Guild Wars 2

Atticus.7194:

Vinceman.4572:

Anet_Ben:

“Bloomhunger is intended to be the most difficult fractal right now. There is a problem in Guild Wars in that there is no real stepping stone to raids.”

Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v4bz4/finally_got_around_to_doing_the_new_swamp_fractal/

Another clear announcement that GW2 wasn’t made to only cater easy content to the playerbase (although I don’t call Bloomhunger that difficult after playing swamp)!

Another indication that if that’s the case then they need to separate the swamp out from every other fractal or buff every other T4 fractal to it’s level AND provide appropriate rewards. You want to cater to the psuedo-raider? Fine that’s okay, but don’t just lump it in with everything else and expect the playerbase to choke it down without providing appropriate time/effort rewards.

No, all I’m saying is that T4 fractals were and are too easy for being rewarded with ascended chests and the amount of gold you are getting. I hope they continue to make T4s harder. There are easy T1-3s to learn your stuff.

Has any of you encountered problem where bloom get to 25%, about to do his massive attack, but you can’t interact with the column after you pick up the wisp? My group wiped about 3times last night, not because we didn’t know his attack but because we can’t interact with anything after picking up the wisp.
I wonder if this is a bug, or we did something wrong, like there is another step we need to do before picking up the wisp

shakome.7458:

Has any of you encountered problem where bloom get to 25%, about to do his massive attack, but you can’t interact with the column after you pick up the wisp? My group wiped about 3times last night, not because we didn’t know his attack but because we can’t interact with anything after picking up the wisp.
I wonder if this is a bug, or we did something wrong, like there is another step we need to do before picking up the wisp

I haven’t experienced this and I’ve run it a few times. So I don’t think there’s anything extra, just grab a wisp from SE/SW/NE/NW and bring it to the closest depository pillar.

Jerus.4350:

Atticus.7194:

OnizukaBR.8537:

People finding Swamp too difficult now just prove that it was really needed ( so after a while people will be pugging raids a lot easier ) , because it still way easier than raids, and if you cant complete T4 swamp you shouldnt be trying raids.
And for people that says that fractal shouldnt be that hard. You remember that there is T1/T2/T3 swamp right? So there you go your easy content for 5 man. All T4 should be on the level of Chaos and Swamp.

Difference is raids reward you for that difficulty, Swamp as it stands now provides next to no real rewards.

Also tone down the tryhard please? I know you’re the best and everyone else needs to “git gud” and you’re voting Trump but until everything is tuned to be like the T4 swamp it’s a little unreasonable to have this single lone boss fight be about 5x harder than any other encounter in any fractal without at least providing appropriate rewards.

Welcome to Fractals, where your reward isn’t “worth it”. That’s how they were for a LONG time, then sometime while I was gone HoT made them a quick and easy daily farm. I very much welcome this change even if it means less reward for the effort.

So, basically you want fractals to suck again so that only the ‘true’ players can enjoy them? Okay.

Dropping a tier or two down isn’t an option for most of us who’ve been pugging for the last 8 or 9 months. We’ve already established certain expectations from this content (daily fractals, at their core, are little more than a gamble for ascended chest drops) and fundamentally some of the changes feel like an indirect reward nerf: greater effort for the same reward.

In the past when Anet significantly buffed content there was also an increased incentive to play it at the higher difficulty. The loot tables need to be revised, or at least have the fractal lab vendors offer new items.

Vinceman.4572:

Atticus.7194:

Vinceman.4572:

Anet_Ben:

“Bloomhunger is intended to be the most difficult fractal right now. There is a problem in Guild Wars in that there is no real stepping stone to raids.”

Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v4bz4/finally_got_around_to_doing_the_new_swamp_fractal/

Another clear announcement that GW2 wasn’t made to only cater easy content to the playerbase (although I don’t call Bloomhunger that difficult after playing swamp)!

Another indication that if that’s the case then they need to separate the swamp out from every other fractal or buff every other T4 fractal to it’s level AND provide appropriate rewards. You want to cater to the psuedo-raider? Fine that’s okay, but don’t just lump it in with everything else and expect the playerbase to choke it down without providing appropriate time/effort rewards.

No, all I’m saying is that T4 fractals were and are too easy for being rewarded with ascended chests and the amount of gold you are getting. I hope they continue to make T4s harder. There are easy T1-3s to learn your stuff.

I agree on the idea that all t4’s should be as involved as the new Bloom and the Chaos Fractal. But, when you have maps like SW and AB out there, naw, easy t4’s aren’t too rewarding at all.

Jerus.4350:

shakome.7458:

Has any of you encountered problem where bloom get to 25%, about to do his massive attack, but you can’t interact with the column after you pick up the wisp? My group wiped about 3times last night, not because we didn’t know his attack but because we can’t interact with anything after picking up the wisp.
I wonder if this is a bug, or we did something wrong, like there is another step we need to do before picking up the wisp

I haven’t experienced this and I’ve run it a few times. So I don’t think there’s anything extra, just grab a wisp from SE/SW/NE/NW and bring it to the closest depository pillar.

