Guild Wars 2

I think a lot of the complaints coming from people claiming they can / have raided successfully showcase 1 thing.

Raids have a lot more leeway than people give them credit for and some people are just now figuring out that sure they can raid/get kills but they are not able to be that driving carry they might have thought themselves to be and have even more room for growth as a player.

I found boon thieves proved to be the biggest pain in the rear for the fight.
We ended up rolling 3 necros, a malyx/shiro rev, and myself on druid.

So, instability depending, don’t bring a lot of might (or fury), since it is highly likely to get stolen by the instability. Bloomy hurt considerably more ( 1 shot vs not) with high might.

The fight became extremely boring though. Just spam minions and spam glyphs and the occasional CA for someone who got hit by something. The attacks even in t4 are very clearly telegraphed. & without might very little was an instant death. Except possibly getting CC’d then getting donkey kong’d. Which can be prevented via break bar.

as a side note: I think this fight would be vastly more engaging without boon thieves. I’d be much more inclined to try to melee, and insta burst the break bar ( such as rev staff 5, and/or basi venom).

Also, does this use matthias or slothosaur fixation mechanics?
It seemed like the latter, but it was just swapping fixation due to downed/death.

tl;dr:
don’t use boons with boon thieves. you’ll just get 1shot more often.
Does he use matthias or slothosaur fixation?

Bloomy already stacks might himself when he does his ground pound thing.

Maybe I just had crap pugs, that that is also worth a discussion: why kill the pugability from fractals in first place?

Also I wanna see vid of everyone doing successfull run from start to finish (including failed runs). I’m pretty sure EVERYONE died once to an aoe they could not dodge because:

1) aoe to big, couldnt walk out
2) out of dodge
3) out of swiftness, and boss charges to fast to you
4) poison fields spawning in such a spammy way around you (bad luck, rng) that you can avoid all of them, and take to much damage from them
5) bugged whisps, taking your finaly succesful going run still away.

Afterthought: I just switched from necro to druid all gear. Maybe i shouldn’t. Necro is clearly most overpowered profession for this fractal. Torment scepter nr 3 crazy good, sticking condies like butter on them, compared to other profs much harder. Epidemic the trash away. Charge from golem to break bar from far away. Blood magic, leeching, transfusion. Combine that together, and necro is 10x as good as say, a guardian for this fractal. And no necro isn’t in pve overpowered imo. This boss was just badly balanced around skills of revenent, dragon hunter, and to lesser extend warrior, mesmer. It’s all ranged who played the meta. Engie, ranger, thief to some extend, necro, ele.

Also melee is litteraly suicide there, i’d say 40-60% of my parties where mostly melee tryhards still (denying still it’s to hard). For instance revenent really has overal bad ranged weapon (dps), so they not welcome in bloomhunger runs?

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Maybe I just had crap pugs, that that is also worth a discussion: why kill the pugability from fractals in first place?

It’s not killing the pugability of something that’s supposed to be hard (fractal T4) to make it actually difficult.

Bad pug shouldn’t come to T4 if they don’t want to improve. If you want the reward then get good at it
Just don’t come using the meta build not caring what happen around you and not willing to adapt.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

I’m pretty sure EVERYONE died…

Nope, not me, because you can run out of the path of his stampede. You don’t have to use a dodge here, you shouldn’t also dodge the aoes in the first place, only if you are standing in one. Since you also move fast to the green fields you have unlimited dodges. It’s just a l2p issue I am noticing in raids as well: People use their dodges way too often without any necessity.
And no to your necro theory, every class has active defenses like some more dodges, blocks, reflects, jumps, swiftness e.g. that help a lot. Friend of mine is playing mesmer and has no problems at all except pugs.
And that’s the matter, just give this fractal some weeks and you hardly see any groups struggling there unless you try to practice.
I’m still counting your post as one of a decent player because a good one would just have observed the mechanics, practiced to become better and wouldn’t post a rant in the forums.

