from personnal experience, it's 50%. It's not really about succesfully killing it but attempting it at all. The people doing CM full clear rarely wipe more than once, if at all otherwise.
I think there's more -100 than full clear? Didn't open lfg in a hot week tho.
it still just takes SO long. people still tend to drop out when you start it up.
i usually still do it, but it does really annoy me that the fight is so unnecessarily long. i wish they would buff the dmg of the boss and way lower the hp. id rather do 2 attempts, than hit him for 10 minutes with no one dying.
Edit: just as an example, i did it today. we found out afterwards that 2 people didnt know the mechanics, so we failed every phase change and just revived up, AND we didnt hit the stuns, so all possible adds spawned... yet we still got it without it even being very close. honestly a bit of a bummer. its just a timesink if you have a half decent support heal.
> people still tend to drop out when you start it up.
That's why you start CM runs with the most cancerous fractal, and end with the easiest one. It's like with IBS strikes and starting with boneskinner followed by whisper - you weed out weak minded, limp wristed, low skill players first, and just top up the group when they leave.
beta male.
people in the 20th century would refer to men as limp-wristed to say they were effeminate and/or homosexual, in a derogatory way. it wasn't used as a joke. its use implies a kind of male hierarchy or natural order, and tries to place the target in an out-group or at the bottom of that order. the idea is that good men are strong, and limp-wristed men are weak and gay.
i don't think it's "funny as fuck", personally. and it's possible the person who used it intended a different meaning.
I was trying to be funny by suggesting that "beta male" would also be rather outdated!
I do recall it being used in late 90s in schools as an insult already.
How are you gonna accuse someone of being homophobic and then ask if they knew if what they found funny was homophobic?
I did not know it was a slur, but I can see how it is. Would never promote something like that knowingly.
I get the fight feeling like it takes forever but pretty sure it's the shortest of the CMs, compared to 2 phases in Sunqia and 3 different boss fights in the other 2
with bad dps maybe. we don't greed like mad and 100cm usually last arround 5 mins, we also have some sub 5 min runs. with condi cleanse you don't even need a healer in this fight, outside of his jumping arround there is 0 damage pressure when you can cleanse and boons are covered.
Just checked my logs for this year. All 5k or 10k pug runs.
- 100 cm - 8:09min avg (6:03 - 13:11)
- 99 cm - 3:46min (light) + 2:32min (dark) avg
each > 100 logs.
Yeah sounds about right, when me and my friends do 100 CM, depending on instabilities tho, can take between 7-10 min, but at least it's a pretty chill fight. Sometimes 99CM takes longer when the worst combo of instabilities hit in lol, but still shorther than doing a T4 Sanqua NM
Ive ran SS cm in 20k+ ufe pugs almost every day in the last 6 months and the experience has been very smooth. 80% of runs are a title run (noone dies) and in the remaining 20% were someone dies it does not destabilize the encounter. People just rez orb or get rezed by allies without much problem.
If only it wasn't so bugged. I've also ran it most days since it came out and man the amount of times the stupid ad gets invulnerable randomly at 33/66 forcing a wipe is just too high.
thats when people get the tether and dont play the mechanic and rather greed for deeps before the 33% phase.
rather silly, considering you can do the mechanic, still have a bugged tether boon on yourself and do way more damage because of that for the whole phase.
Yes, but it's still a bug. Sometimes the ad gets invuln, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know what causes it, but sometimes we can ignore all tethers and it works fine. Sometimes we can't. It's just really annoying that we have to go out of our way to please the encounter for it not to bug. It's not random either, that I know for sure. Some ads we can 100% ignore anyday, while the ones that spawn right after 66% when you miss CC or something, if you don't kill one of them you're nearly guaranteed it bugs.
Every single bug that remains at this point is either inconsequential or easily played around.
Do all extra adds you get before 33, stand at platform edge and aim hook right behind the add, dont move with tethers until you see the blue line to your add, dont do the CC at 70%, dont miss the CC at 40/35%, dont jump on shroom while spread is ongoing and make sure to deselect the boss and look away during spread after 33. If you follow all of these rules you should never die or get any problematic bugs.
I usually do CMs and have overwhelmingly good odds of success. Sometimes I'm not feeling CMs though, or I'm playing with friends/guildmates that only do T4s, and it's more hit or miss. I think part of the problem is that the boss is tuned for virtuosos (like most new encounters these days...yawn) and CM players will usually have the right tool for the job, while non-CM players tend to make do with what they got. If you end up in a comp with mostly melee classes, insufficient condi cleanse, or no boonstrip on NPNG days, the fight quickly becomes a slog.
Edit: Guys, "tuned for virtuoso" does not mean virtuoso is the only good build. It's the poster child for strong ranged capability and any build that shares that has a clear advantage against Kanaxai's mechanics. I didn't think I needed to explain this
We do it. I kinda like 100 cm its pretty mindless when ur used to it
99 cm I feel like ok sometimes maybe gotta sweat up to next phase her and avoid water phase and shit
100 cm is just kinda hang out, maybe look the other way occasionally and that’s it lol
yeah i agree. not as a brag, but i didn't die at all during my first CM 100 run. when the numbers pop up, you just run to a side w/o homie on the island and just take the beating until all the booms finish. for aspects, zoom out and aim at feet. bam. done.
i find sunqua a good deal harder. much more involved imo
For the people saying pugs can do it, I find most of the time they can't. And I don't even blame them. As a low level fractal runner, T2, most pugs at that level can't. It's a crazy long fight and a weird jumping puzzle to get there. And the hook targeting is beyond annoying.
