GW2. Siren’s Reef Fractal Guide
Siren’s Reef takes place on a haunted island where the ghosts of a pirate crew protect their treasure.
The Coast
You begin on the shore of the island. You must clear the shore of all hostile monsters to proceed. The bristlebacks will channel a long attack that shoots hard-hitting projectiles at a target. Reflects will do well here. The smogscales will evade damage while in their smoke cloud. Lure them out to damage them.
After clearing the shore head inland where a Stonehead will attack you. Stay on its sides as most of its attacks are slow and towards its front.
Once the stonehead is low it will break open the path and clear the way through some of the bombs. Use the cannon to clear the rest of the bombs and reach the first boss room. Clear the room of the ghost pirates to spawn the boss. There will be bombs spawned periodically around the room during the encounter. Players will take massive damage if they step on one, and they cannot be dodged. However, using invulnerability and setting off bombs can be useful. Players must fight the boss while waves of pirates spawn and bombs shrink the space available.
There is a cannon above the arena that can be used to clear bombs as well. However, mobs will spawn and harass the player using the cannon. Cannons have a minimum range so they can’t kill mobs on top of the cannon already. Also if no one is in the arena in range of the boss it will channel a global AoE to damage the party. It is advised to have one player on cannon clearing bombs, one player killing mobs and peeling for the cannon user, and three players in the arena with the boss.
The Maze
Progress through some pocket raptors to the maze puzzle. The objective is to get the bags of coins to the end of the maze and put them in a chest. While holding a bag you cannot use any skills. The treasure is cursed so you will gradually lose movement until you cannot move anymore. You must throw the bag of coins ahead to another party member or to a safe spot for you to pick up again. You will regain movement speed back once you drop the bag, but will lose it immediately on picking it up again. You must wait for the debuff to wear off. If players catch the bag thrown by another, the curse is lightened because it did not touch the ground.
There will also be ghosts patrolling the maze through eyes on the ground. If a player is caught by one, ghosts will spawn that can cause some trouble. If an unattended bag of coins is found by patrolling eyes, the bag will be returned to its original location. Due to this, the party should focus on getting one bag to the end at a time. There are safe spots that bags can be placed where patrols will not pass through. Little recesses exist in the wall where you can hide and wait. You can also throw the bags over the eyes and use blink skills to get through them yourself.
The Ship
After getting all the bags of cursed gold to the chest, you must bring the chest out to the ship. You will have the same effect while holding the chest as the coins, so work together and throw the chest ahead to someone who can then throw it back to the other person once they get ahead. After getting the treasure back to the ship a boss event will spawn. Avoid the updrafts of wind shown by orange lines across the ship. These cannot be dodged and will knock you off the ship into the poisonous water.
After the first boss is defeated you must retrieve more gold from the shore. Use the same tactics to move the chest onto the ship and then another boss event will occur. There is a new mechanic to watch out for now. There will be a player with a red circle around them. This player should get out of the group because it will spawn a nasty AoE at their feet once the circle fills which will buff pirates and debilitate allies. Once this boss is defeated, grab the last bag of gold and prepare for an event.
You must hold the ship until a certain amount of ghosts have been slain. Because the ghosts are very healthy the cannons are ideal for taking them out. However, they approach the ship from both sides and the cannons cannot shoot at the ghosts if they are on the ship because of the minimum range. Because of this there are two potential strategies.
The first strategy is to have 4 players on cannons, 2 to each side. The 5th player can help the side that needs the most help. This strategy relies on clearing mobs faster than they spawn, and is the riskiest method.
The second strategy is to have 2 or 3 players on cannons and then have 2 players distract or kite the mobs on each side away from the ship to give the cannon users more time.
Once the ship has been held for enough waves of ghosts, the final boss, Captain Arabella Crowe, will spawn. This combines all of the mechanics of the first two bosses and adds another. A green circle will appear around a player, they must stand next to allies when this happens, as a shark will attack them and it will deal massive damage if they are isolated. Try to avoid standing in front of the boss because they will frequently use a frontal cone attack. Be behind the boss already so you have less decisions to make when dealing with the winds.
