Guild Wars 2

Legenary hammer Skin? GW1 call back! Truly One of a King?!?!

First of all, I am answering that yes raiding was good for the game since I have not posted in this thread yet.

Next, I would like to dispute the statement “Rewards for Raids are fine as long as they are cosmetic only.” Cosmetic rewards(hereafter Shiny) will not sustain raids. Once a raider has the Shiny or Shinies they want, most of them will quit raiding. We have already seen this with Dungeons and high level fractals. It has already been stated in this thread why developers want content they add to last near indefinitely, so Shinies alone will not sustain Raids.

I would also argue that most of the rewards, including legendary armor, for raids are just Shinies. This has been stated before but to reiterate Legendary Armor’s only advantage over Ascended is the free stat swap. For the vast amount of the player base, that is a worthless perk due to the current Rune/Sigil system. I would argue that the the only portion of the pve player base that has a need, and not having it be a mere convenience, for Stat Swapping is raiders due to it helping protect against new “meta prefixes” being added like Viper’s during HoT. Consequently, legendary armor, while still a Shiny, is a very good Raid reward.

That is barely a 4.5% difference between the two. Considering thorn will take 50 seconds to reach that level and only at 5+ stacks does it outperform Zerk in condi damage alone, I am becoming suspicious that Zerk is better.

Also, Geo outperforms all other options handedly. By timing Death Shroud, Lich and Weapon swap appropriately, you can get it every 9s instead of 10s.

And may i point out that it will be a dps increase at least 3 stacks=150 condi damage.

Thank you for giving me a goal to work.

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11223087/gw012.jpg[img]

Well Slothasor is hitting me with Volatile Arua, so Rune of Thorns is looking much more appealing. Expensive as all crud though.

Assuming you can get a stack from thorn every 10s, then thorn will outperform other choices. But that begs the question why are you getting hit every 10s? In general, you should be stuck to the boss’s but and out of cleaving range unless you are the tank. Now if the environmental tic of damage is sourced from the Boss (which you should be poisoning), then I can see why Thorn would be the superior option in any circumstance.

I took the effort to plot Power vs Ferocity in Wolfram Mathematica. The short answer is that Ferocity scales better than Power for ascended attribute numbers.

You can find a PDF of my results here: Power vs Ferocity

Some explanation:
I assumed a Weapon strength (ws in the pdf) of 1000 and a full set of ascended equipment with power (P), precision ( R) and Ferocity(F) attributes only. I did not include damage multipliers from allies, boons or traits. The formula for R is dependent on the number of stats not in power or ferocity and then the standard formula for Crit Chance with a maximum at 100%. Damage(d) is then calculated by the well known formula with an assumed Heavy armor Target (2600 armor and 0 toughness) and skill specific coefficient of 1. Wolfram Mathematica can generate 3d plots which are unable to be rotated in a PDF so I included six different views of the data. It can be seen that the slope of Ferocity is much greater than the slope for Power. However, Ferocity starts at a lower number (0 minimum possible Ferocity) than Power (1000 minimum). So Power is better than Ferocity at lower attribute levels and Crit chances. But, Power Damage is overtaken rapidly as your attributes increase causing your crit chance and crit damage to increase. Finally, I created a table interchanging Power and Ferocity between major and minor attributes of the equipment. In other words, a table showing the interchange of one Power for one Ferocity. Instead of listing a table of 422 numbers, I then listplotted the table to show that damage increased as power decreased and ferocity increased. The final plot clearly shows that your overall damage increases as you interchange Power for Ferocity.

This makes sense. Damage scales additively with Power, but multiplicatively with Ferocity. I did not find the exact attribute point where Ferocity overtakes Power, but it is clearly somewhere below ascended attribute totals; thus, unimportant for min-maxing in raids or other high damage needed areas. Finally if a Ferocity/Power/Precision(F,P,R) armor were to be added, it would deal more damage and replace Berserker’s(P,R,F) for Power Builds.

First, the most important AR to reach is 109 to join in the 56/67/77 fractal daily swamp runs. Those can be done relatively quickly and you should get 1 ascended chest drop (most often boots, shoulders, or gloves) every other week assuming you do them daily. Keep in mind what Cyninja said for outfitting your accessories and weapons with Agony Infusions.

Second keep in mind you can get ascended armor boxes from completing the Ambrite, Bioluminescence, and Leystone collections. Ambrite is probably time/cost preventive, but both Bioluminescence and Leystone can be gotten relatively easily. I would suggest you use those boxes to get your coat and Leggings in that order. This can cut 150+g off the bill of getting your ascended armor.

