, but I’ll post this for the benefit of newer players. In the Uncategorized (harpy) Fractal, during the portion with the energy bars falling down the slope, you can actually dodge through/block the bars. This allows professions with long-lasting blocks to easily complete the run by dodging twice through the first two bars, and then activating their block skill (Shield Stance etc.) for the last portion.

Or put up a projectile reflect and have the most hilarious game of reverse guitar hero.

You can also run behind a thief using Daggerstorm. Thief really shines in this fractal!

For molten i simply use ele scepter/focus and icebow
I can frequently deep freeze the berserker.

Removing stacks from firestorm is more risky and takes more time…just ignore it..
At the beginning everyone was removing stacks, but current meta instad ignore stacks and focus berserker.

Uncategorized.
From 15 april, mesmer can permareflect its way to the top…(today you have chances of iwarden bugging).
There are Others tips that shouldn be said on forum (legit but nerf friendly).

Question:

How happens warriors can do thaaumanova reactor part alone without cooling rods?
I don t have a warrior but yet….

Other question:
How to clear ascalonian square without a LB warrior and without wiping or spending hours Killing stuff because NPC dies?
(you can t no more lure stuff on the door since NPC will just exit and aggro sieges)

If you want to be cheap you can pull Ascalonian out of the circle without killing them at all.

Oh boys, I give in. Here are some casual Fractal tips:

Aquatic Ruins Fractal

• Anyone who still fancy doing this fractal should know there are a couple of stacking spots to LOS the Kraits. For the love of the six gods, use them. Eles love you!

Swampland Fractal

• (Sandy’s advanced class) Thief and mesmer can solo two wisps: place the portal/shadow trap at the closer cleft (1), walk to the further cleft (2), bring the wisp (2) home, open the portal at another home cleft, spam ‘F’ to retrieve the wisp (1) home.
• “The trees are your friends, the ground is not”, if you often get caught by trap a lot.
• By switching the traits, mesmer can blink through the tree gap before it closes (range from 900 to 1200). I don’t have much success with ele Lightning Flash (range 900)
• Bloomie: only the shockwave is reflectable; the others are not. It has a tell, so please don’t spam reflection like your life depends on it. Why? Area of retaliation and Chaos Armor are not cool. Stay at Bloomie butt to avoid most of the frontal attacks.
• Mossie: When Mossie is in stealth, you can observe his position in the mini map. You can interrupt his stealth by going invuln and attacking him in melee. At 75% or below, you can become his ‘primary target’ by ‘tanking’ any of his attacks, which last until his next stealth. You can bait him focus on either Earth elemental or Flesh Golem that way. When he’s in any of his animal forms, immobilize him and cheese your way to the victory at max melee range.

Uncategorized Fractal

• (Sandy’s advanced class) Stealth through Harpy and drop portal. Nullify the knock down lightning ball attack by using distortion at the center of its aoe.
• Ettin shockwave attack and Flame Legion’s fire ball attack are reflectable.
• You can blink up about 80% of the lightning trap staircase (from the side). Double dodge. Cheers! Or use the side walls as your resting stations.
• Earth elemental, Flesh golem, Untraited warden and Asura Defensive golem can tank all of the poison hits from Old Tom. Stay behind them. Watch out for his first pull though.
• Baron von Scrufflebutt’s rocket attack is unblockable. CC-CC-CC-CC-CC him as often as you can and the rest of the fight is just a cake walk. Ele tip: use Tornado if your group have enough reflection but not enough CC and DPS. You don’t get rally from Baron, but other kitties.

Urban Battlegrounds Fractal

• Use ‘pathing’ or pull to dispatch several groups of vets from the center to the side. Clear the only one group of monks and warriors (sometimes archers or mages in the mix) and proceed to the center to clear the siege weapons.
• Optional: pull each group of mobs to the center for lewts.
• Captain Ashym: the cheesy way of killing him is to stop meleeing him and put kitten his 75% HP to let the NPC take care of the rest. Bait his Meteor Shower at range so not to kill the NPC.

