About the new fractal

[Rennie.6750]

> @Linken.6345 said:

> Aint it fractal 87?

 

It's possible, I logged out immediately after. That being said, fundamentally, this doesn't change the fact that it's in the 80s range, with molten, cliffside, solid ocean and others, ie not fractals you normally go to for your daily adrenaline junkie fix. There are challenge modes and raids for that.

[zealex.9410]

Up to the last boss the fractal is a joke and in the alst boss just stacking on it putting some stab and dpsing will skip almost every mechanic this fight has.

 

Every mechanic matters so the "visual clutter preventing you from seeing them" is a bad way to aproach it.

 

I have already ut down the clear time quite abit now that i know where to go and what to do on the boss.

[Demented Yak.6105]

I've completed the T4 fractal 3 times now. I failed a lot before my first completion but it can be reasonably quick now that my various random teams and I have learnt the mechanics inside out. It took me about four hours to really get the hang of it. Ultimately, I found it harder than nightmare but easier than the observatory. If your team knows what they're doing, you can breeze through certain phases of the final boss but Dwayna and Balthazar phases destroy people who don't know every tiny little mechanic. No other fractals punish ignorance this much save for 100.

 

With regards to the original post, I strongly disagree with anyone claiming it has too much health. I actually think this element of the fight is perfect. I do, however, agree that there is too much random cc and visual noise.

 

Grenth and Melandru are easy when you know what you're doing. All you really have to do is stack and you can ignore most of their attacks.

Lyssa is annoying but my teams haven't had any problems with it. It does make me want to kill myself when I'm constantly targeted with the moa thing though.

Dwayna is probably the hardest for me as a tempest. With all the cc and tornados, it's difficult to get off an overload and keep track of my team mates when the mechanics force each of us to run around like lunatics to escape tornadoes and the daze attack. I'm mostly fine with it though.

Balthazar isn't as hard as Dwayna for me, but the visual noise and number of different attacks is way over the top. Keep the constant onslaught of aoes the same if you must, Anet, but I can barely see what's happening with all these meteors and fire tornadoes and shockwaves coming at you from every direction.

The priests are fine.

 

As for the rest of the fractal:

First boss needs a huge upgrade. It was so easy I barely even registered that it was a boss. I'm actually not really sure it was a boss.

I'd like random enemies to be toned down. These fights are not interesting, rewarding or necessary.

 

For those who might say: "It's easy. Stop complaining", don't be ridiculous. It is obviously more difficult than everything except nightmare and observatory..

[zealex.9410]

> @"Demented Yak.6105" said:

> I've completed the T4 fractal 3 times now. I failed a lot before my first completion but it can be reasonably quick now that my various random teams and I have learnt the mechanics inside out. It took me about four hours to really get the hang of it. Ultimately, I found it harder than nightmare but easier than the observatory. If your team knows what they're doing, you can breeze through certain phases of the final boss but Dwayna and Balthazar phases destroy people who don't know every tiny little mechanic. No other fractals punish ignorance this much save for 100.

>

> With regards to the original post, I strongly disagree with anyone claiming it has too much health. I actually think this element of the fight is perfect. I do, however, agree that there is too much random cc and visual noise.

>

> Grenth and Melandru are easy when you know what you're doing. All you really have to do is stack and you can ignore most of their attacks.

> Lyssa is annoying but my teams haven't had any problems with it. It does make me want to kill myself when I'm constantly targeted with the moa thing though.

> Dwayna is probably the hardest for me as a tempest. With all the cc and tornados, it's difficult to get off an overload and keep track of my team mates when the mechanics force each of us to run around like lunatics to escape tornadoes and the daze attack. I'm mostly fine with it though.

> Balthazar isn't as hard as Dwayna for me, but the visual noise and number of different attacks is way over the top. Keep the constant onslaught of aoes the same if you must, Anet, but I can barely see what's happening with all these meteors and fire tornadoes and shockwaves coming at you from every direction.

> The priests are fine.

>

> As for the rest of the fractal:

> First boss needs a huge upgrade. It was so easy I barely even registered that it was a boss. I'm actually not really sure it was a boss.

