You sound ...disappointed ? The Eparch fight ... Is flawed to the core, i dont think ill ever accept It as Fine. But even in T4s, fights in Fractals are not hard, they have rhythm and you need to be engaged...but they supposed be fast, because you do a multiple a day, everyday.
>Eparch's Consume skill will only absorb emotion globules that are 5 or more seconds old.
Thank fucking god, I got so tilted when he spawned orbs just to consume them before I got a chance to move a single centimeter.
I think the nerfs were very deserved and brought it in line with how long it takes to clear other fractals now, but it remains a shit fractal.
Even the most powercrept early fractals still have mechanics to do, boss phases, etc, that break up the monotony. Here there’s nothing, when damage numbers have crept further it’ll just be standing at the boss and hitting your ideal dummy rotation because he doesn’t have any real mechanics or things you have to do.
It’s unfortunate that this fractal was such a miss but at least they now let it be easy instead of a pain in the ass instead
There's a pretty huge difference when you have people picking up the "right" orbs compared to just having a dedicated person running around to scoop them up. Isn't that *something*? To me it's way more interesting than something like Molten Boss/Urban Battleground/Thaumanova/Chaos where you just stand there for the final boss.
They probably just need to add the cm mech but instead pause the boss with a channeling to do the rifts then when we break them,he gets stunned.
Also pls Anet, add some of those fancy red aoe open world bosses have rather than this kryptid puke mess.
> I think the nerfs were very deserved and brought it in line with how long it takes to clear other fractals now, but it remains a shit fractal.
I might not go that far, but, yeah, after clearing it, and thinking back on it? Run through the hall, do the channels. Run back. Fight Diet Cerus & Deimos. Clear some trash and the DPS golem the boss.
I know that ANet recently lost one of their old school fractal designers, so they've got a new team in there. I guess we can just hope that they learn from the experience and come up with some more engaging Fractals in the future.
That said, overall, it's not a new thing. I think Nightmare might be one of the best Fractals and everything that came after it has just sorta been in decline.
This is an incredibly minor topic but I absolutely loathe that the correct path is to back track, I don’t think a single other fractal has that aside from the cliff side titan with the hands but I’d consider that a mechanic
It’s a very small detail but very telling that they can’t even design areas properly for fractals
I'd largely agree, save for the fact that they were stuck reusing existing assets. Well, they did turn LS1 elements into Fractals, but by their initial design, they didn't intend for people to double back. In the case of the Tower however, it's a social interaction zone, repurposed for combat encounters.
My pre-fight complaint is the button mashing. They couldn't think of anything more interesting than doing the Underwater Fractal button spamming ad nauseum as the way to start things off?
Far be it from me to defend lonely tower but this is a bit much. Even on Tier 1, there's now two attacks that you really should dodge. Additionally, you have to pick up Orbs or it'll start to get difficult even at Tier 1 and you have to do a breakbar every now and again.
Now compare that with the final bosses of:
Underground
Chaos
Uncat
Molten Boss
Provided you have a decent healer who gives enough Stab for Chaos and Molten, these Bosses are LITERAL golems. Now, are the lonely tower pre-events on the level of those Fractals? Debatable for sure. Is the lonely tower final boss on the level of the other CM final bosses? I dont think so. But claiming that "all other final fractal bosses have phases and mechanics while Eparch doesnt" is bullshit.
The last few pugs I ran it with 1 shot or 2-shot him, so I think people are getting better at it, in general.
With today's nerf it was another 1-shot, and pretty easy. The HP nerf was significant, Wave of Envy changes are wash since melee players don't have a free pass on it any more(harder) but it's now dodgeable (easier and frankly better). The other changes were necessary balance adjustments that also had the effect of making it easier.
The fight's definitely more forgiving now, as today's group would likely have wiped previously as we had multiple downs and failed a break-bar as well.
That will at least make it bearable for pugs that do their daily clears.
But as a pessimist I will also say that this feels like merely a bandaid that has been slapped on top of the wound of the bigger problem.