Molten Furnace Fractal

• The Earth elemental group is the nastiest enemy of this fractals. Make sure your group can blind and burst them faaaassssstt, or wipe.
• Ice bow is extremely useful in this fractal.
• Fear will make the Protector stuck into the Power Core. Other ways of knocking back will work better, e.g. LH skill #3, Guardian hammer or mesmer gsword.
• Ice bow should be used for the third and last phase of the Power Core.
• FGS the boss.

Snowblind Fractal

• (Sandy’s Advanced Class) Mesmer can solo the first camp fire by carefully pulling the vet mobs away from the fire using a combo of focus pull and blink. After that all you need is some hot choc and marshmallow.
• The elemental boss is drawn to attack any lit camp fires. Light two of them and you won’t be left in the cold.
• The aoe-to-remove-the-ice-top trick do not work any more.
• If your group doesn’t have enough reflection to handle the vet elemental, pull back to the first svanir camp fire right after the blizzard starts. You can also LOS the vet if they follow you there.
• The first camp fire does not need to be lit to give you the warmth buff. You’ll get it by approaching its fringe.

(to be continued)

Cliffside

• The first Diviner: has two modes of attack. Active: when he runs around chasing headless chickens, leaps and smashes them to a mushy feather blobs. Passive: When he pauses thinking how to cook his chickens, spawning several dirty aoes of conditions. The casual way to counter his active mode: immobilize, chill and cripple on him, rotate a tanky minion (Rocky, Golem, Drake or Bear pet) and melee behind him. Range allowed if you can’t dodge reliably. During his passive mode, just burst the guy and don’t forget to cleanse the ‘weakness’ condition.
• At the first and second staircase (with vets and the knock down gales), you can blink up to the above platform so let ele and mesmer handle the hammer transportation.
• All the seals can be hit without targeted. You can hit both of the first seals by standing in between them and smash #4. Only the first hit works.
• (Sandy’s Advanced Class) Mesmer can be abused to hit the second seal reliably without drawing aggro using a combo of portal, blink and decoy.
• At the left chest seal, you can go as far as the tip of rocky platform next to the seal, hit 4 and it still works. No need to go further.
• And no, I’m not going to explain how to do the chest seal :P
• At the last boss, if someone stands next to the boss when the seal is hit, the boss will get stunned as well. It prevents him to attack the stunned members.
• Always pull all the chanters to the center to quickly get rid of them. They can stack vulnerability very fast and their attacks hurt a lot.
• Ele’s Burning speed for a casual 2 sec jail breakout.
• Glyph of elemental power is great to abuse chill, weakness and cripple on the Arch Diviner. He becomes more or less docile.

Underground Facility Fractal

• The mini guide for a painless console experience (sub 7 minutes, promise!!!)
  Prerequisite: a thief, a mesmer and an ele
  Optional 2 last slots: war, guard, necro, ranger, engi
• Clear all the patrol mobs up to the first gate.
• Thief put a shadow trap at the first gate. Mesmer drops portal (at the trap). Thief stealths to turn on the switch, gate opens, group in, mesmer opens portal. Thief in.
• Clear the way to cage door. Thief and mesmer repeat the sequence as in #2.
• Mesmer uses Mass Invisible as group enters the left side of the cage, focus-pulling dredge to the wall. Ele uses swirling wind and drop ice bow. Mesmer and thief chain reflection and smoke screen, group burst down the group of dredge.
  #Legendary Vet dredge spawn.
• Thief scorpion wire vet dredge to the wall. Ele drops FGS and cheeses him.
• Group stays at the left button, thief chains stealth at the right button and Ele chains invuln and blocking at console. Mesmer and others pull the spawning dredge off ele.
• Gate opens, group withdraws.
• The mini guide for a cheesy bomb path DnT already demonstrated it!

Aetherblade Fractal

• You can troll prevent allies dying on the lightning step puzzle by pulling the vet asura engineer to the ground with a bow. This guy has a chilling projectile attack that makes you miss the skip.
• You can blink up to the consoles to turn off spinning lightning traps. An ele can solo this part if he fancies.
• In the last room, the low spinning lightning bolt can be jumped over. I often giggle seeing people trying to run away from them.
• Only stack at the safe spot if you have enough DPS or a good guard.

