Why is cliffside Harder than higher level fracs, and what is wrong with today's daily fractals?

I mean Cliffside AND Swampland on the same day? I'd rather do Urban with invincible boiling oil spawns.

I swear, Im at 1800 toughness and I get hit for like 4k dmg from each of the cultists, they always crit, and theres like 4 or 5 of them at a time. I eventually run out of dodges, blocks and aegis.

Is it just me being a noob, or is this borken

Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

I find a lot of groups have an unnecessary amount of trouble with cliffside, and I really don't know why. Yea, the mobs are especially annoying imo, but nothing you can't deal with. I think a lot of players don't really understand how to do the fractal efficiently.

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

As a mesmer, what choices do I have?

besides the mentioned toughenss (which makes the mobs target u first), seem u doing all the mitigation on your part, but your group should help too. like thief and eles can drop blinds guardian and druid reflects. T4 required group effort tho. dont be ashamed to ask for them to deploy their stuff.

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

Much of the cultist damage is projectiles, use a traited focus to mitigate that. With an appropriate group, the cultists will die very quickly. Combo the focus pull with shield 5 to keep the cultists chain cced until they die. Try and learn the the animation from their attacks and use blurred frenzy to avoid the damage. If you start getting low on cooldowns, use shield 4 for 3 seconds of safety.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

By the time I deploy focus, im already missing 50% hp. I guess I can't expect much from pugs.

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

You might consider running more damage gear so you can kill them faster. Toughness suffers from a lack of gains when compared to simply increasing damage to kill everything before it can continue to hit you (hence the 'zerker' meta).

Take it from me, it's by far better to kill everything more quickly than it is to try and out-tank them (i play as a full zerker squishy elementalist at t4s and do just fine). As a mesmer, your active avoids and CC capabilities will cover the difference if you are triggering them correctly.

Something else to think about; you should try to never let your enemies get the first hit, especially as a mesmer. You've got a lot of ranged and AoE cc you can fire off before they can hit you, or you can lead with Shield4 and block all their attacks for a long period of time, followed up by shield5 to hit everything.

You can't reasonably rely on a PuG to provide all your defense, not because 'they aren't good' but because it's a PuG and you are doing fractals rather than raids. Expecting too much isn't going to help you.

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

Then this is a problem with how you're playing. You should be approaching a pack with a maximum range focus 4 followed by a Warden cast to pull and immobilize the mobs. Follow that with a swap to sw/sh and iLeap to continue the immob and then shield 5 for the stuns. This is where you should be dropping wells and SoI for group buffing, btw. Finish with blurred frenzy and maybe a shatter to trigger chronophantasma for another Warden spin. If the mobs still aren't dead, rotate into shield 4 for defense. If the mobs still aren't dead, then it's your group.

If you're ending at 50% hp before you've pulled the mobs together, you're doing something wrong.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

Ok, ill try to work on that, thank you!

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

The dueling line looks very good for blinds if your group isn't -> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dueling

@TexZero.7910 said:

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

Strictly speaking dueling has good blind access, but it's antithetical with how chrono needs to play to be an effective support. Mesmer has other survivability and lockdown tricks that don't require blinds to execute, leave blinds to the others.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@Kayvaan.9863 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Have you tried actually dropping some of that extra toughness for proper utilities like blinds ?This will turn it from taking 3-4k a strike to 0 and prevent them from being enraged longer than necessary due to having more effective combat stats.

I'm sure they don't but the OP wanted to know how to deal with a situation where in the group is bad. Sometimes you have to be the better man in that situation and forego the traditional chrono tank build and go straight back to the old fractal meta builds to hard carry.

@TexZero.7910 said:I'm sure they don't but the OP wanted to know how to deal with a situation where in the group is bad. Sometimes you have to be the better man in that situation and forego the traditional chrono tank build and go straight back to the old fractal meta builds to hard carry.

Good advice.The best players adjust to the needs of the group, rather than expecting that every group can or will be able to learn & execute new techniques for dailies.

It's the same conundrum we saw in dungeons: the experienced players would run past trash, inexperienced would die along the way. A dysfunctional group would argue about the the "right way" to do the dungeon, whereas a successful group would figure out how to get all five people working together, even if it included going a bit slower (e.g by killing rather than skipping trash).

tl;dr there's no "best" way to do fractals that will work for everyone; sometimes you need to adjust your build/tactics to fit that of the group you're in.

Its better to use a healer class than to increase your toughness lol...Especially in cliff, swamp and chaos.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

Much of the cultist damage is projectiles, use a traited focus to mitigate that. With an appropriate group, the cultists will die very quickly. Combo the focus pull with shield 5 to keep the cultists chain cced until they die. Try and learn the the animation from their attacks and use blurred frenzy to avoid the damage. If you start getting low on cooldowns, use shield 4 for 3 seconds of safety.

This might work, but sounds overly complicated. These guys go down quickly with proper dps, I don't even have tim to see any of their animations. We just charge and jump on them. The mobs in Molten Furnace after the tunnel for example are much tougher and hit just as hard, there it makes sense to be more cautious.

The most annoying thing on cliffside, the boss as melee with 4 pugs range DDs where everyone stands in another direction.Else. that fractal is pretty simple.

