Yes, I remember them speaking about 19 instabilities, but with the background noise (game sounds) I had a hard time understanding everything.
So… if I count well, there’s 1 for level 31. We need to add the 18 remaining. That means that the last known instability is at level 49. Therefore… there isn’t even a level 50? We get to play to level 49 included but not to level 50…?
They addressed the equity lost with a canned: Nope. They explained this before. “New system with the instabilities, they did not think it was right for everyone to start at 50”. No point in rehashing this issue.
I am on the minority here, I thought that one instability, Enemies explode when they die, looked super fun.
The Aetherblade retreat fractal looked fun to me. I forsee lots of cursing, and also lots of great players just crushing it. It will be an all or nothing kind of thing.
I am actually interested in knowing what all the instabilities are!
You are not the minority with that aspect. I am excited for the challenge and to see the instabilities.
However, our levels should not be reset. Plain and simple.
I’m running full zerker on 3 toons with the best builds available and I don’t want a dps meter. I know that I’m being useful to the party no matter the toon and that’s good enough for me.
Yep, watched it. Totally disappointed. None of our legitimate questions were answered.
Some bugs were fixed (the guy said “totally fixed” when speaking about harpies), some weren’t. That’s the only thing I remember about this livestream.
Also the levels are hard-capped at 50, and we will get further fractals with new instabilities. I was really afraid when he said “we will release 51 then we will release 52 and so on”…
I heard too many “we’ll do that in a next release” especially about rings salvaging, pristine spending, etc..
My question about the dredge fractal wasn’t even looked at. And I got twitch-banned for 10 minutes for asking whether we will get compensation or not for our lost fractal levels
Regarding the builds they used to show the 3 new fractals, a bearbow ranger and a dual pistol thief. Not much to see here…
Tonight at 20:00 UTC, there’s a live stream of the devs about the new patch.
What do you expect about it?
Personally it will be the first one I’ll ever watch. I expect a statement about how wrong they were and the fact that they don’t want to put a precedent in place. But these are only hopes…
They already have all troubles in the world dealing with the ascalon catacombs transformation and the ascalonian fractal as well… I’d prefer they fix those before we even speak about adding new fractals where you played tranformed.
Guardian has 10 pages? Well, given the number of changes regarding that class, I’d say it’s wayyy more than needed. The problem with Dec10 patch regarding guardians is that there is no significant change at all. So 10 pages on nothing is indeed a lot.
Well, the majority of players are currently not able to see the level 84 dredges in the underground facility as of today. So we lose that unique content and challenge for some 81-82 mobs?
@JMar, I know… My post was merely a troll. I’m very well aware of people having levelled legit. Don’t worry! ;-) And even, I strongly believe that any person levelling through odd-numbered fractals is legit.
I’d gladly join if I didn’t break my grahics card a few weeks ago, especially since you “owe” me a run for the one time we played together and we both agreed those pugs were bad and… they did that one mistake too many.
If you need karma for your legendary, it’s probably that you need obsidian shards. By running fractals you can also get fractal relics which you can turn into obsidian shards as well! So doing fractals is really the way to go for your Legendary. Play one run of each tier for maximizing your reward. Unfortunately, tomorrow we’re reset to level 30, so you will need to play from there if your level was above 30.
Nope: the only good place to play staff is in WvW.
Well, technically, there are some places in PvE where you want a staff, like in open PvE tagging parts (champion farm runs or the original scarlet events) or when you want to run to skip and your “Retreat” is on cooldown or don’t want to use it (because of the huge cooldown).
I played an MMO where dwarves were the only playable race. Everybody had either a dwarf-related joke as name or Gimli or some Tyrion Lannister (before the series) reference. I went into intensive researches about dwarves in LotR (read: 5 minutes) and decided that Frór is a good name. I kept it ever since.
Too bad you always have 25 might stacks in any decent party, making his own 12 stacks totally redundant. So he actually decreases the dps of the party.
Because they play how they want! But as you also play how you want, you’re never forced to play with those subpar guardians, so don’t worry about them and just find correct/decent groups to play with.