Finally, remember to craft your ascended mats (Silk Weaving and Elonian Cord) as often as you can. This can help reduce the eventual price of the Damask and Elonian Leather by 10-15%. When you have enough to craft a piece feel free to, but I would suggest crafting your headpiece first as ascended headgear drops very rarely and it gives a ton of stats.

With the recent Revenant DPS tests showing Herald only averaging 19k dps in near ideal raid settings, it has become clear that Herald’s need a new damage build to stay competitive with the other classes. Since Sword Revenant Damage was recently “adjusted” and is full of bugs such as certain skill’s not scaling with Weapon Strength, a Condi Revenant build may be able to be competitive and overtake power weapon damage.

So I present my Herald of Mallyx Build
I was able to deal 6.6k damage per second in Heart of the Mists with this build. While that is hardly impressive, I was not able to include additional damage from Crits, Vulnerability, Food, Sigil of Malice, Boons, Allies, etc. etc. which can easily scale up the damage by many multiples. I posted this build because I need help with number crunching from some of the more experienced members of the raiding community. Basically, I wanna know if this build can outperform the Power Herald without giving up any of its utility.

First for weapons, Mace/Axe gives the Herald most of its conditions in Torment, Poison, and Burning. Note that Echoing Eruption uses the same mechanics as Coalescence of Ruin, but was not fixed like CoR, so it can hit multiple times on Gorseval. Also, Torment scales off if the enemy is moving, so it will deal significantly more damage on Vale Guardian and Gorseval than it will on Sabetha. For my primitive tests, the target dummies would not move, so torment only did its Base damage. One disadvantage of using mace is how bad its power scaling is. Only 1k of my tested damage was from power sources, the rest was condi.

Now for traits, I wanted the build to provide all the same party utility of the power Herald, so that locks me into using Devastation for Assassin’s Presence and Herald for Glint Facets and Shared Empowerment. In addition, I focused on improving Condi Damage, so that caused me to take Corruption since that is the only Condi traitline for Revenants.

Next, the weapons and armor is pure viper’s and the trinkets are a Viper’s amulet, Sinister Rings and Accessories, and a Rampager’s Backpiece. Rune of the Berserker was chosen because you will be at the max duration cap for Poison and Torment from traits. I would be interested to see if the few sources of Burning in this build can justify a rune choice of a Nightmare/Trapper’s mix over the Berserker runes.

In terms of utility, you will have all the same as a Power Herald with the addition of a extremely short CD Fire Field in Searing Fissure and a triple Blast Finisher in Echoing Eruption. It uses Glint and Mallyx Facets, which is similar to one of the power build’s variation. Note that Mallyx’s Elite, Embrace the Darkness, multiplies condition damage after including stacks of might. So while you have it up about 50% of the time, your condition damage would be the highest possible in the game. So this build will have more utility than the Power Herald. So even if the build breaks even in terms of DPS, it should be adopted over the Power Herald. On the other hand, this build’s damage will suffer much harder than Power herald when it switches to staff for break bars. Heck, it may be argued that going mace/sword would be a better second weapon set despite lacking Surging of the Mists.

So what do y’all think? I imagine a few people who crafted Viper’s armor before Burnzerkers were nerfed should be very interested in this build.

Tangled Depths was initially my least favorite map because of how poorly the minimap interacts with the multi layered design. It made it impossible to tell where I was or where I was going. But after spending time and energy to learn the map, Tangled Depths has become my favorite.

It is the only HoT map that lives up to Anet’s promise of 3 distinct Biomes: Jungle Floor with the Ogres and Nuhocs, Tunnels with the Chak and Rata Novus, Lanes with the huge meta event and Chak Gerent.

In addition, it is the only map I feel i can log in to it, roam, and be rewarded. There are always events Happening, whether it is Legendary Chak, one of the four meta chains, or random defense of Outposts. Not all of them are meta driven like DS and VB, which is my big complaint with those maps, and they exist unlike AB, which is why it is my least favorite map despite how beautiful it is. You can also fill up on Cystalized troves if you have Chak Acid.

Ultimately, I would like Tangled Depths to be the Gold Standard for future maps with varying levels of difficulty.

PS: Do not mention anything Dark souls related. Though I love the game, too many people on this board will jump down your throat for encouraging “punishing gameplay.”

