Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed this happening quite often lately, I had gone away before the holidays and came back early January – and noticed something.

Though I’ve kept up with the patch and update notes, I’ve seen nothing on this (maybe I missed it?).

So I’m not sure if it used to work as intended but fear used to be able to bypass defiant, I had no issue fearing and interrupting bosses at will with fear since it would bypass defiant. I used to use this often in dungeons and fractals to cancel a special ability, like the dredge fractal where the boss would sit down to heal – cancel his heal by fearing him. Or I’d simply fear him into the pouring lava if he wasn’t in the right spot.

However I’ve started to notice fear no longer bypasses defiant, although the boss gets the fear icon under his name as well as the fear animation over his head.

Alright, so I guess they just changed that and I didn’t see them saying they changed it anywhere, alright so fear no longer bypasses defiant, sure… except no.

I realized on multiple occasions where the boss had no stacks of defiant left, I used fear, he got the icon and the animation however he simply never stopped attacking, didn’t get interrupted and didn’t move from the spot he was on. It confused me and I thought maybe I was seeing things so I started to pay very close attention and time it just right – and to me it seems like bosses are just completely ignoring fear all together.

I tested it out on a boss I was doing in fractals the other day, I slowly watched his stacks of defiant tick down until he had none, I then used my fear and nothing happened. He was beating down a party member, I feared him and he simply continued to beat down said party member.

So SOMETHING is up, I’m not sure if it’s just with me or what but fear used to be able to bypass defiant, now it just doesn’t work at all – period.

This personally is quite upsetting to me because my build focuses a lot on crippling (so to speak) my enemies, it’s how I help my team stay alive. By blinding, immobilizing, crippling, chilling, weakening, and fearing enemies a lot.

So many bosses simply ignore blind entirely for whatever reason, and most if not all AoE attacks done by enemies also entirely ignore blind when my own AoE abilities do not. Crowd control in general is lessened on bosses with things such as chill, immobilize and cripple lasting only a fraction of what they’re meant to last – and now to top it all off fear doesn’t work, period.

What’s left of my build? How useless have I become?

Defiant is now blocking fear, ill see if i can find the post about it for you.

edit: then i am not sure, was about two weeks ago i played my necro in a instance so memory is hazy if fear actually stopped any attacks correctly.

gamefreak.5673:

Defiant now blocks fear, ill see if i can find the post about it for you.

Yes I’ve realized, however even when the boss no longer has any stacks of defiant fear is not working. I’ve tested this out multiple times – as I’ve said on my previous post.

Bosses ignore Blind because Unshakeable makes Blind only effective 10% of the time. This is on the buff’s tooltip.

Some bosses are simply immune to fear. Any massive ones (like Lupicus) and Unstoppable, plus any with stability.

As for the bosses in fractals, I have never had any issue with fear not working, even after the change with defiant. Which boss was it? Some of them give themselves short-duration stability while the grawl shaman has unstrippable stability.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bosses ignore Blind because Unshakeable makes Blind only effective 10% of the time. This is on the buff’s tooltip.

Some bosses are simply immune to fear. Any massive ones (like Lupicus) and Unstoppable, plus any with stability.

As for the bosses in fractals, I have never had any issue with fear not working, even after the change with defiant. Which boss was it? Some of them give themselves short-duration stability while the grawl shaman has unstrippable stability.

I know blind doesn’t work on bosses but what I meant was regular enemies that use AoE attacks ignore blind, when the same doesn’t happen if I’m blind and I use an AoE.

I also know some bosses are immune to fear, but bosses that aren’t now are – all of the bosses I’ve done so far. This includes both the dredge power suit and the ice elemental boss in the dredge fractals, the hammer dude boss in the giant’s fractal etc. All bosses that I used to be able to fear, I no longer can even when they have no stacks of defiant.

