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Siren's Reef | The Boss Fight


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@Armen.1483 said:

@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.

I literally said in my post that our team comp that I sent actually worked fine. In fact it was better than fine.

The Harrier Tempest healer is strong and compliments the Diviner Power Chrono really well. And the CFB is strong as hell, they hit for nearly 30k all of the time and the lowest they tend to go is 20k. And they don't have a slow start up time so they are as good if not better than having a power DPS. Our weaver was next in damage usually getting to about 20k and the necro above 15k but even when we pugged for DPS they didn't disappoint damage wise.

This comp is actually really good, the issue is that it requires even more team work and communication, because I need the FB to use the healing book for one ability when things are just a tad too much, and we rotate out our reflects etc.

This has been our most successful team comp and it has been really good.

Only catch is, that one of them has gone back to school and another work which means our schedules no longer align midweek to do the fractals and these classes aren't what people LFG for. I know I could heal pugs, but that doesn't mean they want me in the group, etc.

I am not asking for the fractals to be catered to me, I am asking them to make it better for all classes to have more of a place by putting in mechanics for people to do rather than for them to use a class to just ignore.

I am asking them to not fill a small space with a huge amount of clutter.(Which considering we have people in the world who may have visual impairment or difficulty with certain movements very rapidly or with precision, having a larger platform would be really helpful. I don't think it is too much to ask to give a little more room to move.

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@"hellsqueen.3045" said:

I literally said in my post that our team comp that I sent actually worked fine. In fact it was better than fine.Well and you also said that you have trouble clearing siren's reef. For me it translates into: your comp doesn't work well.The Harrier Tempest healer is strong and compliments the Diviner Power Chrono really well. And the CFB is strong as hell, they hit for nearly 30k all of the time and the lowest they tend to go is 20k. And they don't have a slow start up time so they are as good if not better than having a power DPS. Our weaver was next in damage usually getting to about 20k and the necro above 15k but even when we pugged for DPS they didn't disappoint damage wise.I am not quite sure if those numbers say anything important or if I could relate them to anything. This is the outgoing dps (aoe included), not the dps cpt Crowe gets (it should be way lower). Ele and necro (especially necro) getting outtdpsed by a CFB is problematic though. Normally killing cpt crowe shouldn't take more than a minute, if you beat her under a minute your dps is fine. But it is not only about dps. See when I say you should change fb to power DH is because of the DH's elite skill and his greatsword's ability to pull mobs to boss (so you clear em fast), and condi scourge (which is a joke in fractals) should go power reaper (which is one of the best if not the best dps in normal t4s) AND reaper got "rise" ability that will bump up your suriviability here by a lot. "Rise" is literally created for this encounter. The thing with firebrand using tome 2 to bump tempest's healing is just roleplaying and will complicate the thing for no reason imo, that same skill could be better used for regular condicleansing if ppl fall into the water much.Again if I stop being a perfectionnist and stop trying to give advice on utility and gameplay. You can ignore everything that I said it will not change things drasticly (I still highly recommend you do those), BUT I still gotta say that the condi scourge in your team is hurting my eyes =) I am pretty sure he is the main force that is dragging you down. Condi scourge there is a dead weight that you are carrying and a fractal that is a liiiiiiil bit more difficult than average becomes annoying because of that.

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@Armen.1483 said:This is the outgoing dps (aoe included), not the dps cpt Crowe gets (it should be way lower). Ele and necro (especially necro) getting outtdpsed by a CFB is problematic though.No it really isn't. Fb has to fail a lot of things to get outdamaged by anything on that boss. Cfb has also higher boss dps than dh to begin with and he gets constant tome resets to push this into ridiculous levels and condis ignore prot. Dh cant even stand properly inside the hitbox because of dazes.

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@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Armen.1483 said:This is the outgoing dps (aoe included), not the dps cpt Crowe gets (it should be way lower). Ele and necro (especially necro) getting outtdpsed by a CFB is problematic though.No it really isn't. Fb has to fail a lot of things to get outdamaged by anything on that boss. Cfb has also higher boss dps than dh to begin with and he gets constant tome resets to push this into ridiculous levels and condis ignore prot. Dh cant even stand properly inside the hitbox because of dazes.We got it you like cfb lol. Have you ever played anything else as dps there ? Do you have any dps report where an experienced fb does twice the dps than an experienced necro ? I have seen some dps differences of classic dps classes, but twice the difference is just ridiculous. Would be nice to see a proof of what you're saying.

