Guild Wars 2

Yeah I saw that too, and it only occurred to me now to look at the history of the page.:
The revision that added that mention also has a note that says:
“(Added a note that explains that you can still finish the scavenger hunt and get credit if you had already started it during Wintersday)”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Warming_Grawnk%27s_Heart&action=history

OP probably did not start it during Wintersday, and neither did I, so it seems unlikely you will be able to get it. Unless Anet support go super boss mode and trigger the flag for your account to be able to finish it, assuming it’s not too difficult for them to do.

I don’t think the letter actually really matters. I still have the letter and got excited from your post, but it seems that I can’t actually find Grawnk in any of the instances, even though I’ve seen on videos where to look, I’ve also tried most of my characters and not finding anyone.

I’m under the assumption that if you STARTED the event during Wintersday then you can complete it, but if you never started then you cannot.

Edit:
Do you know anyone who still has him in their instance? I can see if my letter works in their instance, but I’m not seeing him in any of mine. And the friends I have who have the star also don’t see him in there.

You can go to char select screen and relog into the same character. This will not break the instance if you’re the owner, it will break the instance if there is no party member inside the instance though. If you’re the last one to leave regardless of if you are opener or not it will destroy the instance (only applies to fractals though).

If the fractal was destroyed because you logged into a different character that’s the same as it always has been, don’t log into different characters if you opened. Which is why I never open as I and usually one other person in the party are the ones swapping roles depending on the map rolls we get.

I recently started doing FGS mossy with my guild, if it’s sub-30 then we usually only need 1 ele and 1 guard, but having 2 ele or 2 guard works, anything above 30 though you start needed both 2 ele and 2 guard.
Try and time your dodges one or two seconds after he disappears. Also try and give weakness if you can (and the guards should of course use prot) to him so that double-axe doesn’t one down anyone who’s not wearing an aegis as often.

One thing I can’t believe hasn’t been noted is skale venom. If even two or three of your party members use this you get a very high uptime on weakness, usually permanent if the full party uses it. Weakness is essentially a 25% damage reduction (50% chance to proc 50% less damage), so it’s a huge help. If you’re using FGS and having issues I believe this will provide perma weakness with even one person using it (with an FGS rush).

Yes, the feature patch fixed it on April 15.

You can of course, still get kicked if two people join at the same time to kick you, thus destroying your instance. If it was a long path like arah 4, fill the spots so it can’t happen.

The level is changed to the highest PR of anyone in the party upon rolling a new fractal. Even if you had them open and roll swamp, then leave, once you rolled the second map it would reset to the level of the higher PR in the group. If you had them stay with you for each time you roll then it’s essentially like having them in the group regardless so that would be the same as it is now anyway.

Why you would even want someone to open up level 50 for you anyway is beyond me. The only reason I can think of is you’re with a group of friends who all don’t have PR 50.

Personally doesn’t seem like there are many problems with having no instance owner to me. Even if it created some minor problems it’s probably worth it.

2 Fractal skins? One day?
Fractal skins got improved? Without patch notes? wat? Doubt it.

Anyways, looking forward to the 200+ chests opened, I think it’ll be a fairly decent indicator of if it improved or not at least.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they patched it to be the pre-fractured drop rate for skins…

Me and a guildie or two usually do arah p4 every day or two and rarely sell less than 15g, generally selling at 20g per spot. We usually fill in about 30 minutes however we attempt to only sell around reset. During the time I sell I usually play the game on another machine/window. In duos it’s generally an hour and a half with selling, netting around 26g per hour. But if I didn’t include the time it took to sell it’d be 40g. I generally consider it to be the latter since I’m playing while selling regardless. It’s also more fun doing duos imo than soloing the other paths.

RemiRome.8495:

MagicSlurpees.4851:

Regardless, it seems that once players get used to this, it should not take very much time, it should be less than 5 minutes, even in bad groups, and it seems possible to fully solo if you’re not a kittenty player and you don’t get PuGs aggroing the mobs and killing you.

if you could fully solo it before without stealth I don’t see how getting endless free stealth for any class would somehow make it harder.

