Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, i’m not here to whine, to be a flamer or to hate something you could love instead. I’m here because probably i didn’t understand some important things and maybe you might be able to help me. I reached the top level several days ago and i tried 6-7 times the Ascalonian catacombs story mode with some friends and a couple of random guys. I have some mmorpg experience, on wow since 2005, runes of magic and aion. I also played skyrim and other famous rpg. I tell you this to let you know i’m not a total newbie for this kind of play. BUT (!!!) when i ‘ve tried to clear a gw2 dungeon, my brain and all my previous experience have been completely smashed by the hardest instance i have ever seen in my life. Probably i play so bad or i have met only bad players, but this is what i can say about dungeons in this game:
1) trash mobs are ridiculously hard. Your group can manage 1 foe, if there are 2 foes, then you have 50% possibility to die. With 3 mobs it’s certainly a wipe. They have an insane amount of HP, you pull aggro when you are down and you have not any chance to rally. They can one or two shot you and you have not the time to avoid pools on the ground or to heal yourself. Traps on the ground are going to own you if you even dodge on them. That’s simply frustrating. There’s NO tank, there’s NO healer, how do i survive without a tank and a healer if every mob simply oneshots me??? XD
2) i’m lvl 80 with a decent lvl 75-78 gear, with some greens and a couple of yellow items, but my hp, armor and damage output are too low to afford the situations in dungeons.
3) rewards and loot are mostly of the time useless. I’m not having fun because each time i enter in a dungeon i spend more gold for repair bills than i earn during the run. Some loot is lvl 70-75 other is lvl 35 (what a?) and i seriouly don’t feel any satisfaction doing this. It just seems a zergrace or something like that. I didn’t understand HOW people are able to do the explorer mode! They are just insane for me. I checked some guides, but didn’t find anything interesting to solve these problematics.

I repeat, maybe i am wrong because i keep playing this game as i played wow and i’m not saying that the game sucks or has some serious issues, but when i read on forums that lots of people got my same problems, i can only ask you: What are our mistakes? What do we wrong? I’m getting mad and i seriously want to be able to play whis game having fun.

If you think i am akitten or i really suck, well, don’t waste your time to reply. I only told you about my personal exp, that’s it. I thank the game, the forum and everyone who is able to help me.

The feeling of spending more than you make certainly goes away as you get better — but approaching the dungeons (or really any of this game) the same way as you approach(ed) wow definitely makes things much more difficult.

Regarding dying – there are a few tips that I can give you.

• Watch for telegraphed abilities. This particularly plays true with Lt. Kohler in AC, he has an AOE scorpion wire that he telegraphs extremely noticably, when he throws the wire, dodge.
• In general, start dodging appropriately. If you have a talent tree that allows you additional endurance, until you’re comfortable with two dodges, maybe you should spec into it from a learning perspective. Don’t waste your endurance just because, you’ll need it at some point.
• Look into utility abilities / skills that prevent damage. Rangers haunting your AC group? Have a thief run smoke screen or your Elementalist stop projectiles from coming in.
• Heal liberally. You have a heal skill. Use it when you get low enough that a heal would top you off if you need to.
• Spec/gear for vitality / toughness for now. There are very few pure DPS checks in dungeons, and dead men do 0 dps. When you’re more comfortable later on, you can go back to a more powerful spec.
• Learn the abilities of other classes. This generally holds more beneficial in PVP but a majority of the PvE NPCs in this game seem to have a base profession at their core. Learn it. Learn what does the most damage. Know your enemy!
• Stop watching your actionbars and watch the screen. This is the biggest ‘wow’ mistake and something that has killed a number of ‘seasoned’ players that I’ve been playing with for years as they get used to the combat mechanics of gw2.
• If you’re not comfortable with melee dps, as it’s definitely more risky, switch off to a ranged weapon for dungeons. As far as I know every class has a ranged weapon or two at their disposal, use it if you need.
• Remember that you can adjust major traits AND slot skills ANYTIME that you’re out of combat. If a fight is going to be more risky and you don’t want to take chances, maybe switch your major traits to be more survival based.
• Conditions are EXTREMELY powerful. Thieves can pretty much chain blind a slow swinging PvE NPC, and Mesmers can confuse the hell out of them. Both of these are very powerful.
• Don’t forget your food buff and potions! Things die quicker when you’re using potions, and they’re super cheap on the TP.

