Guild Wars 2

After the Jan 28 rollout of retuned dungeons, I have to honestly say that the Volcanic Fractal burning in the last fight with the Shaman feels wwwaaaaaayyyyyyy overtuned now. My team that used to be able to complete that with a reasonable amount of downs (and revives) and no wipes just got our kittens handed to us in this one.

The burning seems to come far more frequently and even shout warriors with 6x Soldier Runes and and 3x shouts were not able to keep themselves from going down due to constant burning intake. Every member of the team has at least 2x condition removers of some sort.

It’s just way overkill now. We had to call it quits after the 4th full wipe. Very frustrated with this one now.

By contrast, other fractals are tuned a bit easier now (which is good, not bad).

Overall, the dungeon designers here still have a LOT of balance work to do, IMO. Although many of us have adapted now, not one person in my casual guild still thinks of these dungeons as “good and fun”. Well, except for Cliffside. Out of all the standard and Fractal dungeons, Cliffside is the only one we all universally think is fun. But it is too kitten long. We’ve never finished Cliffside in anything less than 40 minutes and that’s way too long for a fractal, IMO.

P.S. It also sucks mightily that a team can beat their head on a Fractal run for 2 hours, and simply because they cannot complete the third and final fractal due to stuff like this, they get zero credit for the dungeon in their monthly achievement tally. This whole backloaded “you don’t get kitten unless you finish the entire thing” design is utter kitteny kitten.

1) Fractals of the Mists don’t count toward your monthly achievement.

2) Burning is only applied while standing still, or if you have aggro from the boss. in case 1, simply keep moving to avoid damage. In case 2, simply dodge to avoid damage.

In your defense, the Shaman is, in my opinion, the most difficult PvE boss encounter in the game, especially at higher fractal difficulties. Being able to complete it is solely based on the party’s skill, however. I can tell you that it is still completely possible to beat post 1/28 patch, as my group completed it on level 48 while doing dailies the other day.

Best of luck of the future.

Are you refering to the environmental burn effect or the one the boss puts on you that looks like an exploding flame aura? The environmental effect applys burning if you stand still, keep moving. As to the other the boss applys that with its arrow shots, if you dodge the arrow you wont get the effect. Ya its hard to doge it in melee but you can dodge it from ranged prety easy. Only times I have trouble with the burn damage is if I either fail to dodge or stand too close to someone else that failed to dodge and starts hiting me with the pulsing aura.

Aragorn Son of Arathorn.4015:

1) Fractals of the Mists don’t count toward your monthly achievement.

How did I get January’s monthly quota then? I did nothing but fractals. I haven’t set foot in one of the old dungeons since the FoTM came out, because most of the old ones are horrible and bug-ridden.

And yes, we all know to keep moving. We all know to stay spread out and not catch each other on fire. We all use voice to alert that we’ve got the burning effect and we all know not to run around across each other’s paths.

Seriously, we know how to do it and never had that much trouble before after learning the encounter. This is the first time we’ve hit this fractal after Jan 28, and it was significantly more downs from burning. It’s fine if one person goes down regularly, but when 2x or 3x are downed at the same time, it’s hard to stay ahead of the incoming damage rate.

Even my mesmer was running around at 50% health or less most of the time, and I was the least hard hit by the change.

shaktiboi.5194:

Aragorn Son of Arathorn.4015:

1) Fractals of the Mists don’t count toward your monthly achievement.

How did I get January’s monthly quota then? I did nothing but fractals. I haven’t set foot in one of the old dungeons since the FoTM came out, because most of the old ones are horrible and bug-ridden.

Confirming that Fractals do NOT count towards monthly. Sorry but it doesn’t.

Shaman is one of the hardest bosses, yes, but he’s still easily doable so long as you dodge appropriately.

Shadowfist.2708:

shaktiboi.5194:

Aragorn Son of Arathorn.4015:

1) Fractals of the Mists don’t count toward your monthly achievement.

How did I get January’s monthly quota then? I did nothing but fractals. I haven’t set foot in one of the old dungeons since the FoTM came out, because most of the old ones are horrible and bug-ridden.

Confirming that Fractals do NOT count towards monthly. Sorry but it doesn’t.

Shaman is one of the hardest bosses, yes, but he’s still easily doable so long as you dodge appropriately.

Again, then, how on earth did I achieve the monthly last month? Is this a Feburary change? Didn’t see it in the patch notes.

I. Never. Set. Foot. In. Anything. Other. Than. A. Fractal. Last. Month.

…And got my monthly.

shaktiboi.5194:

Shadowfist.2708:

shaktiboi.5194:

Aragorn Son of Arathorn.4015:

1) Fractals of the Mists don’t count toward your monthly achievement.