Yes, Yes, YES!

I have wiped more raid groups than I like to admit because of this.

Little of the Discussion about Mossman is how to actually make the fight interesting and less exploity. Both sides of the argument agree that Mossman needs changes, but each has their own ideas on what to change. Here are some changes that would help both sides of the argument achieve their Desires.

1) Increase Mossman’s size to be the same as Sabetha’s. Mossman now starts in the middle between the shack and the river.
Reasoning: First for the anti-exploiters, it will make it easier for him to hit everyone in front and above of him eliminating the amount of safe spots possible. In addition for the exploiter’s, it will make it much easier to see the Mossman’s tells making it significantly easier to dodge/strafe him. Since he will no longer fit in his hut, he needs to start in the open area.

2) Increase Fear Cool down while in Snow Leopard Form, but Snow Leopard Form’s trigger threshold increases as Fractal level increases. Note: Snow Leopard Size is also increased similarly to Suggestion 1.
Reasoning: One of the biggest difficulties with Mossman is the constant Fear he exerts while in Snow Leopard Form. Especially when paired with the condition applying instability, this can overwhelm most classes condition clearing and stun breaking. Increasing the cool down will help minimize general frustration with his Fear. On the other side of the fence, the encounter becomes more challenging at higher fractal levels as players have to deal with his snow leopard form earlier in the fight.

3) Enable him to use underwater skills.
Reasoning:
This is a catchall if another exploit occurs allowing him to move underwater. It also allows parties to tailor the instance to their groupings if they are stronger underwater. Finally, it allows for the possibility of the instability where he appears randomly through a fractal level returning.

I have seen a lot of people either asking on the forums or posting in LA on whether to sell the encryptions on the TP or open them with Keys purchased from the Vender in the Mistlock Observatory. Current Wisdom is that you should open the encryptions with your daily keys and sell all extra encryptions on the Tp. That is completely false. It depends on what type of key you are using to open the encryption.

There are 5 different types of keys: Ones from Dailies, Deeply discounted keys bought from a vendor for 20silver, discounted keys bought for 25s, regularly priced keys bought for 30s, and keys from converting stabilizing matrices. For the purposes of this analysis, I will ignore any fractal relic cost, assume that the account bound recipes or items gain the player no money, assume that keys from stabilizing matrices cost the same as those from regularly priced keys, assume today’s prices on the tp and current fractal research listed on this reddit and the wiki is reasonably accurate.

The first step is calculating how much money you are expected to gain from opening a box. Current Research shows you gain 34s54b (or 34 silver 54 bronze) on average from the venderable trash in a box. In addition, you can put another 2s28b on top from the +1 agony infusions, t5 mats, and other sellable items you get from opening the encryption, the total average value contained in a box is 36s81b. In addition, you have a 10% chance when you open a Cracked Fractal Encryption (here after referred to as a chest) of getting an additional fractal key.

The main question is at what tp price it is more profitable to sell the encryptions than open them. I will consider the different cases of daily keys (free), deeply discounted keys (20s per), discounted keys (25s per), and regularly priced keys (30s per) based only on the venderable trash dropped on average trash plus the assumed average value of +1 Agony Infusions, t5 mats, and other sellable items.

Daily keys: On average, you will make 36s81b off these keys as they cost you nothing. Including the Tp tax of 15% (5% listing fee and 10% selling fee), the encryptions would need to be selling for at least 48s12b (which equals 45s/(.85*.9)=Sell Price/(Tax*chance at an extra Key)) on the tp for it to be worth selling the encryptions over what you would make by just opening the boxes with a key.

Deeply Discounted Keys: On average, you will make 16s81b by opening encryptions with deeply discounted keys. Similarly to the daily keys, the encryptions would have to be selling for over 21s98b for it to be more profitable to list the encryptions on the TP than opening them with deeply discounted keys.

Discounted Keys: On average, you will make 11s81b by opening encryptions with discounted keys. Similarly to the daily keys, the encryptions would have to be selling for over 15s44b for it to be more profitable to list then encryptions on the TP than opening them with discounted keys.

Regularly Priced Keys: On average, you will make 6s81b by opening encryptions with discounted keys. Similarly to the daily keys, the encryptions would have to be selling for over 8s91b for it to be more profitable to list the encryptions on the TP than opening them with discounted keys.

