Guild Wars 2

I’m so bored of always being on the floor, always downed, always dead.

Lets take AC for example. Doing story mode on my lv37 Ele. I have 2.2K hp, we come to the lovers fight, and in the first 2 seconds I’m not only downed but interrupted repeatedly and dead. Why? Because whirlwind knockback that spawns on me, followed by boss thinder, followed by OP illusion mage on my corpse. It’s boring.

If you don’t want to have tanks/healers, then make it so dps’ers can survive! And not be forced into speccing full toughness/vitality. I made dps roles because that’s what I enjoy doing. I do not want to tank or heal yet I am expected to do so just to survive more than one hit from anything in any dungeon.

If you took full zerker gear expecting to faceroll all mobs in under a second before they could flatten you without using your dodges, you’re in for a nasty surprise.

The key for the lovers fight is to separate them, by the way.

They removed the holy trinity, DPS/Healer/Tank, and replaced it with Damage, Support, and Control. It is not unreasonable for them to expect you to do all 3 of these things.
First off, stop trying to melee the elementalist when she is right by the Mesmer. That takes care of the whirlwind knockback.
Second, the OP Illusion Mage can be easily countered with the Focus on an Elementalist.
Third, avoid red circles.
Lastly, use your down 2 skill to get near your allies so they can get you back on your feet.

My point is you’re stunned to death before you can even throw a boulder or seperate them or even react to dodge!

I’m not standing in circles expecting to survive and faceroll. But in a game that has no tanks or healers, you should be given a ton more survivability skills without being FORCED into speccing defence!

Again, I want to play dps, not tank/heal. I’m sick to death of starting a boss, losing 90% my hp, using my heal ability instantly, then spending the rest of the fight running away like a little girl on 5% hp avoiding everything while waiting for my heal skill to come off cooldown again. I then finally heal up, to 45% and take another hit instantly knocking me down to 5% or downing me, rince and repeat.

This evening’s AC run is still not complete on my Ele because of wipe groups, dying, more wiping and more dying. It’s rediculous.

Also, it’s stupid that when the instance starter leaves, the entire group is kicked! Who’s brilliant idea was that? Furthermore, there is no penalty for players quitting or abandoning groups.

My list of things I want to see in dungeons:

• Pentalty for quitters / players that abandon group mid-play. Something like an hour debuff preventing rejoining LFG.
• More suvivabilty. Wether that be through more skills to heal with or just more defence as standard, don’t mind.
• Remove the cave troll, really…

Advice: get to level 80 at least and then talk about what’s needed to balance the game. I’m not sure a level37 elementalist really has all of the tools needed to be super successful in dungeons (they are capable but that’s different from it being good for it). Honestly…. I don’t understand why you are assuming so much on your level 37 for a dungeon, be it a story dungeon or not.

Ele is a rough class to learn, especially at low level. I’d stay away from zerker gear until you get a better feel for the active defenses and blinds/blocks/dodges are all reflexive. Eles have a really low health pool and there is little room for error. Try running good old PVT Soldier’s gear (ducks and hides) or knight’s.

(Soldier’s gear has a bad rap, but it’s a good choice if you’re looking for a tankier build while learning.)

Or if you’re looking for a tankier DPS experience out-of-the-box, try rolling a guard or a warrior. They have much higher survivability than eles. But you’re not going to get a tanky DPS mage. I think that’s a law somewhere :-P

They don’t even have berserk or soldiers at that level. They still only have 2 stat buffs on the highest armor!

But yeah my training wheel armor on my ele was soldiers. (Was my first class so eh)

Lilith Ajit.6173:

They don’t even have berserk or soldiers at that level. They still only have 2 stat buffs on the highest armor!

But yeah my training wheel armor on my ele was soldiers. (Was my first class so eh)

Heh, true true, I sit corrected :P It’s been a while.

dlonie.6547:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

They don’t even have berserk or soldiers at that level. They still only have 2 stat buffs on the highest armor!