How did I get January’s monthly quota then? I did nothing but fractals. I haven’t set foot in one of the old dungeons since the FoTM came out, because most of the old ones are horrible and bug-ridden.

Confirming that Fractals do NOT count towards monthly. Sorry but it doesn’t.

Shaman is one of the hardest bosses, yes, but he’s still easily doable so long as you dodge appropriately.

Again, then, how on earth did I achieve the monthly last month? Is this a Feburary change? Didn’t see it in the patch notes.

I. Never. Set. Foot. In. Anything. Other. Than. A. Fractal. Last. Month.

…And got my monthly.

Just telling you, they don’t count. There isn’t anything else to say. Fact is fact. Nothing to argue.

shaktiboi.5194:

Again, then, how on earth did I achieve the monthly last month? Is this a Feburary change? Didn’t see it in the patch notes.

I. Never. Set. Foot. In. Anything. Other. Than. A. Fractal. Last. Month.

…And got my monthly.

Probably has to do with the fact the last monthly didn’t ask you to do dungeons at all.

Well, technically you had to do 7 fractals.

People are very very bad at strafing.

Im serious, get good at it. learn to be pressing D and A back and forth at randomly intervals.

Not only will the constant movement not let you catch on fire. But because the tracking for projectiles is rather… special shall we say, most of them will never hit you. This includes the shamans projectile fireball. Also if you’re strafing and he drops the AOE on you, you’re already reacting, your fingers are already on one of the movement keys, and you can simply continue to hold it until you’re safe.

Moreover, the only challenging part of the fight is really the elemental phase. Not only do they do quite a bit of damage in higher fractals, but you’re also strapped for time due to the shamans ability to heal.
Currently, a LOT of groups go with a very unorganized solution which is usually
1. have a guardian use reflection skills
2. hope to god someone strips the shield or slows down the shaman while everyone cleans up elementals
3. hope you notice if the shamans shield is stripped because he can and will suddenly 1 shot half the party.

It obviously works better in coordinated groups, but in PuG’s it seems to be the De-facto strategy despite not being very good if not coordinated. Not only are placing your whole party in the middle of all the aggro, but you’re racing against a clock that you personally dont know the timer of, and when the timer goes off everyone dies if they’re still in the middle of the room.

A better strategy would be to take a ranger. A ranger seems like a weird choice, but entangle is the most overpowered move in game for that final fight.
Shaman pops shield → ranger uses entangle → team has 20 seconds to clean up the elementals before they even have to think about where the shaman is. No other class boasts such a long and powerful immobilization. It makes the shaman a complete joke at any fractal lower than 25.

Now, do I think rangers will replace guardians? Lolno, guardian is way too good for every other fractal. But I would honestly run 2 guardians 1 ranger 2whatevers every fractal group if I had the chance, just because they make the current hardest fractal much easier.

Shadowfist.2708:

shaktiboi.5194:

Shadowfist.2708:

shaktiboi.5194:

Aragorn Son of Arathorn.4015:

1) Fractals of the Mists don’t count toward your monthly achievement.

How did I get January’s monthly quota then? I did nothing but fractals. I haven’t set foot in one of the old dungeons since the FoTM came out, because most of the old ones are horrible and bug-ridden.

Confirming that Fractals do NOT count towards monthly. Sorry but it doesn’t.

Shaman is one of the hardest bosses, yes, but he’s still easily doable so long as you dodge appropriately.

Again, then, how on earth did I achieve the monthly last month? Is this a Feburary change? Didn’t see it in the patch notes.
I. Never. Set. Foot. In. Anything. Other. Than. A. Fractal. Last. Month.
…And got my monthly.

Just telling you, they don’t count. There isn’t anything else to say. Fact is fact. Nothing to argue.

Monthly achievement for January had a fractal requirement for completing it. February monthly achievement require that you do other dungeons than fractals ( since they dont count for this month )

I just did it few hours ago , i can say that the burning is bugged ! Even if you move you get burning effect on you after the first boss shield and 2nd and 3rd ! Nobody in particular causes that burning so must be a glitch ! Maybe a dev could look into it !

Edit: Got to love when players give advices how to finish something when thats not the point of the thread !

To get on topic with this: Volcanic fractal is indeed badly made, I guess most people already considered the dungeon patch in general messed up, including me. Volcanic fractal on the other hand is completely crap → when ur in the fire you cannot even be ressed anymore or respawn unless everyone dies. Ressing wont work due to -10K ticks and i guess that keeps u in combat as well as the respawn when everyone else was out of combat didnt work either.