So in conclusion, it is:
1) Always more profitable to use the keys earned from the dailies to open your encryptions.
2) When using deeply discounted keys, it depends on a large number of factors including the current price of fractal encryptions, cost of the +1 agony infusions, cost of the t5 mats, and Lady Luck. Right now, encryptions are selling for 21s56b and being bought for 19s53b, so it would be marginally worth it to open the keys rather than sell them on the tp.
3) When using discounted Keys and regularly priced keys, it is better to just sell the encryptions unless the encryptions crater below 15s on the tp.
My personal habit is to buy up all the deeply discounted key each day and once a week go through a f40 farm to gain enough encryptions to use up all my extra keys.

For reference:
Gw2Tp Fractal Encryption
Gw2Wiki Cracked Fractal Encryption Research

Single class: Mesmer. A well played mesmer can boost the parties dps more than any other class due to near perma quickness and Alacrity. In additon, they can bring reflects which are always mandatory.

For jokes, they also can bring portal to help inexperienced players run wisps in swamp. After all, Swamp is the only fractal being Run consistently in 50+

Hello, I am an experienced Raider looking for a secondary guild who raids in the evening 7+pm cst on Monday, Thursday or Friday.
I have voice communication with Mumble, Ts, Discord, and Vent. I have 10 Legendary Insights at posting, kill experience on each boss, and 7 out of 9 toons fully geared in ascended. I can Run:
* Zerk PS War
* Zerk Tempest either Staff or D/W
* Zerk Herald or Zerk/Knights Tank Herald
* Zerk Chronomancer
* Viper/Sinister Engi w/ or w/o Slick Shoes
* Zerk Thief if you wanna a Yolo Group.
* Zerk Guardian, but no one wants guards in their parties.

I can supply Api Keys from GW2 Efficiency to my characters upon request to back up my claims. You can contact me in game by mail or pm at DrEckers.2039

I know reddit is a dirty word around here, but there is a Fractal Leaderboard Poll up on Reddit at the moment. It seems the vast majority of the more casual do not care about the leaderboards. But in all likelihood, that is because the legendary backpiece is tied behind it restricting them from it. What do some of the more experienced players think?

Disclaimer: I am Fractal Level 100 and voted No on the poll.

Why Toxic maintence Oil? this build is power based not condi.

Cosigning this awesome idea. i needa get my engi up to +100% Burning and Bleed Duration!

Tesla Eot.1469:

Except rangers can do it better, their leaps are longer than thief’s. Constant leap/dash with GS 3 and staff 3. Use your pet to get in combat and you can get 2 leaps before weapon swap recharge. They also get perma swiftness via shouts or druid trait.

Thief build will be better if you add in that signet that recharges endurance and add energy sigil on each weapon. Also use SB and staff since they both have leaps. Staff 5 is slightly cheaper than SB 5.

PS: Haha you can’t downvote me here. Silly reddit.

Ranger’s leaps cannot travel up cliffs. That is the key advantage Thief brings. It can often shorten your travel distance by 30s.

I have tried this build with the Sig of Agility, and it is not as good as the other Utilities. Shadow Refuge is critical to avoiding Champs and Vets that guard nodes keeping you from being placed in combat. Shadow Step is a Double teleport that can also be used to grab out of the way nodes. Haste gives Quickness, which makes harvesting faster. Finally, Channeled Vigor gives the same benefits as Sig of Agility.

I also tried staff, but I like sword/pistol more. Sword 2 brings another teleport when used on ambients for only 3 initiative and a condi removal which helps you get out of combat faster. Black Powder can also be used to blind Enemies on a node allowing you to farm it without going into combat (if you do not hit an enemy with the initial shot).

With all due respect, Node Farming is Serious Business.

Thieves, tired of being kicked from Raid Groups? Laughed at in Spvp matches? Generally, just considered Trash Tier across all game formats? Then do I have the build for you! Thieves are actually the most Overpowered Profession in the true end game, NODE FARMING! And so, I give you the perfect endgame Thief Build

The Eco Terrorist

Now the idea behind this build is to get you to the mining nodes as quick as possible, so you can engage in righteous combat against the perils of Iron, Platinum, and Mixed Vegetables! To do so alternate Short Bow 5 and Dash. Be sure to use Short Bow 5 to teleport up cliffs instead of walking the long way like all the other peasant professions. When you reach a Node be sure to make Haste with a Watchwork Mining Pick, Mad Scientists Logging Tool, and a Fused Molten Sickle for Maximum Destruction of the Natural Environment. And at the end of the day, you can sell your Ore, Logs, and Veggies in for good, hard Gold! More gold than those pretentious and peasant other classes will make with their Precious Raids or SPvp.

