Fractal difficulty

[Maat.3940]

Hello everyone!

I would like a couple of answers from your experience about the difficulty of Fractals.First of all, I play with my partner and we're both ex raiders and we've done fractals for years without too many hurdles.In the last year, we've been playing on and off. And these days we thought it would be a good idea to come back to Fractals ( we had a 4-month hiatus) and start making some gold.

Now to the matter of our interest: has anything happened to fractals difficulty wise? Because Matthias is easier. Raids are better. Raids have tons of telltale signs. Raids have patterns you can learn. Mechanics you can clearly see and avoid or take advantage of. Fractals on the other hand...It's been 2 days and we were unable to clear the Nightmare fractal and yesterday we had issues with Deepstone and Mai Trin.We haven't changed our builds, we haven't forgotten how to play. We noticed truly for the first time what a vomit of aoes and unnecessary instabilities was happening in our favorite game.The lack of creativity and truly amazing so-called instabilities is appalling.

All I see on the screen is a rain of neverending aoes.

Dear Game Devs, if you read this and if you are willing to answer, would you be kind to elaborate on your future plans concerning these instabilities? Please take a look at what you have created and tell me if you like what you see on your screen when you play the game you've created. But alas, my tone is a bit sarcastic and you might not answer. Though my interest in your game is real and longstanding.

Dear Players, is this your experience as well? And if not, any clues on how we can...do fractals again?

[Aaron Forestman.4758]

As a regular raider and fractal cm/regular runner:Fractals can often be more difficult than raids, at least in some respects. Some instabilities line up to make things very difficult depending on the fractal in question. Honestly, the boss fractals (99 & 100) can be the easiest ones for raiders because their mechanics much more closely line up with avoidable raid mechanics. Mai Trin can be one of the most shocking ones with all the cannon fire potentially combined with extra AoEs from instabilities, but is also one of my favorites because it forces people to move around instead of stacking on the boss and pounding it. Fractals in general require a bit more personal responsibility and mobility, plus some definite flexibility to deal with the different instabilities each day. Keep at it and get a regular group going that's willing to learn with you, and you'll manage just fine.

[Maat.3940]

@Aaron Forestman.4758 said:As a regular raider and fractal cm/regular runner:Fractals can often be more difficult than raids, at least in some respects. Some instabilities line up to make things very difficult depending on the fractal in question. Honestly, the boss fractals (99 & 100) can be the easiest ones for raiders because their mechanics much more closely line up with avoidable raid mechanics. Mai Trin can be one of the most shocking ones with all the cannon fire potentially combined with extra AoEs from instabilities, but is also one of my favorites because it forces people to move around instead of stacking on the boss and pounding it. Fractals in general require a bit more personal responsibility and mobility, plus some definite flexibility to deal with the different instabilities each day. Keep at it and get a regular group going that's willing to learn with you, and you'll manage just fine.

Ty Aaron! Great advice!

[Brandon Uzumaki.1524]

Was with a great group i think 3 days ago, we cleared 99 and Snowblind easily, then we got to Underground Facility, with Frailty, Outflanked and Sugar Rush, it was just impossible to survive the constant pressure of Dredge hitting you very fast for 5k while in front of you and one-shotting for 15k if you got hit from behind, we could not survive long enough for the door to get open, and we even had a barrier necro helping, still, too much damage being trown around.

Hate a lot of these new instabilities, the only increased "one-shot potential" from mobs, like, bosses hit way hard, but they are huge, they have tells, Ensollys can hit you for 8k from behind with a single auto, and his other skills will one-shot you, but they are easy to see and dodge, how tf you deal with 10 mobs atacking you at the same time dealing 4k damage per hit, don't have enough reflects or dodge to escape from that, well, unless you bring 5 Guardians lol.

[Cyninja.2954]

This gets tiresome. Every time players struggle with content it suddenly becomes this huge issue about have things gotten harder.

Short answer: no they have not across the game.

Long answer: some thing have gotten harder, many have gotten easier.

• It's far easier to gear up.
• It's far easier to get a full set of boons both offensive and defensive compared to before (especially stability is an absolute game changer, which was far less available with druid+chrono, not to mention the time before).
• Healers have changed and made fractals far easier than before.
• composition has become more important versus before
• there have been face-roll compositions which made fractals meaningless which have seen toning down (4 necro+druid)
• bringing reflects, blinds, proper positioning and not face tanking damage remains as useful as ever
• Mai Trin could be stealthed in the past or required proper party movement (remember the guy who would run around like a headless chicken making canon shots go everywhere in the past? that's gone). Now it's a set rotation of canon shots which can easily be stepped out while all other damage can be reflected (near permanently from a ventari renegade)

The core problem is: most mediocre players just get used to not adapting or actually changing their game play or setup to changing conditions. Yes, some instabilities can change how one needs to behave even as far as maybe having to change up the party setup (which is a detriment to newer players with less access to multiple classes/builds).

If Mai Trin is giving you a hard time:

• make sure to keep her cced as to stun her. While not necessary, it will make life easier on inexperienced healers and reduce group pressure
• use reflects or projectile destruction to prevent First Mate Horrik canon shots to ever hit you (his canon shots won't pass through, the lightning will)
• when she phases, clear the adds before attack First Mate Horrik, then proceed to drop his life to trigger the next phase
• side step the ground aoe canon shots (or dodge them). They are clearly visible and have a pattern
• rinse and repeat until success