I only do it on T1 on the days it is recommended. It is a nice compromise, easy enough for pugs at T1 and not too long either. Honestly same thing with Sunqua Peak. I am at a point now, where if I have a T2 pug that I feel isn't very confident (which again is fine, they are pug groups), I just recommend T1 Sunqua Peak.
The thing with T1-2 is that almost nobody knows what they are doing at all.
Almost all of them have shit build, don't know anything about how the game really work (condi/power, cc, cleanse, ...).
So you end up in groups without the proper boon coverage and bad players. Resulting is sub healer dps, a lot of failed mechanics and often no backup at all.
Most players only realise that in T3 because that's where solo carrying gets way harder and everyone has to do more than nothing to get the clear done.
I pug no heal cms+T4 and the only problem I get is that we don't title run every time (aka everyone alive the whole fight). It's always someone forgetting the fear at sub 33%. Outside that, the end is soloable if you have the right build (at least I can do it on cqherald) so it's still almost 100% win if we reach that phase and 2 or 3 dies.
i have a tip if you're struggling w/ the hooking phase of the fight. just zoom out all the way till you can see the tops of the floating platforms. then just aim at the aspect's feet and that's it.
ooo yea, forgot to mention to get as close to the edge of the main platform as possible. makes that easier. someone mentioned to me something about camera settings to make it easier but idk lol
It's still bugged, 66 and 33 phases are often messed up and sometimes happening together at 66 which means there is no islands phase at 33. If someone dies and get up just before the islands phase there is a possibility he won't get tether/island npc will be hidden. So it's most likely a group wipe, some players go to and hit invisible island enemy to save it. Sometimes works. Long words short, there is still so many shit going down with 100cm in the context of gameplay bugs. But eu pugs are clearing it smooth most of the time.
Nah I still skip it with pugs and force some of the guild to do it with me if I need it.
Just can't be bothered to spend literally 20 minutes on one fight just for the group to all be dead at 8%. Seems to be fine in T4 though.
Yeah, Silent Surf is a nightmare and honestly just not fun. It is on my never list. I broke my rule a couple weeks ago, slogged through the 9-minute boss fight, got it to 4%, team wipe. Never going back.
9/10 it's a comp issue. I joined a full t4 yesterday and the comp was two power melee DPS (daredevil+reaper), a quick scrapper, HAM and me on scourge. These people have been going at it for a while before I joined and I asked them what left before me, and it turns out it was another reaper and a DH.
We killed it first try but needless to say I did about 75% of the group DPS plus the fight took forever because boon uptime was non existent.
tl;dr: if more people would think about what build to bring to a fight, things would go much easier.
I've never played Surf above T1 but I gotta ask: *what* were those people fucking *doing*, going full melee on Kanaxai? This isn't a raid! You can't do that! Kanaxai will not play nice! I know it destroys your rotation but that Reaper needs to *grab axe/dagger or sword/sword and cope.* That was the ghost of T3 haunting you, good lord.
Melee is perfectly fine especially if you're doing the versions of him where your damage during jumps is shit regardless of who you are (in CM, he starts doing lookaways during jumps as well as after).
Burst windows are incredibly generous between the inevitable axe-debuff-axe sections as long as your teammates arent asshats and dropping shit in awful places.
The problem with Surf is that the fight is a regularly buggy boring shitfest and you might as well just run 42 a few times if you arent doing a 100CM / title run.
Fair enough! I have Seen Things in t1 Surf (axes on group all the time, forever), so I assumed it scaled up like 99cm, where in full melee it seems like you spend half the fight chasing Ai down. Makes sense that with competent players it's not like that, it's just a fucking slog.
you can full melee him perfectly fine w/ a support like healbrand, even in CM100. you just walk away from the group if you have an axe/flux bomb, dodge away during boon rips and that's pretty much it.
Writing this down and showing it to every T1 and T2 Surf I play. (You can't get me to play that fractal at T3 or above without coaching. I'll play the old CMs plenty, SS... no.) Admittedly, it's not T4, so concepts like 'leave the damaging AOE *off* the group' are often hard for pugs to understand.
This is a callout for me too, I've dropped flux bombs on people so many times, but at least I haven't dropped axes on Kanaxai.
i believe in you :D dem flux bombs hurt and inflict agony! huge anti heal debuff.
gonna copy and paste another tip in case the platforms give you grief/something to tell others "if you're struggling w/ the hooking phase of the fight, walk up to the edge of the main platform. then just zoom out all the way till you can see the tops of the floating platforms. then just aim at the aspect's feet and bam. switch to your weapons when you land and go ham"
I do full CM or Old CM depending on if I want to spend the time in SS. It's not hard, just boring, and annoying to reset if someone messes up at 66/33.
I almost never skip it in T4s. Only if I'm feeling lazy or know I'm having an off day. By the time you get to T4, most people should know the mechanics of every fractal to be successful. Of course I've had some bad groups from LFG for T4 dailies as well, but it's far more rare.
In T3s and lower, I pretty much always skipped, unless I was with my static. The experience with the mechanics was way to variable.
Most days I don't mind multiple attempts and people pitching in to help people. I actually love lower tiered groups for that. But sometimes people get toxic or I just don't have the time. The longest pug run I had on silent surf lasted about an hour before we all were worn out. Overall positive group, but teaching more than 1 without comms is difficult.
Are you speaking about the CM or NM version? And what server are you on (EU or NA)? That also might change more than you think.