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You should try Condi FB. There are some scenarios where it does crazy dps that melee power builds will struggle to approach - bosses with long phases, no invulnerable phase transitions, no breakbars, lots of adds and mechanics that force melee builds to disengage and reposition constantly. On Power Weaver, I find it very hard to even get close to Condi FB dps on Capt Crowe because it plays so heavily to the latter's strengths.

No breakbar means no big burst during exposed debuff with impact sigils. Ghostly wind cannot be ignored with stability so disengaging and repositioning is mandatory - melee power dps falls off a cliff when you have to do that because your damage output temporarily goes to zero. The adds benefit Condi FB in several ways - firstly tome 1 resets but also to guarantee crits with cleave. Condi FB is something of a misnomer because its really a hybrid power/condition build.

You have 80% crit chance and a very significant portion of your dps is power/crit based. About 2/3 of your total damage dealt will be burning, with the remaining 1/3rd being power based. Applying burning increases the magnitude and frequency of your crits and critting increases the magnitude and duration of your burn ticks. DPS loss when disengaging and re-engaging is not as sharp as with power builds and so repositioning for ghostly winds doesn't hurt you as much. The tome 1 resets are the cherry on the cake, allowing you to stack burning higher than is possible on a training golem.

Guardian utilities are flexible and FB tomes have great utility anyway so for this boss it is entirely feasible for your boon support FB to switch to Condi (from either Power or Heal FB). It can still provide 100% quickness uptime and stack might for the entire party. You can still provide a decent amount of reflects and some resistance too by dipping into tome 3.

PUGs do like their healbrand though and this is mainly to do with your teammates being comfortable with fighting at low hp. In PUGs, dps players tend not to trust their supports to keep them alive when their health drops below 50%. They get jittery and start running away/double dodging out and waiting for their heal skill. For that reason alone, I will still stay on healbrand if requested to.

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This is one of the Fractals I enjoy the most. It has a cool environment, and a challenging boss fight at the end. Unfortunately it also means that most pugs wipe at this boss. My only gripe is that darn shark. If only that shark wasn't there, I would be able to solo this boss easily after my group inevitably wipes. :D

Also, the Hamstrung Instability is pretty unfair at this boss. It makes it nearly impossible to avoid being blown off the ship, unless your healer is still alive. But as long as I bring plenty of condition removal, my necro does just fine at this boss.

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@Armen.1483 said:

@"hellsqueen.3045" said:

I literally said in my post that our team comp that I sent actually worked fine. In fact it was better than fine.Well and you also said that you have trouble clearing siren's reef. For me it translates into: your comp doesn't work well.The Harrier Tempest healer is strong and compliments the Diviner Power Chrono really well. And the CFB is strong as hell, they hit for nearly 30k all of the time and the lowest they tend to go is 20k. And they don't have a slow start up time so they are as good if not better than having a power DPS. Our weaver was next in damage usually getting to about 20k and the necro above 15k but even when we pugged for DPS they didn't disappoint damage wise.I am not quite sure if those numbers say anything important or if I could relate them to anything. This is the outgoing dps (aoe included), not the dps cpt Crowe gets (it should be way lower). Ele and necro (especially necro) getting outtdpsed by a CFB is problematic though. Normally killing cpt crowe shouldn't take more than a minute, if you beat her under a minute your dps is fine. But it is not only about dps. See when I say you should change fb to power DH is because of the DH's elite skill and his greatsword's ability to pull mobs to boss (so you clear em fast), and condi scourge (which is a joke in fractals) should go power reaper (which is one of the best if not the best dps in normal t4s) AND reaper got "rise" ability that will bump up your suriviability here by a lot. "Rise" is literally created for this encounter. The thing with firebrand using tome 2 to bump tempest's healing is just roleplaying and will complicate the thing for no reason imo, that same skill could be better used for regular condicleansing if ppl fall into the water much.Again if I stop being a perfectionnist and stop trying to give advice on utility and gameplay. You can ignore everything that I said it will not change things drasticly (I still highly recommend you do those), BUT I still gotta say that the condi scourge in your team is hurting my eyes =) I am pretty sure he is the main force that is dragging you down. Condi scourge there is a dead weight that you are carrying and a fractal that is a liiiiiiil bit more difficult than average becomes annoying because of that.