Vinceman.4572:

It’s just a l2p issue I am noticing in raids as well: People use their dodges way too often without any necessity..

Yup.
For long telescoped attacks, people use their dodge.
When you can :
– put a +25% speed skill/passive speed boon.
- actually turn your back to the mob to get away of arms faster.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

1) aoe to big, couldnt walk out
2) out of dodge

If you were running out of dodges you must have dodge random like all the time.
I were panicin from time to time aswell, but the dodge bar filled very fast again.

New Bloomy isn’t bad when you adapt to him. I’d just like to see his HP reduced by a substantial amount (and possibly the champ gone, since it doesn’t bring anything to the fight except another large HP bar to be killed). Damage is already low during this fight due to forced ranged combat for most of the time, so why does Bloomy need bazillions of health in addition?

CptAurellian.9537:

New Bloomy isn’t bad when you adapt to him. I’d just like to see his HP reduced by a substantial amount (and possibly the champ gone, since it doesn’t bring anything to the fight except another large HP bar to be killed). Damage is already low during this fight due to forced ranged combat for most of the time, so why does Bloomy need bazillions of health in addition?

His hp is fine. What is not fine is 1 minute timegate phase. That phase is there just to waste time. Just remove it and make him port to the middle and do some one shot aoe or something.

CptAurellian.9537:

Bloomy already stacks might himself when he does his ground pound thing.

25 might + fury + quickness being stolen is a lot more dangerous than just the little bit of might it gets from that attack though.
Nothing wrong with bloom getting some self buffing, that can be stolen/corrupted.
I just think it takes a lot of the fun out of the fight when you want to actively avoid a PS war or a chrono. Also removes any scope as a “stepping stone to raids” @ t4 as result.

I think everything is fine except the time get. I don’t understand why they keep adding time gates even tho everyone hates them

I think the new swamp is perfect, even the “timegated” phases. If they were shorter they would be too easy

thanks for the post, OP

Its way better then before.
Many players who were face rolling swamp before now have huge problems, which is the only drawback, because I pug it mostly and often need to change groups until i get the players who can finish it.

CptAurellian.9537:

New Bloomy isn’t bad when you adapt to him. I’d just like to see his HP reduced by a substantial amount (and possibly the champ gone, since it doesn’t bring anything to the fight except another large HP bar to be killed). Damage is already low during this fight due to forced ranged combat for most of the time, so why does Bloomy need bazillions of health in addition?

I think its HP is reduced, the “problem” is that it need to be in the green aoe to actually take damage. By “problem” I mean players who are new to the mechanics or are plain bad and cant grasp it, no matter what.

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

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.

This silly Swamp isn’t hard to do. Did it with 4 people in t4 (89) during the daily previously. Failed it a few times at 77 and found a group to do it at 89. It’s about getting the right group. But it’s ridiculously long and for this horrible reward. Definitely 77 seems much harder than all those higher tiers. Makes absolutely no sense. People thinking otherwise doesn’t know how to count and think 77 = 107. Perhaps if this Swamp is intended to be one of the hardest, then change the numbers on it. 89 and 77 doesn’t fit it anymore. 100 should be greater than 89 and 77. Not 77 and 89 > 100.

mazut.4296:

Its way better then before.
Many players who were face rolling swamp before now have huge problems, which is the only drawback, because I pug it mostly and often need to change groups until i get the players who can finish it.

That’s the problem nowadays. People keep leaving groups after a few failed attempts without trying and change into a group who can carry them. There’s many ways to look at it… If you stay, you’ll feel like you’re doing all the work and carrying. If you leave, you’ll be hated and looking for someone that can carry you. What are the choices? The old Swamp was horrible because of it being super easy. The new Swamp requires way too much time. Time spent to get this reward probably not worth it at this time.

I remember the first week AC revamp came out people were crying it was the end of the world, unpuggable blah blah blah. Funny enough it eventually became puggable pretty easily just like I’m sure this fractal will be too.

