Guild Wars 2

sebz.1524:

What do you think about dredge button “fix”? For those who don’t already know: if you die on buttons you will be moved from them. So…..no more useless dying! YAY!

I mean, it’s obviously a NICE change. You can play the way it’s meant to be played. Right?
And what is this way exactly? 5 Thiefs? Guardians? Again?

Anyways I’m REALLY looking forward to this fractal on higher levels with pugs and some nice mistlock instabilites. It will be a joy as always.

Ah, that explains the ads I saw in the LFG tool then… “…No rangers or other useless classes…”

I tried fractals lvl 30 and first two were very easy for our group. last fractal was dredge and after some tries in the “cage” the owner leaves and the fractal closes…..

thats so frustrating and not fun….

change dredge fractal or the way this dungeon system works. its not fun to kick 4 ppl back to la when one person leaves group.

The dredge fractal is the only reason I stopped doing fractals months ago. It is not its difficulty per se; I can accept and (somewhat) manage that. After all, I main a guardian who can survive basically anything.

My problem is time management. I have a real life with job, wife, kids and so on. That means I have a not infinite time window to play. When I have, say, two hours of undisturbed playing time and consider my options, I can estimate what amount of time I have to invest for the activities open to me. There is one glaring exception: fractals. If the dredge fractal pops I am lucky when we can finish the fractal set in two hours (at level 2x).

And now I read that the dredge fractal is not shortened but even prolonged by removing some (admittedly cheesy) workarounds.

I am not enthused. I will continue to abstain from fractals.

thief = easy win :p

It’s a punch in the face.

We had this fractal yesterday on lvl 31 with Moosman action.
We had 2 guards, 1 War, 1 Mes and 1 Ele and yeah, we managed to do it.

The good thing, the normal dredges are quite easy to kill now, cause their life scales better, but one of the veterans still got 1001238091471203987123 life.

Instead of “fixing” the way, most ppl did this part of this fractal, they should have thought about an alternitive way/solution.

I think it’s better like this.
It was way too easy to just let 2 people die on a button to get the door open.
Now i can finally kite some mobs again and others can play with shields and stealths.

Mesmers and thiefs can use stealth and a spykit so that’s a pretty long stealth.
Guardians have shields and wall of reflection
And on and on… there’s a lot of skills that can help you in that room…

Thorwyn.8469:

The good thing, the normal dredges are quite easy to kill now, cause their life scales better, but one of the veterans still got 1001238091471203987123 life.

That one guy was always in that fractal if you got additional dredge spawns at the start (which happens always now). We used to call him Legendary Dredge Resonator because it took a while to kill him at scale 79.

And now he’s always there. Anet <3

Stack guardians and mash 1, meta didn’t change at all.

Fluffball.8307:

This is a tad overdramatic. My glass cannon ranger, not exactly know for being able to tank, can change utilities for 12 seconds of invulnerability. I could even take a pig for 15 seconds. Stealth on a Longbow for 3 seconds, and I haven’t even used a heal yet. Equip a greatsword for an evade every 3 attacks after that. And so on and so forth.

Every class has a way of surviving long enough to stand on the buttons, or if it’s just totally impossible for you, you can distract the enemies attacking your friend on the button.

Necromancer → No invulnerability!

Nick.6972:

Did they fix mesmer portal in Harpie/Asura fractal? Just wondering.

They fixed one of the several ways… So the correct answer is “no, they didn’t fix it”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Necromancer -> No invulnerability!

Anyone has access to invulnerability if they reroll Sylvari!

I can’t believe this is anyone’s idea of “balancing” Dredge fractal. It has been the least popular fractal of all since fractals were implemented in the first place. The only attention it ever got was making it harder and more frustrating and even less popular.

Now it won’t be doable by most pugs and it’ll always be the third fractal in a series, so it’ll be harder to avoid. Well, I can see why it ain’t meant to be skippable easily. But the reasons people want to avoid it never got addressed, quite the contrary:

Underground Facility haters have gotten shafted every single patch that paid attention to fractals.

I’ve just finished a lvl31 run with 3 pugs and dredge was included, No words can describe how frustrated it was.

All ANet cares about is making money and closing bugs. Balancing is inexistent.

ArmoredVehicle.2849:

All ANet cares about is […] closing bugs.

Not really sure about that…

Fror.2163:

ArmoredVehicle.2849:

All ANet cares about is […] closing bugs.

Not really sure about that…

Hey, they’re really good at closing bugs if they’re harmless fun and/or beneficial to the player.

Yeah, so things that we don’t consider as bugs.