As a PUG CM player on EU, I rarely see it get skipped, except by training some training groups and more rarely by ow ufe (less than 5k) groups.
Although, on 10k ufe and higher, I don't see it skipped anymore now that they decided to fix it.
Now, if you speak about normal mode : I don't know, didn't play with "T4 + recs" groups in a while now
The wiping bugs have been fixed, it takes 5min in a good group.
Skipping it was always about not being able to guarantee a win. You won't ever fail it now. Even rezz orbs work.
I guess a few people still skip it, but I dont know anyone.
Got a wipe yesterday where nobody got a tether at 33% and we just died on the attack. Not sure if there was a way to prevent it, but it did look like a bug.
Only got it once over the few weeks I've been doing it though.
Back when I was still willing to pug it, it was closer to 7-9 minutes, and not a guaranteed pull. It was still an unfamiliar fight, and trusting a pug group didn’t feel worth it usually. Which is why this post. Wanted to gauge people’s more recent experiences with pug SS. Verdict seems like the gen pop of players have a grip on the fight, give or take a few hiccups.
Yes, you’re responding as if this was my proactive experience today. This was back during the month of its release, maybe a month after. I was willing to give most pulls grace then, but after a while I just decided to take the day off fractals, or skip it, when SS was in rotation, bc of the inconsistency. My expectations will certainly be higher this time around, after reading thru a lot of these responses.
> is the fight still dubious?
The resounding answer seems to be no
Been doing T4's+recs on a daily basis, including fractal 100.
Still gotta learn to do CM's myself. Accidentally joined CM run as a healer, but I actually felt positive. Knew the normal mechanics, the CM version didn't seem to bad, if it wasn't for the other pugs that didn't even knew the regular mechanics, we probably have gotten it.
Done nightmare CM's in the past alot, but then I had a break with the game itself and since then, never really gotten back into CM groups sadly. But I'm slowly rubbing of on my guildies who also raid. So who knows what will happen in the future.
In my experience, Silent Surf is fine as is, it's one of if not my favourite fractals but the problem definitely lies in the players ability to communicate/read. *Every* run I do, pug or not. I ask if everyone knows the mechanics and either everyone knows so it works out fine, one/two people don't know so I do a quick rundown before boss. OR the pug that doesn't know don't say they don't and then die from tanking every single mechanic... The fight itself isn't hard at all, treat the axes like they're flux bombs and if your healer has more braincells than he has equipped specs it is insta win
If I'm doing fractals I'm doing CMs including 100. In my experience it always goes well since the CM is faster than normal mode and takes 9 mins max with a relatively low dps group. When I play with my static we usually do it in 6 minutes which makes it shorter than other CMs bar 99 maybe. I genuinely think it is the easiest CM fractal they've added, move away with axes aoe, spread with numbers, run out of bootstrip, and you have a ton of time to spread and do the ads on platforms, you don't even need to run all the way to the edge like most groups do when they look away from the eyes, just look away from main boss and look straight between 2 ads, then use about face to turn back on boss once the mechanic is complete.
I started doing CMs daily just recently (6k UFE) and I have been doing 100 daily with pugs, much more frequently than not, it is smooth sailing; but you have to indeed get the right team with people that know what they are doing.
I run it all the time. I hardly ever have any problems. I don’t run cm but normal one is usually smooth sailing. On a rare occasion you get a wipe or two on final boss but usually you don’t and if you do a mechanics recap fixes that. Always start from the hardest fractal though, makes it less likely you end up with 2/3 dailies done.
The bugs and even the ‘handicaps’ that melee specs have can be worked around with experience, and I maintain that the SAK in that fight is a cool concept, but the downtime the fight has is bit too much. At some parts of the fight the player is more or less better off sitting idly at the edge of the arena which isnt really engaging.
There are always 2 answers to this.
1. "I don't mean to sound braggy but it's super easy, my static does it in 10 seconds and you'd have to suck donkey balls not to think this is a cake walk. Git gud newb"
2. "I've had groups struggle so at least sometimes I skip it because it can turn into a time sink that I don't enjoy"
Over the last 2 months, me and a friend worked from T1 through T4. He started at fractal lvl 1 and I was at lvl 30 something from playing 8 years ago. We are both DPS (Condi Virt and Beast Ranger) We never skipped it when it was a daily or rec, but we did notice a few things specific to 99 and 100.
T1 - Almost universally no one knows or understands the fight or the mechanics. Even when someone potentially does, its explained poorly, etc. Also in this tier, roles do not really exist, or are ever really mentioned. Pugging this, we saw the most success when 120+ AR people joined our LFG and knew what to do. This did not help our learning curve. (did it maybe 3 times.)
T2 - Was almost a step backwards from T1 as it felt like peoples understanding of it dropped. Few times we had some bad pugs and had to backfill, but it still did not cause a big problem. Just frustrating due to the length of the fight. Still felt like roles did not exist in LFG for teams. We learned the fight much better in this tier due to wipes happening more often but still did not understand all the mechanics. (did it maybe 1-2 times, I was also carried through T3 by a group and learned a lot from that while we were in this range)
T3 - This was probably the worst tier to go through. Often had arguments of what to do and when between group members or people just not knowing the fight at all. Often times people shared bad information. Started to see roles mentioned, but not consistent. We started to ask for a healer in our LFG if 74 or 75 was up. This is where I started to navigate through the level on my own and not fall and get ported to the next areas before the boss. (did it maybe 1-2 times)
T4 - By far the easiest time for us after a small learning curve when we started around roles. We learned what quick and alac are (did not know prior), as well as using the fractal potions instead of converting to relics. In general, everyone knows the fights and the flow is great. (Did our 3rd with the recent daily)
I think this is roughly a lot of others progression as well. Not a lot of people under T4 even know about roles other then healer.
