- doranduck, 2016 on Lore in Raids
(edited by Iris Ng.9845)
A bit of background, I have been running fractal level 50 every day with friends. While, we are coordinated, we are far from optimized in terms of dps, not to mention we have to pug the last slot in our party. This brings our game to a more difficult level in some of the worst pug-killing fractals.
That said, the Volcanic fractal is my woe. Or to be precise, the last boss. So far I have tried D/F, S/F and Staff and I’m not totally pleased with neither of them.
(edited by Iris Ng.9845)
So, I’m looking for advices and opinions from experienced fractals runners. As ele, how would you deal with this fractal?
By the ways, re-rolling to a different class is not an option as I’m trying to learn this class.
Thank you for your attention!
I do it with D/F as you can imagine
It took me some time to learn how to dodge the arrow but now I dodge it consistently.
I position my camera so that the boss resides in the up-left corner of my screen. This gives me better visibility.
It is important to understand that DPS is not that crucial for his normal phase, you can focus on dodging more than on maintaining an optimal rotation.
My teammates usually position themselves around the boss, so that when he turns towards one of us we know that an arrow is coming.
Humans, master race, have a nice elite if you don’t use any other elite skill for that encounter. Only drawback is recharge.
Are you able to watch out for the aoe on the ground too? I always die of the aoe whenever I’m too close to him.
Humans, master race, have a nice elite if you don’t use any other elite skill for that encounter. Only drawback is recharge.
Oooh… I’m intrigued. Please do tell, o master haviz!
I would consider using it only in teams that have problems with destroying the bubble or in teams that deliberately prolong bubble phase (to kill as many grubs since shaman in the bubble presents no threat, unlike enraged shaman that inflicts twice the amount of the damage) because of the lack of anti-projectile skills or coordination.
Dear master haviz and master Zelyhn, even though I’m still clueless at what that skill did to the fight. It somehow worked! Flawlessly! And it only took me two wipes to get the hang of it. Awesome, thank you very much!
\o/
I usually go staff. The range allows you to easily dodge most of the fire arrows, and magnetic aura allows you to reflect some of them for extra damage.
Meteor storm and/or ice storm on bow break the bubble pretty quickly and take out a fair number of the grubs. If neither is up, you still have frozen ground and shockwave to buy time before the boss reaches a captive.
AoE doesn’t reduce the number of bubble hits. You have to use skills that target enemy, not the ground targetted ones. Check this for comparison. Smite doesn’t help at all despite triggering blocks yet shelter (healing skills) doesn’t trigger any block but still reduces bubble counter.
Lastly, I don’t think shockwave works since it’s blockable.
ice storm on bow break the bubble .
No unless something changed….it used to but was changed to remove a single stack.
Focus gives you a huge uptime of absorb/invul….
Unfortunately some Attacks are ground aoe or something like that and can only be denied while in flight.
What ele really lacks is the attack rate to damage the shield.
Scepter on the other hand has a decent number of CC and you should bring defiant to 0 in main phase (Defiant maximum stacks are 5 in fractal since fractured) just to be able to cc the boss after Killing the shield.
Suggestion is bring scepter focus and someone able to remove stacks fast.
When boss change to shield phase use air 4 followed by ice bow 4 on elementals and possibly the boss (the aoe won t remove many shield stacks being an aoe).
Drop the bow go in earth use 222222 on the shield while having access to 4 and 5 then 1 as much as you can.
At this point you should have the shield gone and you can focus on elementals.
Just cycle between air 4, earth 4-5 mistform etc to keep a good uptime of immunity.
AoEs never removed a single stack and they do not now. Stacks are being removed upon skill activation while having the shaman targetted (even healing skills work).
That means scepter #2 in earth attunement is basically a waste of time.
Dear master haviz and master Zelyhn, even though I’m still clueless at what that skill did to the fight. It somehow worked! Flawlessly! And it only took me two wipes to get the hang of it. Awesome, thank you very much!
\o/
Haviz is the master, I am merely a disciple.
AoEs never removed a single stack and they do not now. Stacks are being removed upon skill activation while having the shaman targetted (even healing skills work).
That means scepter #2 in earth attunement is basically a waste of time.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hurl
Single target skill you are wrong…
(edited by LordByron.8369)
Dear master haviz and master Zelyhn, even though I’m still clueless at what that skill did to the fight. It somehow worked! Flawlessly! And it only took me two wipes to get the hang of it. Awesome, thank you very much!
