Guild Wars 2

Quit trying to maximize damage and you won’t get one-shot.

There comes a point where any amount of defense won’t save you from cheap 1-hit kills or attacks that hit so incredibly hard and fast that it just boils down to dodge-or-die gameplay. Some of the stuff I’ve had to put up with is just unbelievable as well. I don’t know how many dodges or stunbreakers devs think I have in me, but its at least 8 less than whatever they design content around.

Part of the fun people have playing tanky characters in other games is the sense of power you have exchanging blows with a monster that is way more powerful than you. In GW2 you are constantly 1-2 (connected) hits away from death, which removes this element of satisfaction and leaves behind bad gameplay revolving around kiting/dodging all over the place.
Ever tried looking for an attack in the fuzzy ball of spell effects? Anet said they wanted people looking at the combat, not hotkeys for cooldowns etc. In these situations I find myself staring at my health orb, waiting for 90% of it to just vanish, so I can hopefully mash my dodge key in the slim chance I’ll make it out alive.

I’m with you though, OP. More exciting boss fights, less cheap mechanics that make combat more infuriating than it needs to be.

The game isn’t hard it’s actually fairly easy if you have a good team. Running glass cannons is what gets you one shooted. If you have ever ran a heavy tank build for warrior/guardian you would know you can actually stand there and take alot of those “one shots” And as for the other classes you are gifted with kite/quick escape skills. There are only a few bosses that I have ran into that can actually deal enough damage to come close to one shooting a tank and there BIG attacks are easy to predict/dodge. If you want to roll a glass cannon thats fine max dps= low health/toughness but there dungeons in this game that will chew you up and spit you out for something like that. The devs are trying to keep it entertaining to people and not just a dungeon you can run threw staring at your tv zoned out drinking a coke. Please don’t complain its to hard ITS NOT.

Siv.4351:

There comes a point where any amount of defense won’t save you from cheap 1-hit kills or attacks that hit so incredibly hard and fast that it just boils down to dodge-or-die gameplay.

Dodge-block-teleport-invulnerable-distort-or-die, actually.

Part of the fun people have playing tanky characters in other games is the sense of power you have exchanging blows with a monster that is way more powerful than you. In GW2 you are constantly 1-2 (connected) hits away from death, which removes this element of satisfaction and leaves behind bad gameplay revolving around kiting/dodging all over the place.
Ever tried looking for an attack in the fuzzy ball of spell effects? Anet said they wanted people looking at the combat, not hotkeys for cooldowns etc. In these situations I find myself staring at my health orb, waiting for 90% of it to just vanish, so I can hopefully mash my dodge key in the slim chance I’ll make it out alive.

You’re not suppose to sit around and get punched in the face. You get nothing profitable from being kitten slapped all day (well, there’s Retaliation, but that’s more for punishing the foe).

And no wonder you’re getting 1-2shot, you’re staring at your health. There are other visual cues on the screen that help indicate your health (like the blood-haze boarder around your game screen) but generally, the orb is visible enough not to need to keep your eye on it.

You should be moving and watching the enemy’s attack patterns. Understanding how the foe attacks and what their animations look like can help you take no damage at all. Just because you’re wading through a hoard of mobs doesn’t mean they all need to be or will be hitting you. Nor does this mean you’re spamming your dodge and kiting as far as their leash lets them go. You can be hitting the mobs, moving and taking a fraction of their attacks all at the same time! When you see the foes charging attacks or changing aggression to someone else, you shift your tactic to blasting them in the back as their attack blows up in some other direction.

Leo G.4501:

You’re not suppose to sit around and get punched in the face. You get nothing profitable from being kitten slapped all day (well, there’s Retaliation, but that’s more for punishing the foe).