One thing I quickly learned when i first started playing this game, is to forget everything you know about mmo’s.. GW2 like you said has no holy trinity, and you rely heavily on eachother to pull through a dungeon.. You have no idea how many times my groups have wiped because a warrior just wanted to tank, or the glasscannon thief with no hp gets one-shotted.. It will take some time to get to know the new system.

The group i am running with now can clear most dungeons, mainly because we help eachother out alot.. Everyone is cc’ing, placing boons or symbols, heals, ress, removes conditions etc.

You’ll get there eventually, but you will have to learn a completely new system.

Zingery.2073:

One thing I quickly learned when i first started playing this game, is to forget everything you know about mmo’s.. GW2 like you said has no holy trinity, and you rely heavily on eachother to pull through a dungeon.. You have no idea how many times my groups have wiped because a warrior just wanted to tank, or the glasscannon thief with no hp gets one-shotted.. It will take some time to get to know the new system.

The group i am running with now can clear most dungeons, mainly because we help eachother out alot.. Everyone is cc’ing, placing boons or symbols, heals, ress, removes conditions etc.

You’ll get there eventually, but you will have to learn a completely new system.

Agreed. this game is not World of Warcraft and those tactics do not apply at all. So many fights in that game is your character standing there spamming this key and that key and pew pew boss is dead. That mentality only takes you to the grave in this game. Plenty of bosses or even trash mobs are extremely deadly and their abilities must be dodged at all cost. Once you get to know the enemies and bosses things will get a lot easier. Dodging is definitely key to survival. I have cleared all of the story mode dungeons and plenty of the explorable modes as well to varying degrees of difficulty but have usually come out successful

I don’t wanna entirely nitpick what you said, but you say “i keep playing this game as i played wow” and I would say that’s your first, and probably most fundamental, mistake.

WoW has you fit certain roles (tank, healer, dps, maybe some hybrid) whereas everyone in GW2 is dps with a mix of support. The point is to recognize each other’s strengths and weakness and play off them. Skill synergy and dodging takes precedent over being able to tank and heal through a fight.

You might need to rethink how you can do good dps while also providing good utility (in some form) to other characters, and avoid death as much as possible. How you do that is dependent on class and playstyle.

+1 for the OP, I agree
Things need to change and soon. They need to revamp WvW and dungeons.

And skills that affect the party is usually better than just saving your own (|).

A well placed “Healing Spring” (that aoe heals) when you’re at full health is usually better than running around with a stronger single heal.

Watching rangers without healing spring in dungeons makes me a sad panda. >_>

Many classes have some slot skill that allows them to revive an ally without having to hug that champion boss or stand in the aoe.

If your allies are up then there’s a better chance you’ll not get aggro, or that you’ll lose aggro. So if you keep party members up your survivability goes up as well.

Mohebius.4287

If you want, me and my dungeon running group can add you into our runs perhaps and show you how to do AC EM, any path. We have this dungeon in particular down to a science, and we can teach you how =)

Limulus.4380:

+1 for the OP, I agree
Things need to change and soon. They need to revamp WvW and dungeons.

I offer the same to you friend, on one condition… Drop the attitude please.

Come with my group, and we will show you how you play a dungeon with 0 deaths

Saying 3 trash mobs is a certain wipe is a bit extreme. I’ve been in groups where we were fighting 4 or 5 trash mobs and managed to pull it out, albeit with lots of yelling over vent and all our abilities constantly on cooldown.

Pretty much afflaq said, but yeah, first time dungeon can be pretty tough.
Gear isn’t the key thing, better gear helps, but it certainly doesn’t help you win an instance. However, keep in mind that if you spec in offensive abilities only you’ll die a lot easier than you do with a more balanced or defensive spec on gear. Wouldn’t recommend going “glasscannon” in dungeons at all, unless you know what you’re doing and run with a decent group.

It’s important to know what your skills do. All of their effects. Analyse what you have available on your weapons, and what could be useful in what situations. Second, choose your utilities wisely. Go for whatever compliments your build, playstyle and anything that can support the team always helps.

Third, know your enemies. Know which enemy does what. Use your skills accordingly to minimise their damage/effects. Dodge roll out of attacks (powerful attacks usually show a charge animation).

Four, always try to res a downed (not a dead one) teammate if you get the chance to. Teams who don’t, usually fail, and results in low morale, quitters or selfish gameplay which is all things you don’t want in a dungeon group.

There’s many more factors to play dungeons effectively, including how your party members perform (requires some luck to get a decent PUG). Point is, you don’t just jump into a dungeon and expect to kick butt based on your experience on games that are completely different.