Guild Wars 2

In your guys opinions what is the most difficult Fractal?

For me it would have to be Fire Shaman. That last boss fight with a pug group is horrendous.

I still hate the dredge with pug groups. You’d think that players at 30+ would know that the thief with shadow refuge should interact with the switch to open the door, but apparently that idea never crosses their mind.

Personally the one I dislike the most is the underwater fractal. I hate the dolphin maze and the dark maze. Each time it pops up I have to sigh and be glad I keep repair canisters on my fractal runner.

Snowblind. 100%. Not even because It’s hard, but because that Ele is as broken as can be. I also get it EVERY freakin’ day I do my 50 daily. -_-

Probably snowblind or dredge. Once you get past the switches dredge isn’t too bad though some pugs fall apart on last boss sometimes.

Snowblind is probably the hardest. If it wasn’t for the fact that you don’t lose progress on wipes, it would definitely be the hardest. Pugs just fall apart at the elemental, they get knocked down by the elemental and chain hit to death because they didn’t think to bring stability or anything.

Snowbline, I hate the ele boss on lvl 50 <//3

I kinda hate swamp, to be honest. Either a team blows right through it while one person or two people stand around confused, or it’s struggle. It’s short, but something about it just doesn’t seem to click with a lot of people, especially since your team can carry you without any explanation. (It took a while for me to get a grip on it, because people would rather just do it than deal with a newbie trying to figure it out.)

I’ve rolled snowblind exactly once, somehow, so I can’t even comment on it. I’m okay with the dolphin one, because I’ve had some success just getting through on my own, and the team can spawn at the boss. Might depend on the variant of the dolphin one, though.

Edit: For context, I usually do 1-10 fractals. Looking forward to the HoT revamp, but until then, I’m not too eager to try pugging the higher difficulties, mostly because of the time involved.

cliffside. It’s just so long and annoying, and it can be both second or third (and maybe even still first?) so you can’t be sure you’ve escaped it until you get to the boss fractal.

If I’m just doing a quick daily fractal a scale 1: swamp. So many people have issues getting the wisps.

I haven’t gotten to super high levels yet, but they actually seem to be getting easier since people above scale 20 almost always seem to know the mechanics fairly well.

Narrrz.7532:

cliffside. It’s just so long and annoying, and it can be both second or third (and maybe even still first?) so you can’t be sure you’ve escaped it until you get to the boss fractal.

Hah! I use to hate Cliffside aswell, I don’t know why I started getting Snowblind so much. Now I’m actually okay with seeing Cliffside on the second roll. I however dislike it greatly on the third.

RedDeadFred.1256:

If I’m just doing a quick daily fractal a scale 1: swamp. So many people have issues getting the wisps.

I haven’t gotten to super high levels yet, but they actually seem to be getting easier since people above scale 20 almost always seem to know the mechanics fairly well.

Once you get to a certain level people will re-roll until they get swamp since it’s the easiest one when people know what to do.

Underwater. The dolphin maze is just a horrible mess of an encounter and even at lower levels already stuffed with krait. Even if you follow the signs, it is so hard to find and I keep on swimming in circles until someone finally manages to find the passage.

Not a big fan of swamp either, for the problems already described.

Grawl lvl50. If you don’t beat on the first try, you’ll be trying to for the next 40 minutes.

I don’t think any of them are hard so I’ll just say the one I find is the most annoying is ascalon fractal because it makes my FPS go so low and it’s like impossible to go ooc in it thanks to the random arrow carts.

As Mesmer and Guardian player in fractals, neither Grawl, nor Snowblind phase me to much. Then again I use focus to pull enemy groups together and use my reflects to protect the party not throwing them around blindly.

Grawl I’ve left 1nce in the last 6 months. I even think it’s the best fractal to get as 3rd since it can go super fast. Usually telling people to not stay in melee range once his bubble pops helps on a 2nd or 3rd try.

Snowblind can be anoying, but the Ice Elemental does not reset, so it turns into a war of attrition.

Dredge is okay. It’s no where near the 40-50 minute fractal it used to be so I’m fine with it showing up.

Swamp is a nice test mechanism. If the group doesn’t manage to get all 3 whisps in time, I’ll usually quit the group (remember, I run Mesmer and offer and provide portal. failing 3 times with that kind of help does not bode well for the run)

I got to hand most anoying fractal to Mai Trin with pugs. She is just miles beyond the other 2 bosses and usually a pita.