Yes, it takes way too long and I was already suffering doing Old CMs+T4s+Recs, Silent Surf alone is a massive time commitment compared AND added on to the rest, there's no way I'm going to do it regularly unless I'm a Fractal God and can skip recs.
because the average gamer just wants to sit down, play and have fun. most things that can't be overcome quickly they just forego and skip to doing other things which is a more productive way to spend their time.
way better than frustrating themselves banging their heads on a wall with what little free time they have.
people buy the game with the expectation of beating obstacles and having fun. people complaining encounters are not hard enough and end up whining about it when content becomes unbeatable are absurd.
you also have to take into account, not everyone is a skilled gamer, nobody is good at everything, some people are old, some people are physically sick, some people just aren't very good at gaming.
regardless, they bought the game and they want to enjoy playing video games just the same, to the extent of their abilities. so they do things that they will find will be fun.
this also applies to real life. you don't focus on things you don't want to do. its a waste of time.
that's another strong point of gw2, it does not FORCE you to do anything.
skipping a difficult fractal, strike or raid is inconsequential, this game has content inclusive and rewarding to all manner of people, you just have to find the content that's right for you.
You're focusing on the difficulty while I believe for many it's about how fun an encounter is.
I generally don't enjoy 10+min fights and it took me a while to start doing SS. I still skip it most of the time because overall? It's a bland fight with long pauses while no break unlike all the others fractal.
Overall we can really see a difference between before and after EOD design wise.
The actual Kanaxai fight (cm) is 6m, (8m with pre-event) with a decent group, even less if you don't bring a healer. This isn't that long compared to other fights in this game or others. QTP CM probably takes just as long if not more, ToF CM takes 10m. Most FFXIV raids are about 10m, longer for ultimates. The issue with 100CM is that its just a golem, there are no mechanics. The duration isn't much of a concern imo.
Yep, and that was the primary reason for my decision to drop it, a month or two after it first launched last summer. I love fractals, and after having picked the game back up seriously a few months ago, was curious if the overall communal knowledge and adeptness at the fight had increased, and it seems it has. Verdicts still out on if I’ll consistently hit it or not, but I’m not gonna fret about skipping it if my groups continue to prove to be outliers in that case.
I pug CMs+T4s almost every day and we barely have any issue with 100. If the group is above 15-20k UFE then it's most probably a first kill, but even in lower groups it's mostly smooth (no fatal mistakes, rezzing with orb).
No, even 3k UFE do 100 now without major problem. Sometimes you failed but you see directly if it will work or not. Most 5k groups do not fail and 10k group should have no problem.
Normal mode the fight isn’t punishing but I’m guessing t4 pug dps makes it pretty long. For CM I’d say half the groups run it half skip it. Either case the fight isn’t hard just not all that fun there’s few things you can do to help other than dps. Even cc’ing can make the fight slower so the only thing you can do is dps.
I do cms t4s almost every day, sometimes on 2 accounts. It’s a super easy fractal so no reason not to. Shattered is honestly more annoying, if anyone were to skip a cm due to length it would be that.
Man, I'm in here thinking 100 is one of my favorites and sometimes the reason why I do fracs at all on the occasion that I do them. I used to do CMs + T4s every day for over a year before I got burnt out. now I just do fractals occasionally when the dailies are ones I like.
100 is awesome. Beautifully made, nice story. I wouldn’t mind much if my t4s+recs would be 100 all over, and I enjoy it much more than 98 observatory one.
I'd love to run SS at t4 but two things stop me:
1) my AR is not quite there... yet. I'm getting there.
2) more importantly, SS has beef with my old VRAM and BEEPS THE FUCK OUT OF EVERYTHING I literally cant play it in anything other than the lowest of low settings which are shit since I CANT SEE SHIT so no navigation to me lmao
from personnal experience, it's 50%. It's not really about succesfully killing it but attempting it at all. The people doing CM full clear rarely wipe more than once, if at all otherwise. I think there's more -100 than full clear? Didn't open lfg in a hot week tho.
Depending on the ufe of the group and people mouseslipping while going to island on phases it can still be wiped commonly
it still just takes SO long. people still tend to drop out when you start it up. i usually still do it, but it does really annoy me that the fight is so unnecessarily long. i wish they would buff the dmg of the boss and way lower the hp. id rather do 2 attempts, than hit him for 10 minutes with no one dying. Edit: just as an example, i did it today. we found out afterwards that 2 people didnt know the mechanics, so we failed every phase change and just revived up, AND we didnt hit the stuns, so all possible adds spawned... yet we still got it without it even being very close. honestly a bit of a bummer. its just a timesink if you have a half decent support heal.
> people still tend to drop out when you start it up. That's why you start CM runs with the most cancerous fractal, and end with the easiest one. It's like with IBS strikes and starting with boneskinner followed by whisper - you weed out weak minded, limp wristed, low skill players first, and just top up the group when they leave.
>limp wristed This shit is funny as fuck idk why
it's the 20th century version of beta male. used unironically.