Fractals need a lot better scaling anyway because people are now just re-entering till they first get an easy one (might start doing that as well with all my groups because they also take WAY 2 long now).

shaktiboi.5194:

My team that used to be able to complete that with a reasonable amount of downs (and revives) and no wipes just got our kittens handed to us in this one.

If you are being downed on the final boss, it’s pretty much game over. You aren’t supposed to get hit by any Agony. The rest of the attacks are fairly survivable.

you tell that to the 1 trillion worms that spawn !
and WHY my cripple doesn’t work on the bubble ???

stof.9341:

shaktiboi.5194:

Again, then, how on earth did I achieve the monthly last month? Is this a Feburary change? Didn’t see it in the patch notes.

I. Never. Set. Foot. In. Anything. Other. Than. A. Fractal. Last. Month.

…And got my monthly.

Probably has to do with the fact the last monthly didn’t ask you to do dungeons at all.

Well, technically you had to do 7 fractals.

I asked within my guild and understand now. Last month the quota was specifically for fractal runs. This month they’re for “dungeons”, which apparently Anet distinguishes from “fractals”.

dani.1956:

I just did it few hours ago , i can say that the burning is bugged ! Even if you move you get burning effect on you after the first boss shield and 2nd and 3rd ! Nobody in particular causes that burning so must be a glitch ! Maybe a dev could look into it !

Edit: Got to love when players give advices how to finish something when thats not the point of the thread !

Yes, this. This is exactly what nailed us so bad. We never wiped on this one before (but lots of downs and ups). Today: wiped 4x in a row and barely scratched the champ.

dani.1956:

I just did it few hours ago , i can say that the burning is bugged ! Even if you move you get burning effect on you after the first boss shield and 2nd and 3rd ! Nobody in particular causes that burning so must be a glitch ! Maybe a dev could look into it !

Edit: Got to love when players give advices how to finish something when thats not the point of the thread !

You know that if someone gets hit by the agony arrow and has the fireshield up on him, he’ll cause all of you to burn if you get close to him right?

Might I suggest: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Seed_Pod + blast / leap finishers. At 40c a pop, saves a lot of frustration

While I have always been able to finish the volcano fractal regardless of fractal lvl, it is by far the one i find the least enjoyable.. that last boss just has SOOOOOO much room for error, I spend more time reviving party members then i spend on the boss in this fractal, even when playing with people who have shown themselves to be experienced in other fractals.

Personally I feel there is way to much going on in this fight.. I dare say it is a tad to complex, which ends up making it just plain stressful at higher lvls.

This boss, and the trash mobs from dredge fractal aswell as mossman are pretty much the only reason I can only handle 1 or 2 fractals per day without getting burnt out.

while i greatly enjoy the rest of the fractal content, with the exception perhaps of the cheapish harpy knockbacks past 10.

Just did thiss 10 times. Second to last boss before maw. What luck right? Any how our team gave up. Threw in the towel and went home unhappy.

my pug got this fractal yesterday (lvl 10) wiped 3 times, we end up having to arrange having walls of reflection up all the time cos we had multiple guardians.

today’s pug face rolled it. My initial thought is that today’s pug is made up of better people. but something may have been a bit funny yesterday (aside from an ele who kept getting 2 shotted by everything)

OT: still haven’t got a ring drop waaaaaaaaaaaaaah /cry

Just finished it at lv28.
The standing still burns seems bug to me.
I have to actually run to not get burned.
Can’t just keep pushing A and D anymore.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

While I have always been able to finish the volcano fractal regardless of fractal lvl, it is by far the one i find the least enjoyable.. that last boss just has SOOOOOO much room for error, I spend more time reviving party members then i spend on the boss in this fractal, even when playing with people who have shown themselves to be experienced in other fractals.

Personally I feel there is way to much going on in this fight.. I dare say it is a tad to complex, which ends up making it just plain stressful at higher lvls.

This boss, and the trash mobs from dredge fractal aswell as mossman are pretty much the only reason I can only handle 1 or 2 fractals per day without getting burnt out.

while i greatly enjoy the rest of the fractal content, with the exception perhaps of the cheapish harpy knockbacks past 10.

This is probably one of my favorite bossfights in this game, but I’d agree it can be sketchy in PUG’s at 30 and up. It’s one of those bossfights where strategy, teamwork and awareness of your own class and others help out. This fight isn’t about DPS or outlasting a boss with tons of HP; It’s about surviving the 3 phases without losing progress on boss. While I’m not familiar with every class, I think most sensible group compositions has the tools needed to overcome this fight.
The knockbacks from the harpies is also something I find a welcome feature. It’s not a common occurrence and forces the players to look for more exotic tools of their class that they normally don’t use.