Maybe not 77 since that’s a bit cancer but 89 is definitely not that difficult.

dragon.8071:

The new Swamp requires way too much time. Time spent to get this reward probably not worth it at this time.

It needn’t take that long — they just added it; it will take time for people to absorb the tips. My regular group, which is far from optimal nearly succeeded on our second try (we’re having some trouble coordinating wisps which is par for us).

So some PUGsters skip it for a few weeks and some players /quit a few groups until they find one that knows what they’re doing. That doesn’t mean it’s too hard or too long; it just means it’s new.

The first problem: new swamp seems bugged. Just… imagine doing it with a PUG group, finally feeling better at it, so you get to the wisp timed phase… And boom, the clefts are bugged and no one can interact with them. This fight is too long anyway, and with knowing you can get wiped even if you do everything just as you should, I’m not going to bother myself with it.

I finished 77 on the day it was first in the dailies and where are my magnetite shards! This was an awful experience for pick up groups. Constantly having to explain raid level mechanics with people leaving, forcing you to restart the explanation. And absolutely everyone assuming things since it was a daily. I’m pretty sure if you wipe right at the end because not all four wisps are put in that’s a much harder mechanic than any dps check in any raid!

So to clarify that, here’s a story from one of my groups that explained things thoroughly before going in, however didn’t explain it to me as the last person who joined. Fight went well with everyone knowing what to do and avoid, but was still tremendously slow as it’s set up very poorly with the champ that will knock everyone down spawning at the end of killing everything. We finally reach the wisps part and I panic because I’m a bit far from mine, but I lightning flash and end up being the first to put mine in. Last person doesn’t put there’s in and we wipe. Every single person. Then. Blames me.

They say the timer is 5 seconds when one is put in, and I still don’t know what the mechanic truly is. My success group assured me that you just put them in as quickly as possible so I legitimately just stood at mine at the end and lightning flashed to put it in. It was probably in after 1 second from it spawning. As far as i could tell, 5 seconds did pass from when I put it in so the group that was extremely toxic towards me was incorrect, but I’m not sure. All I know is that is a mechanic harder then a huge part of the raids as it’s next to impossible if one person get downed since the extra person won’t know which one isn’t getting put in that last crucial moment.

I think it is a bit overtuned. Personally, the balance seems a bit off. They made Mossman totally redundant, yet made Bloom insane. A little bit of moderation would have been better. Apart from anything else, it has now gone from by far the shortest fractal to the longest. I felt it went on forever.

Mitch.4781:

I think it is a bit overtuned. Personally, the balance seems a bit off. They made Mossman totally redundant, yet made Bloom insane. A little bit of moderation would have been better. Apart from anything else, it has now gone from by far the shortest fractal to the longest. I felt it went on forever.

Its only long if you fail over and over. As soon as people know what to do it will be a sub 10 minute fractal again.

And why remove the little underwater cavern? It worries me that they are trying to remove underwater from the game. Removed it from the pvp map. No meaningful water encounters in HOT, not new UW weapon skins. Piece by Piece.

Mitch.4781:

And why remove the little underwater cavern? It worries me that they are trying to remove underwater from the game. Removed it from the pvp map. No meaningful water encounters in HOT, not new UW weapon skins. Piece by Piece.

I wouldn’t miss Aquatic all that much honestly….

Mourningcry.9428:

Mitch.4781:

And why remove the little underwater cavern? It worries me that they are trying to remove underwater from the game. Removed it from the pvp map. No meaningful water encounters in HOT, not new UW weapon skins. Piece by Piece.

I wouldn’t miss Aquatic all that much honestly….

Yeah, though GW2 is the best underwater combat I’ve come across. It’s just that with more basic type things, you can just easily kite it and that makes it pretty boring. Try and optimize and even though it’s the best I’ve seen the combat is pretty clunky. I would like to see what they could come up with if they really tried at underwater using the newer stuff they’ve developed. I really think they could do something cool, but yeah… not sure it’s worth the effort.