When I wrote the inital post, I was playing a druid and had no other classes besides a DPS geared for fractals and I don't enjoy playing DPS because I can't hit the higher numbers and NOBODY WANTED ME ON HEALER BECAUSE I WASN'T A HEALBRAND.

This is even more true on fractals like Siren's Reef, you are not welcome if you don't fit a certain mold.

The comp I mentioned with tempest heals, CFB and Chrono DOESN'T HAVE TROUBLE ON SIREN'S REEF.I said we had less troubles than ever before switching to this style.

It still has the core problem that: you are not wanted PUGs that only go for meta comps.This kind of issue breeds so much toxicity in the community and it is made worse on fractals like Siren's Reef.

And another point is that, even when we have no problem completing SR, the fact that the platform is small with so much clutter translate to awful design.

Why is that so hard for people to understand? Just because it's added some challenge, doesn't mean it is okay because poor design making something a challenge is still poor design.

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@"hellsqueen.3045" said:

When I wrote the inital post, I was playing a druid and had no other classes besides a DPS geared for fractals and I don't enjoy playing DPS because I can't hit the higher numbers and NOBODY WANTED ME ON HEALER BECAUSE I WASN'T A HEALBRAND.

This is even more true on fractals like Siren's Reef, you are not welcome if you don't fit a certain mold.I am pretty sure everyone is welcome anywhere if he/she knows his stuff. I have never been kicked from any pug group while playing offmeta. Maybe I am just lucky, but I guess if you know your thing nobody will tell you anything.The comp I mentioned with tempest heals, CFB and Chrono DOESN'T HAVE TROUBLE ON SIREN'S REEF.I said we had less troubles than ever before switching to this style.If you don't have any trouble, what is the problem then ? It just proves that Siren's Reef is not an extremely hard fractal. You say you don't have any troubles now.. strange.. I am missing something maybe.It still has the core problem that: you are not wanted PUGs that only go for meta comps.make your own group if you are not welcome. but again, my experience is quite different from yours I guess.This kind of issue breeds so much toxicity in the community and it is made worse on fractals like Siren's Reef.hmm.. Apart from cms sometimes (very rarely) I don't see often toxicity in normal fractals.And another point is that, even when we have no problem completing SR, the fact that the platform is small with so much clutter translate to awful design.This is why I answered your post !Why is that so hard for people to understand? Just because it's added some challenge, doesn't mean it is okay because poor design making something a challenge is still poor design.So I want an argument here: what do you mean by saying "poor design" ? If the platform was bigger, the only 3 mechanics (pushing tornadoes, the green circle and the red circle) would be completely useless, and it would make this fractal something like the 1st miniboss in "molten boss" fractal.The arena is small for a reason: it is the core mechanic of that bossfight. Asking to make it bigger is the same as asking Mickey Mouse be a crocodile. It makes no sense.

And in the end I don't get the rant. You said that you have no trouble clearing now, so what's the problem ? If you don't like the fractal it is your personal preference. You can't say it has objectively poor design. It has a very good design in fact. Actually it is one of the best bossfights in gw2 in terms of mechanics.

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I have alts setup on all the meta roles purely so I can pug seamlessly with the most random of people. This is what pugging is like in every game and if you hate dealing with it, you really need to find a static. In Overwatch theres a pug meta (that looks like pro meta except nowhere near as organised). So if Ana is meta, you better have her as an option when you solo queue support, because you will end up in a game where nothing is clicking with your teammates and if you don't swap someone else will ask you to.

Healbrand is so common in T4 that I ended up converting my WvW Firebrand into a PvE Healbrand and I play it upon request because it is familiar to most people doing dailies. I also made an Alacrigade purely so I had one to swap to if my pug group really wanted one.

I don't want to be the inflexible person who can only play 1 thing and when its not working, the expectation is the other 4 people need to change or do something differently. If you have too many inflexible people in a group and its not working, nobody is willing to change what they play or how they play, thats when things turn messy. So I just try to avoid that entirely. There are times when I join and want to play off meta and sometimes I get the opportunity to do that. I really like playing Condi FB and Power Reaper.