While I’m quoting you, my reply is really aimed at the thread itself.

Here’s a link of my group clearing this at 80 post patch if you’re interested (Guardian POV).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0avYvVGX8

The best advice I can give you is dodge his arrow.

The single target arrow that applies agony. It hurts everyone near you, and more importantly, YOU.

If the shaman is facing you, get ready to dodge.

People have problems with him? Even WITH agony I didn’t have any major problems with the Shaman. Then again, the party usually ignores the elementals until after his shield is down.

I definatly agree that I like the fights in themselves arch, my problem with volcano boss is simply i find that 90% of the groups i end up in have atleast 2-3 people who need to be directly carried trough it, because it is to complex for them..

And I also like the idea behind harpies, and it could be fine if they:

1: Fixed agroo from harpies above you in first stage.
2: Made the Markers indicating where ball would land, solid red so that the lines wernt lost outside the edges.

the Dredge trash however feels borderline like a glitch, I have yet to get a group that didnt die atleast a few times trying to get the bombs to the door, or trying to get to reset spot after freezing the other door.

Back to volcano boss, as a guardian I find the agony arrow to be problematic, I rarely if ever have time to dodge away from it since im in his face 90% of the fight, In all honesty I think the lack of a over the head symbol for heavy attacks is a mistake, I realise it makes it alot easier.. but currently we got so many effects running on the boss and around the boss that it can be near impossible to spot that charged attack.

This is especially noticeable on bosses like rabovich that hits like a truck, but he is so small that a single guardian with torch can make him near impossible to predict.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

Back to volcano boss, as a guardian I find the agony arrow to be problematic, I rarely if ever have time to dodge away from it since im in his face 90% of the fight, In all honesty I think the lack of a over the head symbol for heavy attacks is a mistake, I realise it makes it alot easier.. but currently we got so many effects running on the boss and around the boss that it can be near impossible to spot that charged attack.

This is especially noticeable on bosses like rabovich that hits like a truck, but he is so small that a single guardian with torch can make him near impossible to predict.

As an ely, I agree that all the colorful effects can make it hard to pay attention to boss animations at all times while kiting / setting up fields, keeping track on party members and such, but I also think that’s where true skill may shine. Personally, I’ve frapsed many boss encounters so that I may study them later looking for signs of BFG attacks.

If there’s a warning sign above its head 1-2 seconds before a boss uses its special attack, I’m afraid it may become a bit too easy. Also, this is one of the first mmo’s I’ve played where I actually have to pay attention to the animations, which I think is a cool idea.

As a guardian, the youtube link should be very helpful to you. Notice how he has a lot of attention from the boss but most of the time, manage to avoid the arrows by strafing?

am I the only one who actually enjoy challanging content?!

I would rather have 3 Volcanic fractals in the row then the Underwater ones (I sometimes literally fall asleep there)

iTB.1428:

am I the only one who actually enjoy challanging content?!

I would rather have 3 Volcanic fractals in the row then the Underwater ones (I sometimes literally fall asleep there)

The problem with the sharman is that it is profession filtered. If you do not have reflect skill within your group. This encounter will be a horrible experience

loseridoit.2756:

iTB.1428:

am I the only one who actually enjoy challanging content?!

I would rather have 3 Volcanic fractals in the row then the Underwater ones (I sometimes literally fall asleep there)

The problem with the sharman is that it is profession filtered. If you do not have reflect skill within your group. This encounter will be a horrible experience

It’s possible to do this without a guard/mes/theif(yes i know it makes it easier) people just get paralyzed from the neckdown when they have to do something other than sitting in 1 spot and autoattacking.

he said it was a horrible experience, not impossible

And yeah I agree a big mark would be to easy on boss like shaman, its a bigger issue on smaller mobs like the dredge.

As for liking hard content, I love it.. the problem is when it becomes so messy that I have to not only worry about staying alive dodging the arrow at melee range, but when i have to run out every 5 seconds to res a squishy.

Then it just becomes stressful.

I know alot of people who play without holding right mouse button etc, which allows you to constantly be on the move, for people like this these there is simply no way for them to deal with this many diffrent effects etc at once.