> I'd like random enemies to be toned down. These fights are not interesting, rewarding or necessary.

>

> For those who might say: "It's easy. Stop complaining", don't be ridiculous. It is obviously more difficult than everything except nightmare and observatory..

 

Yells Angry Joe style: "FOUR HOURS??!?!?!?!?1111?

[Demented Yak.6105]

And it was worth every minute.

[Zenith.7301]

> @Rennie.6750 said:

> So after spending over 1h30 in that new piece of content, here are my initial thoughts:

>

> - It's significantly more difficult than 100. It doesn't belong to number 82. There are way too many mechanics happening in a short succession. This is clearly raid tier.

> - It's not super creative. Another small aoes + stuns spam fest. A lot are bugged and bigger than displayed.

> - The visual clutter from the final boss is insane. It makes seeing things that matter artificially more difficult. There's one particular cast that is hard to see because of that, and it's some sort of one shot (of course).

> - The boss is yet another damage sponge. Compared to other fractals of a similar levels, health is too high.

> - I don't see it getting any shorter with practice. It's going to be long and rather tedious, just like 100 (which I'm now avoiding because of this reason).

>

> Overall, I didn't have fun at all, the visual clutter combined with the mental health pool of the boss were very frustrating and I don't want to play the game more today.

 

Um, it's way easier than 100 cm. The fractal consists of clearing trash mobs with a single boss.

 

Of the attacks the final boss has, only 2 are deadly. The thunderstorm circles you should be moving for, moving out away from her when the outward arrows telegraph her deadly spin, and batlhazar phase's jump dive.

 

Your comment on stunfest is straight up silly, since you get a special skill that breaks stuns on a 4 sec cd.

 

L2P.

[Linken.6345]

A tip the special action key is your friend when avoiding crap on floor.

[Turin.6921]

This fractal is actually easier than Chaos was when it was first out. The moment you realize what you have to do in the boss it dies first try. Just use the special action skill (stunbreaker btw) and kill the priests fast and thats it.

 

This is probably the easier of the new fractals and insanely more relaxed. Its outstanding to me that you think its more difficult than the Observatory.

[Zunki.3916]

I so much loved the kill on this boss, even though we had some wipes.

 

You can pretty much cheese the whole fight with a dedicated overhealer like auramancer, there is no phase that requires a lot of dmg.

We did it with 2 ppl consistently fucking up to avoid the obvious high hits. If everyone knows what he has to avoid and whats fine this fight is pretty doable.

 

Again, I LOVE the tension in that fight, so thrilling and really like an epic fight should feel. And that soundtrack!!! This is the coolest thing to me, thank you for this cool fight. There is no boring dpsing, it's just permanent thrill and stress for a reasonable amount of time.

[Offair.2563]

To me the thing that makes this fight hard but doable is; VISUAL NOOOOISE.

 

There i said it.

[Omnicron.2467]

> @Rennie.6750 said:

> So after spending over 1h30 in that new piece of content, here are my initial thoughts:

>

> - It's significantly more difficult than 100. It doesn't belong to number 82. There are way too many mechanics happening in a short succession. This is clearly raid tier.

 

 

I ran this last night for the first time at T4 with a pug group, I think we were Tempest Healer, Firebrand, Scourge, Soulbeast, & Weaver. Only one wipe which was on the 3rd champion after you get your jumping special action key. No one even died otherwise, not even at the last boss. It was a very easy fractal with a much easier learning curve than 100. What mechanics are you referring to apart from dodging AOE??? I mean with 100 you have balls to juggle, CC phases, adds, bombs exploding, Arkk's towers, more CC phases, fears, dissapearing floors, etc. Did not find nearly as many mechanics in this one. I mean it is not nearly raid difficulty. Heck I have had more problems with escort sometimes.

 

 

[Rennie.6750]

> @Zenith.7301 said:

>100 **cm**.

 

Share those shrooms buddy, I too want to see words that aren't there to post edgy comments on the internet!

 

> @Turin.6921 said:

> This fractal is actually easier than Chaos was when it was first out. The moment you realize what you have to do in the boss it dies first try. Just use the special action skill (stunbreaker btw) and kill the priests fast and thats it.