Nick.6972:

3 Warriors 2 Guardians, we did the “button phase” fairly easily.
Scale 30.

I think this is what people mean with Anet loves heavies. I myself am an elementalist and well kitten is we just have to look pretty and get slapped in the face by the freaking train called dredge. I used to die on the platform for a reason now I just die 3 warriors and 2 guards other professions do excist

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Fluffball.8307:

This is a tad overdramatic. My glass cannon ranger, not exactly know for being able to tank, can change utilities for 12 seconds of invulnerability. I could even take a pig for 15 seconds. Stealth on a Longbow for 3 seconds, and I haven’t even used a heal yet. Equip a greatsword for an evade every 3 attacks after that. And so on and so forth.

Every class has a way of surviving long enough to stand on the buttons, or if it’s just totally impossible for you, you can distract the enemies attacking your friend on the button.

Necromancer -> No invulnerability!

If you have a party of five necros and thus no invulnerability on anyone, you 1) have a bizarrely weird group 2) have the most possible amount of health in your party and 3) have the most possible amount of distraction bodies, even if they only last one hit. You only need to be on the buttons for what is it, 12 seconds?

The responses in this thread are the reason people only want guardians. How many people honestly knew off the top of their head rangers (as an example) could go invuln for 15 seconds? No one has any idea how to play this game other than pre-determined speed run tactics that they did not think up themselves.

Everyone calm down, in a week or two the established methods for completing all the new fractals will be known to everyone and you won’t have to think anymore.

One thing that does worry me is the instability that keeps you in combat the entire run, though. You’ll have to do some serious fractal permutation planning before you start.

Paradox.5498:

I can’t believe this is anyone’s idea of “balancing” Dredge fractal. It has been the least popular fractal of all since fractals were implemented in the first place. The only attention it ever got was making it harder and more frustrating and even less popular.

Now it won’t be doable by most pugs and it’ll always be the third fractal in a series, so it’ll be harder to avoid. Well, I can see why it ain’t meant to be skippable easily. But the reasons people want to avoid it never got addressed, quite the contrary:

Underground Facility haters have gotten shafted every single patch that paid attention to fractals.

I agree completely. Instead of looking at why people skip and do things the way they do, then fixing THOSE issues, they just put in hard measures to stop you from doing them.

It’s another case where bugs or mechanics that help the players are changed while bugs/mechanics that hurt the players are left there.

Its clear that Anet Devs do not read feedback on things, this is one of the worse fractals to come up against, and it was always mostly skipped if it came up first,

That switch room is shocking, we rolled a lvl 30 last night, 3 guards 1 war 1 thief, and this is before they add instabilities good luck trying this room with

Tag team – One player must remain out of combat
Double Tag Team – Two players must remain out of combat
Weak Link – If ONE party member dies, all die
Doctor Death – Skills from the healing slot cause death
Malefactor – Take damage when you apply boons

The list goes on and on, this was not properly thought out, and was poor it was never changed, Id rather see a champ in that room that you must kill in order to get the gate unlocked rather than this current very broken mechanic.

Fluffball.8307:

Everyone calm down, in a week or two the established methods for completing all the new fractals will be known to everyone and you won’t have to think anymore.

Also, in a week or two is next patch, which (if we extrapolate a bit from what we’ve seen over the past year) will make it impossible to be on a pressure plate while invulnerable, stealthed or wearing less than heavy armor.

Re necros: I forgot about all the fear 5 necros would have access to.

Dredge is not difficult, its just long. It took a bit of time to found out a new strategy and frankly its the same old strategy when people didn’t die on the button. For Ele, Ranger, Guardian, Warrior and thief its super easy to stay on the Button by themselves while 2 other player protect the guys at the switch. And if the guys is at the switch is a theif/mesmer, then its even easier. A lot of ways to do this with different combination of profession. And btw heavies are not the best for that. They don’t work on the button because of a bit of armor, but because of skills like the Shield bloc, endure pain, Renewed Focus, etc.

Lopez.7369:

Necromancer here.

This part has always been pretty easy, and I never understood why people saw it as really difficult.

Kill one side, kite the rest and hit the switches and panel. Easy.

By the way, if you can’t PUG what’s supposed to be the hardest group content, that’s a feature, not a bug.

If part of a side is killed, it re-spawns within the minute.

Razor.9872:

If part of a side is killed, it re-spawns within the minute.

12 seconds < 1 minute

tweeve.3782:

I have never had an issue holding the button as a Glass cannon ele. I prefer not holding the buttons, but I can do it.

Really? I figured how I would do this for every profession except elementalist (only field tested on guardian, ranger and mesmer). I could not see any combination of weapons and utilities that would be able to hold out long enough. Care to tell me how you do it?