Disclaimer: Will not make more gold than if you just play the TP. But you can still play the TP as you run from node to node!

Six.8051:

After completion, Casual/Core–Fractal Hero & Elite–Fractal Veteran/Master achieves should unlock repeatable “Hobby” achieves that offer rewards for completion such as:

A chest for each difficulty tier with incremental rewards per tier granting gold, encryption keys, pristine fractal relics, stabilizing matrixes, a gold fractal relic or skins for the higher tiers, and an increased chance for ascended chests.

Instead of adding a new category for fractal weeklies under the achievement panel, 4 new achievements could simply be added under the existing fractal section with this setup.

I like this Idea. I have always been an advocate of having monthly fractal achievements where you completed all the fractals in a tier. I like the additional idea of gating it behind the achievement, not something like masteries.

Astralporing.1957:

DrEckers.2039:

How about just removing swamp for 51+? That would fix the swamp rolling problem.

Yeah, let’s remove more content from the game, that will definitely make it better.[/sarcasm]

It would not be removing content. Swamp would still appear below 50. But unless anet can actually make swamp difficult, I see no reason for it to appear above 50. Same opinion on Swamp and 75 and Molten Duo over 90.

I am sorry if I believe making fractal 100 should actually be based around skill. Not how often can you do Swamp, Molten Due and Maw.

How about just removing swamp for 51+? That would fix the swamp rolling problem.

No, but we have confirmation that the Patch will be next tuesday and that the fractal team was recently expanded with the intent of addressing the instabilities and adding new fractals. I would consider that post by Colin very welcome by the Fractal Community.

From Colin on Reddit:

“You should see the first round of updates that help with #1 and #3 on your list next week from our new Fractals team.
As for #2 and #4 – those are both things we agree with, and we recently formed a larger fractal team after HoT launch so we can do exactly stuff like that.
Great suggestion thread, I passed it along to the team as well.”

Source The next iteration will not fix fractals

Yes, let us please avoid the same situation as the start of December. We need to know if the speculation that the fractal patch is this tuesday or not.

Ummm… Big Whoop? By the time, the Fractal’s patch hits most people will have already completed central tyria masteries. Then, who cares if Cliffside gives even 3 million xp for completing it?

Major Brain Fart on my part.

Unbound is not by default infused. An infused backpack has 3 agony slots. Unbound has only 2.

The Fractals rewards patch was not thus last Tuesday. It is slated for some time in December.

Cameron Rich.3905:

Mor The Thief.9135:

So how many buckets have you already filled with our tears thanks to those raids XD?

We’ve lost count, but there should be enough here to feed the team for about a week.

Unfortunately, that is not enough for them to make another Raid Wing. The only answer is to decrease the Enrage Time to 6 minutes!

In addition, I would like to thank Anet for basing the Raids off their Golden Trinity of Damage, Support, and Control. The Raid Content is certainly going to keep me coming back to GW2, which was a serious question of mine after HoT launched. Do NOT Change anything about Raids!

Let’s get this thread to be the longest and drown out all the Please Change raids kneejerks.

OIIIIIO.7825:

“Fun Fact: In the Fractle Main Hub there is now an Agony Checker, once you touch the orb you take agony damage related to the level your on. now you can check agony without pinging armor and find lairs trying to leech from you. I found a lot of people still dont know about this so here ya go.”

First Posted here – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Agony-Checker/first#post5737449

This is different than the agony checker. This allows you to see what all of your teammates max fractal level is. So you can now filter your groups by both overall fractal completed and Agony resistance.

@Amicable Pugs: Ok, I will check this when I am done with work later today.

ZachAttack.3957:

This is actually a very interesting idea, because, as you said, it would encourage other builds and playstyles. Of course however, the ratios could should not be so high as to prohibit people from running those builds. What would happen if agony dealt damage based on power/precision at like a level 85+ fractal? They’re already a pretty huge grind fest (hitting the mob over and over again due to insane toughness and vitality), and pretty much invalidating power and precision would mean no one would ever want to run those fractals (assuming the type of agony switches between fractals). I think adding different agony though would be very interesting, it would just require a lot of texting and foresight.