Thaumanova Reactor Fractal

• The dorm: the asura technicians apply a debuff onto the Anomaly boss (which receives more damage). Save them first before they are getting fried.
• The laser trap room: pick up the shield, applying speed boost, running straight to the very end. Double dodge when shield is down, then fight the golem off at a relatively safe spot.
• The melting room: is solo-able by a Norn warrior. Applying speed boost, after the second curtain, Bear form, Charge, then escape bear form, Defiance Stance, etc (blah blah blah – I don’t play war). When you’re down, heal your self, Vengeance and congratulations, you’ve made it to the end!
• The ooze: work in progress. All I can say is my group is looking for a fool-proof way to FGS the boss. The fight is usually 4 sec or wipe. So, no tips.
• Anomaly boss: Minions and pets increase the amount of destroyed platforms as well as platforms surrounding the boss -> can’t melee, not cool! I’d rather have someone range the boss and holds aggro away from the melee group, which works faster and way better (usually a staff ele).

Volcanic Fractal

• No general tips. A lot of ele tips can be found in the Elementalist sub-forum.
• Dodge the burning arrow and dive attack.

Wethospu.6437:

If you want to be cheap you can pull Ascalonian out of the circle without killing them at all.

how without longbow?
Since the AI of npc is clearly broken, and being ruined more by fractured (that patch did more harm than good) any help would be good.

Mesmer tips

Uncategorized:
While only ettin is alive Put 3 iduelists in the console thingy at center of left or right wall and keep ettin in range.

It won t be able to kill them and the dps is really high (you get something like 30.000 every 8 seconds)

Svanir boss:
place 3 iduelist under the wall where it goes during phase change.

Kill ice walls asap when he summons them and once again the phantasms will stay alive for Whole fight for insane dps.

General phantasm tip: they are immune to most agony aoes.

LordByron.8369:

Wethospu.6437:

If you want to be cheap you can pull Ascalonian out of the circle without killing them at all.

how without longbow?
Since the AI of npc is clearly broken, and being ruined more by fractured (that patch did more harm than good) any help would be good.

You can just send your npcs to die then just aggro a group, lure them out of the circle and just die or break aggro. It’s pretty fast if all pull their own group but good luck getting pugs to do that.

IrisTheCasual.3742:

Uncategorized Fractal
Nullify the knock down lightning ball attack by using distortion at the center of its aoe.

Excuse me, but doesn’t Distortion count as an evade, effectively avoiding the knockback/damage regardless of positioning?
We’re talking about the shatter skill, right?

EDIT: Oh, did you mean you had to be at the center to reflect it back if traited?

Wait, Iris, isn’t Bloomhunger’s poison cloud a projectile attack before it hits the ground?

Aren’t they all?

FenrirSlakt.3692:

IrisTheCasual.3742:

Uncategorized Fractal
Nullify the knock down lightning ball attack by using distortion at the center of its aoe.

Excuse me, but doesn’t Distortion count as an evade, effectively avoiding the knockback/damage regardless of positioning?
We’re talking about the shatter skill, right?

EDIT: Oh, did you mean you had to be at the center to reflect it back if traited?

If you use the trait Blurred Inscription, activate a signet when you are in the center of the aoe, you nullify that attack and absorb all the damage plus the knock back. Your party member standing next to you won’t get the knock back. (source: Sandy [rT], [Noob] mentor)

DigitalKirin.9714:

Wait, Iris, isn’t Bloomhunger’s poison cloud a projectile attack before it hits the ground?

They aren’t reflectable. Same with poison attack of Old Tom. Only the slam+ shockwave is.

Wethospu.6437:

Aren’t they all?

Kinda what I was thinking, though I’ve been bit with the head shake projectile even when I’ve had SotA up.

Projectile or the cone?

Projectile. But my suspicion was always that the projectile landed juust outside the shield and tagged me inside, I dodge roll anyways now because I got too paranoid one way or another.