We did, the last tried we did, we assigned specific people at specific location, just so we make sure that we didn’t make a mistake to forget a wisp or something.
None of us was able to interact with the stump/column after picking up the wisp

Vinceman.4572:

Anet_Ben:

“Bloomhunger is intended to be the most difficult fractal right now. There is a problem in Guild Wars in that there is no real stepping stone to raids.”

Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v4bz4/finally_got_around_to_doing_the_new_swamp_fractal/

Another clear announcement that GW2 wasn’t made to only cater easy content to the playerbase (although I don’t call Bloomhunger that difficult after playing swamp)!

GW2 was made to only cater to anyone with a perfect ping, which is likely the biggest drama with this fight.

Mourningcry.9428:

Rewards for fractals with respect to effort (time, difficult, etc. ) is the best it’s ever been.

And it still aint great, what’s that tell you? I spent 90mins doing fractals today, I got 6 champ bags. Yesterday I completed the T4s and got 6g in trash + a dozen worthless fine crafting materials. RNG rewards suck because you always put in effort and are rewarded differently each time.

Mourningcry.9428:

Rewards for fractals with respect to effort (time, difficult, etc. ) is the best it’s ever been.

Yeah, because before the rewards were practically non-existent. Doesn’t take much to make it better.

But as it stands, rewards are pretty crap for the amount of time and gold investment you have to put into fractals in the first place. It isn’t a dungeon you can hop into with any gear. You have to take the time to work on your AR, build infusion slots, and get your build together. But it gives rewards that are worse than an Auric Basin meta that isn’t even a multimap.

Spent 2 hours attempting the stupid fractal until I won. The reward was kitten. If this is your plan from now on ANET, please provide appropriate rewards for the time spent.

Jahroots.6791:

Jerus.4350:

Atticus.7194:

OnizukaBR.8537:

People finding Swamp too difficult now just prove that it was really needed ( so after a while people will be pugging raids a lot easier ) , because it still way easier than raids, and if you cant complete T4 swamp you shouldnt be trying raids.
And for people that says that fractal shouldnt be that hard. You remember that there is T1/T2/T3 swamp right? So there you go your easy content for 5 man. All T4 should be on the level of Chaos and Swamp.

Difference is raids reward you for that difficulty, Swamp as it stands now provides next to no real rewards.

Also tone down the tryhard please? I know you’re the best and everyone else needs to “git gud” and you’re voting Trump but until everything is tuned to be like the T4 swamp it’s a little unreasonable to have this single lone boss fight be about 5x harder than any other encounter in any fractal without at least providing appropriate rewards.

Welcome to Fractals, where your reward isn’t “worth it”. That’s how they were for a LONG time, then sometime while I was gone HoT made them a quick and easy daily farm. I very much welcome this change even if it means less reward for the effort.

So, basically you want fractals to suck again so that only the ‘true’ players can enjoy them? Okay.

Dropping a tier or two down isn’t an option for most of us who’ve been pugging for the last 8 or 9 months. We’ve already established certain expectations from this content (daily fractals, at their core, are little more than a gamble for ascended chest drops) and fundamentally some of the changes feel like an indirect reward nerf: greater effort for the same reward.

In the past when Anet significantly buffed content there was also an increased incentive to play it at the higher difficulty. The loot tables need to be revised, or at least have the fractal lab vendors offer new items.

Fractals went from something fun with an underappreciated reward to a braindead gold farm. It’s not that I want it for ‘true’ players, whatever the hell that is, it’s that I want them to be what they used to be, an actual step up in difficulty. The welcome to fractals thing was more a joke, but it rings true in that fractals back then were still worth it, I have 5-6 sets of ascended thanks to that, quite a bit of gold saved. What they weren’t though was a gold farm, and that is something I’m very much ok with. I think the rewards are great right now, enough pocket change to sustain me (easily) and a chance at being able to make secondary builds or set up even more alts!

The bloomhunger fight will get quicker as people learn what to do, in fact I wouldn’t put it that far off from Mai trin in length, and when you compare the whole fractal to say cliffside it’s pretty close as well. What makes Bloom long is people dying and holding him off while you res 3 people between phases.

Jerus.4350:

Fractals went from something fun with an underappreciated reward to a braindead gold farm. It’s not that I want it for ‘true’ players, whatever the hell that is, it’s that I want them to be what they used to be, an actual step up in difficulty. The welcome to fractals thing was more a joke, but it rings true in that fractals back then were still worth it, I have 5-6 sets of ascended thanks to that, quite a bit of gold saved. What they weren’t though was a gold farm, and that is something I’m very much ok with. I think the rewards are great right now, enough pocket change to sustain me (easily) and a chance at being able to make secondary builds or set up even more alts!

The bloomhunger fight will get quicker as people learn what to do, in fact I wouldn’t put it that far off from Mai trin in length, and when you compare the whole fractal to say cliffside it’s pretty close as well. What makes Bloom long is people dying and holding him off while you res 3 people between phases.