Very nice challenge! But how the hell did you solo the whisps part? Unless I’m completely mixing how the parties work, you should have been kicked out of the FotM when your team members left, no?
Ok, so now some people will actually level normally to 49-50 again.
Let’s imagine that the instability at level 40 is actually easier than 35 because the mechanics it involves is easier, but level 40 is actually longer in time.
What will people with PRL 35 do? Simple: “LFG fractals 40”. This will make the level 35 irrelevant and skippable like the current odd-numbered fractals below 50 or the even-numbered ones past 50.
And to be honest, I’m pretty sure there will be a scenario like this one where a fractal with level X (bigger than Y) will be easier than Y because Arena Net will not have tested enough and the dungeon community will find it, because they’ve found these weaknesses again and again in the past.
they actually made it impossible to get past 50, without buddying up with someone who already beat it before the fixes.
Remember they fixed fractals so you can join higher level than yours?
How do you think I levelled from 20 to 49? I “buddyed” with people having a bigger fractal number to play only even-numbered fractals. This way I could get a reward at the maw and not do a fractal for no reward.
What you describe is using exactly the same technique to level up avoiding Maw.
Everybody used that trick to level up. After 50, it became interesting to level up by doing odd-numbered fractals rather than even-numbered ones.
It’s NOT a trick or if it is, well, everyone past level 20 used it and I mean everyone!
In the past few month, I haven’t seen any “LFG fractals <odd-number between 20 and 50>”. Not a single one!
All we are saying, Malafide, is that they could have implemented the new bosses, mechanics from 51 or even 81 without resetting everybody to 30. They didn’t, we strongly disagree with that choice.
As from the “Fractured”, we will get fractal skins rather than fractal “no stats” weapons and the current “no stats” weapons will not be converted to skins.
Please make sure that the “no stats” weapons are transformed to skins one way or another. Here are a few ideas:
- Add a vendor to change 1 fractal weapon to the corresponding skin.
- Set up a Zomorros recipe: 1 fractal weapon gives the corresponding skin.
- Automatically change each fractal weapon into the corresponding skin.
- Allow the support team to withdraw our skins from the bank and send the corresponding skins by mail.
- Give us a unique special salvage tool that gives the corresponding skin from a fractal weapon.
- Allow, like when you removed MF, to put stats on the weapon.
I’m not asking refunds for already transmuted weapons: only that the current ones we have in bank become skins rather than weapons.
Well, I witnessed two precursors in fractals, so the chance definitely cannot be 0.00000000000000 ;-) I dropped Venom at level 3 On the volcano boss, and a party member (the only non guildie in that run) dropped Zap on a random mob at the fractal maw level 38 when for the first time in a long long time we decided to clear the level rather than skip all.
To the twilight sellers , please don’t force me to do the map completion, it takes forever and it’s dull . In a week it’s gonna be 3k or something ? Don’t be so greedy , it’s just a weapon ….
There’s more MF the higher the level is? oO The final chest is in direct relation to the level, yes. But you have more MF when you play a 48 instead of a 1?
50 was the official (soft) cap after they realized they messed up allowing people to go to 80.
Ok, now we have an official cap.
Why would Anet not start from there and add the content they foresaw for 30-50 into 50-70 instead? This way, the official cap is extended and people see that as a good change. The ones complaining would be the ones over 50. But those people know the soft cap at 50, so they would understand.
No instead Arena Net keeps the current official cap and lowers everybody 30+ to 30 to add their new content. This doesn’t make sense. They didn’t extend the official cap: they kept it and griefed all the 30+ players.
Sata, you don’t read properly either this topic or the release notes:
- Fractal skins will have a chance to drop as a box at higher levels
- This topic is about ascended rings, not only fractal skins.
Well, a lot of answers were given to a lot of players, but given that the titles of the topic mostly don’t say anything, I’ll be clear and ask legitimate questions. Most have already an answer in the various topics, but not all.
Rewards and fractal-specific items
Do we lose the karma mechanism?
Before it was possible to get karma based on this formula 6400 + 8 * (min(10,<personal level> – <played level>)) * <played level>
This is one of the last places where you can get decent karma. This was not wondrous, but non-neglectible as well.
