Guild Wars 2

Howdy dungeon and fractal running fellas,

Last time when I asked for help with the Grawl Shaman boss, I received so many wonderful advises, all of which have given me various success. I feel compelled to enable this knowledge more widely shared to our elementalist community, yet at the same time not to be lost in the forgotten archive. So, I want to start this initiative where we discuss strategies against some of the most difficult dungeon and high-level fractal bosses. This discussion is encouraged to be based on our past experience, i.e. not theorycrafting, regardless of builds or weapons of choice, though they should be clearly stated. And one more thing, there will be no endorsement for unskilled practices such as safe-spot ranging or exploits (although I still think Lightning Flash + FGS works as intended). Furthermore, let’s keep this thread on topics, out of any flammation, nerf/buff complaints and off-topic debates.

The format will be discussion around one question at a time. I’ll compile the answers (as url) for that question in the front page.

That said, if you are an ele who has a healthy passion for dungeons and Fractal of the Mist, yet finds it difficult to deal with them bosses sometimes, I hope this is the place for you.

1. Grawl Shaman boss in the Volcanic Fractal :

• Some principal notes: Bubble shield is peeled by number of skill uses, which includes healing skill. At high level fractals, clearing the lava adds fast is the priority. Reflection is saved for the add phase only, so dodging the fire arrows is strongly recommended.
• Tip for camera issue when melee
• Reaper of Grenth to slow boss in melee
• Staff and ice bow when clearing adds is the priority. Not for breaking the boss’ bubble shield.
• Detailed guide for melee with D/F by DEKeyz

2. Next, how to encounter Mai Trin? This boss is extremely unforgiving to the elementalist given how:
- Her spin attack can two shot you and is difficult to see the tells under all the particle effect.
- Her shadowstep is un-dodgeable and our block has high cool down.
- Her melee range is as large as our max melee range and it is impossible to range the kitten.

Reservation for future questions

Reservation for future questions

Reservation for future questions

Honestly, I never have a problem with Mai Trin. I facetank her most of the time (same as any other boss), really. Running a classic 0/10/0/30/30 D/D boon duration build.

I guess my best advice would be to become very good about knowing your condition cleanses and timing them, plus knowing when to step back and heal vs. continue DPSing. I struggled the first few times, but once you’ve done the fight on several occasions you should develop a good feel for how squishy you are and how to compensate appropriately.

If you’re just plain too squishy at all, well… you might wanna fix that; I’m guessing groups aren’t wild about your dropping dead constantly in other circumstances, either.

I would not recommend staff since the encounter area overall is a bit too small to be making use of its max range (1200) vs. scepter or dagger (300-900 is plenty), and Mai Trin has a small hitbox and moves so frequently that AoEs and large field damage is impractical.

In general, you can pick a few pieces of defensive gear (soldier’s or celestial) and still have a high damage output. The key is to get enough health that you can survive ordinary attacks and not have them be 1-hit-downs. For me, around 15k hp generally seems enough. 12k for regular dungeons.

Of course, you can be hardcore and go full zerker. But a little hp (wihout going bunker) makes things a lot more forgiving.

As a new ele… I going to fall in love with all of you (Irish, DeKeyz, Zehlyn…)…

I’ve done a lot of 49s as a guard and have recently started running 49s on my ele as well. I run with a full zerk team and my traits are 30/10/10/20/0, although 30/10/10/10 for vigor or blasting staff is also useful. I use staff mostly.