And while I agree hard fractals should be for people with some “skill” I don’t agree that it should be for people that play in one specific way.

just my two cents.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

he said it was a horrible experience, not impossible

None of Anet content is impossible. The problem is that there is a class disparity which make players whine and make threads. Sometimes I wish anet will add more lava elements but make them easier to kill. Still many mobs health are still to high to use other unqiue methods of kiting and killing.

hehe well veteran + mobs in general seem to have unreasonable amounts of hp for dungeons.. some of the dungeon/fractal bosses feel more like a patience challenge then a actual challenge.

the thing to remember, as long as he doesnt heal , he only bubbles at certain hp percents, so dont DPS too fast, give yourself time to cooldown ALL heals.

its still hard ofc but giving yourself proper time to prepared for the adds is nice. assuming, you can live through the boss’es main attacks eaiser then the adds, which if you have AR shouldnt be a problem

Bumping this thread, as this is a FractaI my groups have had repeated problems with in the l. 20-29 range, and I think there’s a few good pieces of advice for struggling groups buried in here:

1) If you have a ranger in your group, have them use Entangle on the boss once he bubbles for a 20 second immob, while you deal with grubs
2) Bring some of these: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Seed_Pod

There’s also some obvious stuff like always keep moving, have a Guard and have them use reflect, as well as dodge the Flaming Arrow of Death. I personally have trouble with that one for multiple reasons (lots going on, on-screen, not much of a visible tell, and you don’t want to dodge into a lava pool on accident).

While I do think this Fractal is unfortunate at higher difficulty levels (as the majority seems to agree), for now as far as we know the difficulty of the boss isn’t going anywhere, so we might as well compile some tricks for struggling players…

If you have anything helpful to add other than the general obvious stuff that players already know from playing the fractal a bunch of times in order to get to the 20+ range (DPS bubble, kill grubs, etc.), please add your insight.

For reflection, you could also bring along a dagger/focus ele, with 2 skills that reflect / destroy projectiles. Ele focus also has a bunch of toughness skills that are good for surviving.

shaktiboi.5194:

Aragorn Son of Arathorn.4015:

1) Fractals of the Mists don’t count toward your monthly achievement.

How did I get January’s monthly quota then? I did nothing but fractals. I haven’t set foot in one of the old dungeons since the FoTM came out, because most of the old ones are horrible and bug-ridden.

January’s monthly required fractals. February’s requires dungeons.

shaktiboi.5194:

dani.1956:

I just did it few hours ago , i can say that the burning is bugged ! Even if you move you get burning effect on you after the first boss shield and 2nd and 3rd ! Nobody in particular causes that burning so must be a glitch ! Maybe a dev could look into it !

Edit: Got to love when players give advices how to finish something when thats not the point of the thread !

Yes, this. This is exactly what nailed us so bad. We never wiped on this one before (but lots of downs and ups). Today: wiped 4x in a row and barely scratched the champ.

The lots of downs and ups is what is causing people to tell you how to complete the dungeon. If you consistantly have 1 or more people going down in this fight it will become very difficult. Do not consider that the normal result of this fight. Consider it a spec/gear/strategy check.

I personally never have problems staying alive in the boss fight. It seems alot of other players do. I can’t help but feel that perhaps they haven’t got enough survivability built for fractals. It got to a stage a while back where I ended up soloing the boss, but its hard to finish him because of his heal. If I lose all 4 of my allies now I just run into the lava and die. I noticed most people dont use food to buff themselves either, which Im sure would help.

Only time I have problems here is when all the mobs focus on me…and as a ranger, for some reason I have the problem of absorbing aggro like a sponge.

Just a little advice for grawl fractal from someone that has at least made it to scale 52 and would of gone higher if they didn’t take away the best part of the game. Defense does help out for the shaman boss.. Doesn’t matter how much dmg you do to his bubble it just matters how many strikes you get in. the adds will die from reflect and aoe, you just need to stay alive mainly for the first minute adds come up is what matters.The group needs to be together so as to group up adds and stack reflects. But I just wanna say that everywhere else in the game defense is worthless. Even for a guardian most attacks will 1 shot you in other fractals you need to avoid the dmg in the first place. Berserker gear kills mobs faster so you don’t have to play perfect for nearly as long. If you wanna play defense then just bring more reflect and more mobile skills. Spec for avoiding the dmg in the first place, not to try and tank it.

its fun as whatever you say one first 3 answers will be L2P…..

Guys there are many workaround in fotm to proceed…

But they are workaround….

They are not supposed to be played in that way?

Think to mossman post patch….he can kill you from invisible…..yes you can ress rallying on wolves, but is not fun <===

Lava shaman invisible arrows can be evaded with some tricks or just reflected, but its not fun to be forced to do that (also lava that damage you while dead -.- is still there).

Or also arm seals problem……in cliffside.

Stop answering any post about game problems/bugs with L2P……

We got we can play the same and that you are awesome and can solo fotm lvl 80…..yet we’d like to have stuff fixed and balanced to not require to use workarounds.

P.S. and though the most hard part is the vet shamans not the boss :|