Does the fractal weapon skin drop chance change?
It was stated (rather surprisingly) that fractal weapons already dropped from level 10. Do you change the chance? Because if they drop in level 10 as often as they do now, I’m fine with it. Also, for higher levels, do you change the drop chance? (Please no) I read that a box will have a chance to drop so we can choose the skin at higher levels. Has this a correct chance to drop? I mean something between 1:2 and 1:4 regarding skin drops.
Besides infusing, can we spend our stacks of Shards of Crystalized Mist Essence?
Shards are only used to infuse rings. Not even the backpack. One answer was that the new rune and the new sigil were craftable using the vial, globs and/or shard. But hey, I stacked on them for months and I’d like to craft something that will be useful to me as a fractal player, not some random toughness-based boost.
Will we be able to spend our pristine fractal relics on something else?
This is also a no-brainer: they stack, they stack and all our characters have ascended, infused rings. So there is actually nothing we can spend those on.
Will I still be able to buy +5 AR infusion from BUY-4373?
I’m quite sure these will be removed, but we never know.
What will I be able to buy with fractal relics?
Well, some people have piles of those (well, not anymore since they are in the wallet, but you get what I mean). I have all my pve chars filled with 20 slot boxes and ascended capacitors, I still need something like 40 AR total accross all my chars (that’s 3k relics, which is a fraction of what I have), that leaves me with nearly nothing to spend my fractal relics on. What can I buy with them?
Do we finally get some XP as well?
Well, we barely got half a bar of XP for a whole run of fractals in 40+. Does this change? Can I finally get skill points for playing fractals?
Why did you change the daily reward to account-bound per 10 levels?
People are crying everywhere about the alt-unfriendlyness direction of the game in both PvE and WvW. Why attack the fractals as well? To make them like other dungeons? Ok, but why do you do that with dungeons in the first place? I’d really love an answer to this. We love our alts, you apparently don’t.
Running fractals
What are the fractal tiers you thought of?
I would say that tier 1 is Swamp, Underwater and Snowblind. Tier 2 is Ascalon, Volcano, Uncategorized. Tier 3 is Thaumanova, Underground Facility and Cliffside. Boss is Jade Sea, Molten Facility and Aetherblade. What can you say about this?
Why are we limited to 50?
It seems that we can get more Agony Resistance, then why limit the fractal level again to 50. You already know that we will get back to that level in no time. Plus you add leaderboards, so I don’t see why you limit them now. You stated somewhere in the forums that you will open levels above 50 in the future, but why wait?
What do you want to achieve with the leaderboards?
Well, this question has not found any answer anywhere. So I’m really wondering.
Did you reduce the length of Underground Facility?
This fractal is unnecessary long (not hard, but long). Did you finally revamped it to shorten the time?
Future of the fractals
When can we expect more levels?
You know we will get to 50 in no time. So when can we expect to go higher? This way, well… we can meet some challenge. I welcome the idea you implemented to go from 30 to 50, though I dislike the idea that the difficulty and AR requirements will be lowered. But as of today, this doesn’t feel enough to keep the usual fractal runners interested. The community takes this as a serious nerf.
Can we expect a whole lot of new fractals?
Currently you baited us with 3 new fractals, but 2 of them are actually bosses. I’m a bit disappointed, to be honest, as I would have loved to play the 3 new fractals in a row (randomly, yes, but still ;-) ) plus we go from 9 to 12, so there are still a lot of times where we will meet the old fractals. Granted, the fact that we have boss fractals make the chances higher that we will get a new fractal amongst our run, but that’s quite meh. I’d seriously have preferred something like 7-10 new fractals.
I know all those questions won’t find an answer, but thanks for any answer we can get!
1. You leveled up knowing the rewards at >50 were the same as >40.
2. You leveled up despite knowing that the Devs wanted to keep you <50.
And yet, despite all of this, you believe yourself entitled to a reward? Here, let me put this this way:
1. Why would the Devs give you additional rewards for leveling beyond 50 when there was no such reward in the first place?