It’s give and take with these balance changes, eh. Always going to be a sub group of the player base that gets left out in the cold. There seem to be more attempts to keep the hardcore crowd satisfied than anything else, and I find it unfortunate.

Personally, I enjoyed the hell out of the ‘braindead gold farm’ phase though. Hop in, git ‘er done, hop out and go do something else. ’Easy’ content has a few undeniable merits – no belligerence, passive aggressive whining or raqe quitters – something I saw plenty of while pugging the new fractals last night.

Over time I suppose people will learn and adapt, or maybe just not bother playing as much. Attempts to shake things up and keep players on their toes are good in theory, but there’s got to be limits. I don’t like that the newer instanced content keeps taking me out of my comfort zone, as this defeats the entire point of gaming.

Must be a sign that I’m gettin’ too old for this kitten.

I was literally shocked with the incompetence of the playerbase today on swamp, u explain the mechanics of the fight and the groups keep wiping over and over again….. I feel that Bloomhunger as a boss takes way too much time to kill and its a bit irritating not being able to melee at all but in the end its purely l2p issue.

For swamp, I found having an ele or two running x/f is amazing. Swirling winds is super powerful there coupled with the strong ranged cc. Bloomhunger isn’t too bad if you get the cc’s off and have projectile coverage!

TheArtOfMouts.7468:

Lahmia.2193:

I think most of the complaints about the new swampland fractal have come from people who aren’t used to taking defensive traits over offensive ones.
I attempted to pug it on reset but alas we failed. I then woke up the next morning and attempted again but now with knowledge of it. I told the pugs how the mechanics worked and what was required. We had 3 warriors, all running longbow or rifle + gs for the trash. They all ran Adrenal healing with healing signet. Plus I was running a staff minion master (death/blood/reaper) and the other necro ran condi minions. It took a few attempts to get the mechanics down but we managed it.

All in all I would say to everyone, bring sustain. There is no timer so there no dps check.

Hey ! I think I was in the same party
I ran a Core Warrior with Adrenal Health.
I think I went in downstate 1 time because of the overhelming particules and my computer slowing down (even if I run a good computer spec..)

Greasy Spoons?

2 things u need for the fight..1st get your ranged game going.
2nd: kitten learn to dodge

I literally had a warrior trying to cleave with gs then dying 5-6 times b4 leaving….as soon as we replaced 1-2 people who kept dying over and over Boom. Bloomhunger dead. It’s all a l2p issue

Adzekul.3104:

The new T4 Swamp is just really, really bad overall.

The Whisp stage at the start is different. I am not certain yet if all 5 people participating in the mini-event is necessary (with the rifles). Groups will need to get used to it, and may need to tolerate a few fails while they do so. Not so tragic.

No issues with Mossman. It is different (not massively so), and it is not complex. Not a heart-attack inducer.

Bloonhunger … where to begin. This fight is absolutely horrible.
1) He does too much unavoidable damage. There are way too many circles on the ground and they move/spawn way too fast. You will get hit with one and death is unavoidable because you will necessarily get hit with a lot more. Unavoidable chain damage resulting in unavoidable death is not cool.

2) When you wipe, the fight does not reset. All mobs that have spawned remain, including the poison flower things and all the AoE damage they create. Sloppy IMHO.

3) Steep learning curve. Sorry, designers, but this was a mistake IMHO. Fractals are supposed to be (relatively) quick. In the end, this fractal ends up being very slow.

For me the changes in this fight are too many. It is simply too different combined with too much complexity. It is not Bloomhunger anymore. It is a new boss with a too-high learning curve.

The Cliffside change back in the Spring was awesome. This change is the opposite because, while getting to Bloomhunger is suitably streamlined, surviving the fight with a pug will end up costing you so much time that the fractal becomes unrewarding and painfully slow.

2 cents respectfully submitted,
Adzekul of The Seafarer’s Rest.

Great summary of why the T4 version is horrendous.

I don’t mind a tough fight… but a tough fight AND a completely stupid amount of boss HP just isn’t fun. I’ve been trying to do this T4 a bunch, and the attempts just drag on and on and on and on for 30+ minutes. Not even Raid fights are supposed to last that long – they all cap at 10 mins or under

They should have added the HoT stat rings to either the loot table of these new fracs or able to purchase/achievements.

These are supposed to be stepping stones to raids and a lot of the current builds (condi classes mostly) rely on some of the new stats for optimal builds that are both effective in Tier 4 fracs and in raids.

I just figure it would be a better reward as well as helping some players reach optimal stats.

I’m not saying to make it easy to attain but at least be attainable just for those who may not like grinding open world and at the same time allowing another way to obtain and get experience with the optimal ascended build of your choice.

Just like with raids, these new fractals aren’t exactly hard once everyone learns the mechanics and gets on the same page but they definitely aren’t a face roll like most of the t4’s currently are (Maybe just because they are new) and achievements for them with better rewards like the HoT stat trinkets could help appease some of the angry crowd.