What? That paragraph clearly states (imo) that it should be possible to fully solo it now, nothing was said about soloing it before the current patch, I don’t understand where you pulled that one from.

For our group personally, all we did was had to stack stealth, portal, repeat and we were done. Now you have to move around revealing mobs which is more annoying imo. But the patch made it easier to carry PuGs.

I don’t know, I found dredge bombs was much more simple before for our group. Didn’t have to worry about concealing dust or running bombs from one of the area to the other.
Either way, it’s still easy now, and WAY more PuG friendly.

Forgot to mention: Specifically, we got two chests in the first 29, zero in the second 29, one in the 38, one in the 49.

So yeah, my party got dredge bombs in our 49.

Firstly, the panels were ridiculously easy. As usual, we skipped most of the mobs up until getting into the room with thief stealth. When in the room, we cleared left side of 3 normal dredge and the veteran (killed vet to see if he got nerfed). We didn’t clear the other side opting for stealth as per the normal. So pretty much the same.

For the bombs though:

The huge pack of dredge (20 or so) that was the first big pull in the bombs room was removed. Instead it is replaced by 8 or so dredge, a few veterans and a few normals, easy to kill.

ALL the hostile dredge other than that are removed. In their place is a bunch of turrets that hit for ~9k damage to anyone unstealthed trying to pass them, where they aim is visible by Scarlet-like Rifle Plasma Rifle shots (e.g. bright orange aoes, like the new bloomhunger).

There is a place where you can walk into “concealing dust” to get 15 seconds of stealth, you can stack this to get over a minute of stealth, so 4 or 5 stacks for a minute, which renders thief useless.

The bombs are no longer in their old spots, instead they spawn in a room near the start of bomb area. They spawn 3 at a time, and we needed to get 9 to the door.

When you pick up a bomb, you must be in stealth on the way to the door because of earlier turrets that shoot anyone out of stealth. You also can’t blink or portal to the door with a bomb as you lose the bomb. On the way, there are Security contractors who reveal anyone they get near (about 300 range radius), so you have to avoid the security contractors on the way to door.

For the first few bombs you place (it seemed to be for each of the first three), another security contractor would spawn to block progress. And sometimes a few more mobs would be on the way too, but as long as you stayed in stealth those mobs would not do anything to you.

Once you got nine, you could blow them up with a detonator very close to the door, which is no trouble. So the hard part is simply getting the bombs to the door.

Overall, it seems MUCH more PuG friendly, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, it’s much more annoying than the old way if you’re not in a PuG, as it was very simple to portal, stealth, drop bomb, portal, wait 2 minutes and repeat once.
Regardless, it seems that once players get used to this, it should not take very much time, it should be less than 5 minutes, even in bad groups, and it seems possible to fully solo if you’re not a kittenty player and you don’t get PuGs aggroing the mobs and killing you.

Rabso was kitten easy. No dredge spawn with him, at all. When we pulled him he summoned his veteran as par the course. We pulled him to the back, scorp’ wired him to the door, and beat him up. Untraited Wardens still work. For his attack, there is now an Orange AoE tell similar to the turrets and new Bloomy, to make it excruciatingly obvious when he’s going to do it. In other words, if you get hit you have to really suck. Also, we did not notice any dredge at all spawn, so I’m assuming they spawn at the car, and since we pulled away we didn’t have to deal with them. This made the clown car a 30 second encounter, on 49. Much faster than before.

Ice Elemental boss seemed the same.

As for other fractals, we did Swamp, Mossman and Bloomhunger (we’ve done 4 fracs post patch), Harpy, Cliff, Molten, Aetherblade, Duo, and Maw. None of those seem to be different except for Bloomhunger. All of his AoEs are now super obvious because they are orange tells, even the ones in the water are easy to see now.

