Don’t worry about Agony, it’s only difficult to deal with on Cliffside and Jade Maw. You can survive up to 20 with no agony resistance (although barely in Jade Maw’s case, since its unavoidable). I really don’t think pugs are going to get past 21 any time soon, because the difficulty really ramps up there.
Can we get an idea as to what “higher level” means please! I’d REALLY appreciate it so I know what lvls to start farming. Thanks!
(Personally I like dungeon drops like this, I think it’s needed to keep the longevity of the game going strong.)
Probably 30+.
When you’re fighting more mobs at once & mobs that do more damage, the tactics certainly change. Forcing you to deal with a lot of mobs skillfully is a good thing in this game, as it offers a lot of potential for both group coordination and individual player skill.
A lot of stuff changes as you get higher difficulty, and it really isn’t just damage. Even some of the mini events get harder: In volcano, the grawl that push the villagers off the ledge spawn faster / move faster as difficulty goes up. The dolphin swimming event in the underwater fractal gets a lot more hectic. The Cliffside seal breaking events get really intense with more mobs at once.
The difficulty scaling covers a lot of bases, and I think they’ve done a pretty good job preventing any single strategy from being the only strategy. To me, that means the difficulty scaling is working really well, since your approach will vary based on your group.
Well, at 20+, it’s obvious that certain professions are much more useful than others
The best are probably Guardians and Warriors. Guardians in particular seem like they’re going to be necessary 30+, because there is a lot of projectile damage, and the easiest way to deal with it is to block it. Guardians can solo block projectiles for 1:20~ or so, traited appropriately. Warrior banner regen is really good, and the banners themselves are also pretty good. Warrior damage overall is high.
Thieves/Necros/Engineers are probably the next tier. They all bring good damage and control. Thieves have AoE weakness and a projectile block, good condition or direct damage (depending how you spec), good sustainable AoE, AoE blind spam if absolutely necessary. Necros have a few decent support specs (wells), and condition+epidemic builds work really well. Fear ignores unshakable and is very useful for interrupting key boss abilities (dredge final boss healing). Engineers do great damage with grenades, and have some good ressing abilities (elixir s and toss elixir r). They also have good underwater combat damage, which does matter in one fractal.
Mesmers/Elementalist are probably third tier. Mesmers are pretty good utility, but they do not have good sustained AoE which is basically required when you’re constantly fighting 10-20 mobs on some of the harder fights at high difficulty. Elementalist support is not as good as it used to be, and you’re better off bringing more Guardians instead. Elementalist damage is alright, but conditions are ultimately going to be better, since the mobs are increasing in level as difficulty scales up, which hurts direct damage builds quite a bit. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think Elementalists have any good AoE condition builds.
Rangers don’t really have a place in high level fractals. Pets can’t dodge and are just going to die to agony constantly, because I’m sure they have zero resistance to it. They also don’t bring anything unique or good that will help in a PvE situation. Sorry Rangers.
(edited by Pinch.4273)
To progress in Fractals, you need to finish a chain in one sitting.
If your fractals difficulty is an odd number, that means 3 in a row.
If it’s even, it means 3 + Jade Maw.
In PvE groups there is less teamwork required than in WoW.
That is not true. Some Fractals 20+ dungeons are harder than any WoW 5 man, and a couple are harder on a personal skill level than most heroic raid bosses.
The drop rates are better when you’re not playing at the first tier (1-10)
swell so I am forced to grind to get better drop rates.? This patch just gets better and better.
Yeah, you play the higher difficulty, you get higher drop rates. I agree that it’s a bit excessive having to do as many runs as you need to do to move between tiers, but it is what it is. You’ll probably make tons of money on the way up there. I made 30g going 1-20.
It scales up as difficulty gets higher, as you noted
11 = 7 tokens
16 = 8 tokens
21 = 9 tokens
26 will presumably be 10, I’m not there yet
Jade Maw gives 5 per difficulty tier too. I think my Jade Maw kills give 30 right now. And there’s another 40 for the daily.