On higher difficulties Snowblind is a pain. I hate it because it’s hard to reset your spec/build after the fire part and before you engage the elemental, so I usually die at least once there. If the elemental regenerated health when the team wiped, it would be the hardest boss in the game. Last boss of Snowblind is a joke though

maddoctor.2738:

On higher difficulties Snowblind is a pain. I hate it because it’s hard to reset your spec/build after the fire part and before you engage the elemental, so I usually die at least once there. If the elemental regenerated health when the team wiped, it would be the hardest boss in the game. Last boss of Snowblind is a joke though

YOUR WEAKNESS MAKES ME cry =(

WSTProphecy.9428:

In your guys opinions what is the most difficult Fractal?

For me it would have to be Fire Shaman. That last boss fight with a pug group is horrendous.

Fire shaman is kitten but having a good comp with reflects makes it easy.

The most difficult i’ve suffered was cliffside at lvl 39. It was like a ping. Pong match, and we were the ball…..

Cliffside. Too long, bugged. The boss is annoying ping and reflexes dependent kitten.

Underwater Deep Path, 7 times out of 10 there’s someone who did not say they don’t know what to do and pick all the luminous plants so rest of party dies and then get lost and eaten by piranhas. XD

Oh, and the electric staircase before Old Tom in Uncategorized, I’m sooo bad at that bit. Terrible. If I make it up top it’s by pure luck alone. =)

Snowblind for me. Not much stability options on an engi and its pretty darn hectic fighting the adds, dodging their really painfull attacks, dodging the knockbacks and lighting the fire that you dont freeze to death AND then run through a snowstorm that may or may not aggro more mobs WHILE fighting the darn boss. Im all for multitasking but that sometimes becomes too much to handle, specially on higher levels. Eh.. i guess with the upcoming scrapper my issues should be fixed with snowblind.. but still F that fractal

Oxidia.8103:

Grawl lvl50. If you don’t beat on the first try, you’ll be trying to for the next 40 minutes.

This! I’m surprised so few people have said Volcanic/Grawl here.

Luckily for me, in the 5 or so level 50 fractals I’ve done so far, I haven’t yet seen the Grawl one. It was hard enough at level 40 though, with 2 guards with reflects.

I used to think that Mai Trin was difficult… and then Volcanic/Grawl scaled up even harder than her at higher levels.

That being said, I haven’t had the snowblind one yet at level 50, or the reactor one. I can imagine the reactor one would be bad if you didn’t have anybody who could solo that hot room.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Oxidia.8103:

Grawl lvl50. If you don’t beat on the first try, you’ll be trying to for the next 40 minutes.

This! I’m surprised so few people have said Volcanic/Grawl here.

Luckily for me, in the 5 or so level 50 fractals I’ve done so far, I haven’t yet seen the Grawl one. It was hard enough at level 40 though, with 2 guards with reflects.

I used to think that Mai Trin was difficult… and then Volcanic/Grawl scaled up even harder than her at higher levels.

That being said, I haven’t had the snowblind one yet at level 50, or the reactor one. I can imagine the reactor one would be bad if you didn’t have anybody who could solo that hot room.

Grawl fractal difficulty scales directly with following factors:

- how many reflects does your group have? (considerin most 40 and 50 groups demand 1 guardian, that works as a decent baseline. more are better)

- how much aoe blind does the group bring? (since 1-2 eles in the current meta are almost a given, thief are not seldom too. this comes down to how good can people apply their blinds and not sleep)

- how much meleeing are peopel doing (a major part of the boss encounter is kiting away from the elementals IF the group was/is unable to burst all of them down. THIS IS THE FAIL PART). It’s unbelieveable how many people do not understand the simple concept of run out of enemy attack range and kite.

- some minor condition removal helps vs burning and if people are unable to dodge the elementals fire agony attack

A normal phase on Grawl boss should look something like so:
-> boss pre phase: focus on keeping him centered so he is not to close to any villager, try as best as possible to dodge his fire arrow
-> boss enters bubble: mesmer (+ mimic)feedback, group runs into melee range if needed, guardian drops Wall of Reflection, Ele/Thief apply aoe blind, boss should now get close to having bubble removed and reflects will likely have run out -> SCATTER.
-> kite elementals and range kill them

The boss will use his aoe melee blast almost instantly once his bubble has been destroyed if someone is in melee range. You do not want to get hit.

If everyone follows those simple steps, the fight is quite easy.

most hated, underwater.