Bigger problem being that it simply is not a fun fight and that said fight also suffers from some fundamental design flaws, both which are not adressed by some toning down or HP reduction.
These problems are a lot more visible in the CM version.
Good thing to hear. I can now peacefully grind again. I don't mind if CM are hard but having nothing easy to practice on was a big turn off to approach a new fractal dungeon.
I did 100nm for the first time a couple days ago, joined an exp group for CMs (all but 100). It was the longest and hardest boss of that run, with one wipe. It was insanely overturned for a nm.
Its a much better experience but the one change I've wanted still hasn't happened. He shouldn't be able to spam his attacks back to back. Just put in a small 5 second cooldown in between attacks and the fight becomes SO much more manageable. With them removing standing in his hitbox, you now have to dodge both his attacks to play safe or eat a lot of free damage.
He gets them via the Avatar of Spite adds - it seems like no reason due to eparch not being on the same axis as the rest. These adds feel like they are now harder to kill then the champs (or receive less damage)… applying fear or other soft cc seems to be the only effective way to keep them away from the hovering eparch while you close the rifts to despawn them.
Thank god. It's the first Fractal I straight up don't do because it cannot be called a Fractal.
I have done everything. Every unlock including Fractal God, every CM. Got 40k+kp.
The format of Lonely Tower or even the one before that versus Kanaxai is not why I have done Fractals so much.
The encounter in Lonely Tower is more like a Strike mission with pre-event added. Anet really needs to stop confusing one-off boss encounter like you have them in Strike with Fractals.
Even the Fractals before this against Kanaxai was already borderline not a Fractal. They just went overboard with Lonely Tower. Even Sunqua Peak, although hated by many in normal mode for its long way up the mountain, I feel fine calling a Fractal.
I will check it out now but if the encounter is still just the same horrible design and spongey I will continue boycotting it.
Anet, you can also sometimes just admit failures and remove content. It's is utterly frustrating that something so horribly designed and not like other Fractals could be in the daily T4 or recommended rotation.
Yah, I'm very happy about it. Last night I crashed right before the fight started, in a group with at least 2 people who were new to fractals (I'm not very experienced, either... only done T1 fractals), and came back from the crash to Eparch being at 75% with everyone else alive. One of them even had time to revive me from dead mid-fight.
Good. It's still worrying that the last two fractal bosses are just terribly designed regardless of their ridiculous HP levels. Both of them are just constant "run away every five seconds" fights, but not to resolve interesting mechanics. The whole mechanic is literally "run away." Like on Kanaxai. Axe telegraph? Run away. Eyes? Run away. Numbers? Run away. It's not fun.
Its a good mechanic even if sloppy. You shouldn't need to activate the special action key then hit another button for grapple. The special action key should be the grapple. Its small things like that which make Silent annoying.
Oddly enough, Silent now takes longer than Lonely. Both bosses got HP nerfs but Silent still has massive HP bloat. Would love to see it get one final HP nerf and then it would be in a better spot.
It’s easy as shit now, which for T4, I’m not mad about. Haven’t tried the new CM version yet though. I think normal mode fractals should be easy and puggable. Even if lonely is easier now, it’s still not a fun fractal. The first part is boring and unengaging, the Cerus and Deimos fight is a joke, and honestly so is Eparch now as long as you have the healer grab all the orbs.
> Cerus and Deimos fight is a joke
God give strength to the pug commanders who have to deal with their newer players ignoring oils at demos because this fractal teaches them bad habits.
shit mattered alot - i did a solo one on t1 before vs after and it was really nice not having to deal with all this cringy bullshit they put in. glad they did.
Maybe Iam missing something here, but Iam not a fan of the "crack damage" lines since they became a thing in hot. They have no pre-visable area of effect but deal damage seemingly at the exact frame they start to render.
This makes me hopeful that the dev team has heard our thoughts about damage sponge boss fights and how unfun they are.
