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Siren's Reef | The Boss Fight


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@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"Bridget Morrigan.1752" said:I like having fractals like this in the game because it helps balance the need and usefulness of certain classes when they aren't necessarily the "ideal" (read: highest benchmarked) dps classes, like reapers and scourges and mirages. It is a bit long (one stage too many) but I'm all for end fights that add in variety compared to other fractals, like this one does.

But mirage is horrible in that fight and scourge only good in a very bad team. stack 2-3cfb and the boss dies before you can blink.Cfb is one of the highest benchmark onesand optimal there. that thing is just op in most normal t4s.

You missed the point--I'm not arguing that the highest benchmarked classes won't still be the fastest, highest benchmarked classes. Any fight is easy if you stack the "highest benchmark" there. Any fight is also easy if you stack the best players there. That's not unique to this fight or any other.

What I am saying is that this fight by its nature allows for a unique variety of play to solve its challenges. Scourges can come in and rescue bad teams, reapers can cleave down the adds, mirages can evade the attacks, and so on. It's not just a "stand and bludgeon down a single boss that phases three times and clears condi each time" kind of fight. The pressure from the adds, small playing space, heavy use of conditions, and complications from instabs make it the kind of fight that invites creative ways to be successful, and it's a refreshing change of pace for that. That's the point.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My group recently finished it with quick brand, banner slave, power/boon strip reaper, and a heal scourge. Our alacrigade PUG died right as the boss spawned, so we 4-manned it. Our success was due to 2 main things: we cleaved down most of the adds and avoided the winds. We didn’t dodge the stun shot, didn’t dodge the red circle, and stacked when we could for green circles. It was by far the smoothest run ever of the t4 siren’s reef.

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HBs and Alacrigades are all over T4 pugs. Its pretty hard to join a T4 pug that doesn't have at least a HB. If your team is wiping, ask you HB to Wall of Reflection, Tome 3.3 and Shield 5 since reflects are super strong. They don't need bane signet here because the boss has no breakbar so its a perfect opportunity to sub in Wall of Reflection. Reflects almost completely negate incoming damage from adds and allows your whole team to ignore them. Also ask your Alacrigade to go Kalla/Mallyx and pulse resistance (Pain Absorption). If you don't have an Alacrigade your HB can also tome 3.4. Your whole team can ignore the condition spam.

Beyond that its just moving the red circles to the corners, stacking on the green circles and saving your dodges for when your positioning sucks and you can't walk out of the ghostly wind. If the adds build up too much, your HB can Tome 1.3 and Axe 3 to pull some of the adds onto Captain Crowe so you cleave them down with the boss.

Some instabilities like social awkwardness make this fight messy because in pugs for some crazy reason, people play the game like its Overwatch and they need to ADAD dodge spam like they are trying to avoid headshots. Except it really does nothing except lower your group DPS and social awkwardness just pushes your teammates into ghostly wind. If that is happening, ask them to chill and stand still. Trust your supports to do their job and save your dodges for the wind.

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It is actually one of the best fractals out there.. It just asks a little bit more of concentration and skill.. Instabilities can make it a little tricky though. But even the benchmark thingy is not very necessary here... Just think outside of the box.. For example reaper can change one of the damaging skills with "Rise" which makes wonders in that bossfight. Or using offmeta chrono to pull adds to the boss then cc and cleave.. There are many options. Just because it is a fight that needs a little use of brains and mechanics stresses everyone.. It is the BEST fractal, because it is actually fun to play and has mechanics not just pew pew and get your gold.Oh and to all the people getting frustrated of dying there. Here is my biggest tip: What kills most newbies on the ship is the unblockable wind that pushes people to the water. Even the best players can missplay and fall to the water... But WHEN YOU GET OUT OF THE WATER WAIT A FEW SECS FOR "CONFUSION CONDI" TO DROP OFF BEFORE USING SKILLS !!!

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@Oogabooga.3812 said:Funny thing about that solid ocean one: it used to be easier. They revamped it to the beast of a fractal it is today.It is not only about easy and hard... In my honest opinion Solid ocean is very easy and will be like that unless fully reworked. Sometimes we take people from our guild who have 0 ar to Solid ocean when it's daily. It is pretty much doable by 2 people. The only thing you gotta do is to gather all crystals to one place and when the tenticle near it spawns oneshot it. That is just boring and unfun, while Siren's Reef makes ppl do mechanics and actually do stuff.

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This fractal is the reason I started running fractals as scourge. I find it very useful to run as condi scourge with barrier heal/condi cleanse (top-top-top), spectral grasp and epi spam. Makes it go so much easier and the damage numbers are great, 32k-38k while helping the group stay alive.