\o/
It works well because it chills the shaman meaning you can take your time to destroy the bubble. This makes the shaman take longer to reach a human snack. Also its unblockable so it will always work, same goes for frozen ground on the staff.
Used to S/D for some reason. I think it was because air 1 allowed me to easily move while hitting it (also fresh air).
Now I use staff in that fractal (+ ice bow). Using meteor right as it hits the %hp threshold that spawns elementals and then using magnetic aura / ice bow 4 gets rid of most of the trash while also destroying his bubble at the same time. Extremely safe too.
Using dagger is just a no for me. Having to basically melee range it would mean a much lower dodge window for the shaman’s projectiles.
Granted the highest scale I’ve done this fractal is 39… but I don’t think most of the mechanics change other than higher HP and damage, right?
Scepter focus could also work for survivability. But that weapon set lacks SO much reliable AoE damage it’s not even funny.
Edit: Well apparently I learned something new today. To my credit at least the aoe quickly removes the grubs, by far the deadliest threat in that part.
(edited by Razor.6392)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hurl
Single target skill you are wrong…
It will remove 1 stack, you’re better off with autoattacking in water or spamming air skills (cancel autoattack after triggering one stack and start again). Besides, scepter is simply bad for that encounter, worse than staff and d/f.
Aren’t there other 4 party members to remove the stacks though? Why should eles, the class with the highest aoe damage in the game, be the ones to do it?
I assume the grubs aren’t a huge issue in higher level fractals…
(edited by Razor.6392)
Actually, the grubs are the ONLY issue in higher level fractals. At 70+ the grubs will wipe you incredibly fast if you don’t have reflect uptime.
Staff wins in this fractal so bad it’s not even funny. You can frozen ground the boss through his bubble to give your party a few years of time to clean up the elementals. Meteor Shower + Magnetic Aura are a great way to nuke them btw. You also get a much needed free dodge in Fire and burning removal in Water.
As for utilities, i’d go with Arcane Shield, Mist Form and Frost Bow. Bow is amazing since the boss has a huge hitbox so almost all Ice Storm particles hit. Other skills also provide a great duration of chill to prep right before shield phase. Ice Storm can also drop a cluster of elementals in a pinch. First two are obvious since you need as much active defense for that guy as you can get.
Actually, grubs are the highest priority. A single mesmer can remove stacks by himself while slowing down the shaman considerably and using all of his reflects at the same time.
Bow is amazing since the boss has a huge hitbox so almost all Ice Storm particles hit.
The boss has very small hitbox, human sized.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hurl
Single target skill you are wrong…It will remove 1 stack, you’re better off with autoattacking in water or spamming air skills (cancel autoattack after triggering one stack and start again). Besides, scepter is simply bad for that encounter, worse than staff and d/f.
So many excuses every time……just reading the wiki would answer your doubts….
Not to mention you are suggesting a player that has issue with the fractal to go Dagger/focus…..
I d want to see you pugging with a D/F ele would be so fun….but i ll never see you pugging at all..
Actually, the grubs are the ONLY issue in higher level fractals. At 70+ the grubs will wipe you incredibly fast if you don’t have reflect uptime.
Exactly! This particular boss in Fractals 30 and under is a joke. With a staff, I can safely attack the boss at range. When he’s bubbled, I usually close into the spot where the reflection is up, tank the grubs for a bit inside wall of reflection or shield of the avenger, help peel the bubble and then aoe wipe the grubs with meteor shower and ice bow. All of these actions are possible thank to the fact that grubs don’t hit as hard and fast so some of us can leave our protection for a bit to melee and peel the bubble.
At level 50, I find the grubs spike hard; they can three-shot a party member, move to the next one and subsequently wipe the whole party. Especially when the party spreads out, it makes it even harder to clear the grubs. But when we focus to clear the grubs to prevent wipe, we don’t peel the bubble fast enough, and the fight becomes increasingly frustrating.