I’m also aware the grawl shaman can’t be feared, I mean I realized some bosses were immune to fear and some weren’t – however no boss I try fearing is feared anymore.

edit: On that note I have a very personal opinion on powerful enemies being immune to most if not all CC effects simply because they’re powerful. I mean if it makes sense with what the enemy is sure, like dredge being immune to blind because they already are, or fire elementals being immune to burn etc, that’s all fantastic and makes perfect sense. But bosses being immune to most if not all CC effects just because they’re bosses is bull.

I mean I have my CC skills there because I may need to use them to save someone’s hide, using CC skills when needed to prevent death, in a strategic and intelligent way. So when a boss is just immune to everything why the heck do I even have CC skills in the first place? I mean I sure don’t need CC skills with trash mobs that are near to no threat to me in the first place. I need CC skills to enemies that ARE a threat to me, such as bosses, which is upsetting when bosses are just immune to it all.

Defiant makes sense to regular epic bosses in which there will be some 30 players fighting it, if the bosses had no defiance then they’d get stun locked with the 30+ players. However in dungeons where there can be no more than 5 players at once, the defiance really should get eased up – CC skills are nearly 100% useless on bosses, fear being the only exception. Now not only does it not bypass defiant but it’s not been working at all for me.

I fear those bosses you just listed with regularity (save power suit, since I’m usually running up top and avoiding combat). Only thing I can suggest is that someone else is CCing the boss at about the same time you are, so your fear gets eaten by the new stack of defiant.

It might also be possible that you had another mob targetted (we all know how easily the client changes targets on you) and feared that one instead.

I agree that the current situation is a little confusing, I mean, profession like necromancer and engineer have lower damage than let’s say a warrior or a guardian or a mesmer for what? War, guard and mesmer still have very good way to provide boon to ally via shout, banner, projectile reflection, haste… while necro and engi are still worse at boon, worse at damage and boss are immune to cc(50% weakness and vulnerability duration, 10% blind, immune to fear, unstrippable stability) and many build still hit the wall of 25 bleeding stack.
Why would someone pick up a necro or engi in an optimal party? To control trash?
Oh and while in PvP cc are still good in WvW now we have the 5 target cap for aoe, maybe nerfed even more in the next patch to limit cc usefulness.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I fear those bosses you just listed with regularity (save power suit, since I’m usually running up top and avoiding combat). Only thing I can suggest is that someone else is CCing the boss at about the same time you are, so your fear gets eaten by the new stack of defiant.

It might also be possible that you had another mob targetted (we all know how easily the client changes targets on you) and feared that one instead.

I also used to fear these bosses with regularity, no longer do I. When you use fear they get the little icon under their name as well as the fear animation over their heads, however I’ve noticed they are not ACTUALLY being feared, maybe you see the fear icon and animation and think they’re feared fine? But maybe you haven’t realized they don’t actually stop attacking? Maybe, I don’t know.

I gave thought to the possibility of someone else CC them and my fear getting barred by defiance once more but then that would mean that the other person’s CC skill ALSO didn’t work, as the boss never got interrupted at all. Not to mention that it can’t be so since I actually paid close attention to the stacks of defiance and when I feared them (plus I used the insta cast DS fear) so if someone else CC’d the boss I would have seen it.

Also no I didn’t target another enemy as I was closely paying attention to the actual enemy I had target the entire time since I was closely watching when and how my fear would hit.

This is something that happens a lot, in the AC boss in path 2 (I think the AC boss in general), he also avoids CC completely. Even when I use my Flesh Golem to run at him and knock him down when he’s channelling the scream thing. I mean when my Flesh Golem knocks him down, the word “interrupt” shows over his head as if it worked, but his attack never actually gets interrupted.

I can guarantee I’ve been successful in fearing the bosses. I use it to interrupt channeled abilities (like Acrhdiviner’s well-spam) and those abilities get interrupted just fine and he walks directly away from me.

I have no idea what’s going on with you, but it works perfectly for me.