But yeah my training wheel armor on my ele was soldiers. (Was my first class so eh)

Heh, true true, I sit corrected :P It’s been a while.

I wasn’t really directing any anger or anything at you. I’m just baffled that the OP is arguing balance when they don’t even have access to gear that has more than 2 stat buffs. Hope you didn’t misunderstand!

It is perfectly doable at level 30, but if you were expecting it to be easy at such a low level when you don’t even have Master traits unlocked, let alone optimal gear… I’ll pray for you.

And you complain about being stunned – as I recall, you SHOULD have Armor of Earth unlocked by now, so use it. These two bosses lack the Unshakable effect for a reason, apply your control skills properly.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I wasn’t really directing any anger or anything at you. I’m just baffled that the OP is arguing balance when they don’t even have access to gear that has more than 2 stat buffs. Hope you didn’t misunderstand!

No worries, no offense taken :-) It was a good point.

One other thing, OP — it also helps a lot to make sure your gear is up to level and the highest rarity available. The difference between running dungeons in blues/greens vs. rares/exotics is night and day. Rares become available at either 35 or 40, I forget which, but get them as soon as you can. Use runes and sigils to help beef up your tankiness if you need to, also.

And you can get level-appropriate rares from the dungeon vendors, too — doesn’t help much with your first toon, but it’s super useful when you make an alt and have some extra tokens laying around.

dw man, we’re all zerk geared and doing well. the issue is something else.. =)

Wait a minute. Are you trying to say that you can’t just put on zerk(power) gear and face roll everything? That you actually need to have situational awareness, dodge and know how to play?

Better be careful or your going to have the “zerk is just bads who don’t know game mechanics” crowd in here soon.

On topic: It takes time for new players to learn boss mechanics and their tells. When to dodge and when to back off. Also, as said above, ele is a hard class to learn. Once you figure out the fight, you will wonder how you ever got downed so much before.

I saw you were also complaining that the LA event was too hard and should be nerfed. Please understand that endgame content, even if you’re scaled up to 80, will be extremely difficult when you’re not even leveled. You don’t have all of your skills unlocked, only have a fraction of your traits, and your gear is not going to scale up to the same as an 80 exotic/ascended set, etc etc etc.

Endgame content is for people who have put hundreds of hours into the game, put together high-level gear sets, and know their professions inside and out. People who not only have all skills and traits available, but know when to swap them around to tailor them for a specific encounter. A level 40ish with a smattering of experience with the game is not going to have a good time in these things. Heart quests and open world events do not prepare you for dungeons or endgame. Hell, even world bosses are a joke because of the zerg-coddling built into the game’s design.

Finish leveling, then come back and complain with us :-)

Don’t worry, once you’re lvl 80 and have a good grasp of combat mechanics you’ll be laughing at this topic.

Learn to play.
No, seriously. I’m not joking or being mean.
From your post I can tell that you’re still a newbie to this game.
Keep practising, watch a guide, ask your questions and you’ll get better eventually.

Rentapest.6503:

…on my lv37 Ele. I have 2.2K hp, we come to the lovers fight, and in the first 2 seconds I’m not only downed but interrupted repeatedly and dead. Why? Because whirlwind knockback ….

So, your HP won’t really have much bearing on your survivability in PvE. As an Ele, you will bring a whole lot of DPS to the table but you do need to be more mindful of your surroundings that other classes with more passive defenses.

Three things to keep in mind:

1. Leveling can kind of suck sometimes. Being level 37, you don’t have all your skills, utilities, and elites unlocked. This can be tough.

2. Please do change utilities often (as the situation dictates). It isn’t a bad idea to keep Arcane Shield on your skill bar often. Perhaps in your case, Armor of Earth for the stability. You can also run S/F, still be able to stack all the might you need, and be able to lean on Obsidian Flesh to negate some of those big hits.

3. Depending on your build, vigor may not come easy. Eles do tend to get targeted often by bosses. Make sure you start picking up on the subtle ‘tells’ enemies have before an attack. Everything (I’m quite sure) in PvE has some sort of ‘tell’ or ‘windup’ that can help you anticipate an attack.