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

Much of the cultist damage is projectiles, use a traited focus to mitigate that. With an appropriate group, the cultists will die very quickly. Combo the focus pull with shield 5 to keep the cultists chain cced until they die. Try and learn the the animation from their attacks and use blurred frenzy to avoid the damage. If you start getting low on cooldowns, use shield 4 for 3 seconds of safety.

It's not overly complicated. That sort of basic mob control rotation is one of things that good Mesmers do automatically in all encounters. You might not realize it, but without stuff like that, mobs scatter and take much longer to kill. It's the sort of thing that you don't notice until it's not being done reliably.

@Kayvaan.9863 said:I mean Cliffside AND Swampland on the same day? I'd rather do Urban with invincible boiling oil spawns.

I swear, Im at 1800 toughness and I get hit for like 4k dmg from each of the cultists, they always crit, and theres like 4 or 5 of them at a time. I eventually run out of dodges, blocks and aegis.

Is it just me being a noob, or is this borken

Maybe if u went less tank and more dmg u could kill them before they get to kill you.

Toughness is useless in PVE (with the rare exception of aggro management in raids). Just play full glass cannon

Mesmer really trivializes this island. You can throw burst CC's to stunlock entire mobs: Focus 4, Shield 5, Gravity Well (x2 if you use CS). On top of that you can throw Precognition well for blocks when you have 1-2 spawning an going for the heartseeker. Calamity Well also gimps most of the mobs with Weakness stacks (probably one of the few times I found that skill to be very useful). If you have a class or two with decent blind application (Ele, Guard, Teef) they shouldn't be hitting your group at all.

But yeah, toughness doesn't get that great of mileage in that island because of how high incoming damage already is at higher scales. So, your best best there is to limit the number of attack the mobs can connect or make it to where they can't land a hit at all.

Then you got portal shenanigans that you can use to circumvent having to walk through the hallway, but that one is less pug friendly.

Just to explain for less experienced players what the actual problems here are:

TC has a difficult time surviving in higher level fractals due to:

• some inexperience on TCs part and mistakes. Not a big issue, everyone has to learn, but taking unnecessary damage in high level fractals will get you killed fast. Mesmer especially being melee oriented (if running recommended Sw/Sh+Sw/F) needs to utilize a lot of his defensive abilities (Tides of Time, Blurr, Distortions, etc.) and has less room for error than some other classes.

• some inexperience in TCs party. Thiefs and Elementalists should be droping blinds, guardians and mesmers reflects, etc. Each member of the party needs to provide active damage mitigation and avoidance besides providing damage

• TC has 1800 toughness which in turn makes him the primary target of most enemys due to how toughness works. This can be great to relieve pressure on the rest of the team (especially when on mesmer with a lot of straight up damage immunity) but will put more pressure on the player and ups the skillcap. In general you want to run as little extra toughness as possible from the rest of the team as to share enemy attention, unless you can deal with being the tank.

• many players are under the false impression that toughness is useful or provides a huge amount of extra survivability in high level instanced content. It does not. The best you can do is to use active mitigation (evades, distortion, aegis, reflects, etc.), damage reduction (protection, resistance) and conditions (weakness, blind, chill, slow, etc.) to make incomming damage managable. This will always outperform more toughness in GW2 and is how the game is designed.

Tips for Cliffside: Bring blinds, aegis, reflects, and AoE damage. Take it slow with certain sections. For example, on the chest seal (with the burning floors), pull the initial spawn to the side. They're mostly all vets and elites. After they're dead, go ahead and do the fire floor mechanic of walking back and forth. The subsequent spawns will have one or two vets, but are usually just standard cultists.

Tips for Swamp: Bring CC, AoE cleave damage, blinds. After Bloomhunger does his first jump, he will imediately begin trying to ground-pound. Interrupt him with CC and DPS. You can easily get him close to phasing in one go. (2 if you're not all full damage) Use AoE cleaves, and blinds to sustain through the swarms. I think it's best to cleave out the spawning veteran with bloomhunger, but it's up to your group and personal preference.

Honestly though, most of your problem is that you're new. You're complaining about being hit for 4k, which for an experienced group, is a walk in the park. You need to learn to either not get hit, or to eliminate the enemy faster. Most fractal players at T4 are running full glass. They're getting hit for 8-10k if they make a mistake. Otherwise, their mesmer, guardian, evade, blind, whathave you mitigates the damage. Even then, if they get hit, they're doing enough damage to rally off mobs quickly.

Are there specific mechanics you have an issue with? Or is it just mob damage? I find the biggest change people can make without fully changing their armor and build (which you should look into slowly, after the expac hits), is utilizing CC effectively. If you're in a group that interrupts Boss channels, you are in a winning group, and it is noticeable.

@Kayvaan.9863 said:I mean Cliffside AND Swampland on the same day? I'd rather do Urban with invincible boiling oil spawns.

I swear, Im at 1800 toughness and I get hit for like 4k dmg from each of the cultists, they always crit, and theres like 4 or 5 of them at a time. I eventually run out of dodges, blocks and aegis.

Is it just me being a noob, or is this borken

1800 toughness explains it all.

You're not dealing enough DPS before they outlast you.

You cannot outlast mobs. They have more HP and damage output than you. You will not outheal them. You have to kill them before they kill you.

Just remember, @Kayvaan.9863, going out of combat after killing all the mobs with high DPS heals more than any amount of healing power and toughness combined. :)