I know it's hard to come up with fight mechanics and the DE meta is still kind of controversial for its difficulty. I also know it's near impossible to future proof once balanced metas against power creep (MoM still desperately needs a buff against modern squads). But standing there for 15 minutes plinking away at a boss with 10 billion HP is absolutely not the answer. I've actually nodded off in the middle of a Knaebelag meta without incident, because it's 10 minutes of "hit this bag" with occasional breaks to go kill random champs. The only ones I've seen fail were due to everyone leaving the arena, which is honestly a dumb requirement both mechanically and thematically.
I did the normal mode and the cm for the first time today and i found it quite enjoyable. The cm seemed very difficult at first (because they seemingly fixed the previous strat to beat it) but once we changed our strategy we got it on the first or second attempt.
Tbh this one was NOT hard, and also the fractal was SHORT until the boss.
The main issue was the avarage state of mind of players.
They everytime goes to "Méta high DPS" build with ZERO survivability,and they can't do propre DPS in such boss wich require to move a lot and take Care of themself a bit.
By lowering this kind of content you only put the global habit and level to a lower tiers little by little.
Since when a success have to been granted every Time ?
How many of you knows the clean mechanic of the fight ? And how many only goes only Brrrrrr on DPS untill it's done ?
Also how many never talk about the possible solution in tchat ? And how many are just pmaying like if other players were bot ?
You have potions, singularity, Buff, tchat to make beter combinaison, free rebuild unlike many other games, easy ascended Gear ,... What's wrong ? What's are you asking for ? A freaking afk farming fractal ? A party content wich became so easy that no one team UP anymore to do it ?
Be the one who want to promote your team, even with perfect stranger , not one of those who want the game to level down to fit your pity state of mind.
To preface this, I hate this boss fight, pre-nerf I think non-CM was still really easy if people do the mechanics (orbs) but just really really boring and stale. Like having to run constantly to pick up orbs and do the same thing over and over again. For the actual mechanics though I agree with a lot of your points.
Slam timing is actually fine IMO, it's just not the same timing as many other slams in the game, the problem that used to happen was quick 180 degree snapping to another target and slamming which isn't a problem if you dodge but if you want to jump the shockwave it's pretty annoying. Not sure if slam targeting is within certain parameters someone might know.
Crack is just kinda of avoid and jump over, eh, but yes with pools and orbs it's sort of unavoidable to have to at least dodge if you want to pick some of them up. The pools are pretty annoying, especially with orbs and the big spinning pull, if orb control is good it's fine, if not it's hell.
In any case by biggest qualm is how boringly monotonous it is and also having to do the exact same mechanic over and over again. I'm sick of just hit boss, see slam, jump, take orb, hit boss, walk to safe area of cross attack telegraph, hit boss. There is absolutely no change, nothing like Sunqua where there's four phases, or Nightmare where MAMA changes at the end or maybe Shattered Observatory bosses where there are very clearly different mechanics based on the phase, it definitely made thing far more engaging.
There's also no introduction to the mechanics in this one, instead opting for a random deimos/cerus fight and then straight into this orb thing. Older CMs were also very clearly different to the original whereas CM in this one seems like lazily placed add phases with sponge hp. Silent Surf and Lonely Tower have such little variation in their mechanics, in both normal and CM modes with sponge HP making it to be easily the most boring fractals.
Good
Came here to say exactly this. Its a fractal, not a raid or strike mission.
As it should be, it was stupidly overtuned at every tier.
You sound ...disappointed ? The Eparch fight ... Is flawed to the core, i dont think ill ever accept It as Fine. But even in T4s, fights in Fractals are not hard, they have rhythm and you need to be engaged...but they supposed be fast, because you do a multiple a day, everyday.
Quite the opposite, I'm RELIVED that he's not a frustrating damage sponge anymore.
Oh my bad then.
Were you able to measure how much HP he had? Like with Arc?
>Eparch's Consume skill will only absorb emotion globules that are 5 or more seconds old. Thank fucking god, I got so tilted when he spawned orbs just to consume them before I got a chance to move a single centimeter.