>

> This is probably the easier of the new fractals and insanely more relaxed. Its outstanding to me that you think its more difficult than the Observatory.

 

It's absolutely not "relaxed". The pacing (ie how fast you have to react and how often you have to do so) is clearly unprecedented. When I said it was more difficult I did mention the crazy pacing several times. The thing is, spamming aoes more often with a shorter notice isn't the only way to create a challenge in a game. I'm pretty sure that ANet devs are very smart people, probably smarter than me, and that the job description contained a bit more than "know how to place AoEs on the ground and give your players a shorter notice with every content release". There are so many more possibilities that it would take too long to enumerate them.

 

My issue with this fractal is that it's just cheaply chaotic for the sake of being chaotic. The funny and sad thing is that it replaced Volcanic, a fractal with actual flavour that wasn't just about a boss chaotically spamming aoes and shorter than ever notice but required some good cleanse resources management, keeping burst for adds and dealing with high incoming damage, which is something you rarely see in GW2.

[Zunki.3916]

Th> @Rennie.6750 said:

> > @Zenith.7301 said:

> >100 **cm**.

>

> Share those shrooms buddy, I too want to see words that aren't there to post edgy comments on the internet!

>

> > @Turin.6921 said:

> > This fractal is actually easier than Chaos was when it was first out. The moment you realize what you have to do in the boss it dies first try. Just use the special action skill (stunbreaker btw) and kill the priests fast and thats it.

> >

> > This is probably the easier of the new fractals and insanely more relaxed. Its outstanding to me that you think its more difficult than the Observatory.

>

> It's absolutely not "relaxed". The pacing (ie how fast you have to react and how often you have to do so) is clearly unprecedented. When I said it was more difficult I did mention the crazy pacing several times. The thing is, spamming aoes more often with a shorter notice isn't the only way to create a challenge in a game. I'm pretty sure that ANet devs are very smart people, probably smarter than me, and that the job description contained a bit more than "know how to place AoEs on the ground and give your players a shorter notice with every content release". There are so many more possibilities that it would take too long to enumerate them.

>

> My issue with this fractal is that it's just cheaply chaotic for the sake of being chaotic. The funny and sad thing is that it replaced Volcanic, a fractal with actual flavour that wasn't just about a boss chaotically spamming aoes and shorter than ever notice but required some good cleanse resources management, keeping burst for adds and dealing with high incoming damage, which is something you rarely see in GW2.

 

I don't really agree. Once you get used to it, the important skills of each phase feel to come with a very clear and predictable cadence. On top of that, some heavy skills are always chained to medium heavy skills and therefore you know like 5 sec before the big hits, that they will come. Once I was used to this, this was before my first and only kill, I found myself see the skill coming, actively waiting ~3 sec to finally press that special key. Despite the last phase, all phases are properly predictable and very fluid. It's such a cool dance I've not encountered often before. And even the last phase feels more and more fluid, once you encounter it more often. Usually the same guy dies again and again, due to not understanding the fight. Once you do, it's not hard.

 

There is a lot visual clutter, but most skills only deal like 1-2k dmg, so you can just ignore them if you want to.

[Asgard Ragna.8165]

> @Rennie.6750 said:

 

> My issue with this fractal is that it's just cheaply chaotic for the sake of being chaotic. The funny and sad thing is that it replaced Volcanic, a fractal with actual flavour that wasn't just about a boss chaotically spamming aoes and shorter than ever notice but required some good cleanse resources management, keeping burst for adds and dealing with high incoming damage, which is something you rarely see in GW2.

 

Dude. It's not chaotic at all once you figured out how it works. You learn which mechanics are dangerous and dodge them, you even get an extra skill for it with just 5 second cooldown. Other than that it's just burst like on every other boss. Stop spreading so much nonsense after trying it one time at release day. Also funny that you mention Volcanic, a fractal, that back in the day, before HoT was out, was almost impossible to do with pugs because the shield phase was chaotic as fuck.

[jojorne.2175]

> @Rennie.6750 said:

> - The visual clutter from the final boss is insane. It makes seeing things that matter artificially more difficult. There's one particular cast that is hard to see because of that, and it's some sort of one shot (of course).