As for ascended chests. We got 20 daily chests so far.
Two 29 dailies (before and after reset), one 38 (after reset since we did one pre-patch before reset), and this 49 after reset.
4 ascended boxes, one weapon, 3 armor. I’d say it’s “probably” improved, but we could have had great RNG, looking forward to see the LoD spreadsheet soon when they get a much greater sample size.

Anawim.5168:

I’m a little curious, though: what might be a more universal/worthwhile sigil to invest in instead of Night? And/or how practical would it be to just always have? Is the idea here to swap for another set of weaps with other sigils for the day?

I’m super interested in pursuing full reflects after reading this. There seems to be a huge need for them in PUGs anymore.

Again, thanks!

Accuracy is another viable sigil you can use instead of Night, but often if you have a Ranger and Warrior (using meta builds) then you generally go above 100% crit chance, so even Accuracy is not universal. Night/Slaying is (generally) optimal in night dungeons if you want to keep a stack of each of the slaying sigils you normally use, or a different weapon with those sigils slotted in.

In general you want to use Force/Night, and swap to Force/Accuracy or Force/Slaying if you’re not in a night dungeon. If you’re mesmer is your main, then there should be little reason to not invest in these as the weapons and sigils are not very expensive.
Edit: And Max beat me to it. -.-

As far as going into a full reflect build, do take note that you don’t get the most out of a reflect build if you’re main source of damage on the boss is your phantasms, or if you can/are chaining reflects with another party member. A reflect build would be good against a boss like Alphard, Lupi, or Bloomhunger, but not so useful against a boss like the Dredge fractal bosses or Subject Alpha.
Instead of going solely into a full reflect build, consider swapping between builds a lot, it is quite important for mesmers to be swapping builds if you want to be putting out the most damage and utility that people bring mesmers for.

maxinion.8396:

For weapons, you generally want Night + Force (main hand + offhand respectively). I keep a stacking weapon for my main hand as well. I also keep an Undead Slaying version around for Arah, and Accuracy for daytime dungeons.

I generally run Force on Main Hand, since I generally always want to have Force on, and I never swap off my Sword main hand. This comes with a few nice benefits, firstly you only have to buy 1 Force for your MH, not 1 Force for each OH. Night and Slaying are vastly more expensive. Also, you’ll never forget your Force sigil’d weapon. On the flip side, you have to swap both OH weapons when swapping to/from Arah or Daytime areas.

In rare scenarios, Night/Slaying is better for mesmers. I generally only use mesmer in Arah and Fractals, and rarely use them in AC or TA. So CoE and SE, where Mesmers are fairly useful, it is nice to have Night/Slaying.

maxinion.8396:

---

Mantra of Resolve is a 4% DPS boost when using Empowering Mantras. The healing power is not particularly large though.

Signet of Ether is a rather good heal if you use the passive, but it recharges your phantasm cool downs when you use the active. This can mean a rather large DPS boost at the start of your fight.

Generally, once you get comfortable in the game, heals are used offensively and not defensively. This means you use the Mantra of Resolve for the DPS boost, and Signet of Ether for the phantasm cool downs. If you need a better heal skill while you’re learning, Ether Feast is the best “actual heal” mesmers have.

You seem to be downplaying Mantra of Recovery a lot here. Firstly, when charged, since it’s an instant cast, you can use it while stunned, while dodging, or while casting. Which is a huge benefit. The raw heal it gives is also better than any other heal skill available to mesmers, assuming you have free time to cast it every time it’s off cooldown, considering Ether Feast’s longer cooldown, and Signet of the Ether heals nearly the same, but only with 3 phantasms.

If I need maximum healing because I’m playing with PuGs or it’s an excruciating fight, I would always prefer Recovery Mantra. And since one of the meta builds is now 6/6/0/0/2, you can swap Harmonious Mantras/Mantra Mastery/Blurred Inscriptions depending on whether you need the Signet Heal Active and preference. If you happen to be running this build, with Harmonious Mantras or Mantra Mastery, the heal far outclasses all other heals, IMO.

