Guild Wars 2

I left the game shortly after FotM was initially released. At the time, my general lack of interest in the dungeon and groups constantly falling apart from disconnects kept my Fractal Lvl at a low difficulty ranking.

1) While I wasn’t playing, I remember reading an article about how ArenaNet wanted to make it so that lower difficulty Fractal players could join higher difficulty groups. Did ArenaNet ever impliment this? (Yes, I know that my personal Fractal rewards will be based on my true difficulty level as it slowly raises.)

2) I’ve current got +5 Agony Resistance from an infusion in my ascended necklace. How far will that cover me? To Fractal 10? Or Fractal 20? I’m trying to get an idea about where things stand as I level up my difficulty ranking and eventually save for ascended rings.

3) Are there any other Fractal changes that I should know about?

1) Yes, implemented in the late-January patch. It really helped get some people back into fractals and made progression through odd levels a lot easier (since you could just go the next-highest even level, which is more desirable for loot). Also implemented was the ability for people to rejoin fractals if they lost their connection or otherwise exited the dungeon.

2) 5 AR will get you through fractal level 19 comfortably as long as you are smart about healing and dodging. If you want to facetank everything, then you’ll want more AR. At fractal level 20, the agony attacks get a huge buff, and at that point you’ll want 10 AR to have a very small chance at surviving most (but not all) of those attacks and 15 AR to be hit by the same damage as you would be at 0 AR in level 10-19 fractals. The table on the wiki probably explains it better.

3) Not many changes to the fractals themselves – some bugfixes, but that’s it.

as DEKeyz says 1) has been implemented but do bear in mind you get loot and rewards based on YOUR level not the level the team is running at so if your only level 3 if you run level 10+ you won’t receive the ascended rings/pristine fractals until your level 10+ yourself (which makes it less useful to skip “tiers”)

2) 5 AR will allow you to get through upto level 19 if your careful on regular bosses. If you look at the chart DEKeyz linked anything 12% or higher will down you unless you utilize a heal skill during jade maw phase changes, anything 24% or higher will take you all the way to downed state without healing.

Keep in mind agony also reduces your healing by around 50% while its active and isn’t prevented by AR so while 18% is survivable you will find varied results with different heals and such.

with 3) the only other big changes where really the removal of certain methods that allowed people to go all the way to level 80 fractals

Thanks for the feedback. I’ve seen people advertising for groups around 14th to 18th and I didn’t want to risk things until I got my necklace and started asking some questions. This really clears things up.

If you run with some guildies you don’t really need AR. Sometimes I help out my guildies to fill up a spot in there party, they do lvl 20+ sometimes 30+ and I can easily do it (only dying @ maw, who just 1-shots me), I am a thief tho so I evade most agony

as always if you are trying to get back in it, run with some friends/guildies. People who don’t get mad if you fail at something