Mitch.4781:

And why remove the little underwater cavern? It worries me that they are trying to remove underwater from the game. Removed it from the pvp map. No meaningful water encounters in HOT, not new UW weapon skins. Piece by Piece.

As if that cavern was interesting/relevant in any way. But tbh, I’d be rather happy if they actually removed underwater combat from the game. It’s severely restricted (few weapons and half of our utilities locked), poorly balanced and just feels clunky. I doubt the massive resources necessary for a proper rework would be a good investment, at least until they bring the Bubbles dragon.

CptAurellian.9537:

Mitch.4781:

And why remove the little underwater cavern? It worries me that they are trying to remove underwater from the game. Removed it from the pvp map. No meaningful water encounters in HOT, not new UW weapon skins. Piece by Piece.

As if that cavern was interesting/relevant in any way. But tbh, I’d be rather happy if they actually removed underwater combat from the game. It’s severely restricted (few weapons and half of our utilities locked), poorly balanced and just feels clunky. I doubt the massive resources necessary for a proper rework would be a good investment, at least until they bring the Bubbles dragon.

It’s not about it being interesting. It’s yet more removal of areas from the game. Now the Mossman fight is utterly pointless.

I love how all the generic praises.. Oh it’s perfect good job anet, oh we did it in 20 mins loved it… have absolutely no backing. Seems rather fishy

The reality, this fractal needs to be looked at and toned down, there are many complaints about the speed level of the boss combined with one shotting capabilities and annoying waiting factors before being able to damage it.

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.

This reads like a Donald Trump speech…

Seriously though, definitely not a failed experiment and VG is way harder than Bloomhunger. My group beat it on the 3rd try without an issue. Debating overtunements is a useful part of discussion (I happen to agree that he has a bit too much health considering the invulnerability mechanics), but claiming the “experiment” failed is utter tripe.

The “wipe if you dont place the wisps fast enough” is a mechanic, not a bug. Gotta be quick about it.

Also, the dev would totally succeed as he knows the mechanics inside out and has been explaining them left and right on reddit.

I would try to explain more but it’s really hard to separate your statements from that wall of text that reads more like a Donald Trump rant than anything coherent

UnbentMars.9126:

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.

This reads like a Donald Trump speech…

Seriously though, definitely not a failed experiment and VG is way harder than Bloomhunger. My group beat it on the 3rd try without an issue. Debating overtunements is a useful part of discussion (I happen to agree that he has a bit too much health considering the invulnerability mechanics), but claiming the “experiment” failed is utter tripe.

The “wipe if you dont place the wisps fast enough” is a mechanic, not a bug. Gotta be quick about it.

Also, the dev would totally succeed as he knows the mechanics inside out and has been explaining them left and right on reddit.

I would try to explain more but it’s really hard to separate your statements from that wall of text that reads more like a Donald Trump rant than anything coherent

Can’t we have ONE corner of the internet where someone doesn’t bring up Trump or Hilary. Especially in such an irrelevant manner. PLEASE?

Gambino.2109:

I love how all the generic praises.. Oh it’s perfect good job anet, oh we did it in 20 mins loved it… have absolutely no backing. Seems rather fishy

The reality, this fractal needs to be looked at and toned down, there are many complaints about the speed level of the boss combined with one shotting capabilities and annoying waiting factors before being able to damage it.

That’s what makes generic praise generic…

As for why I like it, I like that I have to constantly keep an eye on bloomhunger while dealing with other stuff. I also feel that with some more time we’ll adapt some better tactics to make it not take long at all. I know the teams I went with aside from the wipes while people took a couple tries to learn were about 10-15mins for a kill. That’s not bad for what is a first kill for most.

they said they’re gonna “balance” (aka nerf) it anyway, so why keep complaining, it’s going to happen
As long as there’s no bugs left it’ll be fine, even though I’m still not a fan of the oakheart champs (they don’t really add much imo, but might just be me), the timegates and the poison blooms. Well, not the blooms themselves as much as the fact that you can’t kittening see the AoEs properly. Green on green sucks and so do thin, red lines obscured by various things.