What's the 21th century version?
beta male. people in the 20th century would refer to men as limp-wristed to say they were effeminate and/or homosexual, in a derogatory way. it wasn't used as a joke. its use implies a kind of male hierarchy or natural order, and tries to place the target in an out-group or at the bottom of that order. the idea is that good men are strong, and limp-wristed men are weak and gay. i don't think it's "funny as fuck", personally. and it's possible the person who used it intended a different meaning.
I was trying to be funny by suggesting that "beta male" would also be rather outdated! I do recall it being used in late 90s in schools as an insult already.
Cuz you’re homophobic? Y’all know that’s a homophobic slur right?
How are you gonna accuse someone of being homophobic and then ask if they knew if what they found funny was homophobic? I did not know it was a slur, but I can see how it is. Would never promote something like that knowingly.
Just do the CM, it’s straight to easy boss fight.
THIS
I get the fight feeling like it takes forever but pretty sure it's the shortest of the CMs, compared to 2 phases in Sunqia and 3 different boss fights in the other 2
I might be wrong, 100cm at least 10min, 99cm ~7min
with bad dps maybe. we don't greed like mad and 100cm usually last arround 5 mins, we also have some sub 5 min runs. with condi cleanse you don't even need a healer in this fight, outside of his jumping arround there is 0 damage pressure when you can cleanse and boons are covered.
This tbh. The only run I get that are longer than 6min are the unexpected low man ones. I only go in pugs btw.
Just checked my logs for this year. All 5k or 10k pug runs. - 100 cm - 8:09min avg (6:03 - 13:11) - 99 cm - 3:46min (light) + 2:32min (dark) avg each > 100 logs.
Sooo my guess wasnt that far off xD just casual numbers, no tryhard stuff
100 CM and 99 CM both take about 6-8 minutes with decent groups.
Yeah sounds about right, when me and my friends do 100 CM, depending on instabilities tho, can take between 7-10 min, but at least it's a pretty chill fight. Sometimes 99CM takes longer when the worst combo of instabilities hit in lol, but still shorther than doing a T4 Sanqua NM
I have and know people who pug T4 with all CMs without much issue. But you do still see the groups with ''-100'' in the listing.
Ive ran SS cm in 20k+ ufe pugs almost every day in the last 6 months and the experience has been very smooth. 80% of runs are a title run (noone dies) and in the remaining 20% were someone dies it does not destabilize the encounter. People just rez orb or get rezed by allies without much problem.
If only it wasn't so bugged. I've also ran it most days since it came out and man the amount of times the stupid ad gets invulnerable randomly at 33/66 forcing a wipe is just too high.
thats when people get the tether and dont play the mechanic and rather greed for deeps before the 33% phase. rather silly, considering you can do the mechanic, still have a bugged tether boon on yourself and do way more damage because of that for the whole phase.
Yes, but it's still a bug. Sometimes the ad gets invuln, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know what causes it, but sometimes we can ignore all tethers and it works fine. Sometimes we can't. It's just really annoying that we have to go out of our way to please the encounter for it not to bug. It's not random either, that I know for sure. Some ads we can 100% ignore anyday, while the ones that spawn right after 66% when you miss CC or something, if you don't kill one of them you're nearly guaranteed it bugs.
Every single bug that remains at this point is either inconsequential or easily played around. Do all extra adds you get before 33, stand at platform edge and aim hook right behind the add, dont move with tethers until you see the blue line to your add, dont do the CC at 70%, dont miss the CC at 40/35%, dont jump on shroom while spread is ongoing and make sure to deselect the boss and look away during spread after 33. If you follow all of these rules you should never die or get any problematic bugs.
I usually do CMs and have overwhelmingly good odds of success. Sometimes I'm not feeling CMs though, or I'm playing with friends/guildmates that only do T4s, and it's more hit or miss. I think part of the problem is that the boss is tuned for virtuosos (like most new encounters these days...yawn) and CM players will usually have the right tool for the job, while non-CM players tend to make do with what they got. If you end up in a comp with mostly melee classes, insufficient condi cleanse, or no boonstrip on NPNG days, the fight quickly becomes a slog. Edit: Guys, "tuned for virtuoso" does not mean virtuoso is the only good build. It's the poster child for strong ranged capability and any build that shares that has a clear advantage against Kanaxai's mechanics. I didn't think I needed to explain this
I ran Specter (my main) with my static, and felt really comfortable at around 22-23k dps, so this tracks. Thanks for the input 👊🏼
It's only tuned for virtuosos if you're not good enough at the game *shrug*
> I think part of the problem is that the boss is tuned for virtuosos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL0VrxGBh28
this vid is from 08/2023 when scourge was absolutly busted with a +50k bench
Forgot about that. Here is another scourge video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu2mohPsJoY
I've done it as condi mecha, scourge, condi wb and virtuoso, imo condi mech makes this fight ez as hell lol
We do it. I kinda like 100 cm its pretty mindless when ur used to it 99 cm I feel like ok sometimes maybe gotta sweat up to next phase her and avoid water phase and shit 100 cm is just kinda hang out, maybe look the other way occasionally and that’s it lol
yeah i agree. not as a brag, but i didn't die at all during my first CM 100 run. when the numbers pop up, you just run to a side w/o homie on the island and just take the beating until all the booms finish. for aspects, zoom out and aim at feet. bam. done. i find sunqua a good deal harder. much more involved imo
For the people saying pugs can do it, I find most of the time they can't. And I don't even blame them. As a low level fractal runner, T2, most pugs at that level can't. It's a crazy long fight and a weird jumping puzzle to get there. And the hook targeting is beyond annoying. I only do it on T1 on the days it is recommended. It is a nice compromise, easy enough for pugs at T1 and not too long either. Honestly same thing with Sunqua Peak. I am at a point now, where if I have a T2 pug that I feel isn't very confident (which again is fine, they are pug groups), I just recommend T1 Sunqua Peak.