As far as I know, Shield of the Avenger, Feedback and similar skills do protect you from the poison thing he hurls with its hand(?) while it is still in the air.

I’ve heard that an untraited iWarden destroys Old Tom’s poison projectiles. Can anyone confirm or refute?

Definitely true on the untraited wardens.

IrisTheCasual.3742:

DigitalKirin.9714:

Wait, Iris, isn’t Bloomhunger’s poison cloud a projectile attack before it hits the ground?

They aren’t reflectable. Same with poison attack of Old Tom. Only the slam+ shockwave is.

They’re all absorbed by untraited wardens though. Pretty sure of that, anyway.

And while the projectiles from Bloomhunger’s shake aren’t reflectable, I’m also pretty sure that the three projectiles when it waves its arm are (the ones that create a poison cloud but no agony).

Edit: Haha I see everyone said the same thing at roughly the same time.

I hope this isn’t another “Feedback doesn’t work on Lupicus AoE”.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

IrisTheCasual.3742:

Uncategorized Fractal
Nullify the knock down lightning ball attack by using distortion at the center of its aoe.

Excuse me, but doesn’t Distortion count as an evade, effectively avoiding the knockback/damage regardless of positioning?
We’re talking about the shatter skill, right?

EDIT: Oh, did you mean you had to be at the center to reflect it back if traited?

In the past distortion worked as block to many projectiles…
You could put your mesmer in face of champion rabdovich to stop all his shots…was fun until anet nerfed BF.

Actually, distortion (aka invulnerability) still does that. Aswell as blocks (to things that can be blocked).

Yep sorry i meant blurred frenzy…
Distortion is unchanged.

Nice compilation of tips!

I just want to put out a guide we from [KING] have been working on since some months back. Dredge in particular I find not many people are efficient with!

Experienced Fractal Guide

Please come with tips for improvements or any tactic you find less effective. We will try to keep the playlist up to date with every patch and change that come.

Use SotA as a guardian underneath the Twerking Tree to help carry bad pugs

You can reflect poison cloud as well as agony attack even with wall of reflection, projectiles just need to hit it, not land nearby.

Suggestion for carrying pugs at the lava shaman:
Use an elementalist scepter focus:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swirling_Winds
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnetic_Wave
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_Flesh
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Shield
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mist_Form

Except the fact you can t easily remove the shield (use earth 1-2 for that) you could almost solo the boss due to personal protection…

You can even ress dead players alone if all the party wipes.
Caution: elementals shoots aoes that can be absorbed/reflected but if they hit the floor they will hit anyway. (that means magnetic wave is not so reliable).

Another thing people should really know:
Fotm has decreased defiant on every boss…
5 stacks are not so hard to remove, plan your CC accordingly….and use the longest stun.

For ele:
Focus air5
Icebow 5

Are the best, while focus water 5 should be used to remove defiant.

haviz.1340:

You can reflect poison cloud as well as agony attack even with wall of reflection, projectiles just need to hit it, not land nearby.

If you say so, Master haviz.

On the other note, I can never take an elementalist seriously when he said he can carry the party at a high level grawl shaman fractal with a scepter and focus, and a full kittened bar of defensive skills.

LordByron.8369:

Another thing people should really know:
Fotm has decreased defiant on every boss…
5 stacks are not so hard to remove, plan your CC accordingly….and use the longest stun.

decreased stacks
still 5

checks out

RemiRome.8495:

LordByron.8369:

Another thing people should really know:
Fotm has decreased defiant on every boss…
5 stacks are not so hard to remove, plan your CC accordingly….and use the longest stun.

decreased stacks
still 5

checks out

They use to scale up to 30+ or something stupid. Which is ridiculous for a 5 man instance.

they… what? was that only in old 50+?

3 standard 5 max in a party is what it’s supposed to be no?

or zero scaling at all?

I dont remember exactly but the higher the fractal level the higher the number of defiant stacks.

I believe it was quite a ridiculous number even on 30+. Been a long time and i didnt fractal that much back then.