Guild Wars 2

Another one would be, the attacks are too punishing. I was doing so well then ended up just on the very edge of his jump and insta down=death. Also when u get knocked down you get knocked down for way too long. It means almost certain death. Maybe reduce that by a second?

Bloomhunger fight is a joke and everything hits you ridiculously hard. It’s not even worth wasting 30+ mins for a clear (if you get one) when you’re reward is minuscule. The whole fight needs to be reworked there is too much running and then you do a burn for 5-10% unless you’re all ranged players. I stood there today thinking wow this is probably the hardest content in the game, harder than any raid boss and for what an agony infusion?(I clear every wing every week so its not over dramatic). Some nights you get lucky and other times its all just frustration and not fun at all. I get making it more advanced than it was previously but atleast make it puggable.

Even Mossman was more fun to fight previously since I’m not just QQ’ing about Bloomy being too hard. Now Mossy is just in a narrow hallway of death, where previously he had a whole area that made it a more unique encounter.

Old swamp was better in every way possible, the other fractal changes were great but this one needs to be reverted.

I’m resisting the urge to say “Get more Toughness and stunbreaks, yo”. XD My builds are always more of a hybrid between DPS (whether Power or Condi) and survivability, and while Bloomhunger hits really hard now, I can usually still survive it long enough to get away and heal.

I will agree that it’s extremely difficult to run melee against him though. The bonus Champ Oakheart that spawns at T4 with its additional CC attacks doesn’t help. On my Warrior I usually just swap to Rifle and stay on that throughout the entire fight.

Gimli.9461:

The constructive criticism bit was about the AoE indicators :P

Sorry just read very abrasive to me, but yeah sorry.

Old swamp was a faceroll and way too fast for the potential rewards. I’ve seen so many crying in raid threads for difficult 5 man content that this had to be a good update for those people and even for us raiders who love to push ourselves. Lastly git gud, if you play your class right you’ll be rewarded in the end.

Here is a reddit link to a dev. response.

SgtOVERKILL.4701:

Old swamp was better in every way possible, the other fractal changes were great but this one needs to be reverted.

I feel the opposite. Old swamp was boring and no challenge; this one is interesting and still challenging (at least, for now).

@title

no

Use ranged weapons if you are not able to melee, pick stunbreaks as utility skills (like endure pain, shake it off, dolyaks or whatever in case of a warrior) and not the max zerk meta dps super bower utility skills (like both banners and signet of fury). Every class has them, so use them.
Additionally, git gud and this frac is faceroll like all the others

it’s interesting that these type of posts seem to appear when daily swamp is on rotation.
I personally don’t want the old one since people exploited it for so long and even with out the exploits, it was way too easy/ boring. The new one is maybe not perfect but it is still a improvement. Tier 4 were never supposed to be easy. Either improve yourself or do lower tiers.

The old Swamp was waaaaaaaay too boring.

With Bloomy you kinda just stood there and attacked while occasionally sniping the Retal-granting spirit (don’t remember its name atm).

Mossman? You might as well have brought your own wine because there was plenty of cheese. First it was the tree, then the hut, then underwater, then the tree again.

The both of them were giant HP sponges too, so it wasn’t at all that the encounter was hard but just a handful of goofups would wipe the party if you started falling asleep from how dull the fight was.

The new Swamp? Not perfect, but it’s definitely an improvement. Mossman got turned into the Gandolf of the Swamplands. Chain breaking makes the fight pretty trivial since his HP got nuked. I enjoy how the new Bloomy fight makes use of the whole arena rather than just one spot, and there’s just something admirable about a flying oakheart.

My only two gripes about the fight is Bloomy’s “DK Down-Smash” where it’s kinda difficult to break him with melee, and the poison blossoms feel just a tad excessive. But overall, the encounter is much more interactive in a positive way.

I will offer advice for T4 in that scale 77 makes the fight dramatically more difficult vs scale 89 since you end up drowning in conditions from how frequently you get hit.

savacli.8172:

I will offer advice for T4 in that scale 77 makes the fight dramatically more difficult vs scale 89 since you end up drowning in conditions from how frequently you get hit.