The only downside to the heal is that you cannot use any non-instant damage skills while casting it, and the cast time is nearly 3 seconds. But this gives me something to do when I’m safe or need to go out of range of a boss, which is a bonus since you generally have low Auto Attack DPS, and you have no ranged abilities without a ranged weapon, other than casting phantasms.

Since we mentioned untraited wardens, although it always (afaik) works in dungeons, in Overworld it doesn’t always work, good examples are Poobadoo bounty and Trillia Bounty (last I recall), though Siege Devourers in Branded for Termination Challenge it does work on. Also it probably doesn’t work on Trebuchet shots in WvW. Though the post is for dungeons, just wanted to point it out to anyone who was going to try it in general PvE.

Some people bought Eternity pre-wardrobe and I believe they still got Twilight and Eternity as well, even though they never touched the materials.
Anyone personally know someone who has bought a legendary recently without having the precursor skin and get both?

Anyone know if you buy Eternity now if you unlock the skins that make up Eternity even after the patch? I know if you had Eternity before the patch, unlocking the skin after the patch gives you all of them.
However, I don’t know if that was a one time thing. I recently tried the Corrupted Shortbow to see if it would give me the Etched Shortbow, and it did not. So I’m not sure if the Legendaries are still affected by this.

robertul.3679:

MagicSlurpees.4851:

You can’t merge sooo… you can’t destroy the progress.

Technically this isn’t true though, since you CAN merge, but only if everyone is outside of an instance, which isn’t a bug. When I tried it, it didn’t destroy the instance when I did merge by leaving the instance, but I merged into a group that didn’t have an instance, if both groups had an instance I believe it would destroy the person merging and keep the instance merged into.

I would consider that since we haven’t even seen a “You can still merge bug” post that it’s fixed.

Actually if 2 instances are opened and you merge from outside they both remain. If you use the portal to the dungeon you enter your own(the one you previously opened). This goes for instance owners. I didn’t test for other party members.

That’s cool, I didn’t bother testing but I didn’t see this as an impossibility considering it’s fully possible to have two instances of one dungeon in a single party. If you’re kicked, you’re instance is still destroyed though right?

@Iris, without FGS blink rushes, that isn’t viable on Anomaly anymore is it? Pretty sure if you run into the cage around him while rushing it will also stop the rush, but I haven’t been in thaumanova yet since patch.

dutchiez.7502:

I had only seen videos using either shoutheal with clerics or bear form before… if that isn’t the case: my bad.

Oh, I just kinda figured those were all more of a “proof of concept” kind of thing after I put up a thread discussing it myself. Probably just a wrong assumption on my part thinking that most people knew you could do it without clerics. Maybe I’m one of the few to actually bother trying it with zerker only gear pre-april 15.

It happens in group settings too, the full party has to wipe (or leave instance) to reset the wall. It also prevents the boxes from respawning while you’re fighting her, so it maybe a way to prevent players from making the boxes respawn and trying to force a DPS check even though it’s common knowledge there are other places you’re safe from her daggerstorm.

You didn’t need clerics or bear form earlier before either. Wasn’t this common knowledge?

Vindred.1352:

Any chance Anet will answer my prayers and stay away from the “screw this, just google it” puzzles and minigames? Not that that doesn’t appeal to alot of ppl, but I think at least a few dungeons should be just hard yet straightforward boss fights, not enviro puzzles and the like. I want to beat something cause we’re stronger than it not because we can outwit it at tetris. I thoroughly dislike these and it really turns me away from trying to dungeon.

lolwut?

If you’re expecting to spam 1 and win in this dungeon like open world then you’re sorely mistaken, same goes for all dungeons, if that’s what you want to do, then yes, you can expect that kind of thing in other dungeons.

TA Aetherpath is very different from other dungeons by having bosses that attempt to keep you from stacking and facerolling the bosses (not that you can’t).

If you actually bother to learn the mechanics then yes, it can be somewhat fun, especially the first few times. And you probably won’t party wipe even once. Unfortunately, 99% of PuGs are people from open world who want to spam 1 on bosses and get loot, that doesn’t work, so if you’re trying to PuG it is pretty painful.