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  • 2 weeks later...

With cms groups you just vaporize her. However visually its really offputting. So much going on. Trashmobs, boss herself, orange telegraphing for blowing lines, her huge stun, the shark circle + the green circle, and all of that on a tiny space. Even the fractal cm bosses are visually better.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Worst fractal design so far by far. Nothing but a mish mash of frustrating mechanics that are meant to do nothing but annoy you and make you angry. I've cleared this fractal countless times and now I just skip it.

If all you can do is tell people to 'git gud', stop. You're just showing how childish you are ?

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@"hellsqueen.3045" said:Can I complete with a decent group?Yeah sure I can, but compared to other fractals it is just really frustrating to go through and can really be one that makes or breaks a group that is just your average T4 fractal group as opposed to a "We need this this and this, don't have it don't join" sort of thing.

The smaller platform size compared to other fights, combined with so many different AOE types and all those diggity dang mobs pushing you and not a real way or mechanic type to prevent certain things just really makes for the worst fractal boss fight I have experienced.

Bring Forth The Tempest, seems like the perfect triggering line for unlocking the stun bar and preventing a few series series of strong gusts.

Having both the damaging AOE drop and the shark to share, while those are fine, with all the other AOE clutter on this stage, it often makes for a confusing time when you add the adds that you have to deal with, or suffer. There is just so much visual clutter going on with the tempest, the cone, the condition bomb, the shark, the enemies regular aoe attacks. It's christmas light vomit on my eye balls. The amount of times someone is running away with the green simply because there is just too much going on, too much visual clutter all in a very small space. Not to mention your team dealing damage and their AOE effects to add to that vomit of light.

I would like to see more love given to the condition bomb as a mechanic of dealing with the mobs, drop it on the ramps when you have it, and it will kill mobs while it exists there.

I know there is going to be a lot of:"Git Gud" type responses, and as I said it's not that I can't get a group to get through it. I do get through it well enough.But the experience feels unenjoyable, stressful because there is no way to prevent certain aspects and just the all around confusion with the visual clutter in a small space is so much.

I can't think of many fighting spaces as small as the ship that have that same level of clutter. Usually it's all well spaced out, there are few AOE's happening at once but letting them happen or not working around them properly can be catastrophic (eg. The first fight in The Shattered Observatory with the orbs that you have to hit away or your whole team gets knocked back and potentially knocked off due to the size of it's explosion when dead centre)

I am not saying remove what's there, just rework some of it for different purposes.

What do you guys think?What would improve the experience for you?Etc

Are you just trying to lol dps the boss without dealing with adds? In t4 is it not reasonable to just kill the adds? On lower levels it's actually a really easy fight if adds are down. The adds are intended to be killed imo. It's fine if you juke with profession mechanics (reflects or aoe), but just fyi, there may be a more fool proof way. Every time i've done this fractal people look at me like i'm an alien when i say we should do this, but when they listen we usually down it just fine.

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So> @Firebeard.1746 said:

@"hellsqueen.3045" said:Can I complete with a decent group?Yeah sure I can, but compared to other fractals it is just really frustrating to go through and can really be one that makes or breaks a group that is just your average T4 fractal group as opposed to a "We need this this and this, don't have it don't join" sort of thing.

The smaller platform size compared to other fights, combined with so many different AOE types and all those diggity dang mobs pushing you and not a real way or mechanic type to prevent certain things just really makes for the worst fractal boss fight I have experienced.

Bring Forth The Tempest, seems like the perfect triggering line for unlocking the stun bar and preventing a few series series of strong gusts.

Having both the damaging AOE drop and the shark to share, while those are fine, with all the other AOE clutter on this stage, it often makes for a confusing time when you add the adds that you have to deal with, or suffer. There is just so much visual clutter going on with the tempest, the cone, the condition bomb, the shark, the enemies regular aoe attacks. It's christmas light vomit on my eye balls. The amount of times someone is running away with the green simply because there is just too much going on, too much visual clutter all in a very small space. Not to mention your team dealing damage and their AOE effects to add to that vomit of light.

I would like to see more love given to the condition bomb as a mechanic of dealing with the mobs, drop it on the ramps when you have it, and it will kill mobs while it exists there.

I know there is going to be a lot of:"Git Gud" type responses, and as I said it's not that I can't get a group to get through it. I do get through it well enough.But the experience feels unenjoyable, stressful because there is no way to prevent certain aspects and just the all around confusion with the visual clutter in a small space is so much.