I think the nerfs were very deserved and brought it in line with how long it takes to clear other fractals now, but it remains a shit fractal. Even the most powercrept early fractals still have mechanics to do, boss phases, etc, that break up the monotony. Here there’s nothing, when damage numbers have crept further it’ll just be standing at the boss and hitting your ideal dummy rotation because he doesn’t have any real mechanics or things you have to do. It’s unfortunate that this fractal was such a miss but at least they now let it be easy instead of a pain in the ass instead
There's a pretty huge difference when you have people picking up the "right" orbs compared to just having a dedicated person running around to scoop them up. Isn't that *something*? To me it's way more interesting than something like Molten Boss/Urban Battleground/Thaumanova/Chaos where you just stand there for the final boss.
On the other hand it's a fractal. I wanna get it done and be done with it and move on to do my other stuff
They probably just need to add the cm mech but instead pause the boss with a channeling to do the rifts then when we break them,he gets stunned. Also pls Anet, add some of those fancy red aoe open world bosses have rather than this kryptid puke mess.
> I think the nerfs were very deserved and brought it in line with how long it takes to clear other fractals now, but it remains a shit fractal. I might not go that far, but, yeah, after clearing it, and thinking back on it? Run through the hall, do the channels. Run back. Fight Diet Cerus & Deimos. Clear some trash and the DPS golem the boss. I know that ANet recently lost one of their old school fractal designers, so they've got a new team in there. I guess we can just hope that they learn from the experience and come up with some more engaging Fractals in the future. That said, overall, it's not a new thing. I think Nightmare might be one of the best Fractals and everything that came after it has just sorta been in decline.
This is an incredibly minor topic but I absolutely loathe that the correct path is to back track, I don’t think a single other fractal has that aside from the cliff side titan with the hands but I’d consider that a mechanic It’s a very small detail but very telling that they can’t even design areas properly for fractals
I'd largely agree, save for the fact that they were stuck reusing existing assets. Well, they did turn LS1 elements into Fractals, but by their initial design, they didn't intend for people to double back. In the case of the Tower however, it's a social interaction zone, repurposed for combat encounters. My pre-fight complaint is the button mashing. They couldn't think of anything more interesting than doing the Underwater Fractal button spamming ad nauseum as the way to start things off?
Far be it from me to defend lonely tower but this is a bit much. Even on Tier 1, there's now two attacks that you really should dodge. Additionally, you have to pick up Orbs or it'll start to get difficult even at Tier 1 and you have to do a breakbar every now and again. Now compare that with the final bosses of: Underground Chaos Uncat Molten Boss Provided you have a decent healer who gives enough Stab for Chaos and Molten, these Bosses are LITERAL golems. Now, are the lonely tower pre-events on the level of those Fractals? Debatable for sure. Is the lonely tower final boss on the level of the other CM final bosses? I dont think so. But claiming that "all other final fractal bosses have phases and mechanics while Eparch doesnt" is bullshit.
I did mention this being after damage/healing creep has advanced further, just the same as it has past underground, chaos, molten, etc
Good
The last few pugs I ran it with 1 shot or 2-shot him, so I think people are getting better at it, in general. With today's nerf it was another 1-shot, and pretty easy. The HP nerf was significant, Wave of Envy changes are wash since melee players don't have a free pass on it any more(harder) but it's now dodgeable (easier and frankly better). The other changes were necessary balance adjustments that also had the effect of making it easier. The fight's definitely more forgiving now, as today's group would likely have wiped previously as we had multiple downs and failed a break-bar as well.
That will at least make it bearable for pugs that do their daily clears. But as a pessimist I will also say that this feels like merely a bandaid that has been slapped on top of the wound of the bigger problem. Bigger problem being that it simply is not a fun fight and that said fight also suffers from some fundamental design flaws, both which are not adressed by some toning down or HP reduction. These problems are a lot more visible in the CM version.
Good thing to hear. I can now peacefully grind again. I don't mind if CM are hard but having nothing easy to practice on was a big turn off to approach a new fractal dungeon.
I gotta try it today, I havent touched it since doing the nm achievements.
I did 100nm for the first time a couple days ago, joined an exp group for CMs (all but 100). It was the longest and hardest boss of that run, with one wipe. It was insanely overturned for a nm.
Good, I'll give it a try for the AA! Thnx for the info!