You can’t merge sooo… you can’t destroy the progress.

Technically this isn’t true though, since you CAN merge, but only if everyone is outside of an instance, which isn’t a bug. When I tried it, it didn’t destroy the instance when I did merge by leaving the instance, but I merged into a group that didn’t have an instance, if both groups had an instance I believe it would destroy the person merging and keep the instance merged into.

I would consider that since we haven’t even seen a “You can still merge bug” post that it’s fixed.

Very unlikely, I’ll test it for you within an hour and edit.

Edit:
It seems fixed. Everytime you join a party it refreshes the list and probably checks for the ability to join at the same time, while before it wouldn’t refresh list. I tried to merge about 10 times and it didn’t work while it usually only takes 1 or 2 attempts.

For the sake of discussion…

Spoj The Second.7680:

You would just have problems of people kicking pugs at the end to get extra rewards. There would have to be some kind of check or anti grief measure to prevent this.

Perhaps when you open you could set how many players can join, similar to the fractal entrance level selection, if you select 5, even if you’re solo at the end you end with 3.26g, so no incentive to kick beyond what’s already ingame.

I like the basic idea, but it wouldn’t get through to anet anyway.

Anyone know if that was w/ Asc gear?
Also why the 15 acro traits? Is the might on dodge and ease of the life drain in phase 3 (via swiftness) really worth it? You don’t need to be on 100% dodges all the time since we have no damage boost for full endurance.

Looking for the fastest thief lupi solo but it’s tough trying to find it. Anyone got a link to it, or a place with solos in general that are current records?

In SE path two, on the Tarleov Escort part, the dredge that are supposed to be killed so that he can proceed to the rock and take it back infinitely respawn, prompting him to always fight so that he cannot pick up the rock. These mobs also give loot even though they are infinitely respawning, suggesting it is unintended behavior.

Iris Ng.9845:

MagicSlurpees.4851:

laharl.8435:

laharl.8435:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

#Confessions

I bought a lovestruck greatsword skin for my Mesmer.

:x

Anyway, Lupi’s kick. Didn’t someone say they experienced a triple Lupi kick once? Dat RNG!

I think Mexican Cookie. I’ve seen double kick many times, never seen the triple (I think, I seem to play half asleep a lot).

Side note, the rarest thing I’ve ever seen. The lonely undead zerker everyone runs past going into the room before lupi. He’s just after the Hunter with trash mob pack. That zerker was once an illusionist.

Now that I think of it. I think I was with Cookie when the zerker was an illusionist because I’m pretty sure I remember him saying he’d seen it before. Maybe his account is bugged for weird crap to happen. I think DeKeys was there too.

I’ve seen it at least once before as well. Some people from my guild have as well.
I was under the impression that anyone who did arah enough eventually had the uber rare illusionist/berserker wake up on his illusionist side of the bed on a particular run.

Also, it would have been infinitely hilarious if he actually used “Kick” utility after lupi fails his in that video.

He did! In the video.

OMG! Lulz. I noobed and assumed that CD’d skill was FGJ.

laharl.8435:

laharl.8435:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

#Confessions

I bought a lovestruck greatsword skin for my Mesmer.

:x

Anyway, Lupi’s kick. Didn’t someone say they experienced a triple Lupi kick once? Dat RNG!

I think Mexican Cookie. I’ve seen double kick many times, never seen the triple (I think, I seem to play half asleep a lot).

Side note, the rarest thing I’ve ever seen. The lonely undead zerker everyone runs past going into the room before lupi. He’s just after the Hunter with trash mob pack. That zerker was once an illusionist.

Now that I think of it. I think I was with Cookie when the zerker was an illusionist because I’m pretty sure I remember him saying he’d seen it before. Maybe his account is bugged for weird crap to happen. I think DeKeys was there too.

I’ve seen it at least once before as well. Some people from my guild have as well.
I was under the impression that anyone who did arah enough eventually had the uber rare illusionist/berserker wake up on his illusionist side of the bed on a particular run.