Rentapest.6503:

…not be forced into speccing full toughness/vitality. I made dps roles because that’s what I enjoy doing. I do not want to tank or heal yet I am expected to do so just to survive more than one hit from anything in any dungeon.

It’s good that you are interested in playing a DPS role right off the bat. It’s currently the way to PvE content in GW2. Aside from that, it is (imo) much more enjoyable to see large numbers and see the positive contribution YOU make to the team. You will however go down quite easily if you don’t stay on your toes. The Ele isn’t a class for someone isn’t willing or able to react quickly.

Edit: Oh haha…and good luck :P

Saint.5647:

Everything (I’m quite sure) in PvE has some sort of ‘tell’ or ‘windup’ that can help you anticipate an attack.

Champion Icebrood Wolf says hi!

hey, I can dodge it

Try Arch Diviner’s leap next time. Yet, it’s still dodgeable.

Archdiviner’s leap? How about his autoattack?

noobgood.8762:

Archdiviner’s leap? How about his autoattack?

Yeah, his leap is pretty well telegraphed. His auto on the other hand…

If I see him stop in the second fight I back off immediately.

Icebrood wolves are the bane of stacking.

I main an elementalist since the game’s out.

I can clearly tell you that a Berserker elementalist should be avoided until you have all the tools available (gear, traits and skills wise) and with a minimum of experience playing an elementalist.

Elementalists requires a lot of movement. You have to move, dodge, boons/heal yourself and pop up condition removal/protection.

I started elementalist with a cleric gear and valkyrie trinkets. I suggest you go for PVT gear and Valkyrie trinkets (berserker would be good too since your gear provides a good amount of sustain).

As for traits, I go for remove conditions, healing/boons on attune swap mostly as elementalists have paper health and paper armor. If you go for full DPS, you will NOT be able to withstand anything without proper sustain! If I go full berserk with DPS traits, I mostly use staff and even then, I down quite fast if I get attacked. I mostly use it in WvW for huge DPS on zergs.

And also bear in minds dungeons are really easy with even casual level 80 players. If you are not a 80 fully geared, you will have a really hard time since dungeons are not really focused on the level they are. People will rarely grab a level 35 for AC as they are quite useless since the dungeon can be unforgiving. Yes you can, but it doesn’t mean you should. Though if you have fellow 80s friends/guildies that don’t mind a newbie, you could run it with them. You’ll learn and level up fast.

For the time being, just get Vitality and Toughness as much as you can.

You appear to be contradicting yourself.

Just saying.

I frown upon what I’ve just read. Calling out for more speed run streaming with ele POV.

draconx.3102:

Saint.5647:

Everything (I’m quite sure) in PvE has some sort of ‘tell’ or ‘windup’ that can help you anticipate an attack.

Champion Icebrood Wolf says hi!

easily avoided leap on a huge cooldown

Don’t be ashamed to use training wheels if you just started playing a class or the game in general.
Just be smart about what kind of training wheels you use. There is a huge difference between just beeing able to take a few more hits and beeing “forced” into a completely different playstlye.
If you want to improve on your skills in dungeons/fractals use defensive gear, soldiers would probably be the best for an ele, since both toughness and vitality scale relatively even, due to your low base health (unlike warrior or necro who have already “way more health” than armor).
Again, if your goal is to improve your general skills (and someday get smooth and fast runs…) try to avoid investing too many points into traitlines your later build wont use, you’ll just start to develop bad habits. For example 10 points into arcana are a-o-k, in order to get the vigor trait, however going 30 into arcana might bite you later on, if you develop the habit of “healing up damage” you could have avoided in the first place.
Another thing you should avoid is crying out for tanky gear having a similar efficiency as berserker gear. Tanks are not a part of gw2 pve and tanky gear just serves as training wheels until you learned how to manage your defensive cooldowns aswell as your dodging.