I have 700 of them and it has only been out for two days. The dungeons certainly get more fun as you get higher difficulty, so don’t lose hope yet.
The drop rates are better when you’re not playing at the first tier (1-10)
That was a different issue. I can guarantee that they don’t want you getting a ring every day.
It’s not a bug. The daily dungeon reward has a chance at giving you a ring. At difficulty 20+, you can get a ring with an infusion slot. There are probably even more reliable ways to get them at higher difficulties, but I don’t know because I’m only just past 20.
It increases at 10
The only real solution I see necessary for trash skipping and speed running is to make the trash actually worth killing, by offering good chances at rare dungeon specific loot.
Waiting 15 minutes with no one in the dungeon should clear it.
Not to be a dick, but I’ll believe the bot problem is being addressed when the value of dropped crafting mats starts going back up. 400-skill dropped mats shouldn’t be selling for 17c.
Claws/Bones aren’t ever going to be worth anything until recipes use them. Right now, the gear they craft isn’t in high demand, and that’s all they’re really used for. They also drop a lot in Orr, the place to farm, so they’re over-saturated.
Why bother activating the Signet? the passive power boost has better dps that the active one….
Sane as PW, why use it and waste initiative when auto-attack does more dmg for free.
I really like were this is going!
That is not possible.
Base power at level 80 is 916
Power with the signet is 1006
The damage formula is multiplicative, so the passive effect is worth (1006 / 916) 9.83% damage. Activating it at that little power is still a 5.17% damage increase on those attacks.
The 10 points in Deadly Arts for the bonus power is not worth it. If you’re wearing berserker’s gear, you’ll have around 2200 power with 15 points, 2300 with 25 points. That is a 4.5% damage increase from gear alone. 25 points in Acrobatics will give you 1000 HP, which is nice because Thieves have very low HP, on top of the 10% damage while endurance isn’t full, which is easy to keep low. You can get the 2ini/10sec trait as well, which is more potential damage/utility.
As 15/30/0/25 is a direct damage spec, you’re best off using DD/Shortbow.
GW1 was mostly based on difficult trash (like DoA), so it’s not really surprising that they’ve been designed somewhat similar in GW2. But just think about this – maybe trash isn’t too hard, but bosses are just too easy. Certain paths are much easier than others, and I would like a better difficulty curve in general (AC should be the easiest, and Arah the hardest). As Mr. Johanson noted, I think the biggest thing the dungeons need right now is for the boss fights to be more engaging, and actually have the ability to completely wipe your group. I think a lot of the complaining that “bosses take forever” are due to the bosses killing a few people but then the rest of the party is running in circles while the boss can’t really kill them, then the party can res and run back in time. The only boss I personally think takes a long time is the Gorilla boss in the Jotun path of Arah. Everything else seems to take appropriate amounts of time based on it’s location (Arah bosses generally take longer as it’s the big instance of GW2, equivalent to DoA in some regards).
As for the dungeons in general, they really aren’t that difficult if everyone is playing with group oriented specs. I’ve completed every dungeon and every path with 5 players in full damage gear with minimal wipes. You just need good specs/utility skills.
Also, getting downed isn’t really a big deal in this game. You certainly don’t want to get downed, as it adds a lot of lost dps time and pressure to your group to get you back up, but it’s not the end of the world. Because of this, I don’t think “random oneshots” (which don’t exist) are something you should be getting worried about.
Somewhat related, I don’t think the dungeon grind would be as bad if the rewards were a little better. In GW1 we had chances to get green boss drops, but there doesn’t appear to be any specific drops anywhere in the dungeons. We consistently got crafting mats/yellow items from the chests. In GW2, the end loot isn’t really consistent other than the money reward and tokens, but I think item rewards are better for the economy.
(edited by Pinch.4273)