Our party usually has a guardian, a mesmer, a necro, me as ele and a pug. Both mesmer and necro are not skilled enough to melee, but they are excellent at providing aoe support and help clear the grubs. Pug is unreliable at all times. This leaves the guardian and me to focus on the boss first and clear the grubs later. So I notice that staff doesn’t work in a situation that the pug is useless in meleeing and cleaving (short bow thief, rifle warrior, staff-camping guard). We neither kill the grubs nor peel the bubble fast enough.
When using D/F as suggested, I find that since I’m already in melee range, I don’t waste time to close into him when he is bubbled. It gives me a bit of advantage to control the surrounding. Secondly, Reaper of Grenth chills the boss and tags the grubs. Thirdly, I can spare Swirling Wind and Obsidian Flesh to when I use Ice bow to finish the grubs. So what I did, abeit not skillfully and had to rally myself two times of the grubs:
Good thing: rally fast
Bad thing: if I don’t keep the grubs off me, they can kill me faster than the speed at which I’m rallying.
So I’m still looking for how to improve this encounter. Thank you very much for all the feedback
Glad to hear that. I’m always happy to help people, especially when it includes CC.
Anyway, I have done fractals numerous times at scale 80 without guardians and mesmers, instead I had a necro. I’m not sure how pugging at lower scales could ever be harder. At that scale grubs did 9k damage with their autoattacks (non crits) and had much more hp. Let’s not forget about more frequent glancing blows.
I can go melee without any non personal reflects. If you are unable to dodge arrows, stay in water attunement and attack from 600 range. You will do more damage than longbow warrior while having more utility.
(edited by haviz.1340)
I’m not playing my ele in Fractal, but when i do fractal with my friend, we usually have 1 ele with us.
She use Staff and she have a impact big enough that we modify our strategy to use the strength of the Staff Ele, which is Frozen Ground. A frozen ground under the Shaman when he’s in his bubble will make him so slow that we never need more than 1 person that destroy the bubble. Or course as a team we make sure that the Shaman is always in the middle of the map so he’s never near any particular NPC. The ele is also great for the AoE. In our stategy we use a guardian to put a shield of avenger and Binding blades the most grubs possible inside the shield. The Elementalist powerful AoE in fire help a good deal in bursting down these grubs.
I d want to see you pugging with a D/F ele would be so fun….but i ll never see you pugging at all..
I’d gladly pug. Getting heals from other party members always pleases me.
Have you tried using Glyph of Storms for some blinds on those lava eles? Or possibly an LH for a quick 5 – kite into static field – 4 – drop LH?
Actually, the grubs are the ONLY issue in higher level fractals. At 70+ the grubs will wipe you incredibly fast if you don’t have reflect uptime.
Exactly! This particular boss in Fractals 30 and under is a joke. With a staff, I can safely attack the boss at range. When he’s bubbled, I usually close into the spot where the reflection is up, tank the grubs for a bit inside wall of reflection or shield of the avenger, help peel the bubble and then aoe wipe the grubs with meteor shower and ice bow. All of these actions are possible thank to the fact that grubs don’t hit as hard and fast so some of us can leave our protection for a bit to melee and peel the bubble.
At level 50, I find the grubs spike hard; they can three-shot a party member, move to the next one and subsequently wipe the whole party. Especially when the party spreads out, it makes it even harder to clear the grubs. But when we focus to clear the grubs to prevent wipe, we don’t peel the bubble fast enough, and the fight becomes increasingly frustrating.
Our party usually has a guardian, a mesmer, a necro, me as ele and a pug. Both mesmer and necro are not skilled enough to melee, but they are excellent at providing aoe support and help clear the grubs. Pug is unreliable at all times. This leaves the guardian and me to focus on the boss first and clear the grubs later. So I notice that staff doesn’t work in a situation that the pug is useless in meleeing and cleaving (short bow thief, rifle warrior, staff-camping guard). We neither kill the grubs nor peel the bubble fast enough.
When using D/F as suggested, I find that since I’m already in melee range, I don’t waste time to close into him when he is bubbled. It gives me a bit of advantage to control the surrounding. Secondly, Reaper of Grenth chills the boss and tags the grubs. Thirdly, I can spare Swirling Wind and Obsidian Flesh to when I use Ice bow to finish the grubs. So what I did, abeit not skillfully and had to rally myself two times of the grubs:
- Pop Reaper of Grenth
- Attack the bubble (Lightning Whip)1, Arcane shield when hit by the grubs
- Move between Reflections and Shield of Avenger when they are up to peel the bubble
- Cleave the grubs in the process
- Bubble down, boss enraged. It is almost guaranteed that he will bombard the safe spot.
