Guild Wars 2

Since there is not bug report option in game regarding dungeons and/or fractals, this is to categorize the many bugs our party has encountered in 8 different fractals during our last several runs through fractals, a couple of which we had to abort due to the Molten Furnace bug preventing progression. Some of these bugs are new to us and some are ones that we have seen recurring since fractals was first implemented.

1) Molten Furnace: Continues to break despite numerous patches stating otherwise? Over and over we have gotten this as our second fractal, only to find out at the end, when the weapon testing is supposed to begin, the event will not trigger so we have no choice but to quit and lose all progress up to that point.

2) Swampland: Mossman has been bugged many ways since fractals began. Currently he can be pulled into the water, where he has no skills (he just sits still and occasionally will warp between players), as everyone can sit back out of range of the skelk and freely attack Mossman. If he can’t be given underwater skills to fight with then there should at least be a gate or something when the fight starts (like in the ice fractal) that prevents players from pulling him into the water in the first place. Especially on higher difficulties, the disparity between the time it takes to complete swamp versus either Aquatic Ruins or in particular the Urban Battlegrounds is insane. It’s also a shame that the first fractal, which is inevitably rerolled for swamp, is the only fractal in which Aquatic Ruins is possible.

3) Uncategorized: Many times harpies on the ledges will be invulnerable to attack even though they are shooting and killing you. Sometimes you fall through the level into nothing and continue to fall forever as the map becomes a tiny little dot in the distance and sometimes your fall is arrested by something but there is no falling damage, both of these forcing a re-entry in order to escape. When fighting Old Tom the fan will bug if activated a little too fast at the start, and sometimes it bugs in the middle of the fight and will not remove the poison when activated.

4) Urban Battlegrounds: It’s a bit unclear sometimes if there are supposed to be NPC allies with you or not since at the start in the huge battleground with the infinitely spawning mobs over every inch they run out and get lost. Sometimes they disappear forever and sometimes there is one or two that will reappear with you at some point once you get past the gate guard. It seems to be random the number of NPCs that may or may not be with you at some point in the fractal.

5) Cliffside: Cultists that spawn during boss fight may or may not disappear after the seal is hit with the hammer. Sometimes they disappear immediately and sometimes they sit there and kill everyone while they are all stunned for several seconds. There are also occasions where the stun only half works on someone, where they can move around freely but there are no skills available.

6) Volcanic: The final Legendary Imbued Shaman has been bugging when it is enveloped in the shield. For instance, and keep in mind this was in the middle of the area and not anywhere near one of the imprisoned villagers, the boss would pop his shield and then immediately dive and heal without ever moving from the center of the area.

7) Captain Mai Trin Boss: Players are able to kind of “cheat” their way in. For example, there is a way to bug the NPC at the start so that if you die in the boss fight, if you leave and re-enter, you will be dead at the start where the NPC will revive you and then you can run back towards the boss room and up the path to the dead end. When you do this and then start running back down it will warp you into the boss room.

8) Solid Ocean Boss: At the beginning of the boss fight when the initial two tentacles are present with all of the Irukanji: killing one tentacle sometimes will immediately initiate the second phase and sometimes (and how it has always been until recently) killing both of the initial tentacles initiates the second phase. The Irukanji present at the beginning of the boss fight sometimes will go away at the start of phase two and sometimes, as is happening more often now, they will stick around and have to be killed, even though killing those gives absolutely nothing. The tentacles that spawn during phases 2 and 3 occasionally are non-hostile, where you can sit and kill while all they do is wave around and never attack you. The tentacles that are bugging like that and are not hostile have also dropped double reflecting crystals instead of just one. Once the Jade Maw is killed, the tentacles and any Irukanji that are still left sometimes will disappear and sometimes they will stay and keep fighting.

I know there have been some others but these are fresh in my mind since we just encountered all of these within the last week and most within the last 2 days.

We’re running fractals 50 daily and here are my comments:
1) Haven’t seen this bug lately though we’ve gotten that fractal quite often. (I know it bugged before.)
2) Agreed, Mossman has to be fixed
3) Harpies turn invulnerable if you attack them before you are on their platform. Old Tom’s fan makes sense, you cannot remove a poison cloud that is not there yet. It did not bug during the fight in the last few months.
4) The charr NPCs tend to fight random ascalonians on the battlefield and since those ascalonians spawn endlessly, they will die eventually. You should try to avoid running into those mobs.
5) If you take too long to hit the seal, new cultists/fanatics WILL spawn. It is intended and yes, they will kill you if you are stunned while they are up. If you are invulnerable when your team hits the seal, you won’t be stunned. If you happen to be next to the seal when it gets hit, the shield bubble will knock you back and you will be able to move around but with no skills (for the duration of the stun).
6) I haven’t seen this happen, i have seen the shaman dive and heal once, while he was miles away from the villager he was supposedly going to but it was not immediately after popping the shield.
7) This should be fixed, although Mai Trin is really not a hard fight.
8) Never seen killing only one tentacle initiate the 2nd phase. The irukandji will always go away unless you are doing lvl 50 in which case they are supposed to stay there as an additional difficulty. Non-hostile tentacles? Never seen those.

I concur with Serenke’s answers but I’ll just add some details :

1) The weapon testing event sometimes doesn’t start thus ruining the whole fractal run if a player enters the room too soon, before Rox and Braham finished chatting together on the ledge. Just remember to revive them if they died (Frostbite too) and wait a bit before rushing in.

4) A workaround for keeping most NPCs alive through the first zone is to run as fast as possible hugging the left or right wall up to the first gate (or just before, to clear the monks, warriors, and burning oils). Even if they fight mobs on the way, they will eventually teleport to the group if you’re far enough before they die. Be aware of the extra mobs on FotM lvl 50, a bunch of them are hidden in a recess on the left wall.

5) As you hit the final seal, the remaining cultists disappear until FotM lvl 10, they don’t for the upper levels. You may have experienced this difference running a daily lvl 1-10.

8) I think what happens with the “non-hostile” tentacles dropping 2 crystals is that the tentacle dies through burst/aoe before even fully spawning, thus leaving both “spawn” and “kill” crystals on the ground while its model waves around harmlessly for a while.

The issue mentioned in (3) is not unique to harpies in the uncat fractal, it’s just more noticeable there. Any time you attack any foe that cannot walk to your position, there is a chance it will become invulnerable.

This is due to a mechanic that is designed to prevent players from exploiting the environment, i.e. so players can hit foes, but foes cannot. Clearly, the mechanic doesn’t always work (e.g. fighting mossman from the water) and sometimes it is overly aggressive (e.g. fighting ranged attackers who can hit you, especially the harpies in the uncat fractal).

Sure, the mechanic should be adjusted so that players can’t exploit foes in some situations and so that foes are never invulnerable if they can hit you (whether within melee distance or line-of-sight for ranged attacks). However, it’s not unique to fractals and it’s probably really difficult to get it to work as intended.