Your questions specifically – Use ether renewal as your heal here. I usually have the blast as my heal, but against Mai DPS/might stacking is not particularly useful. I would not suggest switching to defensive gear, though – you should almost never down to Mai even in full zerk as her attacks are pretty spaced apart giving you plenty of time to heal. Try your best to dodge the lightning spin, remember that you want to be at max range kiting until she is down to 4 or less stacks (preferably 2 or less). The spin does half your health, sure, but ether renewal is on an insanely short cd and if you can dodge even a couple lightning spins you should be fine. It also has a really unique sound that you can reaction dodge to as well if you’re at range. If she comes up to melee you (you are face to face with her), wait a half a second second then dodge through her and keep running forward (away from her). She will root herself with a long rapier combo and you will be 1200+ units away from her. As for the one hit un-evadable shot – it is reflectable. When you reflect it you will teleported to her and deal some good damage to her, just walk away from her as she will have some aftercast delay. In general your team should be covering this attack, not you. Either a guard with WoR + shield 5 or a mesmer with feedback and traited focus 4/wardens will be able to stop every bullet alone. If your team is unreliable, you can use staff earth 3 or switch to focus (I believe there is time to ooc after the agony to switch if you don’t have an ascended focus). You can use focus air 4, earth 4 and 5 – these will all stop the bullet.

For Mai Trin in general – don’t even worry about doing damage until she has 4 or less stacks left. Once she gets to 2 stacks your team can melee her and her health goes down to the next phase almost instantly. Otherwise you want to be kiting away from her. Keep track of who has Mai’s aggro and who has Horrik’s aggro. When you have the cannon aggro and the last shot was a fire bomb, run up to Mai and stay there because you will be the target of the static bomb which removes Mai’s buff. Dodge through her (remember you have fire staff 4 as well) and hopefully she roots herself in her rapier combo when the bomb drops. You have two dodges and firestaff 4 to kite her inside the static bomb if she does not root herself. Trap her in the static bomb two or three times and she will be ready to DPS down to the next phase.

Hope that helps, and let me know if there are other questions!

edit: also if your team is looking shaky, earth golem is an absolute beast. He can tank almost anything, even in 49 frac, for 10+ seconds. If a person or two go down, pop earth golem and he will hold aggro. This is true for many fights, including fire shaman. The golem also has your agony resistance. If you’re not using fgs, definitely use earth golem, and frequently.

For Mai Trin

• Go D/F because focus is amazing and dagger provides more utility than scepter for this fight. I like having a sigil of energy on one of my weapons.
• For my guild groups my slot skills are Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Mist Form, Arcane Wave, Glyph of Elemental Power, FGS. For less organized situations, I’d recommend either Glyph of Elemental Harmony or Ether Renewal, Mist Form, Arcane Wave or Signet of Earth or Cleansing Fire, Arcane Shield, and Glyph of Elementals.
• Heal: Glyph of Elemental Harmony provides swiftness when cast in air attunement, so casting it in air at the start of a barrage phase can make your life a lot easier as you can just walk away from AoEs instead of needed to dodge. Ether Renewal is not a bad choice for when Mai Trin is active because of its low CD and condi removal, but it takes forever to channel.
• Elite notes: FGS can be some good damage at 600 range out, which means you probably aren’t the furthest away from Mai (so no shadowstep shot) but you won’t be hit by her melee cleave either. Glyph of Elementals can be useful to tank if you have lots of people down, but even the DPS elementals can mess up aggro if everyone is zerk/assassin and make it difficult to kite Mai into the AoEs.

Mai Trin’s Attacks

• Her shadowshot almost always goes after the person farthest away from her, so just hover outside of melee range. It is blocked by Swirling Winds, Arcane Shield, Obsidian Flesh, and Mist Form, and you will be teleported to her if you use Magnetic Wave or Magnetic Aura.
• Her melee auto has about a 250 range and 300+ degree cleave, so stay behind her and attack in air
• Her lightning spin will send out a bolt directed at 5 of your allies near her and will continue until it hits something – which means if you are clumped near a couple party members and they dodge away but you don’t, you’ll eat their bolts and get downed. Dodge when you see her do the Alphard bomb pull stance.
• Horrik’s attack pattern is usually 2 reds, then 1 blue. Do not stand in the circle for the red AoE and do not stand in the line between Horrik and the AoE circle. The projectile that produces the red AoE can hit you and really hurts. The blue circle still kind of hurts but pulls stacks off Mai, so stand in it for a second or two if it will help pull off stacks.