- Dodge out, swirling wind, ice bow, aoe 4, 3.
- At this point, I was down, bc I’m outside the protection of the others’ reflection.
- Rally, Obsidian Flesh, Ring of Earth, Air attunement… and down again >.>
- Rally, Arcane Shield, Swirling wind, and keep kamikaze the remaining grubs while getting harassed by the boss [x . x]
Good thing: rally fast
Bad thing: if I don’t keep the grubs off me, they can kill me faster than the speed at which I’m rallying.So I’m still looking for how to improve this encounter. Thank you very much for all the feedback
d/f is good but way unforgiving for the kind of help that you’re looking for.
why aren’t you casting swirling winds before #1?
I would ice bow at the very beginning, right after casting swirling winds. Then use that elite that you seem to love so much. (I would take an earth elemental instead, or FGS if I feel confident with that pug).
After I cast ice bow #4, I would still be in air attunement so I would shocking aura for fury and cleave the leftover trash mobs (maybe lightning touch if I have time). fire → fire aura → Burning speed after that then switch earth (or use fire 2 if I have time, then switch earth) dodge roll into the fire trail + earth 4 to also reflect the projectiles from the leftover grubs.
But then again… I prefer to use staff.
Interesting thought, mistress Dek. Can I ask your opinions about the utility skills?
Have you tried using Glyph of Storms for some blinds on those lava eles? Or possibly an LH for a quick 5 – kite into static field – 4 – drop LH?
Why would you drop LH?
Dodge roll into fire trail? I didn’t think people still used evasive arcana. After all, blast finishers were unintended.
d/f is good but way unforgiving for the kind of help that you’re looking for.
why aren’t you casting swirling winds before #1?
I would ice bow at the very beginning, right after casting swirling winds. Then use that elite that you seem to love so much. (I would take an earth elemental instead, or FGS if I feel confident with that pug).
After I cast ice bow #4, I would still be in air attunement so I would shocking aura for fury and cleave the leftover trash mobs (maybe lightning touch if I have time). fire -> fire aura -> Burning speed after that then switch earth (or use fire 2 if I have time, then switch earth) dodge roll into the fire trail + earth 4 to also reflect the projectiles from the leftover grubs.
But then again… I prefer to use staff.
But again, we have wiped several times with the second tactic as well… What can I suggest to my teammate to make this fight easier for my part? (My team has Necro/Guard/Mes and me as Ele).
If you use a necro and he’s a typical condition damage dealer, tell him to chill (or even cripple) grubs near the shaman and then use epidemic. It should chill the shaman as well.
You can also spread conditions from shaman himself to the nearest grubs since epidemic is unblockable.
Dodge roll into fire trail? I didn’t think people still used evasive arcana. After all, blast finishers were unintended.
Yeah… after doing 0/30/0/20/20 for a while, I’ve gone back to evasive arcana.
I’m not sure why would you. This trait after removal of unintended blast finishers is quite weak in pve.
I’m not sure why would you. This trait after removal of unintended blast finishers is quite weak in pve.
I dislike using different sets for pve and spvp. It confuses me.
Tbh I do plenty of damage as it is and bonus might stacks / aoe blind / aoe heal can be useful in pve.
I mean it’s either that or 30 in air again. I only miss fresh air for the times I equipped my scepter in pve but now I rarely do so yeah…
Fire line offers much more than arcana. You don’t really need lingering elements, arcane precision and elemental attunement. 10 points in arcana should be the most you’d ever need.
Fire line offers much more than arcana. You don’t really need lingering elements, arcane precision and elemental attunement. 10 points in arcana should be the most you’d ever need.
I don’t like anything about the fire trait line. And 100-200 raw power isn’t enough for me to take it.
Auto cleansing fire does seem nice for pvp though… but I love my elemental attunement.
edit: and of course the boon duration.
(edited by Razor.6392)
Most recently I’ve been running Ether Renewal or Arcane Brilliance (tag lots of lava eles, get fullish heal), Glyph of Storms, Arcane Wave (I’m an addict), Frost Bow, and Glyph of Elementals for this boss. After finishing my fractal videos I’m taking a break from ele in fractals, but I’m wondering if swapping GoS out for LH might be useful.