Jerus.4350:

Gambino.2109:

I love how all the generic praises.. Oh it’s perfect good job anet, oh we did it in 20 mins loved it… have absolutely no backing. Seems rather fishy

The reality, this fractal needs to be looked at and toned down, there are many complaints about the speed level of the boss combined with one shotting capabilities and annoying waiting factors before being able to damage it.

That’s what makes generic praise generic…

As for why I like it, I like that I have to constantly keep an eye on bloomhunger while dealing with other stuff. I also feel that with some more time we’ll adapt some better tactics to make it not take long at all. I know the teams I went with aside from the wipes while people took a couple tries to learn were about 10-15mins for a kill. That’s not bad for what is a first kill for most.

Pretty much this. I ran swamp twice at 89 (first completely blind) when it was on the daily rotation. I took us 3 attempts to figure out all the mechanics (mind you we were 4 manning it) the total time spent was like 1hr. The second pass when i could explain the mechanics to the 4 new people (now 5 manning it) it took roughly 10 minutes.

So basically once you get good, you can do it rather quickly. I get people want to tune him down a bit and that’s fine, but lets just wait and see if its more a case of numbers rather than first time jitters or heaven forbid poor teamwork due to pugging.

I finally got around to trying Swamp’s updates last night for the first time on L89, and it was great! We beat Bloomhunger on our first try even with two people having never seen it before, and it took about 10 minutes. My feedback for this boss fight in particular follows.

• Bloomhunger’s invulnerable phases at 75%, 50%, and 25% last too long. It feels very time-gated and unnecessary.
• Bloomhunger’s projectiles fly a little too fast and have a little too much RNG in them. Sometimes six of them can layer over an area and make it a total killzone for anyone inside, whereas sometimes you can stand still for ten seconds and not get hit.

Otherwise I found the fight was perfectly tuned and a great experience overall. I particularly enjoyed how punishing he was when he downed a player because it’s so hard to res them inside his AOE fields. Good job, ANet!

If Swamp 77 and higher fractale are more difficult than some raids, the loot should be the same as raids or higher.

Lorin.9564:

If Swamp 77 and higher fractale are more difficult than some raids, the loot should be the same as raids or higher.

Fractal rewards are already higher!

Jerus.4350:

But, anyways, the dev who made the encounter said he specifically wanted to introduce some raid mechanics as a stepping stone to raids.

I’d rather they introduced old swamp mechanics to raids than the other way around. I really hate how that raid content is having impact on the whole game way out of proportion compared to the small group of players it was meant for.

Astralporing.1957:

Jerus.4350:

But, anyways, the dev who made the encounter said he specifically wanted to introduce some raid mechanics as a stepping stone to raids.

I’d rather they introduced old swamp mechanics to raids than the other way around. I really hate how that raid content is having impact on the whole game way out of proportion compared to the small group of players it was meant for.

So you want raids to be an utterly boring faceroll where people just stack and dont do anything other than press 1? That’s silly…

What’s wrong with challenging content? It’s about time Swamp was updated to be anything more than a spamfest as it was vastly too easy since it was introduced. Additionally, improving encounters that are accessible to most people to serve as a stepping stone to enable an easier transition to raiding is a FANTASTIC move by Anet.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I finally got around to trying Swamp’s updates last night for the first time on L89, and it was great! We beat Bloomhunger on our first try even with two people having never seen it before, and it took about 10 minutes. My feedback for this boss fight in particular follows.

• Bloomhunger’s invulnerable phases at 75%, 50%, and 25% last too long. It feels very time-gated and unnecessary.
• Bloomhunger’s projectiles fly a little too fast and have a little too much RNG in them. Sometimes six of them can layer over an area and make it a total killzone for anyone inside, whereas sometimes you can stand still for ten seconds and not get hit.