General jist of the fight:

• We have one person such as a mesmer, a warr with mace/sword + LB, or a thief stand on one side of the arena outside of Horrik’s aggro range to bait the shadowshots. Losing a warrior or thief in melee is a theoretical DPS loss but since you aren’t chasing her all over and the guard and mes don’t have to bring reflects I think it kind of works out. I’ll have a commentated video of such warrior’s perspective up within a week or so.
• Everyone else loosely clumps up near Mai Trin to bait Horrik’s AoE. She usually likes to start with a lightning spin at this distance, so be ready to dodge.
• When Horrik puts down a blue AoE, pop Obsidian Flesh and stand in it if Mai is possibly on you. Facetank everything for 5 seconds, swapping to air or fire for damage, then get out.
• Use Swirling Winds to block shadowstep shots if you don’t have someone baiting them. Swirling Winds will block that projectile but won’t block the lightning projectiles.
• When Mai is at 7 – 10 stacks, condi’s won’t stick to her and you do next to no damage. Just kite around using sidesteps and forward running – backpedaling, even with swiftness, is not enough to outdistance her.
• At 6 stacks condi’s will stick to her. This is when I use Glyph of Elemental Power (Earth) to apply cripple to make melee kiting easier, and when Horrik places down a blue AoE use Magnetic Grasp or Signet of Earth to immobilize her in the field (or facetank with Obsidian Flesh and DPS).
• At 0-2 stacks we just DPS her down. Swap to fire, lay down a fire field, blast it, and get ready to condi cleanse and heal once she teleports.
• At the barrage phase we spread out so that one person is in each corner and one person is in the center. My general behavior in this phase is to first heal in air (for swiftness), then run out of nicely spaced AoEs, dodge out of somewhat heavy AoEs, and use Obsidian Flesh or Mist Form in nasty AoEs. If I dodge, I swap to earth attunement. If I’m grazed by an AoE, I’ll either swap to water and spam Water 2 or wait for my heal to be back up to cast in Air again.
• If someone is defeated during a barrage phase or near the start or middle of a phase, have one person kite while the others rez. If rezzing, put up a swirling winds, then start rezzing, then swap to earth. Use Obsidian Flesh the first time Mai shadowshots in your direction, Mist Form the second, then Magnetic Wave the third so that you don’t bring Mai to the defeated player.
• If someone is defeated near the end of a Mai phase, partially rez before the barrage and then finish after the barrage is over.

Thank you Roxstar and Dekeyz for your very insightful advices. It took me quite long to be able to roll Mai Trin and test out your tactics as well as a new one developed by a friend of mine.

Prior to sharing this new strategy, I have been using a strat similar to what DEKeyz advises, namely D/F (with energy focus and Scarlet’s army slaying potion) and Ethereal Renewal, Arcane Shield, Mist Form, Signet of Earth, and Rock Golem on my utility bar. I also swap out Bolt to the Heart for Zephyr’s Aura to supply myself with occasional swiftness. In my variation,

• Rock Golem, alternating with Flesh Golem from my teammate necro, was used to tank Mai upfront during the first stage of the shield (from 10 to 5).
• Earth Signet and Magnetic Grasp to immobilize, then apply chill and criple to slow down Mai Trin’s normal walking speed. It allows one can back pedaling against her while others focus on damage.

While this build is good as it supplies a substantial defense to a pure zerk ele. The ele can still get downed easily by spike damage from the canon projectiles and conditions when having low HP.

Onto this new strategy I have mentioned, I present you Conjure Earth Shield or Anti-Mai Shield Complete Package. This shield, when summoned, provides 180 Vitality, 180 Toughness plus:

• Stone Sheath (duration 2.25 s, cool down 8 s) a really long block with the shortest CD of all professions in game. Last 60 s of the shield duration.

• Magnetic Surge (cast time 0.75 s, cool down 12 s) and Magnetic Shield (cast time 1.5 s, cool down 25 s) are both spammable cc. I have used them almost off CD to stun lock Mai during the burst phase. Magnetic Surge can be used as Dash during canon phase as well.

• Fortify (duration 3 s, cool down 30 s) to tank Mai Trin in the lightning aoe.