First, I am not suggesting all colored Agony would deal damage. That situation would be little different than the current situation and not actually satisfy players’ desire for “new mechanics” in Fractals. Instead instead of damage, new agony types would cause effects like reducing power damage, reducing condition damage, reducing toughness, etc. etc. by a percentage based on number of stacks and Agony resistance.

Also, I would imagine it would scale similarly to how agony scales currently. If you are below the recommended AR, Agony can scale to ridiculous amounts. But if you are above the intended AR, then Agony does a minimum of 1% per stack per second. So using the reduced Power Damage as an example, each stack would reduce Direct Damage Done by 1% per stack if you were above the recomended AR and potentially 100% of the damage done if below the recomended AR.

@Harold: The idea for Black Agony came from Mark of Pain from the original Guild Wars. I think plenty of the Hexes from Necromancers and Mesmers from the original Guild Wars would make very interesting Agonies.

Ok, under the Fractal Tab? Or the specific Fractals levels like 1-20?

Is there a way to check another players fractal level?

I was in a low daily today, and a teammate correctly identified my fractal level. He said you could check a party member’s fractal level by using LFG -> Fractals of the Mist -> ??? I could not figure out how he did it, but was wondering if the great and awesome forum warriors knew.

A good quick fix of some issues, but there still needs to be a lot more done. Nevets does a good quick summery of the main remaining issues.

Zach: I guess you haven’t seen the nearly video of the nearly 1 hour long f100 posted on the forums.

Also hate to be a grammar kitten but, Tedious is defined in the dictionary as “marked by monotomy, long and tiresome.” If that does not explain higher level fractals I do not what does. Trying to redefine your point when you haven’t experienced the tedium of the higher fractals is speaking outside your experience.

Previously, fractal rewards were good, not great but good. As you mention you had a decent shot at ascended, but in addition the higher you went the higher your “fractal magic find” went. It was very common to come out of a f50 making 10-20g through the rares and exotic that dropped from mobs and chests. In addition, you could sell open spots if you completed the run with less than 5 people. And as you already mentioned, you had a good chance at ascended armor and weapons. If I converted everything to gold, you prob made on average around 7.5g per f50. Which was comparable to most dungeons pre-nerf though reliant on rng.

Now, everything is tied to the TP. I cannot explain how toxic that is for the rewards, but I can do my best to demonstrate. Currently, Fractal Encryptions stand at 9s50c buy and 12s41c sell on the Tp. In other words, the boxes themselves are valued Less than the guaranteed money coming out of them! The boxes have been in free fall since their inception, and show no sign of bottoming out since they have caused free falls in all of their contents. In other words the more people do Fractals, the less valuable the rewards become.

Now the daily rewards are still in a good place for fractals between 1-50. There is a guaranteed 1g drop from them, and stabilizing matrices seem to have balanced out to be worth about an ecto. This is because there is a chance for 4 to 5 dailies or about 5g per day if you do every low level daily each day. On the other hand, fractals 51-100 have gotten only a single daily per day and once did not even have one daily. And, their box gives the exact same guaranteed reward as Daily’s completed at lower tiers besides a few extra worthless +1s and a key! Considering the extra amounts to about an extra 25s, which will be made up by doing at least one other lower level daily, there is a clear liquid gold bias towards lower levels. Do not bring up the chance at an ascended as a reason to do the higher levels as the current research shows that there is actually a small decrease for opening a higher level daily chest. You are enjoying the rewards precisely because anet biased (either intentionally or unintentionally) the rewards for fresh players over seasoned veterans. Can you understand some of the outcry now, Zach?

Source GW2Tp Fractal Encryption
Source King Fractal Research

Rising Dusk, do you have any idea on the eta before we start seeing Fractal Changes? I.e. should we expect any on tuesday when raids are released or will we have to wait till 2016 as Colin mentioned in his interview?

Everyone who seems to enjoy the new fractals does not seem to have played them beforehand. Everyone who seems to complain about the new fractals seems to have played them beforehand. It is a really kitten design if to attract new players you have to isolate the old ones.

One of the most requested changes to Fractals since its inception has been for additional mechanics for Bosses and Mobs as you progress higher in difficulty. However, very few if any additional mechanics have been added with the latest iteration. This leads me to believe that Anet finds going through and changing many different bosses and mobs to give them additional mechanics is prohibitively time-consuming. So, I would like to suggest adding additional types of Agony as a way of adding additional mechanics.