I can't think of many fighting spaces as small as the ship that have that same level of clutter. Usually it's all well spaced out, there are few AOE's happening at once but letting them happen or not working around them properly can be catastrophic (eg. The first fight in The Shattered Observatory with the orbs that you have to hit away or your whole team gets knocked back and potentially knocked off due to the size of it's explosion when dead centre)

I am not saying remove what's there, just rework some of it for different purposes.

What do you guys think?What would improve the experience for you?Etc

Are you just trying to lol dps the boss without dealing with adds? In t4 is it not reasonable to just kill the adds? On lower levels it's actually a really easy fight if adds are down. The adds are intended to be killed imo. It's fine if you juke with profession mechanics (reflects or aoe), but just fyi, there may be a more fool proof way. Every time i've done this fractal people look at me like i'm an alien when i say we should do this, but when they listen we usually down it just fine.

Yea, that's actually right, and why cleave classes do well on the fractal.

Some may say "muh t4s" but if the party can't handle it, they shouldn't mind dropping a level or so.

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Definitely my favourite fight as a condi cleanse healer, wish the devs would focus on making a lot more content like this. It punishes lazyness and rewards evasion with as little movement as possible. Havent found a pug so far that cant finish it after a few tries.

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@Tiilimon.6094 said:Definitely my favourite fight as a condi cleanse healer, wish the devs would focus on making a lot more content like this. It punishes lazyness and rewards evasion with as little movement as possible. Havent found a pug so far that cant finish it after a few tries.

But isnt having a healer the definition of laziness?

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@Firebeard.1746 said:

@"hellsqueen.3045" said:Can I complete with a decent group?Yeah sure I can, but compared to other fractals it is just really frustrating to go through and can really be one that makes or breaks a group that is just your average T4 fractal group as opposed to a "We need this this and this, don't have it don't join" sort of thing.

The smaller platform size compared to other fights, combined with so many different AOE types and all those diggity dang mobs pushing you and not a real way or mechanic type to prevent certain things just really makes for the worst fractal boss fight I have experienced.

Bring Forth The Tempest, seems like the perfect triggering line for unlocking the stun bar and preventing a few series series of strong gusts.

Having both the damaging AOE drop and the shark to share, while those are fine, with all the other AOE clutter on this stage, it often makes for a confusing time when you add the adds that you have to deal with, or suffer. There is just so much visual clutter going on with the tempest, the cone, the condition bomb, the shark, the enemies regular aoe attacks. It's christmas light vomit on my eye balls. The amount of times someone is running away with the green simply because there is just too much going on, too much visual clutter all in a very small space. Not to mention your team dealing damage and their AOE effects to add to that vomit of light.

I would like to see more love given to the condition bomb as a mechanic of dealing with the mobs, drop it on the ramps when you have it, and it will kill mobs while it exists there.

I know there is going to be a lot of:"Git Gud" type responses, and as I said it's not that I can't get a group to get through it. I do get through it well enough.But the experience feels unenjoyable, stressful because there is no way to prevent certain aspects and just the all around confusion with the visual clutter in a small space is so much.

I can't think of many fighting spaces as small as the ship that have that same level of clutter. Usually it's all well spaced out, there are few AOE's happening at once but letting them happen or not working around them properly can be catastrophic (eg. The first fight in The Shattered Observatory with the orbs that you have to hit away or your whole team gets knocked back and potentially knocked off due to the size of it's explosion when dead centre)

I am not saying remove what's there, just rework some of it for different purposes.

What do you guys think?What would improve the experience for you?Etc

Are you just trying to lol dps the boss without dealing with adds? In t4 is it not reasonable to just kill the adds? On lower levels it's actually a really easy fight if adds are down. The adds are intended to be killed imo. It's fine if you juke with profession mechanics (reflects or aoe), but just fyi, there may be a more fool proof way. Every time i've done this fractal people look at me like i'm an alien when i say we should do this, but when they listen we usually down it just fine.

No, we are not just "LOL DPSING"Since corona had forced a lot of people to stay home, I managed to run fractals with a full group or near full group (which likely will not be possible any longer). And we usually were all in voice comms.

I play tempest healer, which has helped in general across all the fractals because of certain instabilities because the auras are really useful.We had a chrono main, who would take both the quickness and alacrity wells, because I would use sandsquall to help them keep up on both instead of them taking mimic and specializing in one.We had a condi firebrand, who would switch to their healing book whenever I asked or they felt like we needed the F2-5 skill to increase healing received.Then we had a power weaver/tempest, they would switch based on what they felt like playing or enjoyed best.And we would either get our friend who also either played condi firebrand or condi necro, or we would grab a pug.