My main complaint (aside from some bugs with distance detection for the pull in Chaos) is that both Chaos and Swamp are currently far too melee unfreindly. You shouldn’t be able to stand in front of them and tank everything, but you shouldn’t be unable to ever close in except when broken either.

Bloomhunger is really fun to go at now, besides, it was GREAT that this one changed in particular – swamp was the worst fractal for so much time (swamps of the mist seems so far now…) and now it requires some actual management to beat.

Also, it’s not really that hard if everyone goes a bit more survivalist for that particular fight – I insisted my team brought more heals/aoe boons after our first wipe and we did get it second try.

The new Bloomhunger, I believe, is what many of us called for so hard: a challenging bit of content that did not introduce enrage timers to cheaply force us to go the damage route.

So my experience with swamp at T4 is not what I expected….mossman dies so fast that probably he doesn’t even know what hit him and Bloomhunger is waaaaay overtune, it moves so fast that you can barely dodge it, not even mai at lvl100 hits that hard or is that fast.
Anet pls fix that Bloomhunger fight because I rather spend a little more time killing the boss than just get one-shot by an accelerated Bloomhunger.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

My main complaint (aside from some bugs with distance detection for the pull in Chaos) is that both Chaos and Swamp are currently far too melee unfreindly. You shouldn’t be able to stand in front of them and tank everything, but you shouldn’t be unable to ever close in except when broken either.

For chaos i find that to be a problem with the bosses hitbox and cleave range (assuming a bug more than anything). Even when behind him the only way to hit him is to be up in his model which his cleave emanates from.

I think Bloom could do with a bit of a health decrease since you spend more than half the time effectively unable to do damage to him, but I absolutely love the mechanics where they are now. This is the kind of content I was hoping would be introduced in terms of difficulty. Where Bloomhunger stands now is a great stepping stone to raid level difficulty, and I hope once people master the tier4 version of him more of them will start looking into joining raids.

maxwelgm.4315:

Also, it’s not really that hard if everyone goes a bit more survivalist for that particular fight – I insisted my team brought more heals/aoe boons after our first wipe and we did get it second try.

This is the problem right here. Lot’s of people are now used to a casual/brainless guild wars and aren’t even trying to come up with different builds. This is a result of everyone going “ZERK ONLY” in LFR for a long, long time.

I am glad T4 actually means a bit of challenge now. Not too easy, not too hard either, this fractal is perfect.

Greetings,

LF a group for Swamp / Chaos.
EU account name same in message,.

LFG in-game is giving me peeps who thinks that dodging is hard and range is a sin so I’m giving up on the in-game LFG and hope a message in the forums will yield better results in actually completing these things rather then people dying and calling BS because there only-one-good-melee-zerker build isn’t working.

I personally think swamp is too easy, especially the 100% enduranceregain buff makes you able to perma dodge

To the people saying Bloom moves too fast, what tell are you using? Are you dodging the leap when the orange circle pops? Or the charge once he’s already charging? They both have specific animations that you can recognize. The charge he kinda pumps himself up then charges, and the leap he leans down a bit… hard to describe from memory but it was certainly recognizable after running it last night (4 completions with plenty of wipes sure does help learning).

So you see those tells, give the normal 1-2 count and then he actually performs the action, so it’s more be ready to dodge, then you have to gauge how far away he is as that will affect the travel time. He might not leap at you or charge at you but seeing these tells you’re able to be ready with the dodge the second that orange circle pops or he starts charging.

I have pretty bad lag issues myself but I didn’t have any issues with this, the thing that took me down the most was catching hits from the champ that I thought I was out of range for but still clipping me and knocking me down (bring a stunbreak!).

I think the main problem is that people don’t want to change their build (change is apparently evil?) and don’t want to TRY and be more surviably.

If CC is an issue, Stun Breaks are there for a reason.
If Condi is an issue, Condi Cleanse are there for a reason
If staying alive is an issues, Defensive Traits skills and Stats are there for a reason.

Complaing about Swamp when 9/10 I’m the last man standing in a party with 300 ping I’m honestly shocked. Then the proceeding 4 members call, BS demand Anet turn down Bloom and leave.

And I’m standing there, asking myself. “Why do people find him so hard?”

You don’t even have to change your build if you play it right! But, it does help a lot. A stunbreak can make what would have been a down just a little hiccup. Some group healing and condi cleanse (<3 plague signet) will go a long way. The poison doesn’t hurt too bad but making your healing skills ineffective does matter. On both swamp and Chaos I want to see if toughness can pull agro at all because that could help a lot. I’m gearing up my guard again just because of Bloom/Chaos which is a nice thing.

So a lot of people have been having trouble with the new bloomhunger and I wanted to give a little advice that my group figured out when we did it last night.

• First of all, there is currently a bug where you can pick up the wisps early around 25%, and if you pick them up before he actually phases then you will not be able to deliver it. Be sure to wait until he actually phases before picking up a wisp.