Otherwise I found the fight was perfectly tuned and a great experience overall. I particularly enjoyed how punishing he was when he downed a player because it’s so hard to res them inside his AOE fields. Good job, ANet!

Good sum up, the trash mob phases are indeed too long, i rather have that they are 33%/50% shorter
I dont personally find the projectiles to be that much of a problem, but i have seen several people caught in a deathtrap if they dont have a double dodge ready.

Phibes.4128:

Bloom is pure hell at T4. Grossly overtuned.

True that. T4 just makes me wanna ragequit.

Astralporing.1957:

Jerus.4350:

But, anyways, the dev who made the encounter said he specifically wanted to introduce some raid mechanics as a stepping stone to raids.

I’d rather they introduced old swamp mechanics to raids than the other way around. I really hate how that raid content is having impact on the whole game way out of proportion compared to the small group of players it was meant for.

You do know this game was not supposed to be a complete snoozefest right? Not everything is meant to be easy and with how rewarding fractals are, all T4 fractals should be as hard as the new swamp. Which isn’t even that hard by the way, you’re just to used to pressing 1 for reward.

Ok we get that the swamp was easy we under stand that but now they have gone to the other side. Bloomhunger is on t4 to hard, he has to many abilities and they need to down grade him some.

Here are a couple of ideas to make this challenging but not stupid hard like it is now

1 take away that stupid spirit form he can hit you but you can not hit him this is not even close to being fair for players.

2 lose the adds he is hard enough without the adds when I get 30 stacks of poison in one attack there is an issue with this.

3 get rid off both of these and just have him as mobile as he is it is hard enough to get an attack on him with how much he moves.

make these changes or you will see ppl not doing this fractal and if that is what you want then just take the kitten thing out.

I can’t agree. Swamp is definitely one of the harder fractals now, but it’s finally interesting. If you want an easier version that’s close to how you describe, try it in the lower tiers.

lower tiers work,

All bosses should be like that one. The noobs who can’t survive can go back pokemon.

Still no fix to this messed up fractal trash stage? Today’s swamp daily was probably 10 minutes or so. Can’t say the same for my fellow teammates who struggled for over 1.5 hours on it. I join a @ boss session. I know what to do. But that 1 shot bloom and ground pounding made me think it was Donkey Kong wanting his banana back. Guess anet’s idea of fun is to turn an immobile tree to tree with the mind of an ape and the charge of a bull. I missed that clown called Mossman. Probably not much of a fight since he fights like a little girl now. Come on… let’s not make this fractal so imbalance. This one fractal now makes aquatic super fun in comparison. Chaos was good. The update to Snowblind was nice. But Swamp…. YUCK!

Azoqu.8917:

Astralporing.1957:

Jerus.4350:

But, anyways, the dev who made the encounter said he specifically wanted to introduce some raid mechanics as a stepping stone to raids.

I’d rather they introduced old swamp mechanics to raids than the other way around. I really hate how that raid content is having impact on the whole game way out of proportion compared to the small group of players it was meant for.

You do know this game was not supposed to be a complete snoozefest right? Not everything is meant to be easy and with how rewarding fractals are, all T4 fractals should be as hard as the new swamp. Which isn’t even that hard by the way, you’re just to used to pressing 1 for reward.

Pressing 1? That’s wvw. Wrong section. Rewards not that great recently. These new updates introduced a nerf to rewards???

Lower tiers is also a snooze fest. It’s not hard. Just get a group that knows the mechanics. It’s lame and imbalance. Its time to reward payoff stinks. Taken into consideration of getting the right party. It can be PUG hell if you get some casuals in group. You can try this.. go into a group who is at boss. Find out how long they been at it. How many raged… then you will know that they’ve been practicing the stage so you aren’t wasting your time. Yes, it sounds mean. But at the rate it’s going, that might be the best solution.