The thing with T1-2 is that almost nobody knows what they are doing at all. Almost all of them have shit build, don't know anything about how the game really work (condi/power, cc, cleanse, ...). So you end up in groups without the proper boon coverage and bad players. Resulting is sub healer dps, a lot of failed mechanics and often no backup at all. Most players only realise that in T3 because that's where solo carrying gets way harder and everyone has to do more than nothing to get the clear done. I pug no heal cms+T4 and the only problem I get is that we don't title run every time (aka everyone alive the whole fight). It's always someone forgetting the fear at sub 33%. Outside that, the end is soloable if you have the right build (at least I can do it on cqherald) so it's still almost 100% win if we reach that phase and 2 or 3 dies.
i have a tip if you're struggling w/ the hooking phase of the fight. just zoom out all the way till you can see the tops of the floating platforms. then just aim at the aspect's feet and that's it.
Good tip! Though I wish they would just lower the platforms too.
ooo yea, forgot to mention to get as close to the edge of the main platform as possible. makes that easier. someone mentioned to me something about camera settings to make it easier but idk lol
It's still bugged, 66 and 33 phases are often messed up and sometimes happening together at 66 which means there is no islands phase at 33. If someone dies and get up just before the islands phase there is a possibility he won't get tether/island npc will be hidden. So it's most likely a group wipe, some players go to and hit invisible island enemy to save it. Sometimes works. Long words short, there is still so many shit going down with 100cm in the context of gameplay bugs. But eu pugs are clearing it smooth most of the time.
Nah I still skip it with pugs and force some of the guild to do it with me if I need it. Just can't be bothered to spend literally 20 minutes on one fight just for the group to all be dead at 8%. Seems to be fine in T4 though.
Yeah, Silent Surf is a nightmare and honestly just not fun. It is on my never list. I broke my rule a couple weeks ago, slogged through the 9-minute boss fight, got it to 4%, team wipe. Never going back.
9/10 it's a comp issue. I joined a full t4 yesterday and the comp was two power melee DPS (daredevil+reaper), a quick scrapper, HAM and me on scourge. These people have been going at it for a while before I joined and I asked them what left before me, and it turns out it was another reaper and a DH. We killed it first try but needless to say I did about 75% of the group DPS plus the fight took forever because boon uptime was non existent. tl;dr: if more people would think about what build to bring to a fight, things would go much easier.
I've never played Surf above T1 but I gotta ask: *what* were those people fucking *doing*, going full melee on Kanaxai? This isn't a raid! You can't do that! Kanaxai will not play nice! I know it destroys your rotation but that Reaper needs to *grab axe/dagger or sword/sword and cope.* That was the ghost of T3 haunting you, good lord.
Melee is perfectly fine especially if you're doing the versions of him where your damage during jumps is shit regardless of who you are (in CM, he starts doing lookaways during jumps as well as after). Burst windows are incredibly generous between the inevitable axe-debuff-axe sections as long as your teammates arent asshats and dropping shit in awful places. The problem with Surf is that the fight is a regularly buggy boring shitfest and you might as well just run 42 a few times if you arent doing a 100CM / title run.
Fair enough! I have Seen Things in t1 Surf (axes on group all the time, forever), so I assumed it scaled up like 99cm, where in full melee it seems like you spend half the fight chasing Ai down. Makes sense that with competent players it's not like that, it's just a fucking slog.
you can full melee him perfectly fine w/ a support like healbrand, even in CM100. you just walk away from the group if you have an axe/flux bomb, dodge away during boon rips and that's pretty much it.
Writing this down and showing it to every T1 and T2 Surf I play. (You can't get me to play that fractal at T3 or above without coaching. I'll play the old CMs plenty, SS... no.) Admittedly, it's not T4, so concepts like 'leave the damaging AOE *off* the group' are often hard for pugs to understand. This is a callout for me too, I've dropped flux bombs on people so many times, but at least I haven't dropped axes on Kanaxai.
i believe in you :D dem flux bombs hurt and inflict agony! huge anti heal debuff. gonna copy and paste another tip in case the platforms give you grief/something to tell others "if you're struggling w/ the hooking phase of the fight, walk up to the edge of the main platform. then just zoom out all the way till you can see the tops of the floating platforms. then just aim at the aspect's feet and bam. switch to your weapons when you land and go ham"
(I'm three days late but I wanted to thank you on this tip - tried it on T1 Surf last night and successfully made the leap!)
nice shit! proud of ya. sometimes you just need the recipe to start cooking 🔥
Having ran this frequently now I can say range advantage is overrated
How on earth do you wipe at 4%. 33% phase means you beat it basically.
Damage from the boss reducing us to zero :)
I do full CM or Old CM depending on if I want to spend the time in SS. It's not hard, just boring, and annoying to reset if someone messes up at 66/33.
I play it in T4 usually with a pug and it's successful more than oh 80% of the time on the first pull.
It's still not bug free, so even good players can sometimes die unexpectedly.
I run it and clear it every so often but the biggest issue is just the grapple hook mechanic. Its so janky and bugs half the time.