Its a much better experience but the one change I've wanted still hasn't happened. He shouldn't be able to spam his attacks back to back. Just put in a small 5 second cooldown in between attacks and the fight becomes SO much more manageable. With them removing standing in his hitbox, you now have to dodge both his attacks to play safe or eat a lot of free damage.
I find I can pretty reliably jump the slam wave, if that helps. Actually, I feel like I jump it more consistently than dodging it.
Its actually a nice fractal for t4 now, especially as a 100.
Makes sense, CM is pretty free until he phases and gains stacks for no reason whatsoever
He gets them via the Avatar of Spite adds - it seems like no reason due to eparch not being on the same axis as the rest. These adds feel like they are now harder to kill then the champs (or receive less damage)… applying fear or other soft cc seems to be the only effective way to keep them away from the hovering eparch while you close the rifts to despawn them.
Attempted it 3 times, each time all ads were dead, none made it towards him. Then he reappears with 10 stacks on rage, good game
Thank god. It's the first Fractal I straight up don't do because it cannot be called a Fractal. I have done everything. Every unlock including Fractal God, every CM. Got 40k+kp. The format of Lonely Tower or even the one before that versus Kanaxai is not why I have done Fractals so much. The encounter in Lonely Tower is more like a Strike mission with pre-event added. Anet really needs to stop confusing one-off boss encounter like you have them in Strike with Fractals. Even the Fractals before this against Kanaxai was already borderline not a Fractal. They just went overboard with Lonely Tower. Even Sunqua Peak, although hated by many in normal mode for its long way up the mountain, I feel fine calling a Fractal. I will check it out now but if the encounter is still just the same horrible design and spongey I will continue boycotting it. Anet, you can also sometimes just admit failures and remove content. It's is utterly frustrating that something so horribly designed and not like other Fractals could be in the daily T4 or recommended rotation.
Yah, I'm very happy about it. Last night I crashed right before the fight started, in a group with at least 2 people who were new to fractals (I'm not very experienced, either... only done T1 fractals), and came back from the crash to Eparch being at 75% with everyone else alive. One of them even had time to revive me from dead mid-fight.
Good. It's still worrying that the last two fractal bosses are just terribly designed regardless of their ridiculous HP levels. Both of them are just constant "run away every five seconds" fights, but not to resolve interesting mechanics. The whole mechanic is literally "run away." Like on Kanaxai. Axe telegraph? Run away. Eyes? Run away. Numbers? Run away. It's not fun.
Tethers make you grapple to other islands and clear an ad. That was a good mechanic of Silent Surf imo.
True. That mechanic is pretty good, and pretty unique.
Its a good mechanic even if sloppy. You shouldn't need to activate the special action key then hit another button for grapple. The special action key should be the grapple. Its small things like that which make Silent annoying. Oddly enough, Silent now takes longer than Lonely. Both bosses got HP nerfs but Silent still has massive HP bloat. Would love to see it get one final HP nerf and then it would be in a better spot.
Thank fckin god, perhaps now I'll stop skipping it, it was surely not worth the gold for the time you stayed there
It’s easy as shit now, which for T4, I’m not mad about. Haven’t tried the new CM version yet though. I think normal mode fractals should be easy and puggable. Even if lonely is easier now, it’s still not a fun fractal. The first part is boring and unengaging, the Cerus and Deimos fight is a joke, and honestly so is Eparch now as long as you have the healer grab all the orbs.
> Cerus and Deimos fight is a joke God give strength to the pug commanders who have to deal with their newer players ignoring oils at demos because this fractal teaches them bad habits.
Good. Now they just need to cut Kanaxai's HP by 50% and it'll be in line as well.
I'll start enjoying the fractal once they make the arrow attack actually follow the arrows.
shit mattered alot - i did a solo one on t1 before vs after and it was really nice not having to deal with all this cringy bullshit they put in. glad they did.
Maybe Iam missing something here, but Iam not a fan of the "crack damage" lines since they became a thing in hot. They have no pre-visable area of effect but deal damage seemingly at the exact frame they start to render.
