Guild Wars 2

Ok, for the first time I am after a legendary. Yes, I’ve played since the beginning but never really did any fractals or was interested in them. Now, however, just for the pre for the legendary I want, Sunrise pre, it states two fractals are needed for that. So…here are my questions and I hope those who know will answer or at least give an opinion so I know where to even start. And thank you in advance for reading.

I was told “you must have all ascended to do fractals”, I don’t..I have one weapon (focus) I made that is ascended, I have both rings, an amulet, that are ascended, and that is all right now. I have both with the infusions that you can buy at the laurel vendor. So, does that mean I can’t run fractals? I’ve been trying to make more, but I have one level 500 artificer, and one level 500 tailor, so not sure if I can get good enough gear by making it myself or???

The character that I play the most is a Reaper, she has the partial ascended gear on right now. I also play a Druid, she however, has no ascended as of yet, I’m working on that but its taking me some time for mats and the like to make her at least an ascended weapon and saving laurels to buy some rings and such. I’m getting there slowly

I was told “you get ascended gear from fractals, but you can’t run fractals until you have ascended gear” do I just keep trying to make some or is this a catch 22 that is difficult? This was all I was told by my guild, other than someone saying “or you could get someone to carry your worthless self (not the words used but for forum purpose these are the ones I’ll use)”

I am pretty down about this, as I don’t want to be “carried” I want to pull my weight and do what I should do, I just need a direction and some advice to start trying to get to where I need to be to do this. All my characters are in all exotic gear/part ascended so I try hard but I’m not even sure if I am trying in the right direction…I hope that makes sense to someone lol…

Anyone who has pointers, web links, or advise, if you would, please give them. I would greatly appreciate it, just if you could, please be kind about harsh criticism, I’ve gotten a lot of that lately with no real answers as to why so its getting pretty frustrating asking. I figured I would ask here, maybe a bit less harsh (I hope)

You absolutely do not need ascended to do fractals, and in fact the vast majority of people doing low levels will be using exotics.

At high levels of fractals you need ascended because of a weird and confusing mechanic called “agony”, but you don’t need to bother learning about that unless you want to do level 20+, and even then it’s not really required until much higher levels.

What, specifically, do you need to do in Fractals to get your legendary?

Fractals is a bit weird compared to other dungeons. It might be better to look it up on the Wiki or wait for an answer from someone who does it more often but I’ll attempt to explain.

It has it’s own unique difficulty scale, going from 1 (which is about the same as a normal dungeon) to 100. As you increase the difficulty the enemies get harder, the rewards change and a unique mechanic called Agony comes into play. This can only be countered by using ascended equipment (specifically ascended equipment upgraded with Agony Resistance infusions).

But Agony isn’t introduced until level 20, and all the Fractal maps are accessible from level 1 onwards. So if you just need to enter, or even complete, a specific map you can do that without any ascended equipment.

If you need an item that only becomes available at higher levels you will need some ascended equipment, but because the damage from Agony starts off relatively low and increases gradually as you go up the levels you don’t need a full set until the higher levels.

(When it first came out you could get up to, I think, level 28 and the only ascended items available were rings, which only dropped from level 10+ fractals.)

Thank you for your answers, it helps a lot. Specifically, Sacrificial Savior – Save Grawls, defeat the Grawl Shaman in the Volcanic fractal and Homeland Re-claimer – Help the Charr reclaim their homeland in the Urban Battleground fractal.

So here I was, never even running one once, being told I couldn’t run any yet. I’ll have to see then if those are the higher number fractals. Just knowing that the 1-20 fractals are something that I CAN do, without making myself a “carry” which I won’t do, if I try hard enough is a good start then.

Agony infusions…hmm I looked some up on the TP, expensive, BUT it says on some crafting mat for Artificer, I’ll bet I might be able to make those then, I wonder if there is more but just knowing to look for “agony infusion” on web sites and the Wiki is a big start in the right direction!

Thanks so much!

Your question has already been answered but yeah, I just wanted to add that you may wish to consider running the daily fractals 1-19 each day. Its an easy, quick way to acquire +1 agony infusions (which can be combined to make higher infusions), to get fractal relics for useful items, get ascended rings, and some decent money as well. All for very little effort, and as others have said, gear does not matter for 1-19. The mechanics are pretty easy to pick up, just watch what others are doing and you will be fine. Once you are comfortable with 1-19 and get a little agony resistance, consider doing 20-49 dailies as well for some quick coin towards your legendary.

I am unfamiliar with that precursor collection , but it sounds like you need fractals 1 and 6.

Yea another note dont waste laurels on fractal rings the daily chests for 3 1-20 21-50 and 51-100 give them quite frequently.
+ you can get them form the box for the specific daily 1-20 and 21-50 aswell.

And when you done dailys afew days you will save up prestine fractal relics so you can buy a specific one if your unlucky.