Mistform, OF and Fortify get you 11 seconds of invuln. I suppose he filled in the others with projectile reflects, daze and KD?

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

tweeve.3782:

I have never had an issue holding the button as a Glass cannon ele. I prefer not holding the buttons, but I can do it.

Really? I figured how I would do this for every profession except elementalist (only field tested on guardian, ranger and mesmer). I could not see any combination of weapons and utilities that would be able to hold out long enough. Care to tell me how you do it?

spykit, focus earth 5, mistform, conjured shield maybe something other…. (antiprojectiles but you can still be hit melee.)

Still not viable at higher level since you will be oneshot in the few istants between skills or during casting time….

What people don t get is that is not enough to survive 12 seconds on hte button…

Try to pug the fractal….i know its easy with TS and your friends…..
12 seconds is ea ch attempt, but since any slight error of a single party member leads to reset, as an ele you will hav everythng in cooldown for ages…

Fluffball.8307:

Razor.9872:

If part of a side is killed, it re-spawns within the minute.

12 seconds < 1 minute

If part of a side is killed, it re-spawns within the minute.

Well feel free to fail at it then. The two guys above you did it on mesmers and eles. So many people complaining about having to be alive for a few seconds…

Fluffball.8307:

Well feel free to fail at it then. The two guys above you did it on mesmers and eles. So many people complaining about having to be alive for a few seconds…

what if….you stay alive 20 seconds and the pug on the other button dies?

And if you succeed but the other pugs fail at kiting away mobs from console?

And as i said we still didn t see lvl 50….

This is an antipug system

5 decent pugs can t compete with 5 baddies that are used to pllay together and with TS…..going against the concept of mmorpg

Luigi.1584:

As I said. I’m looking forward to see developers doing this on 30+

They wont, if you watched their live stream, they struggle with trash mobs (that and they use 2 thieves in party, so they can just stealth their way through it -_- )

Not wanting to sound petulant, but I think some people are so used to dying over buttons/mesmer porting/jump into the button room and other non-legit ways that they simply lost the aptitude to do it properly. I’d go further and say that many people are simply not used to the concept of “failing” or “losing” in this game, Liadri and the new SAB levels being an example of that.

I used to run the old scale 48 FotM with a 2 engies, 1 necro, 1 ele and 1 guardian main group. That’s not even an “optimal” group and we never had to suicide over buttons.

Being one of the engineers, I have 2 block skills, elixir S invulnerability, stealth from Toss S and smoke combo fields, knockback from shield and Big Old Bomb and reflect from shield. All that and I didn’t even use my healing skill, and I won’t even go into other small details such as trait adjusting. As someone already mentioned with the ranger example, every profession should have some tools for doing it. If your profession is definitely not prepared for it, just leave it to one better suited for the job and go do another role (I mean, thieves are much better doing panel than buttons, imo).

I’m not trying to defend the dredge fractals. The clown car is still a boring overkill, the bomb room makes little sense and I won’t deny it’s not PuG friendly, but the panel room has never been a problem to me, except when PuGs wanted to do some weird exploit/shortcut that would frequently be more time consuming/difficult than doing it properly. Complaining about this fractals is plausible, but I think that before complaining about it, some people should at least try to develop strategies and maximize the potential of their characters for given situation, instead of just trying to rush your way through everything without having to worry about actually failing.

Rainweaver.7302:

Liadri and the new SAB levels being an example of that.

Liadri difficulty – bugged arena, low fps because of the zerg at the bottom.
SAB difficulty – bugged Tribulation mode Z1L3, bugged bubbles Z3L3.
So… these are examples only of poor QA work.

Wicked Rin.1972:

Wow… that’s a slap in the face for people that only pug fractals… This just shows how much anet loves heavies classes. So much for that balance.

In upper 40s it didn’t matter if you were heavy or not, those dredge were hitting you like trucks. Great “Balancing and fixing” ANet….

Talindra.4958:

Done it yesterday with 2 guards 2 warriors 1 ele. But only at lvl 31 or something. Its a good fix. but the respawn of dredge should be make slightly longer say 5 more secs

Oh the irony… 2 guards + 2 warriors survived it so it’s a good fix. Whatever happened to “bring the profession you want”?

Paradox.5498:

Talindra.4958:

Done it yesterday with 2 guards 2 warriors 1 ele. But only at lvl 31 or something. Its a good fix. but the respawn of dredge should be make slightly longer say 5 more secs

Oh the irony… 2 guards + 2 warriors survived it so it’s a good fix. Whatever happened to “bring the profession you want”?