 

this is the major problem for me, the yellow of the new player elite skills + the reddish tone of the damage is very difficult to see, they kinda blend into each other.

 

also the area is kinda big, since it's a village, the first objective was a bit hidden to see at first.

 

[Turin.6921]

> @Rennie.6750 said:

> > @Zenith.7301 said:

> >100 **cm**.

>

> Share those shrooms buddy, I too want to see words that aren't there to post edgy comments on the internet!

>

> > @Turin.6921 said:

> > This fractal is actually easier than Chaos was when it was first out. The moment you realize what you have to do in the boss it dies first try. Just use the special action skill (stunbreaker btw) and kill the priests fast and thats it.

> >

> > This is probably the easier of the new fractals and insanely more relaxed. Its outstanding to me that you think its more difficult than the Observatory.

>

> It's absolutely not "relaxed". The pacing (ie how fast you have to react and how often you have to do so) is clearly unprecedented. When I said it was more difficult I did mention the crazy pacing several times. The thing is, spamming aoes more often with a shorter notice isn't the only way to create a challenge in a game. I'm pretty sure that ANet devs are very smart people, probably smarter than me, and that the job description contained a bit more than "know how to place AoEs on the ground and give your players a shorter notice with every content release". There are so many more possibilities that it would take too long to enumerate them.

>

How the hell did you find this more stressful? There is only one boss. The rest of the fractal is killing adds, searching for executions and killing very easy elites and champions. The telegraphs are actually quite clear and the visual clutter does not even compare to Arkk. Even Balthazar in the Story had more visual noise. And more importantly its not buggy or has any rng mechanics that the other fractals do have.

If you found this fractal more stressful than Nightmare or the Observatory then the problem is clearly between the chair and the keyboard. This is literally what you are asking for from the devs. An easy, more relaxed fractals without the MAMA, the bullet hells and Arkk craziness. And you still complain. I would be in full agreement with your points if you were referring to CM Arkk. I actually do not enjoy CM arkk for these exact reasons. But For Twilight Oasis I find it completely unreasonable.

 

What are you expecting? To finish a new T4 fractal, in one go, the first time without a single wipe and still get hard content rewards. Give it a least a few tries and a bit of time for the pugs to get the mechanics and trust me it will become a breeze. Its just about knowing the boss.

 

In the end of the day Just go and play T3 if that is that much of an issue. That should be right up your alley from your description. That is the reason tiers exist in the first place.

[zealex.9410]

Friendly tip. I have like 3k hours in the game, never have i seen in my play time an encounter get so trivialised by just brnging a guard with hllowed ground. It litterally makes all these ground aoe meaningless and makes melandru phase just a golem.

 

Ok distort share is basically the same in raids but you get my point.

 

My only issue is why didnt shit ship with the expac? I mean it was a perfemct match to sell with the expac and we could have anothe one a months or so from now.

Oh and the lack of a cm.

[UnbentMars.9126]

> @zealex.9410 said:

> Friendly tip. I have like 3k hours in the game, never have i seen in my play time an encounter get so trivialised by just brnging a guard with hllowed ground. It litterally makes all these ground aoe meaningless and makes melandru phase just a golem.

>

> Ok distort share is basically the same in raids but you get my point.

>

> My only issue is why didnt kitten ship with the expac? I mean it was a perfemct match to sell with the expac and we could have anothe one a months or so from now.

> Oh and the lack of a cm.

 

It probably wasn't ready. As much as I would have liked it to come out with the expac, I think it better for content to come out when its complete

[CptAurellian.9537]

Did the new fractal yesterday before our raid and it's great. Fresh in many ways, fun, a nice little story with Joko, really great work by the devs. There's just one little thing, some visuals should probably be adjusted. At some points, the mid of the screen (so exactly the location of my character) shone as if someone had directed a flak search light at that point. Not so great when you want to evade AoEs etc.

[Rennie.6750]

> @Turin.6921 said:

> What are you expecting? To finish a new T4 fractal, in one go, the first time without a single wipe and still get hard content rewards. Give it a least a few tries and a bit of time for the pugs to get the mechanics and trust me it will become a breeze. Its just about knowing the boss.