And nor am I expecting to. Having a chance to do something about my situation instead of just taking an astronomical amount of damage in the blink of an eye is the issue here. I realize you can’t paint the entire game with the issue because yes, I agree- many & most things are easily dodge/whatever-able. Stupidly overbalanced things like Captain Ashym fiery rush hitting me for a lazy 14k then immediately going into a fiery whirl that does another15k worth of multi-hit damage that clips you even during dodge animations. Is this sort of thing really necessary? I’m not made of blocks/dodges/whathaveyou. Yeah, its avoidable, but all it takes is a mistake by anyone and I burn a dodge/aegis on helping a team mate and boom- I’m done for should he decide to do -anything- to me. Completely cheap and unforgiving gameplay.

Leo G.4501:

And no wonder you’re getting 1-2shot, you’re staring at your health. There are other visual cues on the screen that help indicate your health (like the blood-haze boarder around your game screen) but generally, the orb is visible enough not to need to keep your eye on it.

This I know. I clearly stated the staring at my health orb as a result of combat spell effects being so obstructive. This is (mostly) an issue with large open-world events, in which I just go ranged and alt tab for mostly anyway so meh. Some mobs get hilariously covered in spell effects (esp guardian burning) that make it very difficult to see their otherwise obvious animations, certainly something that anet should know about or acknowledge.

This is the reason why i don’t go ac with my low level anymore. I have to hit the mobs like 50 times. But the mobs can hit me 1 time and i die And there a dozens of them.

Siv.4351:

And nor am I expecting to. Having a chance to do something about my situation instead of just taking an astronomical amount of damage in the blink of an eye is the issue here. I realize you can’t paint the entire game with the issue because yes, I agree- many & most things are easily dodge/whatever-able. Stupidly overbalanced things like Captain Ashym fiery rush hitting me for a lazy 14k then immediately going into a fiery whirl that does another15k worth of multi-hit damage that clips you even during dodge animations. Is this sort of thing really necessary? I’m not made of blocks/dodges/whathaveyou. Yeah, its avoidable, but all it takes is a mistake by anyone and I burn a dodge/aegis on helping a team mate and boom- I’m done for should he decide to do -anything- to me. Completely cheap and unforgiving gameplay.

Here’s some motivation:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Easiest-dungeons-to-solo/first#post1554296

If you don’t want to read that, I’ll just out and say it, people solo the content you’re talking about. It’s doable, so add 4 more players and you shouldn’t be having as much trouble as you are

Just quit trying to ruin the game for the rest of us… You guys keep begging and begging for nerfs… Till what???? The boss hits you with a pile of rose petals and says sorry here is a chest for your trouble and the mobs are abuncha lil fluffy kittens that there special attack is they give you loadstones. I hope the devs just keep doing what there doing and if anything make some of the dungeons more challenging for experinced players. There dungeons there supose to be more difficult than the open world.

The only one hit kill I can think of is the Crusher in Arah Exploration, and it has one helluva wind-up time.

The troll in ac has a one hit killer on glass cannons, it’s a shockwave after his stomp, I sort of found it funny, I was helping a group through story mode yesterday and watched the same people stand still with no visual effort at all to do anything but be killed.
Assuming dodge or die is just lazy, we have the option for line of sight and a good load of boons, protection for one, retaliation, people who play a guardian can actually guard things….with aegis.

Name Description
Aegis Block the next attack.
Fury 20% critical chance increase. Stacks in duration.
Might X damage per attack increase. Stacks intensity.
Protection 33% damage reduction. Stacks in duration.
Regeneration Regenerates X health per second. Stacks in duration.
Retaliation Reflects incoming damage back to its source each time they hit you. Stacks in duration.
Stability Cannot be knocked down, pushed back, launched, stunned, dazed, floated, sunk, or feared.
Swiftness 33% movement speed increase. Stacks in duration.
Vigor Faster endurance regeneration. Stacks in duration.

This list from wiki doesn’t have profession related stuff like projectile reflectors or blockers or even the plain block ability.