They said “you can play with any profession you want”, not “you can succeed with any profession you want”.

Fror.2163:

Paradox.5498:

Talindra.4958:

Done it yesterday with 2 guards 2 warriors 1 ele. But only at lvl 31 or something. Its a good fix. but the respawn of dredge should be make slightly longer say 5 more secs

Oh the irony… 2 guards + 2 warriors survived it so it’s a good fix. Whatever happened to “bring the profession you want”?

They said “you can play with any profession you want”, not “you can succeed with any profession you want”.

This. So much. So GW 2. So Doge.

Btw, Spy kits still work and can help you stay a little longer on the platform. Don’t tell anybody!

Seriously tough, at higher lvls you simply con’t expect to stay on the plattform and resist 12 seconds alone. That’s why you have teammates to stole aggro and give the ones on the plattform a little rest.

Marna Nindar.8120:

Btw, Spy kits still work and can help you stay a little longer on the platform. Don’t tell anybody!

Seriously tough, at higher lvls you simply con’t expect to stay on the plattform and resist 12 seconds alone. That’s why you have teammates to stole aggro and give the ones on the plattform a little rest.

Remember that one instability found in game dat that requires two of the players to remain out of combat?

Dondarrion.2748:

Ah, that explains the ads I saw in the LFG tool then… “…No rangers or other useless classes…”

Fluffball.8307:

This is a tad overdramatic. My glass cannon ranger, not exactly know for being able to tank, can change utilities for 12 seconds of invulnerability. I could even take a pig for 15 seconds. Stealth on a Longbow for 3 seconds, and I haven’t even used a heal yet. Equip a greatsword for an evade every 3 attacks after that. And so on and so forth.

Every class has a way of surviving long enough to stand on the buttons, or if it’s just totally impossible for you, you can distract the enemies attacking your friend on the button.

Astralporing.1957:

Marna Nindar.8120:

Btw, Spy kits still work and can help you stay a little longer on the platform. Don’t tell anybody!

Seriously tough, at higher lvls you simply con’t expect to stay on the plattform and resist 12 seconds alone. That’s why you have teammates to stole aggro and give the ones on the plattform a little rest.

Remember that one instability found in game dat that requires two of the players to remain out of combat?

Yes, the one wich is nowhere to be found in the first 50 levels and maybe won’t ever be released? I don’t think it will be that big a problem tbh.

The one who uses the interruptor is anyway (nearly) always out of combat, so we got one. The other can just /dance while the others do it. Granted, having a thief (or more) is a huge help, and maybe even a must. But we are speaking of frac above 50, where the “casual play” zone doesn’t apply anymore and it is expected that parties adapt to what they encounter, and rerolling a couple of thieves for the section can be done, they don’t even need to be lvl 80!

Paradox.5498:

Talindra.4958:

Done it yesterday with 2 guards 2 warriors 1 ele. But only at lvl 31 or something. Its a good fix. but the respawn of dredge should be make slightly longer say 5 more secs

Oh the irony… 2 guards + 2 warriors survived it so it’s a good fix. Whatever happened to “bring the profession you want”?

mm no relation whether i believe its a good fix based on profession mix in my post. Must be a miss-understanding. I see the fix as good improvement to game or team play overall.. nothing to do with what prof best yo go in.. i avoid pug tht asked for certain prof in party bcos it isnt the prof. But its the players tht plays the game… tht my playstyle. Yay to no standing on pipe go afk and auto pew pew.. or see morons tht rush on top buttons and die there.
if it is tht hard for majority players to do this map normally w/o “creative tricks”.. then remove it from fractal completely..

How bout them Bombs… don’t see a lot of others complaining about the Bombs and how its almost a guaranteed repair bill.

Did you guys see the Dev video of Dredge Fractal lvl 40+ bombs side without a thief?

Max Gladius.6930:

How bout them Bombs… don’t see a lot of others complaining about the Bombs and how its almost a guaranteed repair bill.

Did you guys see the Dev video of Dredge Fractal lvl 40+ bombs side without a thief?

i main a thief and was soloing bombs at lv 48 before patch even hence why no complain

i am glad i will never have to go through struggle of running bombs as a group

Oh I too have done it w/o a thief, but I am sure they do not realize the difficulty involved, and to expect a random team to even complete it in the teens w/o a thief is going to be a high repair bill.

I think, at the top of the latter as u enter the cave, there should be a coin slot, like what was on the original super happy fun box thing….
“If all members of party deposit 10 silver, you will progress directly to the boss at the clown car”… they get their money, we can actually come close to the “all individual fractals are designed to take 20-30 minutes to complete”