We had enough between the first 3 players to cover everything that people said get gud about this fractal.We weren't wiping or anything, but we all still collectively sighed about this fractal every single time.Just because we had a build between us that made this just fine to do, doesn't mean we think it's a good fractal.

I stand by it, the design is still absolutely horrible.Your regular tier 4's should not make you feel like you need to ask for the same classes over and over again.HB, AlacR and DPS.But more than that, no one has anything to say about all the AOE clutter both in their ability and the visual mess all on a small space beyond "it's just challenging, get gud"Sorry, that isn't really a good enough excuse as to why it should stay like that.

As someone else mentioned:

@Clyan.1593 said:With cms groups you just vaporize her. However visually its really offputting. So much going on. Trashmobs, boss herself, orange telegraphing for blowing lines, her huge stun, the shark circle + the green circle, and all of that on a tiny space. Even the fractal cm bosses are visually better.

The CM version of the Virastraa fight is filled with so much extra stuff and yet still it feels so much better than this fractal's boss fight simply because the space to work with is better. The only way you could warrant having all of that clutter is if the platform was bigger.

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@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Tiilimon.6094 said:Definitely my favourite fight as a condi cleanse healer, wish the devs would focus on making a lot more content like this. It punishes lazyness and rewards evasion with as little movement as possible. Havent found a pug so far that cant finish it after a few tries.

But isnt having a healer the definition of laziness?

with my apm higher than when i used to play starcraft it definitely doesnt feel lazy.

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@hellsqueen.3045 said:HB, AlacR and DPS.

Until ANET makes it possible for group quickness up time to be sustained by something other than a Firebrand, and Alacrity up time as easily maintained by something other than a Diviner Renegade, nothing is going to change.

Well, either that or ANET just removes Quickness and Alacrity from the game completely.

@hellsqueen.3045 said:But more than that, no one has anything to say about all the AOE clutter both in their ability and the visual mess all on a small space beyond "it's just challenging, get gud"Sorry, that isn't really a good enough excuse as to why it should stay like that.

Because what is the point? You I'm sure are aware that it isn't just Siren's where this 'AOE clutter' is an issue. A few days back on some fractal I forget we had the insta Fractal Convergence, and during a 'splashy' moment, I got insta-downed, and I had no idea from what. I checked the combat log, and the Champion Rabbit that I never even saw jumpkicked me for 52k....

I can't even say for how long this particular problem has been complained about, and yet ANET does little to address it. In a game which demands you be reactive with dodging, the difficulty we have just seeing the boss and their animations is puzzling to me.

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@hellsqueen.3045 said:I play tempest healer, which has helped in general across all the fractals because of certain instabilities because the auras are really useful.We had a chrono main, who would take both the quickness and alacrity wells, because I would use sandsquall to help them keep up on both instead of them taking mimic and specializing in one.We had a condi firebrand, who would switch to their healing book whenever I asked or they felt like we needed the F2-5 skill to increase healing received.Then we had a power weaver/tempest, they would switch based on what they felt like playing or enjoyed best.And we would either get our friend who also either played condi firebrand or condi necro, or we would grab a pug.

We had enough between the first 3 players to cover everything that people said get gud about this fractal.We weren't wiping or anything, but we all still collectively sighed about this fractal every single time.Just because we had a build between us that made this just fine to do, doesn't mean we think it's a good fractal.

I stand by it, the design is still absolutely horrible.Maybe. Just maybe it is not the design that is terrible. Maybe it is your teamcomp. I agree with you that it is unfun that we can't viably play anything we want anywhere. But it is not fractal's problem. It is a much deeper problem. Many answered very well here.

I would suggest instead of asking devs to adapt fractals for you, you could instead adapt yourself to fractals.

Having said that, even if playing Meta is the optimal way, it is not at all the only way. It doesn't mean that you should run to tier4 fractals with just random builds and hope to beat those. It would be no fun. BUT you can run any fractals and the same CMs with non meta groups. Your group however is very badly organized I must say. If you went DPS tempest, chrono went dps, firebrand went heal, and scourge went power reaper it would be way more optimised. Or Heal tempest, support chrono, firebrand swaps to DH and goes power, and the rest fiilled with any POWER (not condi) dps. Still offmeta, still not very optimised, but would much better than your current setups and you could even do CMs with those with no problems. You have to adapt a lil bit if you wanna succeed and it is also fun and refreshing to play something different every once in a while.In the end if you absolutely don't wanna change your builds and team comp, it is your fault not fractal's design. In that case you are not playing fractals, you are just roleplaying. If you still absoleutely wanna stick to your playstiles... Well there is tier 3 for you.

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@Armen.1483 said:...firebrand swaps to DH and goes power...