I get how this is a problem if you don't have a Firebrand but instead of complaining and not being able to do anything about it, how about working on gearing one, learning a new way to play the game and having the option to switch (with massive carry potential)? A lot of people in pug fractals know how to play with a Firebrand. Most do not know how to play with a Heal Tempest. So you will get to the end boss in Chaos Fractal and you can't provide aegis or stability to the group so either someone else needs to share aegis/stab or everyone needs to know what the boss's auto 3 looks like and dodge it every time or get chain dazed. I don't think thats a reasonable expectation to have when playing in pugs. You don't have to swap to FB if you really want to play Heal Tempest or Druid, but you can if things get really rough and nobody else can flex. If it works, it feels good knowing that you took the initiative and made a difference.

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@Armen.1483 said:

@"hellsqueen.3045" said:

I literally said in my post that our team comp that I sent actually worked fine. In fact it was better than fine.Well and you also said that you have trouble clearing siren's reef. For me it translates into: your comp doesn't work well.The Harrier Tempest healer is strong and compliments the Diviner Power Chrono really well. And the CFB is strong as hell, they hit for nearly 30k all of the time and the lowest they tend to go is 20k. And they don't have a slow start up time so they are as good if not better than having a power DPS. Our weaver was next in damage usually getting to about 20k and the necro above 15k but even when we pugged for DPS they didn't disappoint damage wise.I am not quite sure if those numbers say anything important or if I could relate them to anything. This is the outgoing dps (aoe included), not the dps cpt Crowe gets (it should be way lower). Ele and necro (especially necro) getting outtdpsed by a CFB is problematic though. Normally killing cpt crowe shouldn't take more than a minute, if you beat her under a minute your dps is fine. But it is not only about dps. See when I say you should change fb to power DH is because of the DH's elite skill and his greatsword's ability to pull mobs to boss (so you clear em fast), and condi scourge (which is a joke in fractals) should go power reaper (which is one of the best if not the best dps in normal t4s) AND reaper got "rise" ability that will bump up your suriviability here by a lot. "Rise" is literally created for this encounter. The thing with firebrand using tome 2 to bump tempest's healing is just roleplaying and will complicate the thing for no reason imo, that same skill could be better used for regular condicleansing if ppl fall into the water much.Again if I stop being a perfectionnist and stop trying to give advice on utility and gameplay. You can ignore everything that I said it will not change things drasticly (I still highly recommend you do those), BUT I still gotta say that the condi scourge in your team is hurting my eyes =) I am pretty sure he is the main force that is dragging you down. Condi scourge there is a dead weight that you are carrying and a fractal that is a liiiiiiil bit more difficult than average becomes annoying because of that.

When I wrote the inital post, I was playing a druid and had no other classes besides a DPS geared for fractals and I don't enjoy playing DPS because I can't hit the higher numbers and NOBODY WANTED ME ON HEALER BECAUSE I WASN'T A HEALBRAND.

This is even more true on fractals like Siren's Reef, you are not welcome if you don't fit a certain mold.

The comp I mentioned with tempest heals, CFB and Chrono DOESN'T HAVE TROUBLE ON SIREN'S REEF.I said we had less troubles than ever before switching to this style.

It still has the core problem that: you are not wanted PUGs that only go for meta comps.This kind of issue breeds so much toxicity in the community and it is made worse on fractals like Siren's Reef.

And another point is that, even when we have no problem completing SR, the fact that the platform is small with so much clutter translate to awful design.

Why is that so hard for people to understand? Just because it's added some challenge, doesn't mean it is okay because poor design making something a challenge is still poor design.> @Armen.1483 said:

@"hellsqueen.3045" said:

When I wrote the inital post, I was playing a druid and had no other classes besides a DPS geared for fractals and I don't enjoy playing DPS because I can't hit the higher numbers and NOBODY WANTED ME ON HEALER BECAUSE I WASN'T A HEALBRAND.