It truly makes it more enjoyable. Maybe put a cd on the instability so you don’t get like 15 torment stack and 10 confusion stacks while bloomy charges you and you have to choose to move away and die to torment or use active defence and die to confusion

Bloomy is BS </3 went from killing him while watching a movie to this

Another person who likes getting rewards for no effort :>

Gimli.9461:

Also => no class has enough dodges for THAT level of madness.

When you stand in the green section by the wisp clefts, you get 100% increased endurance regeneration. This is just a part of the mechanics of the fight that many people aren’t aware of, but you have to position yourself properly in order to have enough dodges.

The only thing wrong with the swampland fractal is that the spirit swarm phase takes too long at lower scales. At high scales it’s fine. If you are having trouble with a high tier swamp then lower the scale until you can complete it and master the mechanics before moving up. Be willing to change your build. Using the max DPS meta build isn’t necessarily the best. His HP isn’t very high so as long as you can stay alive while keeping up moderate damage you will beat him.

Please do not make the highest tier of swamp easier. There are 8 different swamp difficulties and its ridiculous to suggest that the highest tiers shouldn’t be difficult – people are acting like t4 swamp is the only swamp, but if you don’t want to learn the mechanics it isn’t like you are locked out of doing swamp. Ideally we would have other fractals move up to this or a higher difficulty level for their t4 scales.

did you try getting good?

Nokaru.7831:

Here is a reddit link to a dev. response.

Thanks for this! Read it through, and two comments:
1. “remember how raids were when they just came out, it was a wipe fest”
– yes, I was thinking about that as I was playing it, definitely there’s a factor of learning curve. I was able to do this with friends, but with pugs it’s hard at the moment – you have to get lucky with pugs. Once the learning has been done by the majority of T4 runners it will definitely be easier.

2. This is something I find mildly disturbing:
“Pay attention to your build. Like a raid, you will actually want to make sure you have proper gear and skills equipped for the encounter. "

NO No no no no no!
ANET – attention: skills yes, gear NO!

Raids are actually EASIER to gear out for than fractals, please remember that when you develop T4 fractals!
I can run a raid in exotic gear, or in ascended gear with runes – but NO AR!

Fractals in fact have a ‘slightly’ harder requirement on your gear, and while you could argue that filling your 6 gear pieces with 8th or +9th is relatively cheap (9 being 10 gold, so 60 gold extra, shouldn’t be too bad for experienced fractaler at all), I would urge caution on building fractals where I have to swap from zerker build to clerics or something quite so drastic (not saying this currently exists, simply saying exercise caution with gear swap targeted fractal designs).

I currently run an AR distribution where my 2 zerker rings each carry the BULK of my ar (65), and thus I run meta gear on a class (dmg meta, eg necro = viper raid build), but with rings swapped to zerk rings.

Yes I could build a more survivable gear set and stuff AR in there, but I’d rather then roll another class and build a whole ascended set for that (eg non-zerk non-viper druid that is also usable in raids), than create another full ascended full kitten t just for one fractal.

So please, mechanics that are hard and are similar to raids => sure. But requirement to gear swap that forces you into meta that isn’t usable in raid => no no no.

This now has me thinking on a whole topic of gear:
Once you have your legendary gear in, as well as legendary trinkets + figured out how to swap out runes, Theeeeen you can start building Tier 5 fractals with mechanics that’d require a different stat set for every fractal :P super elitist tier XD

Gear doesn’t mean needing a certain stat type, it means putting on the right weapons to match what the encounter demands of you/your group.

savacli.8172:

The old Swamp was waaaaaaaay too boring.

The new swamp is waaaaaaay too hard (and arguably, just as boring)

It’s really not too hard to figure out the mechanics and phases, but it’s just…no fun at all. I think most of the people who are having difficulty lose morale due to the overall dullness, and this negatively impacts on their performance. Most people enjoy DPS races more than survival and defence focused encounters.