I had a chance to try it in my last 49 run and the result was fantastic. I was able to comfortably take a few hits while still completely blocking all the shadow shots at max melee range. The shield was always off cd after the canon phase. The second shield can be given to a teammate who cannot handle the heat. In fact, a guard in my group has given in to the temptation and enjoyed it very much.

The elite slot is given to FGS for mobility during the canon phase.

Well, until I am able to get my old account back, please allow me to present you the next challenge:

3. The Legendary Mark T-B34RC3 in all paths of CoE. This guys is one interesting opponent. Taken off wiki:
- He has 4 turrets, Retaliation, Cleansing, Regeneration, and Protection.
- A one-hit-KO purple projectile
- A stun aoe which looks like Lightning field
- A whirling knock back attack.

How would you deal with him in your regular groups/ pug groups/ groups with and without reflections? Please do share your experience.

golem is terrible without reflects, my suggestion would be to run dagger/focus. take out turrets (prot and retal in particular) and spam swirling.

try to interrupt its projectile and knockdown (gale should work, but idk its cast time – comet doesn’t work if it has defiance, and LH 3 has overly long windup). you can also stand inside its red circle to avoid the projectile (somewhat reliable in my experience).

if you have a guardian get them to use sanctuary, which essentially perma CCs the boss for as long as it lasts. then again, if you have a guardian with a brain in the party, you probably aren’t pugging…

IrisTheCasual.3742:

Well, until I am able to get my old account back, please allow me to present you the next challenge:

3. The Legendary Mark T-B34RC3 in all paths of CoE. This guys is one interesting opponent. Taken off wiki:
- He has 4 turrets, Retaliation, Cleansing, Regeneration, and Protection.
- A one-hit-KO purple projectile
- A stun aoe which looks like Lightning field
- A whirling knock back attack.

How would you deal with him in your regular groups/ pug groups/ groups with and without reflections? Please do share your experience.

I normally run s/f on him + LH on him. He’s annoying to stand behind because of the spins, which make it difficult to figure out which way he’s facing when he’s done with it.

With a good group that has its reflections organized (wardens + walls + feedbacks), I just full DPS with LH. If it’s clear the group isn’t working properly, you can drop in swirling winds to your rotation (offset from Obsidian Flesh) to provide ~12 additional seconds of immunity to the one-shot.

may trin active phase > icebow deepfreeze
mai trin cannon phase > FGS whirl.

I just max melee her with Lightning Whip. In fact that’s the secret to Ele survivability in fractals. Your “melee” is actually close range, so you have double the gap in autoattacks versus, say, a Warrior’s Axe. If you learn the absolute max distance away from your target with Lightning Whip, you have the perfect distance to react to an enemy and dodge them as necessary.

Also, as others have said, Mai Trin’s gap closer is Undodgeable. You need to block it. Swirling Winds, Magnetic Wave, Obsidian Flesh, and Arcane Shield just for yourself are plenty.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

For Mai Trin

• Go D/F because focus is amazing and dagger provides more utility than scepter for this fight. (…)

• Use Swirling Winds to block shadowstep shots if you don’t have someone baiting them. Swirling Winds will block that projectile but won’t block the lightning projectiles. (…)

Neko.9021:

Also, as others have said, Mai Trin’s gap closer is Undodgeable. You need to block it. Swirling Winds, Magnetic Wave, Obsidian Flesh, and Arcane Shield just for yourself are plenty.

In addition to DEKeyz and Neko’s post on Mai Trin I would like to mention Ring of Earth (#2 D/ Earth), which would be the main reason why D/ is superior to S/.

Although this skill does not say anything about blocks, it negates projectiles.
The block starts when the animation is on its peak and is up for about 2 seconds. (Meaning block is up way after the animation have disappeared). The radius is bigger than the tooltip’s 240, my guess would be ~300

I always choose to sit in earth to block 100% of her teleports before her stacks gets below ~5.

I’m working on a lvl 49/50 solo on her atm, so hopefully I can come back and edit in some visual aid on what I mean.

I got the video done!

I hope this video can show how you can survive on an elementalist on Mai Trin Fractal
Elementalist Solo Mai Trin lvl 49