Hardest whichever one has cannons (so mostly aether themed ones). They are not hard per-say but being hit by persisting flames from a circle that is no longer there is lame.

Freyah.8912:

Underwater Deep Path, 7 times out of 10 there’s someone who did not say they don’t know what to do and pick all the luminous plants so rest of party dies and then get lost and eaten by piranhas. XD

Oh, and the electric staircase before Old Tom in Uncategorized, I’m sooo bad at that bit. Terrible. If I make it up top it’s by pure luck alone. =)

FYI: you can dodge through the electric waves, and also block them. This makes it fairly trivial with guardian (not that I make it every time, but most of the time).

Also, with any class you can rest part way up on the left and wait for another good time.

Snowblind is the most annoying IMO, solely due to the elemental. Grawl is another one, simply because as someone before me said if you don’t 1 shot it you are gonna be there for a while.

Dredge, 1.0 (initial version), not so difficult but terribly annoying. It took too long to revamp until I lost all my interest for fractals. And all these level 50 when I get nothing more than blues and greens.

Molten Furnace. Hardest one to not fall asleep.

Freyah.8912:

Oh, and the electric staircase before Old Tom in Uncategorized, I’m sooo bad at that bit. Terrible. If I make it up top it’s by pure luck alone. =)

Get a thief to use Dagger storm, and have others follow behind him. By far the fastest way up =)

Redenaz.8631:

I kinda hate swamp, to be honest. Either a team blows right through it while one person or two people stand around confused, or it’s struggle.

Swamp is so easy if have Mesmer. Have 3 player get orb thing. When do have Mesmer drop portal in middle of map. Done easy.

Grawl or Mai Trin.
I just had a 50 today, getting to grawl boss. Party was 2 people with 22k+ ap, 2 with 8-9k, and myself. Until that point it went fairly well, I had my worries but figured with 2 eles and 1 guard, it shouldn’t be an issue (thief was useless lol). Of course we get there and all 4 of them are a mess :O No one in melee, except thief and she died constantly, when boss bubbled they were all over the place, so the reflects were useless, by the time the bubble was broken, mostly by me, they were dead to the lava eles… I left after 3rd fail.
And Mai Trin… omg… this is apparently advanced math or something because some people seem absolutely incapable of understanding how this fight works…

So yeah, those 2 are just horrible if you get a bad group. Usually I just leave after a couple of wipes, especially if the wipes are very telling (accidents can happen to anyone, that doesn’t bother me, but when you see “stupid death” lol, you need to run away :P )

Qugi.2653:

Redenaz.8631:

I kinda hate swamp, to be honest. Either a team blows right through it while one person or two people stand around confused, or it’s struggle.

Swamp is so easy if have Mesmer. Have 3 player get orb thing. When do have Mesmer drop portal in middle of map. Done easy.

It’s stupidly easy and quick under some circumstances, but a nuisance under others. I can’t really call it fun.

Got enough agony for 31+ last night, stared a 39, didn’t read instability, got cliffside fractal as the 3rd one. This was the worst fractal I’ve ever tried and first time I left without finishing

I really dislike Cliffside because it is the easiest fractal to mess up and cause headaches. If I had to determine most difficult it is betwee Mai Trin (if we are counting boss fractals) or Dredge.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I still hate the dredge with pug groups. You’d think that players at 30+ would know that the thief with shadow refuge should interact with the switch to open the door, but apparently that idea never crosses their mind.

Eh, I actually think it’s better if someone else channels the door. The thief can drop shadow refuge on the channeler 5 seconds or so after they start, so the stealth lasts for the entire channel instead of running out near the end, whereas the thief can’t drop it on themselves while channeling (and it’s risky to try to pre-stack stealth with smokefields with all the mobs running around).

As for hardest fractal, tbh it depends on level, party comp and aggregate experience.

I think snowblind is probably the most annoying for me. It’s quicker for most groups just to grave rush the source than it is to take down the constantly spawning ele groups (often of which multiple are pulled due to where people get teleported) even if everyone brings the right skills along and uses them correctly which feels a bit off.

Some fractals are worse than others if you or your party members are a bit laggy (cliffside is probably one of the worst for this), and volcanic fractal is generally very painful if you are short on projectile defense for example.

Level 39 with Cliffside, most painful thing i have done in FotM. Took someone jumping on their Guard and x skill changes but we got it…. sadly Mai Trin for our Boss afterwards was a cakewalk.