Also, it would have been infinitely hilarious if he actually used “Kick” utility after lupi fails his in that video.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

-Snip-
I just read your response about how hard that is to develop. I think an alternative is to isolate the good instabilities that make the fractals more interesting and fun, and have them apply to the entire tier, rather than have a new one each level some of which are soul crushing bad.

I really like that idea. Perhaps we can have multiple instabilities on a level. You get one instability for the tier instability you have, and one for the particular level, e.g. 36 gets the tier 31-39 instability and the level 36 specific instability.
If we happen to get a fractal team this could work particularly well because they could reassign tier and specific instabilities by looking at the ones that are most/least played.

xamsano.4932:

15 in acrobatics is not a must. 25/30/0/0/15 works quite good. you have your 250 power and you can still trait for fury. you can also choose to run 25/30/0/15/0.

That. 15 acrobatics is even less needed when duoing.

Especially if you run energy sigils.

OldSomalia.6180:

spoj.9672:

You dont even need to swap utilities. Just use gs, sword warhorn. But obviously if you do get caught by an imob then you need to be prepared to cleanse and maybe pop endure pain.

lol but

I’d rather switch one utility than two

By cleanse he meant “be prepared to Warhorn 4”. Warhorn 4 cures immob (and cripple and chill). Surprised that actually hasn’t been mentioned.
Don’t know why you’d bother w/ EP though.

On the note, does EP/DS eat up damage from the lava or the fire you can extinguish?

It’s kind of a bug. Since Fractured the “instance owner” for fractals is weird.

Essentially, when you enter a new shard (read: map), then if the instance owner is not inside the dungeon when you continue to the next shard then it will be set to the first person who was inside the instance that’s still inside.
On a side note, if you’re doing a level higher than anyone who’s inside the fractal has unlocked, then it will be lowered to the highest fractal level anyone has unlocked that is inside.
E.g. Party Member #1 opens level 49 and rolls swamp. Party Member #2 has fractal level 30. All other party members only have fractal 40. Party Member #2 was the first, non-instance owner to enter. At Mossman he d/c’s but the party completes it and rolls the next fractal, because Party Member #1 is not inside, it gives the ownership to Party Member #2. Also, since Party Member #1 was the only one with Fractal level 49, it makes the Fractal Level the highest of the people who are inside. Since Party Member #3, 4, and 5 are Fractal Level 40, it resets to 40 when it rolls the second map. Note it doesn’t reset to the level of the new instance owner Party Member #2.

You can technically use this to your advantage.

Also, if you think I’m spouting nonsense, please test yourself before replying “You’re spouting nonsense.”
Get a buddy who is on a different server (preferably) and has a lower or higher fractal level than you. If he’s higher, then have your buddy open, otherwise you should open.
Then have the non-opener enter Dessa’s Lab. Then have the opener leave the instance. Then non-opener should roll the fractal.
You will see the level get lowered to what the non-opener’s level is, also, the server the fractal is being hosted on will change to the non-opener’s home server.
The opener can enter, and the non-opener can switch chars or leave party, the instance will break.

You can’t really save much time on the basement solo. Maybe a few seconds by having someone stand at the first West Side Asuran device to limit time gating as much as possible.

Pick up Group

/15

I love dredge fractal, you get 1-3g more than any other fractal, so at least it makes it feel like the fractal rewarded me a bit when I get it. Though it is about 5 mins longer than thaumanova or aetherblade.
And when PuGing Thaumanova’s worse because PuGs don’t realize you can skip every trash mob, instead they go killing each and every portal and it’s horrible.

Dis bestest constrocted beld I hav evar sen. der is sech synergi, like fer ex. yu get eternal spirets trait wit merciful interventian, makes 4k heal moar. dat downed dmg so gud to.

problem iz dat yu use mace instead of zeptar, zeptar iz clearly most helz. synergyzes vary wel with mce mastury

robertul.3679:

MagicSlurpees.4851:

Button room is simple, clear left side (out of habit)……..

ahem..habit..