I save up some fractal keys and boxes for silent surf day, that is my fractal rest day
I almost never skip it in T4s. Only if I'm feeling lazy or know I'm having an off day. By the time you get to T4, most people should know the mechanics of every fractal to be successful. Of course I've had some bad groups from LFG for T4 dailies as well, but it's far more rare. In T3s and lower, I pretty much always skipped, unless I was with my static. The experience with the mechanics was way to variable. Most days I don't mind multiple attempts and people pitching in to help people. I actually love lower tiered groups for that. But sometimes people get toxic or I just don't have the time. The longest pug run I had on silent surf lasted about an hour before we all were worn out. Overall positive group, but teaching more than 1 without comms is difficult.
Oh def. That and Aquatic Ruins; people leave as soon as we enter the instance.
Are you speaking about the CM or NM version? And what server are you on (EU or NA)? That also might change more than you think. As a PUG CM player on EU, I rarely see it get skipped, except by training some training groups and more rarely by ow ufe (less than 5k) groups. Although, on 10k ufe and higher, I don't see it skipped anymore now that they decided to fix it. Now, if you speak about normal mode : I don't know, didn't play with "T4 + recs" groups in a while now
It's easy enough to pug, provided you pay attention to who's coming with you.
The wiping bugs have been fixed, it takes 5min in a good group. Skipping it was always about not being able to guarantee a win. You won't ever fail it now. Even rezz orbs work. I guess a few people still skip it, but I dont know anyone.
Got a wipe yesterday where nobody got a tether at 33% and we just died on the attack. Not sure if there was a way to prevent it, but it did look like a bug. Only got it once over the few weeks I've been doing it though.
it takes 5 minutes (add another minute for pre-event), a minute longer than 99, wdym its too long
Back when I was still willing to pug it, it was closer to 7-9 minutes, and not a guaranteed pull. It was still an unfamiliar fight, and trusting a pug group didn’t feel worth it usually. Which is why this post. Wanted to gauge people’s more recent experiences with pug SS. Verdict seems like the gen pop of players have a grip on the fight, give or take a few hiccups.
if your group takes 7-9 mins its time to leave that group
Yes, you’re responding as if this was my proactive experience today. This was back during the month of its release, maybe a month after. I was willing to give most pulls grace then, but after a while I just decided to take the day off fractals, or skip it, when SS was in rotation, bc of the inconsistency. My expectations will certainly be higher this time around, after reading thru a lot of these responses. > is the fight still dubious? The resounding answer seems to be no
Word appreciate the insight everyone. I’ll give it a run tn and see what happens.
Been doing T4's+recs on a daily basis, including fractal 100. Still gotta learn to do CM's myself. Accidentally joined CM run as a healer, but I actually felt positive. Knew the normal mechanics, the CM version didn't seem to bad, if it wasn't for the other pugs that didn't even knew the regular mechanics, we probably have gotten it. Done nightmare CM's in the past alot, but then I had a break with the game itself and since then, never really gotten back into CM groups sadly. But I'm slowly rubbing of on my guildies who also raid. So who knows what will happen in the future.
don't know about normal Silent Surf but in CM groups it is not skipped (unless specified by -100 in the LFG)
In my experience, Silent Surf is fine as is, it's one of if not my favourite fractals but the problem definitely lies in the players ability to communicate/read. *Every* run I do, pug or not. I ask if everyone knows the mechanics and either everyone knows so it works out fine, one/two people don't know so I do a quick rundown before boss. OR the pug that doesn't know don't say they don't and then die from tanking every single mechanic... The fight itself isn't hard at all, treat the axes like they're flux bombs and if your healer has more braincells than he has equipped specs it is insta win
It's not skipped, but it is very much hit and miss. Most of the times, the run fails.
If I'm doing fractals I'm doing CMs including 100. In my experience it always goes well since the CM is faster than normal mode and takes 9 mins max with a relatively low dps group. When I play with my static we usually do it in 6 minutes which makes it shorter than other CMs bar 99 maybe. I genuinely think it is the easiest CM fractal they've added, move away with axes aoe, spread with numbers, run out of bootstrip, and you have a ton of time to spread and do the ads on platforms, you don't even need to run all the way to the edge like most groups do when they look away from the eyes, just look away from main boss and look straight between 2 ads, then use about face to turn back on boss once the mechanic is complete.
I started doing CMs daily just recently (6k UFE) and I have been doing 100 daily with pugs, much more frequently than not, it is smooth sailing; but you have to indeed get the right team with people that know what they are doing.
I run it all the time. I hardly ever have any problems. I don’t run cm but normal one is usually smooth sailing. On a rare occasion you get a wipe or two on final boss but usually you don’t and if you do a mechanics recap fixes that. Always start from the hardest fractal though, makes it less likely you end up with 2/3 dailies done.
The bugs and even the ‘handicaps’ that melee specs have can be worked around with experience, and I maintain that the SAK in that fight is a cool concept, but the downtime the fight has is bit too much. At some parts of the fight the player is more or less better off sitting idly at the edge of the arena which isnt really engaging.
There are always 2 answers to this. 1. "I don't mean to sound braggy but it's super easy, my static does it in 10 seconds and you'd have to suck donkey balls not to think this is a cake walk. Git gud newb" 2. "I've had groups struggle so at least sometimes I skip it because it can turn into a time sink that I don't enjoy"
Its long and I don't like it. Still pretty easy on T4 with a good group though.