I’ll agree things become a cluster kitten when a boss/mob is surrounded by a lot of stuff characters and/or glowing/blooming abilities, and even the combo field hearts get in the way, that is a simple fix though, the developers could raise the hearts higher or give a designated box that can be moved where we want on the screen, the effects of bloom can be turned down in your options if you really have a problem seeing through it, but another solution for that developers could do is add a boss ability icon box, that can also be moved, some games have this system and it is helpful, but then it also takes away from watching the fight like we should to watching a box.

Leo G.4501:

You should be moving and watching the enemy’s attack patterns. Understanding how the foe attacks and what their animations look like can help you take no damage at all.

True, but unfortunately not always possible. I’ll give you an example (see attachment). I consider myself experienced in online gaming and gaming in general, but with so many spell and skill effects, I cannot see a kitten thing, let alone boss animations (I feel sorry for backstab thieves).

One hits are all easily dodgeable so they are a good mechanic to punish lazy players.

Konrad.9587:

Leo G.4501:

You should be moving and watching the enemy’s attack patterns. Understanding how the foe attacks and what their animations look like can help you take no damage at all.

True, but unfortunately not always possible. I’ll give you an example (see attachment). I consider myself experienced in online gaming and gaming in general, but with so many spell and skill effects, I cannot see a kitten thing, let alone boss animations (I feel sorry for backstab thieves).

Thank you! I thought I was the only one that couldn’t see animations 50% of the time.

The worst offender, if you ask me, is the Guardian’s “blue fire”- effect. It totally engulfs it’s target.

Andrew.4576:

Can we just agree that the 1 hit kills that we experience in so many dungeons or world events are lazy and just not creative game play. It’s just my opinion and its the aspect of dungeons and open world events that i hate the most. I feel like this game could have much more exciting boss fights. Including fights that have been updated in recent patches.

yes it is a kitten design which have become an issue due to the lack of a trinity system which in return means that squicy dps is getting focused by hard hits and thereby get 1 shot.

if in any other mmo the main bosses focused the dps they would instantly dissapier as well, but in any game where the devs got a brain, they realised that if you want a system where you can make different build and you want all to be valid you gotta find a way to allow the build to work as it was intended; meaning a tank HAVE to be able to hold agro, and a dps HAVE TO be able to dps without pulling agro (in group situations), in the same way as dps have to be able to avoid taking dmg and tanks have to be able to simply sustain the dmg (in solo situations) and healers OFC have to be able to outheal and continually sustain heal dps…

sadly gw2 team doesnt have 4 braincells together which can figure this very basic game concept out which it seems every one know by heart… sadly

edit: the worst thing is that the devs knows that they made something completely kitten which is why we got a downing system so that WHEN you get those “this is such a kitten design” situations you just get downed and you can get ressed making it less of an RQ situation, imagin removing the downing system, how long do you think it would take before the game would die -.- not long thats for sure, becouse the bad design would shine so much through it would be unplayerble.

Tsk. What high-level/dungeon monster is not going to 1-2 shot kill you? Some people may find it fun to just stand there and be able to get monster-slapped all day long because of their tanky spec but seriously, how you don’t find that boring is mind-boggling….as boring as farming…oh wait wait, there’s the issue really at the base of it all isn’t it…that kind of game play would certainly simplify farming…where you only get excited when you see a gold item drop.

I think though that ANet had in mind for players to feel rewarded by defeating monsters/bosses in a challenging encounter. The chest at the end is just a thank-you for participating really, because how often do you get fantastic loot from it anyway!

To those crying about soloing content (read dungeons) …M-M-O… – the middle M means m-u-l-t-i-p-l-a-y-e-r (does not mean having many alts!) – it is obvious that ANet has developed the game more along the lines of players interacting with other players to accomplish things. There being no trinity has proved successful for the players willing to adapt and think over their strategies and prepare for an encounter. Every player has to bring skills that benefit the party, both support and dps because everyone is going to be in the kitten more often than not!

Not one of the boss encounters is terribly difficult in this game, perhaps the learning curve is too steep for players of traditional stand-around-and-do-the afk-dance while you get monster slapped or it could also simply be that some players have a more difficult time learning their profession, it certainly is different from other MMOs out there, but seriously; adapt and dodge or die. It really is that simple.