I like how you caught that.

On my comp (which isn’t that great), I can do AC p1/3, CM p1/p3 (p2, but I don’t do that anymore), TA U/F, CoF 2, CoE all paths, and Arah 1 without much trouble as long as someone holds for ~5 sec.
CoF 2 has no cutscene but you can get in there quickly enough to get the reward, so even w/o a buddy you can do it.
AC p3 is similar but also has a cutscene so there’s a ridiculous amount of time you have. Arah 1 (and CM 2) you have to trigger.
CoE 2 and 3 the other people can wait to kill the alpha essences… or hold scene, the 1g chest and cutscene won’t start for until they die, but they do disappear after ~15 sec or so. CoE 1 will trigger regardless of killing the essences though.
The rest you usually want at least one buddy to hold for you. Though unless I’m soloing I never go into a dungeon without one wingman with me anyway; it’s a recipe for disaster, unless you go in expecting to fail.

Button room is simple, clear left side (out of habit) and have one on button, thief stealths the right button (very easy with a simple SS and SR stealth combo), and anyone takes the console, the single dredge that spawns can be easily kited or pulled when he spawns.

Bombs are simple, “Mesmer + Thief = cakewalk” sums it up.
Kill the mobs before bombs, mesmer drops a port, thief does smoke screen stealth, everyone gets one bomb, and meets at door where the thief does SR. Mesmer drops a portal but waits before taking it. One person counts “3” “2” “1” “go” and everyone drops bomb and immediately after takes the portal. Wait 90 or so seconds for bombs to respawn and repeat. Shouldn’t take more than 5 mins.

Cannons is easier. Thief stealths all the way to the end of the door, you can skip all the mobs. Put yourself at the very rightmost part of the door near the pipes. The thief brings scorpion wire and the mesmer pulls the two closest dredge with focus pull and thief pulls the third one with scorp wire. You kill them all, get guns ready, and the thief uses Black powder with blinding powder for 6s stealth. You all run to door and start shooting it at same time, this should be easy. When stealth is about to run out, SR for a good 15s stealth. (20s if traited, but it’s unnecessary) This is far more than enough to break the door. If needed, mes uses mass invis near the end for another 5 seconds, I have never seen the door not fall after all 25s stealth.

The clown car and boss are very easy and I don’t think require explanation.

Essentially pull adds and boss, kill adds, and don’t pull any more, then kill boss, then chain reflect/proj blocking and kill all the spawns in front of the car (or in back if the group is bad).

Anddd… 4 days later, I find time to actually bother. I finally feel ready to do it for reals, pop my watchwork portal… and it shares cooldown with mesmer portals. If it wasn’t for this, I’m positive you could do it pretty easy solo on mes. (Top left, and bottom right two wisps, you get about 5 extra seconds for mistakes.)

Lesson learned, don’t ever use a watchwork portal on a mes unless you’re in combat and really need a portal while it’s not slotted in.
Also, thief solo is probably the only one possible.

Unchanged, I did arah 1 twice yesterday (solo and group) and only one bonus chest.

:( RNG is not my friend.
On the note, tried some theory runs without Watchwork portals, should be possible if the tree is not blocking the passage to the second one at the time that you can blink through. I think trees only block the passage if you run up to them, but you can blink before you are close enough. If they can randomly start blocking a passage with time passed then there is RNG, otherwise no RNG would be involved.

If there’s no RNG involved I’ll probably blow a few of my watchwork portals. I just happened to make 20 a little while ago for arah p1 solos. (porting to shoggroth ftw)

Sanderinoa.8065:

I haven’t tried it yet, though I’ve got some watchworks left. I think though, that it’s not likely possible. Portals don’t reach all the way to the end of the fractal. So you have to walk away from them first to drop it. That combined with the lesser mobility on mes and the fact that portals have a small cooldown time between uses, makes me think it will be either 1 or 0 seconds left.

Also as for the shadowtrap, you’re aware that I’m using the improv trait to recharge it , right?