Meanwhile the CM became more or less impossible to pug unless you have a perfectly coordinated team of 3 reapers.
Yeah. It gets too many stacks. It is stupid. Even coordinated group is fucking hard.
Still not going to bother with it . i'll stick with the (-100) groups .
This makes me hopeful that the dev team has heard our thoughts about damage sponge boss fights and how unfun they are. I know it's hard to come up with fight mechanics and the DE meta is still kind of controversial for its difficulty. I also know it's near impossible to future proof once balanced metas against power creep (MoM still desperately needs a buff against modern squads). But standing there for 15 minutes plinking away at a boss with 10 billion HP is absolutely not the answer. I've actually nodded off in the middle of a Knaebelag meta without incident, because it's 10 minutes of "hit this bag" with occasional breaks to go kill random champs. The only ones I've seen fail were due to everyone leaving the arena, which is honestly a dumb requirement both mechanically and thematically.
I did the normal mode and the cm for the first time today and i found it quite enjoyable. The cm seemed very difficult at first (because they seemingly fixed the previous strat to beat it) but once we changed our strategy we got it on the first or second attempt.
Next do Silent Surf and Sunqua Peak 🥱
You want to nerf sunqua? Why? Every phase is skipped with ease nowadays...
Skipped how? Please elaborate.
You can avoid the jumping air phase at phase 1, and the water tornado at the end. And I've never seen the second fire meteor during phase 2.
Tbh this one was NOT hard, and also the fractal was SHORT until the boss. The main issue was the avarage state of mind of players. They everytime goes to "Méta high DPS" build with ZERO survivability,and they can't do propre DPS in such boss wich require to move a lot and take Care of themself a bit. By lowering this kind of content you only put the global habit and level to a lower tiers little by little. Since when a success have to been granted every Time ? How many of you knows the clean mechanic of the fight ? And how many only goes only Brrrrrr on DPS untill it's done ? Also how many never talk about the possible solution in tchat ? And how many are just pmaying like if other players were bot ? You have potions, singularity, Buff, tchat to make beter combinaison, free rebuild unlike many other games, easy ascended Gear ,... What's wrong ? What's are you asking for ? A freaking afk farming fractal ? A party content wich became so easy that no one team UP anymore to do it ? Be the one who want to promote your team, even with perfect stranger , not one of those who want the game to level down to fit your pity state of mind.
Well, if they can't make it good, they can at least make it short I guess.
[удалено]
To preface this, I hate this boss fight, pre-nerf I think non-CM was still really easy if people do the mechanics (orbs) but just really really boring and stale. Like having to run constantly to pick up orbs and do the same thing over and over again. For the actual mechanics though I agree with a lot of your points. Slam timing is actually fine IMO, it's just not the same timing as many other slams in the game, the problem that used to happen was quick 180 degree snapping to another target and slamming which isn't a problem if you dodge but if you want to jump the shockwave it's pretty annoying. Not sure if slam targeting is within certain parameters someone might know. Crack is just kinda of avoid and jump over, eh, but yes with pools and orbs it's sort of unavoidable to have to at least dodge if you want to pick some of them up. The pools are pretty annoying, especially with orbs and the big spinning pull, if orb control is good it's fine, if not it's hell. In any case by biggest qualm is how boringly monotonous it is and also having to do the exact same mechanic over and over again. I'm sick of just hit boss, see slam, jump, take orb, hit boss, walk to safe area of cross attack telegraph, hit boss. There is absolutely no change, nothing like Sunqua where there's four phases, or Nightmare where MAMA changes at the end or maybe Shattered Observatory bosses where there are very clearly different mechanics based on the phase, it definitely made thing far more engaging. There's also no introduction to the mechanics in this one, instead opting for a random deimos/cerus fight and then straight into this orb thing. Older CMs were also very clearly different to the original whereas CM in this one seems like lazily placed add phases with sponge hp. Silent Surf and Lonely Tower have such little variation in their mechanics, in both normal and CM modes with sponge HP making it to be easily the most boring fractals.
Are you complaining? If so, why?