ANet developed this game with a certain player-style and player-base in mind. In my opinion and no doubt countless others’ they have succeeded. It is not their job to conform their game vision to yours simply because you cannot adapt to theirs (which you have to do if you want to play their game). It is not their job to nerf encounters over and over because it is too difficult for you when others are completing these encounters successfully and are even calling for more difficulty!!

ANet, where’s my Hard Mode!? The message here is, learn to play the game that has been developed, don’t try to make the game the way you want it to be – that is not your job, it is not your game.

Konrad.9587:

Leo G.4501:

You should be moving and watching the enemy’s attack patterns. Understanding how the foe attacks and what their animations look like can help you take no damage at all.

True, but unfortunately not always possible. I’ll give you an example (see attachment). I consider myself experienced in online gaming and gaming in general, but with so many spell and skill effects, I cannot see a kitten thing, let alone boss animations (I feel sorry for backstab thieves).

Dont worry, Im a backstab thief and have no problem with Melandru

But on the topic, Im yet to experience a öne hit boss". And Ive done the majority of the dungeons although not all paths. Maybe its because I am always watching my position/dodging etc?

sostronk.8167:

Konrad.9587:

Leo G.4501:

You should be moving and watching the enemy’s attack patterns. Understanding how the foe attacks and what their animations look like can help you take no damage at all.

True, but unfortunately not always possible. I’ll give you an example (see attachment). I consider myself experienced in online gaming and gaming in general, but with so many spell and skill effects, I cannot see a kitten thing, let alone boss animations (I feel sorry for backstab thieves).

Dont worry, Im a backstab thief and have no problem with Melandru

But on the topic, Im yet to experience a öne hit boss". And Ive done the majority of the dungeons although not all paths. Maybe its because I am always watching my position/dodging etc?

Wraithlord Crusher?

I can’t think of any content in the game where attacks powerful enough to one shot you aren’t easy to avoid.

Maybe you die to them a few times and then you figure out what’s going on. Then you know and it doesn’t happen anymore. It’s okay for that to happen and it’s okay to die sometimes when you don’t know what you’re doing yet.

It doesn’t mean something needs to be nerfed or fixed so everything works out nicely on the first try for someone that hasn’t done something before.

It’s a game. You’re supposed to start out not good at it and then get better. If you’re dying to things that aren’t supposed to be one hit kills because you’re just THAT squishy, adjust your gear if it consistently causes you problems. There’s no rule that says just because you’re wearing berserker gear it’s completely out of the question to wear a couple power/vit/toughness items (or pow/prec/toughness, or whatever) so you can survive an errant hit.

My problem with one hit kills is iots cheating.. We do not have them, its against the mechanics of our game..

This sort of thing I dont like, its almost like the devs use cheap tactics here instead opf challenging us with intelligent encounters and an ingame method to avoid these one hits without the need for dodge nessecarily

Just remember the 5 D’s of GW2: dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge.

Andrew.4576:

Can we just agree that the 1 hit kills that we experience in so many dungeons or world events are lazy and just not creative game play. It’s just my opinion and its the aspect of dungeons and open world events that i hate the most. I feel like this game could have much more exciting boss fights. Including fights that have been updated in recent patches.

There are very few instances outside of high lvl fractals where a well equipped person can get 1 shot in this game. If you are getting one shot in “many dungeons” then you should re-evaluate your build/gear.

Yeah.. its all the people coming here from other MMO’s with their outdated Trinity theories that are suffering, and rightly so. This is Guild Wars 2!!! Balance (excluding warriors because at the moment they are, grrr) your build and you wont get one-shot. Dodge/Move around and your defences will last longer.

Well, I’m kinda ok with current system.

But what frustrates me is the amount of special effects we have in this game. I mean if we are to dodge attacks by watching the animation, then why do 95% of skills transfrom the monster into a ball of firery fx. Even on minimal graphics I can’t see where the boss is looking most of the time.