 

For a fractal in the 80s range? Absolutely. It's in the solid ocean range lol. I don't expect all fractals to be identical, however I do expect consistency in the pacing of non raid-like fractals bosses, if that's what it's supposed to be. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, it just doesn't belong to the regular pool as the pacing does make it yet another raid fractal. It shouldn't be 87. It should be 101. I do not care if it's difficult or not, it just needs to be rewarded appropriately or nerfed to match other 80s fractals.

 

At this point i'm 100% convinced that nobody understands that this is a rewards/ranking issue because it's the internet and nobody reads anything beyond the first sentence. Anyone parroting "but just play lower tiers" has serious reading comprehension issues. If it stays at that difficulty/pacing level it needs to be ranked higher with other fractals with chaotic boss fights. Or nerfed to be slower. Either way, I don't mind.

 

[Azoqu.8917]

You do know we're approaching the point where we have 25 different fractals. Once we get there, the numbers are just a "this is a relative order of difficulty." The true scaling is T1 -> T2 -> T3 -> T4. Comparing Twilight Oasis to Shattered Observatory or Nightmare or even Jade serves no purpose. The only question that should be asked difficulty wise is "Is the T4 version harder than the T3 version?" because if the answer is yes then it is fine.

 

Protip: T4s are supposed to be hard, if you want the rewards do the work, otherwise there are three other tiers for you.

[Rennie.6750]

> @Azoqu.8917 said:

> You do know we're approaching the point where we have 25 different fractals. Once we get there, the numbers are just a "this is a relative order of difficulty." The true scaling is T1 -> T2 -> T3 -> T4. Comparing Twilight Oasis to Shattered Observatory or Nightmare or even Jade serves no purpose. The only question that should be asked difficulty wise is "Is the T4 version harder than the T3 version?" because if the answer is yes then it is fine.

>

> Protip: T4s are supposed to be hard, if you want the rewards do the work, otherwise there are three other tiers for you.

 

Exactly what I said. I should start doing some fortune telling, really. :)

 

The rewards are higher for higher numbered fractals. If you didn't know it, now you do, that's why it matters.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The new fractal was fun. Though the first time I did it was with a pretty bad team. Staff camping scourge who never used desert shroud and a druid who never heals. I get the feeling it would be a lot easier if I wasn't half the group's damage. But at least I got a lot of practice in on learning the telegraphs.

[zealex.9410]

> @Rennie.6750 said:

> > @Turin.6921 said:

> > What are you expecting? To finish a new T4 fractal, in one go, the first time without a single wipe and still get hard content rewards. Give it a least a few tries and a bit of time for the pugs to get the mechanics and trust me it will become a breeze. Its just about knowing the boss.

>

> For a fractal in the 80s range? Absolutely. It's in the solid ocean range lol. I don't expect all fractals to be identical, however I do expect consistency in the pacing of non raid-like fractals bosses, if that's what it's supposed to be. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, it just doesn't belong to the regular pool as the pacing does make it yet another raid fractal. It shouldn't be 87. It should be 101. I do not care if it's difficult or not, it just needs to be rewarded appropriately or nerfed to match other 80s fractals.

>

> At this point i'm 100% convinced that nobody understands that this is a rewards/ranking issue because it's the internet and nobody reads anything beyond the first sentence. Anyone parroting "but just play lower tiers" has serious reading comprehension issues. If it stays at that difficulty/pacing level it needs to be ranked higher with other fractals with chaotic boss fights. Or nerfed to be slower. Either way, I don't mind.

>

 

Implying solid ocean wont change and become harder. Lol poor, naive children.

[Hydroclasm.8572]

I finished the fractal on T4 today. No huge complaints about the first 90% of it. We wiped maybe half a dozen times on the last boss, one of which was due to her bugging out at 5/6% and re-entering the breakbar phase over and over. The fight was interesting, and I'm sure it'll get a little easier with more experience, but I don't think I like the majority of the difficulty on the fight coming from AoEs covering half the room all the time.