• The key to this fight is well-timed dodges. He has a lot of attacks that need to be dodged or you’ll really be hurting. This can be hard in T4 because of the reduced endurance, but if you are in the green circle, you get a buff that increases your endurance regeneration by 100%. Make sure you spend as much time in the circle as possible so you have enough dodges. Also, it is possible to sidestep his charge when he does it from far away. Learning what attacks need dodges and which don’t can be very helpful.

• If you can, bring ranged breaks. Most of his attacks have a breakbar that will make the attack end early. This is especially useful for the endless pounding thing, as ending that early can save a downed ally from going defeated. Don’t try to use melee breaks as it is not worth it to risk death. Basilisk venom on thief would be very useful, or flesh golem or various ranger pets.

• If someone goes down, don’t kill yourself trying to res them. If you can pull them to you that’s great, frequently it’s better to let them fully die and then send one person without aggro to res them slowly. Don’t phase him unless everyone is up and healthy.

• Bring some sort of low cooldown stunbreak. Inevitably you’re going to miss a dodge and get knocked down. When this happens you need to be able to get out of there before his next attack.

• Kill all adds and poison blooms before focusing on bloomhunger. You want to reduce the amount of pressure for each phase. If the champ oakheart is up when you’re running wisps, you’re going to have a bad time.

• Assign wisps beforehand. In my group we all put our personal waypoints by the wisp we were going to take (I think it’s alt-click on the map). Then at 26% we spread out and let conditions and our 5th tick him over. Like I said earlier, don’t pick up the wisp early.

• After you get past 25% just don’t take any risks. The entire middle section is green, but his attacks are just as dangerous.

• It might be a good idea to put thought into your party comp. Having a druid for heals and search and rescue can be invaluable. Necros can pull downed out of aoe and are very tanky. Thieves have basilisk venom for ranged breaks. Mesmers can distort teammates through dangerous attacks. I plan on gearing out my chrono and testing out which attacks can be distorted through. Maybe we can distort the 25% blast when we miss wisps.

• Lastly, just try to be patient and practice. You can do it. Remember a year ago when we were constantly complaining about the lack of ‘challenging group content’. This is it.

GLHF

Nice tip list.

The charge and leap both have tells before the attack initiates. I can’t describe them in detail as I didn’t really focus on it but I was able to easily recognize the two by the end of the night last night (4 t4 kills, so I was in there a lot ). Working off those tells is much easier than just reacting to a charging boss or an orange circle.

His big orange circle attack that has the inner circle expanding… this seems off for me and some others. The attack happens a little before the small circle reaches the outer circle it seemed. So keep that in mind.

Now this I’m not sure on, but at one point the ground pound shows open areas that should mean it’s safe… it didn’t seem to be safe when I tried last night. Also the champ’s knockdown is a wider radius than what his model would suggest, so make sure to give it some room or just dodge.

Also here too

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v4bz4/finally_got_around_to_doing_the_new_swamp_fractal/d5vm9fh

Good tip list, especially about the 25% bug (happened to my group) and I was wondering!

I actually started being designated poison bloom killer on some of the runs i was in. As a reaper it made me giggle as i watched the stacks add up and transfer makes me happy.

Jerus,
We need to run together more often, Maybe a new guild of old forumites to fractal and raid with

:)

assigning wisp is a pretty good idea

got to 25% twice and failed both times

definitely needs some pre planning like raids

Ropechef.6192:

I actually started being designated poison bloom killer on some of the runs i was in. As a reaper it made me giggle as i watched the stacks add up and transfer makes me happy.

Jerus,
We need to run together more often, Maybe a new guild of old forumites to fractal and raid with

:)

Hit me up! (not tonight, WvW night). I think Sarahfull and I ended up doing Chaos and Swamp like 3X each last night, too fun.

Phibes.4128:

Bloom is pure hell at T4. Grossly overtuned.

Disagree did it for the first time and finished it after 20 minutes. I LOVED IT.

papry.8096:

Disagree did it for the first time and finished it after 20 minutes. I LOVED IT.

Screenshot or it never happend.

AllNightPlayer.1286:

papry.8096:

Disagree did it for the first time and finished it after 20 minutes. I LOVED IT.

Screenshot or it never happend.

If you ask, that’s more a problem being in the old fractal mentality and not used to multitask.

UnbentMars.9126:

Good tip list, especially about the 25% bug (happened to my group) and I was wondering!

I am fairly sure that is what caused it, but not positive. A couple people in my group grabbed early and it was those people who couldn’t deposit it.

Just flooded this encounter with trash, not interesting in the slightest. Guess that’s one less daily fractal I’m bothering with. Sorry, don’t like timegated fractals.

In combining both bosses they marginalised each bosses health to make a complete feeling fractal.
This involved giving mossman a regretable amount of health and numerous flying adds, and giving bloomhunger a overwhelming health pool and invulnerabilities and pandemic amount of adds.

balanced has been achieved.

I enjoyed new Swamp. In general, the mechanics, pacing, and new fight are great.

However, playing it as a necro is incredibly frustrating for 2 reasons.