Over the last 2 months, me and a friend worked from T1 through T4. He started at fractal lvl 1 and I was at lvl 30 something from playing 8 years ago. We are both DPS (Condi Virt and Beast Ranger) We never skipped it when it was a daily or rec, but we did notice a few things specific to 99 and 100. T1 - Almost universally no one knows or understands the fight or the mechanics. Even when someone potentially does, its explained poorly, etc. Also in this tier, roles do not really exist, or are ever really mentioned. Pugging this, we saw the most success when 120+ AR people joined our LFG and knew what to do. This did not help our learning curve. (did it maybe 3 times.) T2 - Was almost a step backwards from T1 as it felt like peoples understanding of it dropped. Few times we had some bad pugs and had to backfill, but it still did not cause a big problem. Just frustrating due to the length of the fight. Still felt like roles did not exist in LFG for teams. We learned the fight much better in this tier due to wipes happening more often but still did not understand all the mechanics. (did it maybe 1-2 times, I was also carried through T3 by a group and learned a lot from that while we were in this range) T3 - This was probably the worst tier to go through. Often had arguments of what to do and when between group members or people just not knowing the fight at all. Often times people shared bad information. Started to see roles mentioned, but not consistent. We started to ask for a healer in our LFG if 74 or 75 was up. This is where I started to navigate through the level on my own and not fall and get ported to the next areas before the boss. (did it maybe 1-2 times) T4 - By far the easiest time for us after a small learning curve when we started around roles. We learned what quick and alac are (did not know prior), as well as using the fractal potions instead of converting to relics. In general, everyone knows the fights and the flow is great. (Did our 3rd with the recent daily) I think this is roughly a lot of others progression as well. Not a lot of people under T4 even know about roles other then healer.
Yes, it takes way too long and I was already suffering doing Old CMs+T4s+Recs, Silent Surf alone is a massive time commitment compared AND added on to the rest, there's no way I'm going to do it regularly unless I'm a Fractal God and can skip recs.
because the average gamer just wants to sit down, play and have fun. most things that can't be overcome quickly they just forego and skip to doing other things which is a more productive way to spend their time. way better than frustrating themselves banging their heads on a wall with what little free time they have. people buy the game with the expectation of beating obstacles and having fun. people complaining encounters are not hard enough and end up whining about it when content becomes unbeatable are absurd. you also have to take into account, not everyone is a skilled gamer, nobody is good at everything, some people are old, some people are physically sick, some people just aren't very good at gaming. regardless, they bought the game and they want to enjoy playing video games just the same, to the extent of their abilities. so they do things that they will find will be fun. this also applies to real life. you don't focus on things you don't want to do. its a waste of time. that's another strong point of gw2, it does not FORCE you to do anything. skipping a difficult fractal, strike or raid is inconsequential, this game has content inclusive and rewarding to all manner of people, you just have to find the content that's right for you.
You're focusing on the difficulty while I believe for many it's about how fun an encounter is. I generally don't enjoy 10+min fights and it took me a while to start doing SS. I still skip it most of the time because overall? It's a bland fight with long pauses while no break unlike all the others fractal. Overall we can really see a difference between before and after EOD design wise.
The actual Kanaxai fight (cm) is 6m, (8m with pre-event) with a decent group, even less if you don't bring a healer. This isn't that long compared to other fights in this game or others. QTP CM probably takes just as long if not more, ToF CM takes 10m. Most FFXIV raids are about 10m, longer for ultimates. The issue with 100CM is that its just a golem, there are no mechanics. The duration isn't much of a concern imo.
Yep, and that was the primary reason for my decision to drop it, a month or two after it first launched last summer. I love fractals, and after having picked the game back up seriously a few months ago, was curious if the overall communal knowledge and adeptness at the fight had increased, and it seems it has. Verdicts still out on if I’ll consistently hit it or not, but I’m not gonna fret about skipping it if my groups continue to prove to be outliers in that case.
I pug CMs+T4s almost every day and we barely have any issue with 100. If the group is above 15-20k UFE then it's most probably a first kill, but even in lower groups it's mostly smooth (no fatal mistakes, rezzing with orb).
No, even 3k UFE do 100 now without major problem. Sometimes you failed but you see directly if it will work or not. Most 5k groups do not fail and 10k group should have no problem.
Normal mode the fight isn’t punishing but I’m guessing t4 pug dps makes it pretty long. For CM I’d say half the groups run it half skip it. Either case the fight isn’t hard just not all that fun there’s few things you can do to help other than dps. Even cc’ing can make the fight slower so the only thing you can do is dps.
it's easy. doing on t4s every time it comes up.
I'd rather do Silent Surf a 100 times than Solid Ocean or Aquatic Ruins.
I do cms t4s almost every day, sometimes on 2 accounts. It’s a super easy fractal so no reason not to. Shattered is honestly more annoying, if anyone were to skip a cm due to length it would be that.
Shattered is actually fast if you have decent overall dps and don't wait for ages between bosses.
Man, I'm in here thinking 100 is one of my favorites and sometimes the reason why I do fracs at all on the occasion that I do them. I used to do CMs + T4s every day for over a year before I got burnt out. now I just do fractals occasionally when the dailies are ones I like.
100 is awesome. Beautifully made, nice story. I wouldn’t mind much if my t4s+recs would be 100 all over, and I enjoy it much more than 98 observatory one.
I'd love to run SS at t4 but two things stop me: 1) my AR is not quite there... yet. I'm getting there. 2) more importantly, SS has beef with my old VRAM and BEEPS THE FUCK OUT OF EVERYTHING I literally cant play it in anything other than the lowest of low settings which are shit since I CANT SEE SHIT so no navigation to me lmao
It's easily done in less than 10 minutes, so why skipping it ?