Just dont have a copy of the same one you can only equip one of each so if you want same stats you will have one with defensive and one with offensive infusion slot.
Ring_of_Red_Death
Crystalline_Band

Edit
Are you na or eu? I dont mind running with new people aslong as they are upfront about it.

According to the Wiki you get Homeland Reclaimer for finishing the Urban Battleground Fractal and Sacrifice Saviour for saving all the humans in the Volcanic Fractal, which you have to do to complete it.

All Fractal maps are accessible, and completeable, at all levels. So you can do both parts of the collection even on a level 1 Fractal.

Danikat.8537:

According to the Wiki you get Homeland Reclaimer for finishing the Urban Battleground Fractal and Sacrifice Saviour for saving all the humans in the Volcanic Fractal, which you have to do to complete it.

All Fractal maps are accessible, and completeable, at all levels. So you can do both parts of the collection even on a level 1 Fractal.

When was the last time you ran fractals? Lowest level for volcanic is 6.

Laurie.1698:

Thank you for your answers, it helps a lot. Specifically, Sacrificial Savior – Save Grawls, defeat the Grawl Shaman in the Volcanic fractal and Homeland Re-claimer – Help the Charr reclaim their homeland in the Urban Battleground fractal.

So here I was, never even running one once, being told I couldn’t run any yet. I’ll have to see then if those are the higher number fractals. Just knowing that the 1-20 fractals are something that I CAN do, without making myself a “carry” which I won’t do, if I try hard enough is a good start then.

Don’t bother with AR if you don’t intend to do fractals after getting your collection items, all fractals except solid ocean and mai trihn have a <20 version. That said, do your collection items need a specific level? i.e. “Urban Battlegrounds” vs “level X Urban Battlegrounds”? I know the legendary backpiece collection does have level requirements (the description will mention it), didn’t notice anything like that when doing Dusk’s collections so I’m guessing you don’t need to worry about it.

The info you’re quoting is the higher level fractals, under 20s are easy. From a difficulty stand point you can do high level fractals with exotics, it’s just you’ll run out of AR slots on your trinkets to achieve enough AR to survive.

Look at http://gw2dungeons.net/ . It details each fractal encounter so you’ll at least know what to expect before going in.

I do intend to do them, if I can, past the collection items. I am going to try some with all your advice here, some searching, researching, and well with some luck and courage to go in in the first place..lol…I’m getting a lot of information now with videos and the like now that I know what I am searching for…just typing in “fractals” wasn’t getting me anywhere at first as there is so much to it. And I want to be a help not a hindrance to the others I am with so I’m going to make sure I have a good idea, or as best as possible one, before I head into one.

Thanks again everyone! You all are very helpful (saved my laurels as well)

Since you mentioned laurels, you do realize that you can get ascended trinkets cheaper than from the standard laurel vendor, right?

Amulets – fewer laurels + WvW tokens from the WvW laurel vendor
Rings – as above; plus pristine fractal relics; plus they drop like crazy in fractals (honestly, once I started doing the mid-tier fractals, I was able to equip my 7 other alts with rings, and I’ve got an alt dedicated to storing ascended rings)
Accessories – gold + guild commendations from the guild commendation trader

Onevstheworld – Can I ask why you are using an alt to store the rings? They’re not sellable and only infused are worth keeping afaik?

Mosferre.1246:

Onevstheworld – Can I ask why you are using an alt to store the rings? They’re not sellable and only infused are worth keeping afaik?

lol… good question.

I’ve got the space, so I figure why not. Once it is full I’ll have to start culling them. I’ll probably salvage the infused rings, but it seems such a shame to vendor the others.

I always save my random rings and trinkets. They have uses for hitting stats you want in WvW.

Laurie.1698:

Thank you for your answers, it helps a lot. Specifically, Sacrificial Savior – Save Grawls, defeat the Grawl Shaman in the Volcanic fractal and Homeland Re-claimer – Help the Charr reclaim their homeland in the Urban Battleground fractal.

So here I was, never even running one once, being told I couldn’t run any yet. I’ll have to see then if those are the higher number fractals. Just knowing that the 1-20 fractals are something that I CAN do, without making myself a “carry” which I won’t do, if I try hard enough is a good start then.

Agony infusions…hmm I looked some up on the TP, expensive, BUT it says on some crafting mat for Artificer, I’ll bet I might be able to make those then, I wonder if there is more but just knowing to look for “agony infusion” on web sites and the Wiki is a big start in the right direction!

Thanks so much!

Hi,

To reiterate what people have said, you dont need ascended nor agony infusions for those two specific collection. Ascended and agony infusions are only needed to resist agony, which doesn’t come into effect till fractal scale 20.

Luckily, Urban Battleground is available at scale 1 and Volcanic is scale 6. That means you can do those without any ascendeds or infusions. I suggest you try with some friends or LFG stating you’re new to fractals. At those levels the fractals are easier than dungeons, so you shouldn’t have a hard time.