1) Bloomhunger gets hungup on minions. I believe Anet when they say its not intended for him to agro onto minions, but its undeniable that it’s happening currently. Necros have little or no control over their minions, so they can’t just just recall them like a ranger pet or shatter them like a mesmer clone. Yes, you can target and attack something else, but what if there’s nothing else to attack? And if I untarget Bloomhunger to try to recall them (which doesn’t always work), I might as well AFK because I not actually helping my party by doing anything. Either this needs to be fixed, or like the Dredge/Underground fractal, it needs a fixate or agro control mechanic.

2) Onslaught phase is terrible unless you have a spammable untargeted autoattack. All because of how tab targeting works. Trying to tab target, with for example necro scepter, goes something like:
-invulnerable Bloomhunger
-invulnerable oakheart
-invulnerable Bloomhunger
-frustrated clicking on quickly dying mobs
-invulnerable Bloomhunger again
-/sit and afk until over

I don’t know how to embed things, so… here’s a link instead (link leads to Bloomhunger defeat video):
https://youtu.be/mX-jDCO3YeA

Today, I beat the Swampland fractal with a pug group. Overall, I think the health is a bit too high. The mechanics aren’t… too bad. The constant knockdown, however, makes me cry. Angry tree reminds me way too much of the angry Lyssa gorillas. Those… terrifying…angry…purply-pink killing machines…

It took from Bloomhunger start to Bloomhunger finish – 15 minutes. HOWEVER! That was after 2 wipes (one of which happened at 25%, the other at 35-ish %) To this learning fractal probably took about 40ish minutes? give or take

Right now, potions are essential. I don’t mind this. Most upper level fractals require my little zerker self to have potions. Gawd that angry tree hurts.

What I didn’t particularly like is that it forced me to bring a weird set of utilities just so I could help keep my team alive, and keep myself alive, too. Graaanted… my team was four necros and me… and they did an amaaazing job at keeping everything else dead, while I just piddly-healed everything I could. I warned them, going in, that bloom needed to move, so they had to drop their minion master build (their choice, not mine!). I, too, had to keep my pet on passive because Bloom goes for it.

It’s the same sort of problem we had with the dredge (plus a ton of other nasty additives, heh). Too much health, and the dredge boss focuses spirits, minions, pets, and likely clones (didn’t have a mesmer, cannot confirm). This forces me, as a ranger, to lose half of my damage (if not more than half my damage) which would otherwise be given by my pet (of course, staying in staff and celestial instead of going to longbow also takes off my damage… but living teammates are better than damage!). It also forces me to constantly keep an eye on my pet while trying to keep on eye on my poor zerker/viper buddies around me. (f2 puts silly little passive pet into combat)

Honestly? I like the fight. I’d like it more if my pet didn’t have to be on passive. I’d like it a lil’ more if AngryTree didn’t have so much hp. I’d also like it a little more if I had someone to give me stability. I chose not to have that elite in order to synergize the healing a bit more… but I’m still not sure my elite would have been enough. It is, however, true that Bloom’s attacks are easily dodged, or moved away from (that’s proved in the vid, too).

It does kinda suck if you’ve already used your breakstun, and he knocks your butt down again. EVERYthing he does, I feel, is a knockdown. It’s really, really hard to bring forever stunbreaks… and my ally stunbreak is a ridiculously tiny circle compared to Bloom’s aoe knockdown circle.

Anyhoo! Enjoy the video. I do like the improved fractal, and I’ll like it more in the future, I’m sure. A few tweaks to make it slightly shorter would be good.

*TL;DR: *
Reduce AngryTree’s hp
Bring a stability happy friend
Bring a breakstun friend
Please tell Bloom that pets, spirits, clones, and minions are on his side, and to focus on the players.
Oh, and Mossman is an afterthought now ;-)

Chaos is ok, thoug unlucky situations can mean an automatic death no matter how good you play (bar players with shadow step maybe).

Bloomhunger is a huge fail imo. Mathematical sense is nowhere to be found in this fractal.

Hint: Lvl 100 Mai trinn is 100000x more fun and doable then lvl 77 Bloomhunger. Bloomhunger is insanity.

PS stop mixing raid devs and fractal devs. They got nothing to do with each other, and Bloomhunger 100% certainly has raid dev influence.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Chaos is ok, thoug unlucky situations can mean an automatic death no matter how good you play (bar players with shadow step maybe).

Bloomhunger is a huge fail imo. Mathematical sense is nowhere to be found in this fractal.

Hint: Lvl 100 Mai trinn is 100000x more fun and doable then lvl 77 Bloomhunger. Bloomhunger is insanity.

PS stop mixing raid devs and fractal devs. They got nothing to do with each other, and Bloomhunger 100% certainly has raid dev influence.

It’s reddit… and you’d think they’d post this stuff on their own forums too. But, anyways, the dev who made the encounter said he specifically wanted to introduce some raid mechanics as a stepping stone to raids. He also stated that they don’t have plans to change the other easy fractals to be like this, so you don’t have to fear there, you can get easy t4 farming done most of the time, just a few times a month you’ll miss out on a t4 daily if you don’t do swamp.