That is a very common error most players have. Cfb is busted in every gamemode. You need a very high dps group with extremely short phases for cfb to be bad even in cms. Im talking about 3sec phases here.Cfb gets better than dh as soon as resets and longer phases happen which is probably almost every normal fractal. It is also by far the strongest build you can bring into sirens reef.

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@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Armen.1483 said:...firebrand swaps to DH and goes power...

That is a very common error most players have. Cfb is busted in every gamemode. You need a very high dps group with extremely short phases for cfb to be bad even in cms. Im talking about 3sec phases here.Cfb gets better than dh as soon as resets and longer phases happen which is probably almost every normal fractal. It is also by far the strongest build you can bring into sirens reef.Well I didn't say that CFB is a bad class, but why it is an error ? Please be more clear. I know that burn condi ramps fast, but its not about that. You don't need quickness if you got support chrono in team. So why sacrifice damage and utility ? Dragonhunter got traps and pulls which help a lot in this fractal.What about CMs. Well in very good groups I've heard ppl swap pfirebrands to dragonhunters with feel my wrath if they clear faster than quickness drops. Condi Firebrand is a good class, but In my experience DH works better on arabella if someone already covers quickness.

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@Armen.1483 said:Well I didn't say that CFB is a bad class, but why it is an error ? Please be more clear. I know that burn condi ramps fast, but its not about that. You don't need quickness if you got support chrono in team. So why sacrifice damage and utility ? Dragonhunter got traps and pulls which help a lot in this fractal.What about CMs. Well in very good groups I've heard ppl swap pfirebrands to dragonhunters with feel my wrath if they clear faster than quickness drops. Condi Firebrand is a good class, but In my experience DH works better on arabella if someone already covers quickness.

You dont sacrifice damage. Cfb does far more damage to the boss than dh ever could. It has also higher cleave and more utility. Just try it its so busted. quickness cfb is already better than pfb in basically every pug cm group. The burns ramp up really fast. you can get 80k+ bursts at skorvald with it.The quarter masters reset the tome which boosts dps into absurd levels. In most kills you enter the tome like 4 times in a row spending almost no time on your normal weapon set. There is no way a dh coud keep up with that.

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@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Armen.1483 said:Well I didn't say that CFB is a bad class, but why it is an error ? Please be more clear. I know that burn condi ramps fast, but its not about that. You don't need quickness if you got support chrono in team. So why sacrifice damage and utility ? Dragonhunter got traps and pulls which help a lot in this fractal.What about CMs. Well in very good groups I've heard ppl swap pfirebrands to dragonhunters with feel my wrath if they clear faster than quickness drops. Condi Firebrand is a good class, but In my experience DH works better on arabella if someone already covers quickness.

You dont sacrifice damage. Cfb does far more damage to the boss than dh ever could. It has also higher cleave and more utility. Just try it its so busted. quickness cfb is already better than pfb in basically every pug cm group. The burns ramp up really fast. you can get 80k+ bursts at skorvald with it.The quarter masters reset the tome which boosts dps into absurd levels. In most kills you enter the tome like 4 times in a row spending almost no time on your normal weapon set. There is no way a dh coud keep up with that.

I am not saying you're wrong. Ofc hfb got good damage, but many other classes have better damage. I am pretty sure power DH got more damage than cfb in this meta. The reason we run fb is to have quickness. But when quickness is not needed (when you have support chrono for example), dh (or actually any other meta dps) wil be better. With fb you got your elite slot wasted as no feel my wrath nor stab is needed here. With DH you got greatsword to be able to pull adds and Dragon's Maw to cc and damage em.On any other cases when heal is covered or not needed, but your group needs quickness, condi firebrand you go. If I hadn't tried it many times I wouldn't advise it.On the other hand to be entierly fair, yes they could run condi firebrand, but it will be less optimal for the post owner's team comp. Firebrand to dh change was the least important change I offered. I still think DH will be better in this comp. Got it from my personal experience with playing with support chronos and offmeta comps.

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I kind of enjoy this fractal, but it is one of those fractals where pugs often start dropping like flies (T3 and T4). The combination of instabilities and conditions, wrecks havoc on players with insufficient defense. And the huge number of things to dodge, punishes dodge spamming. You have to be strategic when you dodge and when you walk.

The fight gets a lot easier when you focus a bit on the additional enemies that spawn, and clear them before focusing on the boss. It is also important to coordinate people to get on top of that green circle when it appears. Also, players have to avoid getting blown off the ship every time. I've encountered numerous players at fractal difficulties T3 and T4, who still didn't get the basic mechanics. Those are the kinds of players who really should be practicing this fractal at a lower difficulty first.

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