Some tips I have for the fight:

• When you fight Bloomhunger, make sure you are fighting in the green circles because they give you a +100% Endurance buff.
• The champion Oakhearts are stunned for 10s when they are interrupted.
• The leap (knockdown) + stomp is the most common way to die on this fight. Learn the telegraph for that, and you’ll probably never die to this boss anymore.
• If you’ve never used it before, try the defensive fractal potions. They’re not too expensive and make a big difference.
• I found that scale 89 is easier than 77 for Tier 4.
• Trying to break this boss can be a trap for pugs. I wouldn’t bother trying to break the poison shake, but if you have a strong (and safe) interrupt (like Flesh Golem charge) you can try to get his rampage skill.

i was kicked today as soon as my party seen adrenal health,which was followed by “lool noob,adrenal health OP,gtfo,l2p”
so ye im happy with new fractal and ppl not taking it to new elitist meta…

Swamp fractal is literally cancer now.
Its not “challenging” its literally its just plain stupid and not worth the time at all.

Crap happens! I also left a group of 2-3 russians who were about to kick me although they failed hardcore at 25% because there were no arrangement about wisps. Unfortunately they kicked one who was communicating and willing to take a wisp at the beginning of the fight – both of them were not writing at all.
I got insulted —> two more on my blocklist – started a new pug and we succeeded the first try.
Not to mention that those guys were failing again and were looking for new players when my group had already finished. ^^

daw.4923:

i was kicked today as soon as my party seen adrenal health,which was followed by “lool noob,adrenal health OP,gtfo,l2p”
so ye im happy with new fractal and ppl not taking it to new elitist meta…

Adrenal health requires the defense traitline. With defense equipped you have to drop either strength (weapons for condi), tactics or berserker. If you drop strength you do way less damage and generate way less might. If you drop weapons in case of a condi ps you lose lots of condition damage. If you drop tactics you lose the entire ability of spreading might to the group. If you drop berserker you lose very much damage (probably more than losing by droping strength) or a weapon, and strong conditionskills as condi war.
So dropping ANY traitline for defense is hurting your effectivness badly and therefor i can understand those pugs kicking you. But they could have asked you to drop defense and slot in the right traitline again politely instead of kicking you…
Another thing: The attacks of bloom are very obvious to dodge. And especially as war you should not die there as you have alot of blocks (second weaponset), evades (regenerating endurance by using your F1 by triggering Building Momentum etc.), stunbreaks and health.

Do it at lower levels first, like you did with all the other fractals. They’re not supposed to be defeatable at tier 4 on your first crack.

SgtOVERKILL.4701:

The whole fight needs to be reworked there is too much running and then you do a burn for 5-10% unless you’re all ranged players.

so i haven’t done new swamp but
it rewards playing a ranged weapon?
god forbid anet make you do anything but let you stack and smash!

This is a learn to play issue. Entirely.

the new swamp isn’t hard. people just have to get used to it.
honestly. it is not hard! my goodness -.- hard to pug because people don’t know how to play it.

old swamp? I fall asleep doing it, but I don’t mind just to do old swamp for easy farm :P
but new swamp is not hard just need team work and no one asleep well 1 can sleep but the other 4 need to work

Please don’t let people who want to press X to win ruin your game dear ANet. Updated bloomhunger feels like a Boss, a dangerous enemy.

However, onslaught phase currently too easy, adds have very low amount of health, it needs to be fixed somehow,

I don’t understand waste of time arguement as the fractal is actually pretty short. I think it’s actually still the smallest fractal we’ve got still. Bloom fight does take a long while, but the rest of the fractal is a breeze.

I think the main problem with most people struggling with it is either communication or adapting. Ask people if they’ve done the fight before. Assign wisp before the fight starts. Is your party going to bother breaking the bar? If so, do you have enough crowd control? If not, do you have a decent range option. Does anyone need a minute to swap builds or characters?

The onslaught phase should be removed entirely. It makes the fight last longer without any point in doing so.