What I would recommend you try at phase change would be around the lines of:
Since my ele is a sylvari I can’t comment on the efficacy of the elite you’re using, but if it works for you, go for it! I usually just use an earth elemental to pull some aggro off my party. My party gets jumpy when I use FGS’s firestorm for some odd reason, so I don’t bother with it.
The priority here is not dying – killing the lava eles quickly is not your main objective (though with zerkers, yeah, you do want to kill them somewhat fast before you run out of stuff to throw at them). Even at frac 70+ we’d just fight until we were out of reflects, then run around in a slightly dispersed group (because firestorms hurt and we don’t want to have too many people hit by one) and put down AoEs to kite lava eles through for some damage while our reflects were on cooldown.
In a higher DPS group I’d probably FB 4, 3 -> LH auto while reflects are up, then use LH 5, 4 as the reflects are about to run out so that we can have a cleaner getaway. But I’m not sure if that would be better than just my current GoS use.
If you want to run similar builds to pvp ones, consider this: do warriors use cleansing ire in pve? I played some pvp and I’m well aware of the differences of those modes.
Keyz, there’s no need to stack immobilize with magnetic grasp before the bubble phase as it is an unblockable attack.
Not everybody plays with mesmers and guardians …
It is best to keep wielding the LH, while a team mate wields the other, and cast a sandstorm. This way most elementals are kept blind long enough for the group to clear them.
If you are part of the true master race then you can use the best tank EU.
Haviz, yeah, I know, it’s more of a note about the last thing to do before swapping to air attunement to burst down the bubble and adds while hiding under reflects.
Iris was asking about strategy when there are partymates who are somewhat organized and provide reflects but may not possibly have the comfort level with the game to DPS as hard as some others may, and thus I consider those factors when making suggestions. Without reflects, yes, I would make different suggestions.
(edited by DEKeyzToChaos.7381)
Also, if you are a fan of EA, why won’t you play 0/30/0/10/30? I’m not sure why do you need 20 points in water. Condition removal?
I used to run 0/30/0/10/30 at one point but the lack of healing ripple kinda bothers me.
I’d do it in pve but like I said it kinda throws me off being used to have a certain ability / passive in spvp and not in pve.
If there was a good grandmaster trait in air maybe I would do it again. Fresh air is best used with scepter, average with dagger mh and terrible with staff.
Oh my god, awesome advices. I’ll take note and let my other teammates know.
Healing in pve is pretty much pointless unless you have some additional toughness. What does ~1400 heal give you?
Secondly, fresh air is very strong with dagger as its air autoattack is simply way above anything else (maybe except fireball but it’s just clunky to use in melee). Of course, with 30 arcana, attunement recharge is low enough to ignore fresh air but that’s actually fresh air advantage, that you don’t have to go deep in arcana. The benefit of fresh air in pve isn’t scepter single attacks but cleaving of autoattack.
Secondly, fresh air is very strong with dagger as its air autoattack is simply way above anything else (maybe except fireball but it’s just clunky to use in melee).
Lightning whip has two times the damage per second of Fireball.
But you don’t have to dodge because of the distance.
Healing in pve is pretty much pointless unless you have some additional toughness. What does ~1400 heal give you?
Secondly, fresh air is very strong with dagger as its air autoattack is simply way above anything else (maybe except fireball but it’s just clunky to use in melee). Of course, with 30 arcana, attunement recharge is low enough to ignore fresh air but that’s actually fresh air advantage, that you don’t have to go deep in arcana. The benefit of fresh air in pve isn’t scepter single attacks but cleaving of autoattack.
It’s an aoe heal so let’s pretend it’s a 7k heal.
Same goes to evasive arcana in water att.
I still have over 100% crit dmg so the numbers are there. Really not having a bonus 200 power isn’t that bad when you realize that the bonus might stacks from arcana (evasive, elemental attunement) plus the higher uptime due to boon duration makes up for it quite nicely.
Yes, it’s 7k when you stack. In intended situations, when people don’t stack, it’s much less. Plus, you don’t go deep in fire for power stats, that’s just a bonus.
This conversation reminds of me conversations with people using ptv + ah + staff as guardians. It works but there’s absolutely no reason to use it, especially on scales below 40.
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