2. Why would the Devs give you additional rewards for leveling beyond 50 when they didn’t intend for you to do so in the first place?
For the 100th time I leveled up to 81 when 50 wasn’t a hardcap. Using rez orb there is no Statement that 80 was the cap there or that we shoulnd’t go there by any dev I believe about 3 MONTHS later they said that they didn’t intend ppl to get that high.. I wasn’t asking for rewards I am asking why they resett the level’s I don’t see any sence in it. So please read and learn to understand before posting things that has nothing to do with my question ty
I understand what you’re trying to say. But you need to try to understand what I’m saying:
You weren’t supposed to that high, therefore you have to rightful claim to those levels. In other words, you cannot earn something that the Devs did not and do not want you to have.
I’m sorry you wasted all that time and energy using Revive Orbs to level up Fractals, but you had to have known that this was a distinct possibility. No one—NO ONE—thought that the Devs actually intended to funnel people into purchasing Revive Orbs simply to level Fractals. No one was so naive that that was the intentional design. Everyone using Orbs realized them for the loophole they were while doing them. So no, you didn’t “earn” those levels—you got them through a loophole that the Devs later closed.
But anyway, why does it even matter? The levels appear to be changing fundamentally. In other words, the previous 50 =/= the new 50.
You need to understand that fractals were sold to us last year with the following: “unlimited increasing challenge”. So, yes people kept going higher and higher until they reached 80. There was no soft-cap at that time: only a hard-cap at 80! They said “unlimited”, so YES people were going to go higher and higher and they were supposed to, as advertised. Now Arena Net didn’t advertise exactly as implemented, but that’s something entirely different.
TL;DR: Yes, people were supposed to go that high, Arena Net didn’t foresee it.
What does this actually mean? Because the new rune and the new sigil both seem subpar for regular fractal runners (toughness is meh for us). This means that I get to stack them up as I’m currently doing?
All we wanted was the following:
- better rewards: No. We even get worse rewards as we could play 28, 38 and 48 in a day to hope for skins, ascended or whatever, now we have only 1 shot a day and that’s it.
- account-bound level: Yes, finally, thanks a lot!
- new fractals and/or significant changes to dredges: yes for the first, thanks a lot! No idea for the latter.
- Less RNG in skins: No, you only reduced the level to get them. Couldn’t you implement a token system? You already have thousands of tokens in this game, why not one more?
- keep the existing everything else: Definitely no.
Looks like you didn’t listen to us. What’s the purpose of these forums. All the fractals hardcore people are on the forum. You only have to read the dungeon subforum, yet it really really looks like you didn’t read it at all. I’m not saying you didn’t: just that it doesn’t look like you did.
Sorry but I’m completely disappointed. The good points don’t outdo the bad ones. I really wished I’d be happy with the changes, but I really can’t, sorry
Fourhim, you don’t rely on yourself only to set everything on fire. Usually, you’re 5 in a party and permanent fire is easily achieved in nearly any group composition with a guard. So you’d better keep the 10 in zeal. The bonus is actually huge.
Also, the builds that Obal gave allow to to reach 100% crit chance rather easily (as always: in a proper party), so I’d prefer to stay zerker instead of going assassin’s to not get too much precision.
I suppose you should play a little bit with build editors to see the stats. Make sure you type down that you have 100% fury uptime, because in an optimized party, that’s what you get. Also select your weapons/stacks according to your party because your party might provide you with a lot of what you want already. In doubt, always ask what your party does and make your build up accordingly. With experience, this will come rather easily.
in your video you explain the typical dps rotation, but you never use sword #3, why is that? rotation timing or is the damage less than autoattack?
This attack deals less damage than auto-attack. Also, it is a projectile attack, meaning that it can be reflected by the rare mobs able to do so. As Brazil said in his own guide, this is kind of a mini wall of reflects except it doesn’t reflect. So this attack is more situational when you’re out of blinds, aegis and rolls, which occurs… close to never.
But how the hell did you solo the whisps part? Unless I’m completely mixing how the parties work, you should have been kicked out of the FotM when your team members left, no?