I would say it really depends on level and mistlock instability. Getting double damage from behind or the sides (Outflanked instability) when you’re stacking near a seal and being attacked from all sides on Cliffside Fractal, for example, is simply horrendous (which is why people generally just avoid the nasty instabilities).

If we’re just talking in general, without factoring in mistlock instabilities, then I’d say I’ve seen the most trouble with fire shaman with pug groups. Snowblind is also a real pain on higher levels during elemental. Dredge and Cliffside are long, but not particularly hard, unless you have really inexperienced players, in which case they can turn into nightmares. Mai is the hardest boss fractal, but not the hardest fractal in my opinion. Once you get to know the mechanics and learn to spread out during cannon phases, it’s really not so bad.

Overall, I’d say it really depends on group composition and skill. Even the seemingly hardest fractals can feel easy if you have the right party.

As everyone mentioned it depends on the group composition and of course players.

From my experience the fractals that causes the most wipes.

1. Shaman boss fight
2. Snowblind, elemental phase
3.Mai Trin
4. Dredge, control room

These below don’t wipe as much as above
4. Cliff side
5. Ascalaon boss can cause issues if he get’s the fiery greatsword

Jade Maw on a 50. Long, annoying, dull and there are tons of mobs who drop no loot (to prevent overfarming I imagine :| ).

I dunno who is the genius who had the Irukandji not drop loot, but I hope Santa brings you wet coals for every Christmas ever.

The mobs leading up to maw used to drop good loot, once upon a time…

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Jade Maw on a 50. Long, annoying, dull and there are tons of mobs who drop no loot (to prevent overfarming I imagine :| ).

I dunno who is the genius who had the Irukandji not drop loot, but I hope Santa brings you wet coals for every Christmas ever.

It’s funny because I actually prefer getting Mai to Jade Maw. The latter is just incredibly dull. Mai may be a bit harder but at least it’s fun and energetic.

Cliff side on 43, whenever you hit an enemy, you would get a stacking debuff that damages you for .1% of your max health on hitting an enemy. This debuff is supposed to reset whenever you kill an opponent, the only problem is that all mobs in this fractal don’t drop loot, give experience or even count as kills for that matter. In the end we got through the fractal by excessive use of shadow refuge to get out of combat and reset the debuff this way.

I wasn’t even aware people did the mid-fractals anymore. just save up your AR and do 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Avoid everything else in between. Even a 50 is easier than a 39.

I think Dredge is the toughest fractal. The mobs all hit like a truck, they gather boons, they interrupt constantly, and are generally immune to blind. If you have a party of boon-stripping necros/thieves/mesmers this is a cake walk, but when is the last time you saw a party like that?

the gates take some timing, every pug does it a different “meta” way, the cannons and bombs are easier than they used to be, and the endless clown car was removed (much to the dismay of my loot drops), but even with these positive changes it’s still harder than most of the other ones. one bad dodge on the boss and your team falls apart or it takes an extra 10 minutes to take down. one miss on the lava debuff and the boss takes extra time. it’s easy to avoid wiping anywhere in the fractal, but its easy to kitten progress to the point of a forced reset if any one person falls out of rhythm.

snowblind only has one tough fight (ele). the first campfire/ice wall can be solo’d.
colossus is just long and boring, with far too many traps and potential for bugging. it’s more annoying than fairly challenging.

The Cliffside Fractal. Not because it is very difficult but rather it has the most annoying mechanic in the game (the Hammer) and is probably the longest fractal. Also because you can get it for 2nd or 3rd.

Most difficult fract is the one you run with a perpetual afker, one whiner, one guy who rushes ahead all the time because he has to go soon and one guy who is really chill and fun, probably your friend, but dies in the first 3 seconds every single time you pull even one mob.

In an exp group? No one.

In PUGs? Frigging Snowblind…that Elemental needs a nerf in back to back CC and the PUGs always manage to pull ALL the adds instead to group nicely on 1 bonefire and clear slowly…

Lampshade.7569:

Most difficult fract is the one you run with a perpetual afker, one whiner, one guy who rushes ahead all the time because he has to go soon and one guy who is really chill and fun, probably your friend, but dies in the first 3 seconds every single time you pull even one mob.

Haha so much this.

But seriously, the most annoying is Snowblind. I’ve been lucky to get pretty smooth groups in it lately (or at least groups that can recover if we do pull multiple ice elementals). I facepalm every time someone runs straight through the veterans on the way back. Usually I just laugh and YOLO with the rest of the group if they won’t try to do it in an organized fashion.