This is even more true on fractals like Siren's Reef, you are not welcome if you don't fit a certain mold.I am pretty sure everyone is welcome anywhere if he/she knows his stuff. I have never been kicked from any pug group while playing offmeta. Maybe I am just lucky, but I guess if you know your thing nobody will tell you anything.
The comp I mentioned with tempest heals, CFB and Chrono DOESN'T HAVE TROUBLE ON SIREN'S REEF.
I said we had less troubles than ever before switching to this style.If you don't have any trouble, what is the problem then ? It just proves that Siren's Reef is not an extremely hard fractal. You say you don't have any troubles now.. strange.. I am missing something maybe.
It still has the core problem that: you are not wanted PUGs that only go for meta comps.
make your own group if you are not welcome. but again, my experience is quite different from yours I guess.This kind of issue breeds so much toxicity in the community and it is made worse on fractals like Siren's Reef.hmm.. Apart from cms sometimes (very rarely) I don't see often toxicity in normal fractals.And another point is that, even when we have no problem completing SR, the fact that the platform is small with so much clutter translate to awful design.
This is why I answered your post !
Why is that so hard for people to understand? Just because it's added some challenge, doesn't mean it is okay because poor design making something a challenge is still poor design.So I want an argument here: what do you mean by saying "poor design" ? If the platform was bigger, the only 3 mechanics (pushing tornadoes, the green circle and the red circle) would be completely useless, and it would make this fractal something like the 1st miniboss in "molten boss" fractal.The arena is small for a reason: it is the core mechanic of that bossfight. Asking to make it bigger is the same as asking Mickey Mouse be a crocodile. It makes no sense.

And in the end I don't get the rant. You said that you have no trouble clearing now, so what's the problem ? If you don't like the fractal it is your personal preference. You can't say it has objectively poor design. It has a very good design in fact. Actually it is one of the best bossfights in gw2 in terms of mechanics.

When you can have people say in this post that CM's, which are the challenge mode versions of fractals still feel like they have less visual clutter and crap spam compared this fractal, it says a lot.

When I did Shattered Observatory CM for the first time, I had an easier time dealing with everything in that. Siren's Reef just does a bad job at giving the player space, I feel like it replicates the stress I feel when put in an enclosed space for too long.There is no excuse for a small platform filled to the brim with that many chunky AOE's. That's really the major issue.The size of the AOEs and all the mobs on the smallest fighting space I've seen in some time, it just feels awful to experience.I can look forward to nearly every other fractal, usually the only time I groan is when I get certain instabilities matched up with a certain fractal.Although I'll be fair and say I also passionately dislike the newer Aquatic Ruins boss fight as well.

I can't really point out another fractal that really suffers from this because there isn't.

But I will point out a story example:You are on the epic airship mission and you are flying through the sky.Hmm, my character seems a bit jittery hmm weird.And, oh oh dear lord I just fell through the airship.... Why the hell is this happening?Oh there is a waypoint! I'll teleport back to it.

This was my genuine experience with the story mission. I fell through the ship many times and had to use the waypoint to avoid falling into the void and dying multiple times.

The waypoint doesn't really help the core issue, it is just a way around a problem that shouldn't really exist in the first place.Having to have all these rules in place of how to deal with every little thing is the waypoint that really should have to exist in the first place.The whole point of GW2 was to create a game with so much build freedom, going back towards holy trinity behaviour is one thing, but having to be specific classes in order to succeed makes things really toxic and frustrating.

Or what about in the actual Arah Dungeon and you fight Giga Lupi.By default people pretty much want a reflect to deal with him. That shouldn't really have to be a thing to melt his health bar away and keep your team significantly more alive, but it is.

These things to me scream poor design, just because there was a way around it, doesn't mean it made for good design choices.Good design generally makes more people happy than it does frustrated, even if that thing is hard.

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  • 3 weeks later...

As condi scourge this fractal was never an issue.It can be done if you have enough stability so the wind will not be an issue. Or you can just aoe the boss when teleported so you dont have to deal with the wind if you chased it.

As scourge i cleanse and transfer the condis to the boss. And spam epi when the target got the maximum condis i can give from my rotation.

The wind if nothing if you never tried to chase the boss

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  • 2 weeks later...

Never really had many problems with this fractal but I really dislike it. For me the the worst part is that the boss is simply boring. Feels like the adds are the boss and boss is like a prop that stands still and does aoe stun ocasionally. Crowe herself is not really threatening in any way, shape or form because main threat are billion adds that spawn throught the fight. I hope they took some feedback and the new fractal is more like 99/100 instead deepstore/siren's.

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@silent killer.5732 said:[...] if you have enough stability so the wind will not be an issue.Stability won't prevent the wind from throwing you out of the deck.It does work for the hammer attacks though.

@silent killer.5732 said:The wind if nothing if you never tried to chase the boss

True.

The part when you say that ranged AoE can help is true ?.Wind will follow a "pattern", and if you place yourself at the good wind channel edge, it's easy to walk away from it, even without dodging.

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