Ok there we go then. A RAID BOSS yes raid boss, Vale guardian is easier then Bloomhunger. There I said it.

Stepping stone? My kitten . Not true in any sense. The dev who made it absolutely did not play it himself (nor did he often play other fractals) cause there is no correlation in feel, execution, whatsoever with any old fractals, including mai trin. If this is the future of fractals, ouch! Secondly ’don’t worry other fracs won’t be changed? Snowblind was also made a lot more annoying. Luckely is more doable then bloomhunger, but they share the same ‘annoying facto’. Situations that are so overpowered that you are helpless no matter what, unless you hit that 0,01% like bilbo had to destroy the Ring from Sauron. If we fail in VG we know why. IF I fail in Mai trin I know why. If i die in Bloomhunger I sometimes know why. Most of times, there’s no correlation wich a opssible wrong action, and the outcome. This means, if i did any other action, it would not have fixed the failure. (Unless perhaps switching to perma dodge thief, but that cannot be the goal of fractals, forcing ppl to limited amount of fractals). I changed my trais 8×. I now have a build with that i feel (druid) is close enough to the way bloomhunger works. There’s still situations that this build cannot fix, and it has more dodges then classes like necro, engie. Snowblind has this same random kitten now with aoe, knockdowns and frostbite (if they hit you at same time you are poop, playing well won’t change that, unless longbow ranger standing in corner of room away from boss and hoping he doenst come to you. That being said, being a very good player, and having very good player in party, usually improves the chance to still beat him, SO much on snowblind that it’s partially forgiven (the annoyance factor still is there, the mechanic is not that fun rather then annoying. There’s way to fix that. Mai trin is pure genius. Yes it’s annoying, but so rewarding if you play it well. Sure Bloomhunger isn’t out long, but I play gw2 long enough (and bloomhunger 4 hour, yes 4 hours in total already), to know he’s overtuned, and not even a little bit.

Breakbar is overtuned (to much stun required), hp is overtuned (with so much hard mechanics, a high hp bar is the worst way to make it harder. Bug is a devil. Whisps not working at crucial time is suicide by devs. Poison aoe simply is to big, and to hard to wipe out fast unless everyone is power longbow ranger. I can go on and on, but Bloomhunger is wrong in every way. Except perhaps the walk him from X whisp to another, including adds who support him strongly. Makes for interesting mechanic. However the numbers supporting the skillset of bloomhunger is the most crazy dev input i’ve seen. His skills respawn to fast (though this perhaps is not the biggest issue). His skills are to big aoe. His charge is good, but some other skills are just meh. The random confusion you get (instability?) makes the frac even harder then it already should be. It’s just trolling on an already hard situation (aka force ppl to take cleanse spamming). Another issue: if you dont have swiftnes or mobility you can’t really do you thing in this fractal. This is a big balance issue. The small poison aoe’s the he spams is ok and not ok. IF that where his strongest attack, sure np, keep it good balanced. Same goes for most of his abilities. But with all the things grouped together, it’s simply to strong. This guy stole the skill ‘Impossible Odds from sHiro’ Shaved the cooldown 10x, Added 7 skills with also that level of ‘legendary impact’, and now comes together as one Boss. Not 1 but 7 Impossible odd like skills, that hugely impact the battle. To much. Not even Raid bosses are this bad. Now that I think of it: Gorseval is ALSO easier. Yes easy to die, but if you know what to do, big chance for succes. Eeasy to know and see moments to dodgE. His room wide aoe killing = predictable after a while, counterable, and mechanic wise good implemented. Bloomhunger is the opposite. Worst implementation in mmo-scape i’ve seen.

My dream punishment for the lead dev: he is forced to pug with ppl who only own the game for 1 month, and he must succeed Bloomhunger 10 in a day at lvl 77+. My brain says he will fail (and he should know every mechanic very well). That doesn’t correspond with community tuned instance, but more like a dev experiment. Failed experiment if i may say so.

PS there bug where the whisps (that if not place wiped the party) do not work, is the worst bug in the world. You first invent a world breakign hard boss, to then BUG ppl who are an inch away from succes. Unintended or not, shipping like this, kill the love for gw2 in me.

Going to dust off my Voodoo doll especially for the dev that made this booboo.
Pins can be a problem, but for this, I will go and buy a bunch!

Phoebe Ascension.8437
How do you explain then that some of us got him in our first few tries?
Personally I didnt even know there was a new boss until yesterday, we wiped once. That was all to understand the mechanics. Actually no… One dude told us what would happen at 25%.
It was a 100% full pug group, no prep time, and it was not at reset time where you usually find the best fractal players.

So either some of my group were very good, or some of your group were very bad.
We had lots of people down, including one that would go down a lot more than the others, but that was it. We’d get someone down, we would pull the boss as far away as possible and rez, once thing you can’t do with raids.
Once you understand its moves, he’s not that complicated to dodge.
Bring survival, more dodge/invincibility. If you did that as you said, maybe have the others do it as well. I don’t know, I really don’t get what’s so hard about this boss.
Maybe it’s a little bit too long, but compared to the extremely boring old swamp boss, this one is refreshing. Guild Wars shouldnt be just about rewarding a player for doing nothing. That’s what the old Swamp was about.

