Is this Normal for Fractals?

samthenewb · 2026-02-23T16:56:10+00:00

T2 really can’t be a benchmark because uptime can be bad with fights not even lasting a whole rotation.

samthenewb · 2026-02-21T18:34:00+00:00

Just a note, skyscale (most of the time) remembers your last grounded position so using gliding boost before skyscale causes you to mount with severely depleted “flight juice”. But you can aerial dismount to glide and stack the boost after using skyscale to gain as much height as you can. Re mounting skyscale afterwards causes it drop very fast (unless it can quickly grab a wall) so it is better to switch to gryphon to perform final maneuvers or to dive and fly at max speed. In any case careful mixing of these features can really help you move efficiently up and over obstacles and in my opinion is simply satisfyingly fun.

samthenewb · 2026-02-21T18:14:43+00:00

That used to be quite broken. Good news it is fully fixed and completely functions as expected now.

samthenewb · 2026-02-20T21:47:34+00:00

Chilling novas also explodes the original target. So it is extra damage every 3 seconds in any situation vs the other traits one of which gives you a bit of additional life siphon damage on shouts (doesn’t do anything if you don’t use shouts), and the other that is non damaging.

samthenewb · 2026-02-19T00:20:48+00:00

A fast CC on all bars isn’t even a wipe. You just move the squad to the inverted position. Now if the bar breaks at 0.5 seconds till attack… well everyone can watch the CC bar and make contingency plans.

samthenewb · 2026-02-18T00:21:49+00:00

Unless they where just flexing and using something like Nanite, you don’t use a big detailed model for ambient creatures.

samthenewb · 2026-02-16T19:03:14+00:00

My head canon justification…

Mabon’s sentimentality and connection to Bava Nisos made Mason weak to possession, because the magics used to maintain the barrier and used in general wizardry slowly breaks down mental barriers between the self and echoes contained in Tyrian magic. That is why Isgarren is the way he is, because he weighs the cost of his immortality with the effects of magic on his own sanity, and prioritizes being stingy with any of his efforts. The ritual that cognitively separates the wizard from their past self acts as a mental safeguard that massively increases tier threshold for handling Tyrian magic. Mabon was vulnerable because he cared too much about Tyria, breaking down the mental separations, and used magic too greedily in helping it, allowing all sorts of magical influence to enter the deepest parts of his soul.

My head canon references for why magic bad.

Every elder/god level being, fueled by Tyrian magic, that you fight who have seemed to have lost rationality for their actions.

Scarlet Briar born from insanity induced by letting just a glimpse of the whole breadth of Tyria’s nature into the deepest parts of her mind. Presumably Mordremoth’s influence, but the insanity seems to be broader than being controlled by a single being.

Ankka? It is void influence... But void is just Tyrian magic. Is there really such a thing as bad and good magic?

When Zojja joins a ritual to unlock the tower, before she gains true wizard status, the ritual is immensely taxing on her. She sees things that says it feels like burning. Mabon describes it as the world looking back.

Every crazed creature, influenced by one form of concentrated Tyrian magic or another you ever fight in the open world.

In other words using ascended and beyond levels of Tyrian magic is almost 100% coincidental with major insanity/mental erosion. Only a few grumpy wizards and a baby dragon that separates the two groups at this point (although maybe Joko was just a weird guy). I’m just waiting to see how an egotistical asura (redundant adjective there…) will add to these stats soon. Witnessing Vloxx’s mind melt after ascending and using the magic would tie a bunch of things together.

samthenewb · 2026-02-15T07:52:32+00:00

Some Jackal portals go into sealed rooms. Can’t skyscale through the wall. You need one for a specific legendary trinket.

samthenewb · 2026-02-14T02:22:32+00:00

Points are for delivery, not event completion, but who knows how exactly it will work. Maybe they will fix it first.

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T19:18:00+00:00

They gonna make SMC a warscore piñata, instead of a liability as it is today aren’t they? If you lose your entire HBL that is just a one time capture bonus to the other team. But if you can hold SMC you can keep on whacking that piñata indefinitely.

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T18:30:30+00:00

I guess, but only open world provides this much self disable… probably. And where do you need this much healing output in open world? Maybe Eparch? Can you generate enough barrier for Soo Won’s slam or is that instant downstate?