Anet should do something about it.

Isslair.4908:

Well, I’m kinda ok with current system.

But what frustrates me is the amount of special effects we have in this game. I mean if we are to dodge attacks by watching the animation, then why do 95% of skills transfrom the monster into a ball of firery fx. Even on minimal graphics I can’t see where the boss is looking most of the time.

Anet should do something about it.

Ya the Cof p1 boss can be annoying if you have alot of aoes on and it is hard to see where the crystals are dropping. And I watch the animations and I occasionally glance at my health when I take a big hit. You get crystaled then knocked into another one,then get hit by a flame blast,then get hit by his little heatseeking fire blast before being able to get up. I’ve had this happen a few times because its hard to tell if your standing in a red circle of death. I have no complaints about the actuall boss because you can dodge everything fairly easy I am just saying the circles should be more visable when in heavy combat. And the troll that people gripe about his “jump” attack is very visable and dodgeable you have more than enough time to spot it and press V. A boss I will gripe about is not in the normal since it is the cof p3 boss. And everyone that runs dungeons knows why.. It’s not the difficulty of the fight he has almost no dps what so ever, it is an over long drawn out fight that is repeatative. I think the 50th time you team has dodged his rock wave its a redundant conclusion to the battle. Giving him an insane amount of health is not challenging my team “all of us were nubs but 1” didn’t whipe a single time on this dungeon and we are actually quite good but it takes WAY to long to kill this guy. You can basically eat his hammer and not worry about dodging as long as your not close to the edge. Maybe if they increase his damage and lower his health more people would run cof p3.

Myth Shaia.4856:

Tsk. What high-level/dungeon monster is not going to 1-2 shot kill you? Some people may find it fun to just stand there and be able to get monster-slapped all day long because of their tanky spec but seriously, how you don’t find that boring is mind-boggling….as boring as farming…oh wait wait, there’s the issue really at the base of it all isn’t it…that kind of game play would certainly simplify farming…where you only get excited when you see a gold item drop.

I think though that ANet had in mind for players to feel rewarded by defeating monsters/bosses in a challenging encounter. The chest at the end is just a thank-you for participating really, because how often do you get fantastic loot from it anyway!

To those crying about soloing content (read dungeons) …M-M-O… – the middle M means m-u-l-t-i-p-l-a-y-e-r (does not mean having many alts!) – it is obvious that ANet has developed the game more along the lines of players interacting with other players to accomplish things. There being no trinity has proved successful for the players willing to adapt and think over their strategies and prepare for an encounter. Every player has to bring skills that benefit the party, both support and dps because everyone is going to be in the kitten more often than not!

Not one of the boss encounters is terribly difficult in this game, perhaps the learning curve is too steep for players of traditional stand-around-and-do-the afk-dance while you get monster slapped or it could also simply be that some players have a more difficult time learning their profession, it certainly is different from other MMOs out there, but seriously; adapt and dodge or die. It really is that simple.

ANet developed this game with a certain player-style and player-base in mind. In my opinion and no doubt countless others’ they have succeeded. It is not their job to conform their game vision to yours simply because you cannot adapt to theirs (which you have to do if you want to play their game). It is not their job to nerf encounters over and over because it is too difficult for you when others are completing these encounters successfully and are even calling for more difficulty!!

ANet, where’s my Hard Mode!? The message here is, learn to play the game that has been developed, don’t try to make the game the way you want it to be – that is not your job, it is not your game.

You didn’t actually read any of the posts here, did you? :P

Anikos.1284:

Just remember the 5 D’s of GW2: dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge.

If you can dodge a wipe, you can dodge a ball?

Anet needs some dynamic events or heart quests where you get shot at repeatedly nonstop by fireballs/arrows/projectiles/1shot kills and in order to complete them, you “dodge”. I bet less people would suck so bad and less of these threads would exist if Anet implemented it.

Now I know the OP also talks about open world events, but that is a topic for the Dynamic Events forum, not the Dungeons forum. Because of that, I will address only the dungeons here.