About Snowblind it makes even less sense… previous fight with the elemental was confusing as frak, and the final boss was ridiculously easy AND slow to defeat. They fixed both of these issues, what is wrong about it now?

T4 is getting closer to the raid difficulty, this is what GW2 needs.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Ok there we go then. A RAID BOSS yes raid boss, Vale guardian is easier then Bloomhunger. There I said it.

Stepping stone? My kitten . Not true in any sense. The dev who made it absolutely did not play it himself (nor did he often play other fractals) cause there is no correlation in feel, execution, whatsoever with any old fractals, including mai trin. If this is the future of fractals, ouch! Secondly ’don’t worry other fracs won’t be changed? Snowblind was also made a lot more annoying. Luckely is more doable then bloomhunger, but they share the same ‘annoying facto’. Situations that are so overpowered that you are helpless no matter what, unless you hit that 0,01% like bilbo had to destroy the Ring from Sauron. If we fail in VG we know why. IF I fail in Mai trin I know why. If i die in Bloomhunger I sometimes know why. Most of times, there’s no correlation wich a opssible wrong action, and the outcome. This means, if i did any other action, it would not have fixed the failure. (Unless perhaps switching to perma dodge thief, but that cannot be the goal of fractals, forcing ppl to limited amount of fractals). I changed my trais 8×. I now have a build with that i feel (druid) is close enough to the way bloomhunger works. There’s still situations that this build cannot fix, and it has more dodges then classes like necro, engie. Snowblind has this same random kitten now with aoe, knockdowns and frostbite (if they hit you at same time you are poop, playing well won’t change that, unless longbow ranger standing in corner of room away from boss and hoping he doenst come to you. That being said, being a very good player, and having very good player in party, usually improves the chance to still beat him, SO much on snowblind that it’s partially forgiven (the annoyance factor still is there, the mechanic is not that fun rather then annoying. There’s way to fix that. Mai trin is pure genius. Yes it’s annoying, but so rewarding if you play it well. Sure Bloomhunger isn’t out long, but I play gw2 long enough (and bloomhunger 4 hour, yes 4 hours in total already), to know he’s overtuned, and not even a little bit.

Breakbar is overtuned (to much stun required), hp is overtuned (with so much hard mechanics, a high hp bar is the worst way to make it harder. Bug is a devil. Whisps not working at crucial time is suicide by devs. Poison aoe simply is to big, and to hard to wipe out fast unless everyone is power longbow ranger. I can go on and on, but Bloomhunger is wrong in every way. Except perhaps the walk him from X whisp to another, including adds who support him strongly. Makes for interesting mechanic. However the numbers supporting the skillset of bloomhunger is the most crazy dev input i’ve seen. His skills respawn to fast (though this perhaps is not the biggest issue). His skills are to big aoe. His charge is good, but some other skills are just meh. The random confusion you get (instability?) makes the frac even harder then it already should be. It’s just trolling on an already hard situation (aka force ppl to take cleanse spamming). Another issue: if you dont have swiftnes or mobility you can’t really do you thing in this fractal. This is a big balance issue. The small poison aoe’s the he spams is ok and not ok. IF that where his strongest attack, sure np, keep it good balanced. Same goes for most of his abilities. But with all the things grouped together, it’s simply to strong. This guy stole the skill ‘Impossible Odds from sHiro’ Shaved the cooldown 10x, Added 7 skills with also that level of ‘legendary impact’, and now comes together as one Boss. Not 1 but 7 Impossible odd like skills, that hugely impact the battle. To much. Not even Raid bosses are this bad. Now that I think of it: Gorseval is ALSO easier. Yes easy to die, but if you know what to do, big chance for succes. Eeasy to know and see moments to dodgE. His room wide aoe killing = predictable after a while, counterable, and mechanic wise good implemented. Bloomhunger is the opposite. Worst implementation in mmo-scape i’ve seen.

My dream punishment for the lead dev: he is forced to pug with ppl who only own the game for 1 month, and he must succeed Bloomhunger 10 in a day at lvl 77+. My brain says he will fail (and he should know every mechanic very well). That doesn’t correspond with community tuned instance, but more like a dev experiment. Failed experiment if i may say so.

PS there bug where the whisps (that if not place wiped the party) do not work, is the worst bug in the world. You first invent a world breakign hard boss, to then BUG ppl who are an inch away from succes. Unintended or not, shipping like this, kill the love for gw2 in me.

I am not sure if we played the same fractal, but i duod the fractal yesterday on an ele/ele setup.

Sorry to say but VG was way harder when it came out. Took my group of casual mates 8 hours to finally down it at first whereas this fractal took 2 wipes to understand the mechanics and finally 3rd time kill (put in stun breaks on our builds, still running viper/zerk).

At some point you need to realize maybe you need to GIT GUD as the dev said on reddit :^)