The champion oakhearts have the same reason. There is no point in them being there. Remove them.

Same goes for the blooms. But okay, apperently anet wants to make a joke with poison BLOOMS and BLOOMhunger…. Too much stuff that isnt needed.

new swamp is also a faceroll with 4necro and a druid… only annoying part is the onslaught.. oh well

BlooDyliCious.5824:

The onslaught phase should be removed entirely. It makes the fight last longer without any point in doing so.

The champion oakhearts have the same reason. There is no point in them being there. Remove them.

Same goes for the blooms. But okay, apperently anet wants to make a joke with poison BLOOMS and BLOOMhunger…. Too much stuff that isnt needed.

I guess they could also remove Bloomhunger, too, which, combined with the above suggestions, would be like the old Swamp.

That’s clearly not the direction that ANet favors. The idea is to challenge players to deal with lots of things going on at once, not to make it a simple encounter like we had before.

The champs are fine, they add another layer, do you ignore them and try to dps Bloomhunger or do you kill them first before too many are there. Really all the is needed is shortening he onslaught phase down to 20-30 secs, this allows a break where CDs can reset and allow players to regroup.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

The champs are fine, they add another layer, do you ignore them and try to dps Bloomhunger or do you kill them first before too many are there.

Additional layers are fine when they’re meaningful in some way. Those oakheart champs just aren’t. They are some kind of noob filter killing people who are even slower than the champs themselves (which should hardly be possible), but apart from that issue they are just another rather long health bar.

Shakki.3219:

new swamp is also a faceroll with 4necro and a druid… only annoying part is the onslaught.. oh well

Why would you run 4 necros there?

otome.2673:

Shakki.3219:

new swamp is also a faceroll with 4necro and a druid… only annoying part is the onslaught.. oh well

Why would you run 4 necros there?

Because it’s easier to play and people tend to like to cheese when possible.

SgtOVERKILL.4701:

Bloomhunger fight is a joke and everything hits you ridiculously hard. It’s not even worth wasting 30+ mins for a clear (if you get one) when you’re reward is minuscule. The whole fight needs to be reworked there is too much running and then you do a burn for 5-10% unless you’re all ranged players. I stood there today thinking wow this is probably the hardest content in the game, harder than any raid boss and for what an agony infusion?(I clear every wing every week so its not over dramatic). Some nights you get lucky and other times its all just frustration and not fun at all. I get making it more advanced than it was previously but atleast make it puggable.

Even Mossman was more fun to fight previously since I’m not just QQ’ing about Bloomy being too hard. Now Mossy is just in a narrow hallway of death, where previously he had a whole area that made it a more unique encounter.

Old swamp was better in every way possible, the other fractal changes were great but this one needs to be reverted.

This does not need to be reverted, perhaps make the reward better for doing this specific fractal maybe. However, this is very puggable. I did it about 5 to 7 times the first week it was released with pugs, and my group who had people that didn’t know the fight at all, and we did it in 10 mins or so with no one going down. I just did it with pugs a few days ago where no one said a word to each other, the only thing they said was complaints of my load time (crappy pc I have), and we one pulled it with one person going down once where he was revived immediately afterwards (took about 10 mins or so for the kill). You’re over exaggerating how difficult this fractal is, the only attack that’s annoying is his projectiles, everything else for the most part is very simple to dodge, he attacks in slow powerful patterns, and old mossman was not better. He was just a HP sponge with annoying wolves, now at-least he can be killed quicker than before with his annoying wolves and transformation, and you wouldn’t even be using most of the area to fight him in the first place with the old swamp.

Musica Arcaida.4685:

otome.2673:

Shakki.3219:

new swamp is also a faceroll with 4necro and a druid… only annoying part is the onslaught.. oh well

Why would you run 4 necros there?

Because it’s easier to play and people tend to like to cheese when possible.

Thenthey should stop complain that the fractal takes too long

Musica Arcaida.4685:

otome.2673:

Shakki.3219:

new swamp is also a faceroll with 4necro and a druid… only annoying part is the onslaught.. oh well

Why would you run 4 necros there?