I actually only realized the shadow trap thing after trying it myself, then actually bothered to check what improv did after that (I noticed it the first watch thinking, WTF?). It relies on RNG though then right? 20% chance?

I’ll try out mesmer stuff myself in a bit when I get a little time.

A while back, I actually tried for a long while to get a triple wisp solo on mes, but couldn’t pull it off. Was thinking of other ways, including Shadow Trap/Portal, but figured it’d be close but not possible. Forgot that Shadow Trap’s cooldown is when you lay it not when you use it -.-.
Double Shadow Trap ftw, yet another good one Sandy.

Oh forgot to note, mes solo may be possible as well then. Maybe I’ll make an attempt.
Watchwork portal the one you went for first, drop normal portal, take port back.
Get to the third one and pick it up to bring to the second one. lay the portal, slot it in, take portal back, pick up the wisp, take portal again, slot that one in.
Have you tried it?

Ayrilana.1396:

But it requires 1 or more people running a bomb over and over hoping for the dredge do not remove it. I’ve done your strategy and sometimes it works quickly and other times it takes forever. It’s not very consistent and you’re relying solely on the party having a mesmer which may not be the case for a lot of people.

MagicSlurpees.4851:

Bombs we kill the mobs in the first room, then we pop a portal, stealth, get 5 bombs, time all the bombs to drop at the same time and port out, the dredge do not go for the bombs if you time all the bombs within ~2 seconds and everyone takes the portal back. Wait 2 mins for bombs to respawn then go again, really no idea why people say “wipe” at this part. I never die once, and we do it in about 3 mins.

Yes it relies on a mes and thief, but it’s 100% reliable. Also, you shouldn’t be going into high fracs without an organized group that’s ready with multiple classes anyway, that’s just silly for if you want it done quickly.

I will say I do hope the clown car does get a nerf eventually. I wouldn’t mind double the amount of mobs spawning per wave but spawning doubly fast, preferably w/o invuln.

Sanderinoa.8065:

MagicSlurpees.4851:

Very cool, ty again Sandy.

Though I do think it’s about time to move to p1/p3 solos once I get this Brie business down, the constant nerfs to p2 sell rate is getting a bit annoying.

The constant additions to my guide are getting annoying

xD

Very cool, ty again Sandy.

Though I do think it’s about time to move to p1/p3 solos once I get this Brie business down, the constant nerfs to p2 sell rate is getting a bit annoying.

Tbh, skipped most of the thread so if this was already said/addressed, meh. Only read OP.

I think high level fractals is meant to be challenged by organized groups only, having a few right classes is not too hard. I only go in guild groups. We all have multiple classes so we swap to have 1 mes and thief in the group, nothing else is required whatsoever. Though having prot on clown car is nice from a guard.

As far as most of it goes, the first part takes like 2 mins (excluding swapping char time if we need to), port, kill like 10 mobs or w/e is on the first side you port in. Thief stealths for the other panel, someone takes console, someone pulls the 1 mob that spawns.
Next is either bombs or cannons.
Cannons we skip all the mobs to and just pull the 3 mobs with cannons, then we stealth and cannon the wall, you should be able to do this within 8 mins.
Bombs we kill the mobs in the first room, then we pop a portal, stealth, get 5 bombs, time all the bombs to drop at the same time and port out, the dredge do not go for the bombs if you time all the bombs within ~2 seconds and everyone takes the portal back. Wait 2 mins for bombs to respawn then go again, really no idea why people say “wipe” at this part. I never die once, and we do it in about 3 mins.
Clown car does indeed take a while since it’s really really time gated, rabso is a joke if you remove his prot.
Boss is roflmao. Dredge is really nice as his agony is a simple double dodge and no additional summons. Ice ele is an easier agony but has the annoying adds that soak up some attacks. Though admittedly my group should honestly start doing this melee.

All in all, should be ~15-30 mins fractal, not that bad considering it’s the third fractal only. I just wish it wasn’t so time gated on the clown car.