help with fractal mechanics, and I mean... HELP!

I've done a few fractals, my scale is 12, so... a few more than 12 maybe? I haven't been defeated in any one of them, until today. And I went down fast and furious and frequently. It made me think that maybe I've been lucky and was carried by better players. So I need a tutor or mentor or the like, because I just don't get why I was dying so fast compared to the past.

Tier 1 Siren's Reef. That was where my character is buried. Killed Zaitan, killed Jormag, killed Mordremoth, lost to an ethereal swashbuckler. I had done that fractal twice before and it seemed a bit hairier than most, but not insurmountable. With this last group, it was night on impossible. I know there are orange rectangles that blow you off the ship, I avoided them. I know the boss has an orange cone attack, I dodged that. But these red circles that appear just about everywhere on the ship's deck. I simply can't avoid them all and I watched as my health would drop from full to zero in about 5 seconds, over and over. The group restarted 4-5 times before I gratuitously quit from embarrassment as it was my character that usually went down first within seconds of the battle commencing. Maybe the bosses, there are three, were keying on me this time and not so much on past runs, I really don't know. Perhaps one difference was that the deck was overrun with trash mobs. Maybe the former groups I was with limited them, but being fairly new, it's hard for me to notice if that was truly the case.

I played a S/d weaver, she lacks quality ranged attacks which might have added to her demise in this particular fractal. But then again, the deck is a small space, and there's not a lot of room to get away anyway and a staff weaver has far fewer opportunities at healing besides. I've watched a lot of vids, especially the ones by Deroir. They are great, but they're fast paced and designed for T4 and those who already know a thing or two about fractals.

Finally, just a friendly request. If you're about to respond that elementalists are schite and I should be playing a meta-build mesmer or druid or the like, then please don't. I like the weaver, she's a blast. I don't mind being the glass cannon. It is Tier 1 after all. I'm just trying to figure out what it is that I should be looking out for to keep my health from vanishing in the blink of an eye... well a dozen blinks then.

Thanks in advance for all your kind words of encouragement. Cheers!

Did you have some sort of healer in your group? SR needs one...its a cluster of AOE/KB and adds. I've never completed that on T4 without either a healer

Siren's Reef's last boss seems to be a bit weird. Haven't worked out the mechanics yet but somehow it was much easier to stay alive after the rest of the party died.

The instabilities can also shift the difficulty around to ridiculous levels. Doing it with Social Awkwardness is just awful as everyone is moving around to avoid the AoEs. On the other hand t1 shouldn't have any instability.

I have also seen someone mention but not yet confirmed myself that the adds spawn based on boss health which means the safe strategy is to attack boss, clear adds, attack boss until more adds spawn repeat until boss is dead.

@Khisanth.2948 said:I have also seen someone mention but not yet confirmed myself that the adds spawn based on boss health which means the safe strategy is to attack boss, clear adds, attack boss until more adds spawn repeat until boss is dead.

Correct; that works.

Kill this guy https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elite_QuartermasterIt will spawn when boss relocates, call allies and buff -spam with aegis + protection. Just kill it, asap.

First and foremost, understand that the main threat during the final encounter isn't Captain Arabella Crow. She has three main attacks that are easy to mitigate, and even ignored altogether:

• Her large cone attack does low damage and dazes. At worst, it interrupts your heals or revives, but easily sidestepped.
• The red circle that periodically appears under a random player character drops a pool of poison when it finishes, and can be safely disposed of at the ship's bow or stern, where you'll not be affected by the ghostly crosswinds.
• A green circle signals the group to stack up inside it in order to divide the incoming damage when the attack finishes.

So, if you were to isolate the Captain's mechanics, and even account for the crosswinds that can separate and isolate a green circle, or push characters to die in piranha infested waters, it's a fairly simply encounter.

The MAIN threat, however, are ghost crew members. Elite Quartermasters (male norns) grant their allies Protection, Aegis, and Might while also applies Slows, Storm Wraiths (female norns) harass with range attacks and give their allies Quickness, Grenadiers (male asura) hinder your party's cooldowns with Chill, and Raiders (male charr) Daze and Cripple.

As you can see, groups with poor control of the adds are more than likely to succumb to the conditions and empowered enemies. Boon and condition control, as well as projectile blocks and reflects can mitigate this, but only temporarily. AOE pulls work best to bring in the ranged enemies camping on the gangplanks to the center of the ship, and in range of your group's cleave. Worst case scenario, your group may need to simply bite the bullet and run down one side of the ship to clear the adds, which breaks line of sight from the ranged enemies on the opposite side, thus forcing them to the center where you'll cleave them down with the boss.

Important note: Only a small fraction of players are ever able to burst down the Captain quickly enough to avoid this threat, so do take such "advise" with a grain of salt.

Finally, just a friendly request. If you're about to respond that elementalists are schite and I should be playing a meta-build mesmer or druid or the like, then please don't. I like the weaver, she's a blast. I don't mind being the glass cannon. It is Tier 1 after all. I'm just trying to figure out what it is that I should be looking out for to keep my health from vanishing in the blink of an eye... well a dozen blinks then.

Being inexperienced makes glass cannon builds inherently difficult to play, regardless of the profession or specialization. Most benchmark-setting builds are predicated on having dedicated healing and boon supports. Consider taking some defensive traits and utilities, and learn to use your water skills to sustain your health.

Hey folks,

Thanks for all the good advice. Differentiating the elite ghosts from the boss may be the biggest point I was missing. In retrospect, our group was overwhelmed with adds, that was the difference from previous runs I think.

I don't know if there was a healer in the group, I'll look out for that next time. But I'm not the kind of person who would refuse any player in a group, though I realize a certain party configuration will work better than others.

Boss/adds/boss/adds repeat - got it!

As for my weaver, she does specialize with water and I have taken about as many traits/skills that heal as I can. Now, do I utilize them as efficiently as possible yet? Probably not. I do succumb to panic more than I'd like to admit. But it's coming. I do have other characters. Who doesn't? But as I said, weaving is my thang. :)

The three bosses are major pushovers. Try to cull the adds as much as possible so that they do not muster and collect at the planks.

Also keep in mind that walking outside of the blue rectangle on the ship, even if not in the water, will start pulsing Confusion and Slow, 3 stacks each, every second

Seeing many mentions of T4 and instabilities when the OP is clearly talking about T1....

Firstly, welcome to fractals! Hope you brought a helmet B)

Nothing wrong with Weaver. Actually there are very few elite specs that don't perform well in fractals, and pretty much anything can work in T1. The only thing about Weaver though is if you are running full DPS, you are super squishy, and can be sneezed to death, making your dodges that much more important.

And you also happened to be talking about one of the harder fractals, comparatively speaking. There are veteran players who have done hundreds of fractals struggling there.

As has been said above, communication with your team is important on this one. Try to focus your attacks on the trash, and avoid the urge to kill the boss "faster" to make it all end - that actually will make it worse as more and more trash will spawn.

thanks for the extra bit 'o insight from the last two posters!