First of all, Agony deals percentage hp damage based on the number of stacks of it. Agony can be reduced by a player’s armor’s Agony Resistance to a non-zero minimum amount. So, the new agony would follow similar formulas. For example:
1) A White Colored Agony that reduces by percentage healing dealt to a player.
2) A Blue Colored Agony that reduces by percentage power damage dealt by a player.
3) A Green Colored Agony that reduces by percentage condition damage dealt by a player.
4) A Brown Colored Agony that reduces by percentage the Armor Value of a player.
5) A Black Colored Agony that deals percentage damage to near by allies but none to the affected player.
I am sure there are plenty of additional colors and types of agony that could be conceived and added at even higher 100+ fractal levels, which helps play into the “infinitely expanding” creed fractals were originally founded on.

Now mechanically per fractal level, agony would behave as follows. When a boss uses an attack that causes agony, it will glow the color corresponding to the agony he inflicts. While low fractals may only cause the Current Red Agony, higher levels will have different and possibly multiple types of Agony. In addition, certain levels could only cause Blue agony making condition damage builds preferable for those levels and other levels only cause Green Agony making power builds preferable. Finally when a boss causes multiple types of agony, the agony would be randomly applied. However since the Boss glows the appropriate color beforehand, this would lead to skillful play on the players part as he could decide whether to avoid the agony based on whether it harmed him or not.

Ultimately, adding different types of agony would be good for fractals. It would encourage different types of builds and play styles without kittening certain ones as the current instabilities do. It would create different high skill situations for players to react based on observations. It would be simple for Anet to apply as it is a global change as opposed to a specific fractal changes for additional mechanics. It would simply satisfy Fractal Runners long term desire for new and varied boss mechanics.

To be clear, an agony checker is a fine thing because it makes a physical difference in being able to complete a fractal if a person has enough ar or not. This is not true for an Ap check as that could be accumulated from other sources for high aps or because someone is on an alt for low aps. In fractals, you will be a legitimate deadweight if you fail the ap check. It is extremely unfair to the other 4 members to carry a undergeared player in fractals.

Preselecting fractals does not fix the never repeating hard fractals problem by itself. On days when “bad” fractals like snowblind pop up, most people will just skip the dailies that day. In addition assuming rewards are also fixed, it does not give a reason to do higher and harder fractals on any particular day. So, it will be extremely hard for a person to “catch up” if he misses and falls behind his group’s level. This suggestion is fine as a quick fix but it does not fix the core problem of disincentivizing harder fractals.

So, the fact the current fractals is causing a mass amount of players to quit the format especially players who have already invested a ton of time in the format should not cause anet to seriously consider changes to the format. Sorry about being harsh, but Brazil did a good job of explaining many of the problems currently facing fractals, so the burden of proof is on you, Sarahfull, in why fractals should not be changed.

I like the idea of tying additional fractal daily rewards to higher masteries. Either way there needs to be a lot done to make doing fractals 75+ and non swamp or maw fractals rewarding.

Heck, I would love if they removed Swamp and Maw completely from fractals 51+.

One of the lesser problems with Fractals at the moment is that Shards of Crystallized Mist are very useless. Their only real use is to infuse Rings and minor mystic Forge recipes. With HoT and the new fractal system, no real additional use was added as new items such as Stabilizing Matrices were added instead. Consequently for people who have run fractals for years prior, we have stacks of Shards of Crystallized Mist with no easy outlet of clearing them.

These are ascended crafting material, so they should be treated as such. I suggest that either a crafting or mystic Forge Recipe be added that converts Crystallized Mist into either Dark Matter or Balls of Dark Energy. This would allow Crystallized Mist to always be useful for crafting either Ascended or Legendary weapons and armor.

Clearly, there would have to be some balancing like 1 Shard per Dark Matter but 25+ shards per Ball of Dark Energy, but that is the raw idea.

Fractl encryptions can be worth it if you get a Aetherblade weapon, but the chance is one in about 2500. Overall, your best bet is to just tp them.

When anet originally made their fractals plans known, a whole lot of People warned them that only certain fractals would be farmed repeatedly. Anet did not listen then, and we will have wait to see if their “iteration” of fractals will fix this in the future. More than likely, it will just remove more of the reward from fractals.

It goes beyond just more armor. Only a few classes have competitive condi builds, engi, Ranger and Guard. The rest of us are still better off in Zerk gear in every other game content besides fractals. So, we are creating a set of ascended armor just for one part of the game that should be “iterated” soon. Thats some real good advice Snap.