I have done every dungeon in the game on a glass cannon Ranger, and nothing in the game can one-shot that setup bar Agony from a tier of FotM you’re undergeared for (your fault). Two-shot, yes, but not one-shot. If you happen to get hit twice in quick succession, I would blame the player for not paying attention. And, to be honest, if an attack is that threatening in a dungeon, it is well telegraphed as well even in the face of super special effects (Guardian blue fire for instance). I think that level of threat makes the dungeons more fun because it makes every action more valuable, and means that your dodges are that much more valuable. It becomes a battle of conscious skill and resource management, and that is what makes me come back to dungeons after the fact.

Giganticus Lupicus is the best boss in-game hands down because of how threatening he is, how interactive fighting him is, and how careful you have to play. I don’t care if you’re the best player ever and can beat him without ever going down, you pay attention when you fight GL or he kills you. That is what a boss should be, and if every boss in-game were like that, this game would be king in my eyes.

Man, I am in full knights gear. basically gemmed for it too since I am still figuring out the right build for me. The only thing I could do to survive better is go to the more tanky setup with toughness and vitality. Dolyak I think.

But even then, say we are at an champion boss in Orr. Theres times where I think I just explode. May be from all the players attacking at one area, so you get 40 people on screen, kinda tough graphic wise so it doesn’t load the one second ‘get out’ sign. I don’t know. But one hit kills should be more avoidable.

Sure I get it that most people at events would just tunnel with ranged weapons. Live entire time and be safe. But theres times that the boss isn’t even looking at me and then my near 16k health and about 2k-2.5k toughness means nothing as I lay on the ground.

Being able to avoid that attack of death would be best as you can see other players who didn’t notice die. (Yeah at times you cannot see a red circle when you have five charr in full plate armor and spell effects, pets and minions. But aside from the point)

Dungeon wise. Cannot speak there. Only did one and that was a LONG time ago. Gotta get me a nice niche for dungeoning. Specially to snag like 3 pieces of exotic gear for it. Want to look at a cleric/spirit build. Since dead dps do no dps. And when my spirits and pet can laugh at you, its all good for me.

Just need to get gold for the other parts. of the set…

Hryssar.5029:

Man, I am in full knights gear. basically gemmed for it too since I am still figuring out the right build for me. The only thing I could do to survive better is go to the more tanky setup with toughness and vitality. Dolyak I think.

But even then, say we are at an champion boss in Orr. Theres times where I think I just explode. May be from all the players attacking at one area, so you get 40 people on screen, kinda tough graphic wise so it doesn’t load the one second ‘get out’ sign. I don’t know. But one hit kills should be more avoidable.

Sure I get it that most people at events would just tunnel with ranged weapons. Live entire time and be safe. But theres times that the boss isn’t even looking at me and then my near 16k health and about 2k-2.5k toughness means nothing as I lay on the ground.

Being able to avoid that attack of death would be best as you can see other players who didn’t notice die. (Yeah at times you cannot see a red circle when you have five charr in full plate armor and spell effects, pets and minions. But aside from the point)

Dungeon wise. Cannot speak there. Only did one and that was a LONG time ago. Gotta get me a nice niche for dungeoning. Specially to snag like 3 pieces of exotic gear for it. Want to look at a cleric/spirit build. Since dead dps do no dps. And when my spirits and pet can laugh at you, its all good for me.

Just need to get gold for the other parts. of the set…

If you are a guard, you should use soldier runes for the stats and condition removal.

Hryssar.5029:

-snip-

You should add me to friends list. If you’re ever running a dungeon and I’m on, I’m always up for a dungeon run.

For open world bosses, you just have to know when it’s best to lay back. You don’t need to melee it if there’s a kitten load of people around doing the same thing. It’ll go down either way and if you’ve got your camera zoomed out, you can see when others go down and help them back up.

DeathPanel.8362:

If you are a guard, you should use soldier runes for the stats and condition removal.

He might use it, shouts are not the only utility skills guardian has.