Tuesday Nights in Tyria: Cat Golem Dance Party Edition!

Get it, the golems have cat ears and are with real cats....

Hello fellow adventurers and welcome to this week's Tuesday Nights in Tyria. I promise this is the only photoshopped image in this post. This week we'll be looking at the new dungeon, Fractals of the Mists. This fascinating new dungeon consists of 9 different mini-dungeons, called fractals, of which you get three random ones every time you do it. When you complete the dungeon the difficulty goes up one level. On even numbered difficulties you fight a boss after the third fractal is completed. We'll get to him. Read on for a look a wide variety of beautiful settings (and real screenshots)!

Tuesday Nights in Tyria: Cat Golem Dance Party Edition

Get out of here human, I said no bookahs!

 This new dungeon is accessed via an asura portal in Lion's Arch. I assume if you're reading this text you are somewhat interested in this dungeon so I'll try to briefly explain it's workings. Upon entering the portal you are asked what difficulty you want to do. You can only do up to the lowest difficulty among the party. So if four members of the party are on level 10 and one person is on level 3 you can only do up to level 3. You advance in level upon completion of the dungeon but only if the difficulty level is set to your highest difficulty. Basically you always want to find a group of people on the same level you are. For more info /wiki.

Totally normal giant teleporter on a floating island in the middle of nowhere.

 This is the lab that you enter on the other side of the portal. There are three merchants: a repair golem, a standard merchant and a fractals merchant where you buy items with tokens you get from completing fractals.

These aren't the golems you're looking for.

 Also the krewe members working the giant teleporter are dressed like stormtroopers.

2dark2spooky

 The first fractal I ever got to experience was the swamp. Basically there's a big swamp FILLED with traps and the swamp itself will occasionally change to block your path. There are three stumps on one side of the swamp and you have to spread out and gather three wisps and put them in the stumps in a set amount of time. If you fail the wisps reset and possibly change positions. All while the swamp is rearranging itself.

 This is Slederman Mossman.

 In addition to the plethora of traps there are champion level npcs scattered throughout and even this nice legendary npc (he's not that nice).

FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOOM.

I find the swamp to be an awesome design but it can be tough for pugs. You really have to work together to beat the time limit. After getting all the wisps you dive into an underwater tunnel where you fight either Mossman or this big Oakheart that spawns laser adds. 

Go home wolf you're drunk!

 Mossman is much like Slendman except he also summons wolves (who summon other wolves). He teleports around and wrecks anyone he comes in contact with. The Oakheart boss is a normal Oakheart but he summons small Oakhearts that fire lasers at him. The lasers cause him to make it rain on us (the rain is bad). Overall great fractal and I enjoy getting to do it.

Yo dawg I heard you liked jumping

 Now for the titular fractal, the one I like to call Cat Golem Dance Party. This is an asura themed fractal where the ultimate boss is a mad scientist who makes golems that look and sound like cats. He even gives them cat names. It is the best thing ever.

That is not a bug, there is a champion rabbit.

 It starts off with a jumping puzzle with some harpies and then moves onto a group of four champion mobs: a rabbit, a human, a charr fire shaman and an ettin. You fight this pack all at once. Following is another jumping puzzle and then the real fun starts.

His name's Old Tom and he's here to say...

 The first cat golem you fight is Old Tom. He's in a room filled with poison that you have to clear by turning on that red fan behind him. During the fight he will start spinning and shooting out poison bolts, while he's spinning, he is making a meowing sound. You have to hear this, it is this awesome, completely unnatural, robotic cat sound. He just spams this noise while he's spinning (dancing), it's great.

DANCE PARTY MEOW MEOW.

 At the top of this pyramid is the main boss; the mad scientist with his four favorite pets. His golems are named: Mr. Mittens, Baron Von Scrufflebutt, Snuggles and Professor Mew. They each have different abilities and they also do that robotic meow sound. I tip my hat to the designer(s) of this one. This whole fractal is just such a joy to do and I am extremely excited whenever I get it.

Doot doot dat dat, under the sea!

The next fractal I got to do is mostly underwater. The first part is rescuing people from krait. Guild Wars 2 does the best underwater combat I have ever seen in an MMO. I have always wanted more underwater combat ever since I saw the underwater dungeon in Everquest. With all that said, I much prefer fighting on land to fighting underwater. Luckily the entire fractal isn't just killing krait.

The room is spinning, or is it?

After rescuing everyone you either go into an underwater ruin where you run around aimlessly in the dark or DOLPHIN TIME SQUEEK SQUEEK. 

I'm a dolphin, ding flips and sh**.

You run swim through underwater ruins as a dolphins avoiding krait with your special dolphin abilities and racing to the end. In find the dolphin part to be hilariously awesome, except for the part where the krait sink you to the bottom and tear you a new blow hole. Luckily the dolphin #5 ability is "Resurrect another dolphin" or it would get stupid. After DOLPHIN TIME SQUEEK SQUEEK you fight a giant jellyfish. The fractal is alright, overall I don't love it or hate it. 

Uh Oh I know where this is going.

As I mentioned earlier on even numbered difficulty levels once you complete the third fractal you do a fourth one called Jade Maw. It's not so much a fractal as it is a hentei. There is a short build up of wandering around dealing with small tentacle creatures eventually leading up to a climax with a giant tentacle monster. I won't go through all the mechanics but it is a pretty fun fight, reminded me a lot of the octopus boss in Skyward Sword.

I WAS RIGHT!

I've done this dungeon six times now and I will say that this is the best designed 5-man dungeon I have ever done in an MMO. I did not get a chance to cover the colossus fractal but that one is amazingly well designed too. This dungeon upscales so it is available to players of all levels. I HIGHLY recommend it. Until next week!