Because it’s easier to play and people tend to like to cheese when possible.

Epidemic is very useful on the adds phase and necros just have higher survivability. 4 is pretty much overkill though.

My only suggestion , no matter what class you bring, equip one stun break at least. Getting knocked down and then stuck in his stomp is the biggest killer in every pug I have run. Stun break and the rest is faceroll.

I have to congratulate whoever designed the new mechanics for this boss. Bravo.
I play a melee only (zerker) guardian and I haven’t had this much fun fighting a boss -or anything else in this game- ever.

The new mechanics require you to pay attention, observe the animations, dodge, block, use utilities(stability), read the situation and anticipate. In one word: it is engaging.

If you have to give in to the cries of the masses and nerf the encounter, please tone down the number of adds or the stacks of poison, but don’t alter the behavior of the boss itself.

If only more of the open world was a little more like this encounter I’d be opening my wallet generously and religiously every month. I wouldn’t expect you, as a company, to go nuts -though I would enjoy if you did- and make the game a Dark Souls wannabe. I just wish mobs were a little more than punch bags or glorified pinatas people hit to get their loot.

Well, tbh I’m not being entirely truthful. The enjoyment of overcoming a challenge is directly negated if the mobs respawn 3 seconds later. Or if your action carries no meaningful impact or has no motive. So this would need to be addressed before I’d open my wallet.

Yeh the revamp of existing fractal boss is good.. But don’t overdo it.. Bcos what we are really looking for is new maps.. New bosses new achievement points.. New things.. Exciting things not as hard as raids but not as easy as dungeon.
When molten facility came out.. I had so so so much fun .. I still can feel it even after so long it came out. /wtb more of these additions

otome.2673:

Shakki.3219:

new swamp is also a faceroll with 4necro and a druid… only annoying part is the onslaught.. oh well

Why would you run 4 necros there?

Because Brazil said so, duh

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.

3 necros, 1 druid, 1 chrono or a 4th necro..
It drops significantly faster than 10-15 mins ( in one green patch I’ve seen ~ 25%+ hp gone, depending on the skill of the necros.. and this is indeed at t4)

AoE capping things with minions is quite amusing also – but thats a more general observation of the team comp.

Just did swamp with the healer + 4 necro squad. Usually they go well as everyone had stated. However, it definitely isn’t a free pass as everyone assumes. 3 of us definitely were well prepped for the encounter but our druid and one of the necros were just taking hits left and right. The encounter was mostly just picking their dead bodies off the floor. When we got to 25%, it turns out that necro didn’t understand the wisp phase and the druid got ripped just as it phase (lingering conditions phased it).

I don’t think swamp is significantly harder than any of the major boss fractals. Unfortunately, I think the main difference between swamp and other fractals is that you can’t carry multiple low skilled players as you need at least 4 competent players.

This got worse as mist items used to infuse items became buyable, making the window to higher tier encounters way too easy.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

Just did swamp with the healer + 4 necro squad. Usually they go well as everyone had stated. However, it definitely isn’t a free pass as everyone assumes. 3 of us definitely were well prepped for the encounter but our druid and one of the necros were just taking hits left and right. The encounter was mostly just picking their dead bodies off the floor. When we got to 25%, it turns out that necro didn’t understand the wisp phase and the druid got ripped just as it phase (lingering conditions phased it).

I don’t think swamp is significantly harder than any of the major boss fractals. Unfortunately, I think the main difference between swamp and other fractals is that you can’t carry multiple low skilled players as you need at least 4 competent players.

This got worse as mist items used to infuse items became buyable, making the window to higher tier encounters way too easy.

Most professions can get 2 wisps and always good to be ready for it. I liek Scrapper Condi Engi on it for superspeed. Not a bad idea to pull out a staff on Druid. Mes/Thief of course blinks, warrior is obvious mobility. and Yeah, lots of stuff.

Squish