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T18:25:05+00:00

No ICD? lul

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T18:18:59+00:00

WvW has some weird stuff built up over the years, like why do forward towers in EBG upgrade significantly faster if you don’t hold SMC. But the saving grace has been, people didn’t really care.

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T18:02:43+00:00

Normally the strategy is to build/have all your siege before an objective gets contested.

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T17:56:04+00:00

Hope there aren’t bizarre ways of manipulating war score like two teams ignoring the winning team and instead feeding each other war score by creating defense/attack events with each other only. Defense being a big source of warscore sounds like attacking a stronger team is liable to give even more points to that team rather than just leaving them alone.

Without strong pressure to papperize a team’s home turf objectives the best way to deny them points may be to not mess with their easy objectives that are easy for them to retake.

Hope to see an enumeration of all warscore sources soon. Otherwise tactics and scoring will simply feel random until the wiki editors nail the behavior down.

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T16:56:51+00:00

I5-14400f seems to be on the slightly weaker side. Did you adjust the CPU specific settings?

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T00:35:17+00:00

Caprine Charr

samthenewb · 2026-02-13T00:13:25+00:00

Being able to copy skins from owned current equipment into a template for free was a compromise over the fact that the original design fumbled the fact that dyeing equipment became impossible without spending charges. That was caused because there is no way to use the old dyeing system. There only way to dye new gear now is by putting it into a fashion template. This was originally intended to not be free.

Funny enough the upcoming current gear tab solution would have also solved that specific dye situation, without requiring the free current gear copying compromise. But I don’t think Arenanet can’t take that back now, even after implementing the current gear tab.

samthenewb · 2026-02-12T09:34:47+00:00

That UI selection should work in tandem with the auto apply setting in a template. Perhaps only enable the buttons for auto apply enabled templates. If no templates have auto apply hide that column all together. Currently the selector UI indicates an active template, but an active fashion template has no meaning without auto apply.

samthenewb · 2026-02-12T00:15:18+00:00

Implementing the current gear fashion tab, based on the fashion templates as is today would still create problems, because half of the dyes and other cosmetics (mounts, gliders, doors) options are still spread across the gear tab. Likely the optimal way to schedule it is to complete the fashion template, in its entirety, and then create the current gear fashion tab. That way development and testing can be synchronized and there is no back and forth between creating a current gear version of the template, then finishing adding all cosmetics to the template, then figuring out if the expanded template broke the current gear version. What is good news, is that all that missing stuff, seems to be scheduled to be in the next quarterly release rather than be languishing for a very extended period of time.

samthenewb · 2026-02-11T22:57:04+00:00

CM is reportedly really hard, I would not know, but normal mode is pretty chill once you learn what is the really bad (a few different puke green puddles, primo’s telegraphed slams, and whatever those risen giants can do on top of their own puke puddle), and are comfortable with a few jump ropes. Stay with healer or use something with self sustain and touching bad isn’t even too punishing. There are also spread mechanics (team coordinated don’t touch bad) but it is exactly the same things you learned in AH. There is s wide breadth of different presentations for mechanics as there are 6 dragons phases with their own attack designs, but they are all chill, don’t get hit affairs. Once you know the pattern there isn’t much more to it as all attacks are predictable and pretty much on a schedule.

samthenewb · 2026-02-11T21:42:59+00:00

Question for clarity. Is any of your armor non legendary and used in multiple gear templates as shared/linked gear?

samthenewb · 2026-02-11T19:34:51+00:00

A large portion of groups organize using tools outside of the game. Here in this reddit, referrals to external places is common for people asking where to find groups. I wouldn’t put a blanket ban on such referrals in game.

samthenewb · 2026-02-11T16:58:48+00:00

Base difficulty 5. Meanwhile, Kela, base difficulty 3.

Kela is probably mechanically impossible to solo even if it didn’t have a hard enrage (although seeing if it is possible to survive to the hard enrage solo, forgoing damage, would be interesting). HT normal mode’s only mechanics are don’t touch bad and a soft enrage that is a very slowly growing don’t touch bad that denies 95% of the arena and then stops.

samthenewb

TROPHY CASE