Guild Wars 2

So with the destruction of the MMO Trinity (Tank, Healer, DPS) and the introduction of the Support/Controller/Damage role system, does anyone have any tips or ideas on how to build better Dungeon teams and help new (and old, and pug) players to better identify and fill these roles?

I think the main issue is that most players are still ignorant of the mechanics required for success in a team. And the mechanics themselves are neither obvious, or intuitive. While in other MMOs we had roles divided along class lines, (thief = dps, priest = healer etc) which made it easy for anyone creating a dungeon group to specify and identify what was needed in the group.

In GW2 every profession can fill any role, but different professions have different methods of filling those roles (guardian controller may rely on tanking or knockbacks, while elementalist controller may rely more on chills and cripples)… so how do you build a team? and how do you tell if your team makes are filling the role they volunteered for?

To me, this is the root of the problem of ‘elitism’ and the ever more prevalent requests for ‘80s only’ or ‘5 exotic zerkers warriors only’. It is not that it is required, but it helps people who DON’T know what they are doing to overcome their ignorance.

Ok preamble aside. What do you do to build a successful dungeon team, how do you Identify or fill roles, and what can ANET do to make the role mechanics easier, clearer, and more successful both in the dungeon and when forming a group?

First thought would be to allow the player to select a role to be displayed on their character icon.

This may tie into a LFG system later, but initially just using a drop down to say ‘hey I’m support’ that puts a little icon next to your portrait would help the group leader figure out what roles still need to be filled.

Players have to take it upon themselves to understand how they synergize with the group composition they have at that current time, and not run the exact same build and playstyle for everything.

3 warrs 1 guard 1 mesmer fun times all around
DPS (which is one of the most,if not the most important aspects of any mmo’s instanced group content) is totally out of whack between the profs that bringing anything else but the highest dps class is silly and serves no purpose. The reason for this is that PvE is currently balanced around PvP (warrs are easy to handle in PvP,thus need the extra damage to compensate).
For instance in another mmo,the devs would check the dps meter of every class with its dps spec and buff the underperfoming ones and nerf the op ones,bringing them to
a sort of equilibrium and avoiding situations like ‘LFM fury warrs only!’,sure it doesnt work all the time,but they at least try to bring some semblance of class balance in PvE.

Windwalker.2047:

3 warrs 1 guard 1 mesmer fun times all around
DPS (which is one of the most,if not the most important aspects of any mmo’s instanced group content) is totally out of whack between the profs that bringing anything else but the highest dps class is silly and serves no purpose. The reason for this is that PvE is currently balanced around PvP (warrs are easy to handle in PvP,thus need the extra damage to compensate).
For instance in another mmo,the devs would check the dps meter of every class with its dps spec and buff the underperfoming ones and nerf the op ones,bringing them to
a sort of equilibrium and avoiding situations like ‘LFM fury warrs only!’,sure it doesnt work all the time,but they at least try to bring some semblance of class balance in PvE.

That is something I really hope they address in ‘Phase 2’ of the dungeon changes. Melee DPS should be higher, because it has to balance out the lack of range and the time to reach the target (or cooldown of gap closers etc), but in PvE the fights are longer, so the only mitigating factor is usually a boss ability that forces melee to move or run out every 10-30 seconds.

I haven’t taken a hard look at every boss fight, but it seems to me that ranged dps has to do more movement than the melee dps in most fights. This seems out of balance, since essentially Melee dps should always run the risk of pulling boss aggro and having to move out periodically (switching aggro back to a more tanky controller character or allowing chill/slow based controllers to help the person kite). Instead most bosses seem to have lots of ranged abilities and only a very small set of weak melee attacks. Allowing melee dps to go all out all the time, and forcing ranged dps to spend all their time dodging and running around.

The best way to build your team is to bring only as much Support or Control as is necessary for your group to survive. After that, bring as much damage as possible. Many people new to dungeons use Toughess and Vitality heavy gear at first, and then switch to Berserker’s once they are more comfortable with the encounters. The damage difference between using Berserker’s and not using it is very noticeable.

The Damage role is not as simple as just hitting your damage buttons. It also involves maximizing Fury and Might uptime, with 25 stacks of Vulnerability on creatures.

Everyone mentions Warriors, Guardians and Mesmers as strong PvE Professions but I find that Engineers are hugely underrated. One Engineer can bring 20 stacks of Vulnerability by themselves!

Many bosses hit hard in melee. If you’re going to melee, most of the time your going to spec for being able to take a couple bit hits. If you’re ranged, you’re less likely to spec into defense. Regardless, melee DPS is much higher than ranged. If everyone was to melee (adequately), dungeon content would get cleared faster.

-Hope and believe that your teammates are competent. Personal ability to dodge attacks when needed and stand/move in the right spots can make up for any amount of role mismatch.

-Avoid filling your part with entirely thieves/rangers/warriors. [Not saying you can’t have them, but don’t have 4-5]. Also, 4-5 condition necros may be slow. The idea is that you want utility over straight up ‘damage’ classes. Assuming you’re pugging ofc.

-Avoid stacking a ton of 1 class if you want a group ‘generally’ good at everything. If they know what they’re doing, you might have the option of taking advantage of class specific errr… “benefits” that you may not be aware of. Unless they’re guardians. Which brings me to the next point.

-Bring at least 1 guardian. Usually, guardians increase the likelihood of a successful run more than any other class due to aoe-based projectile blocking. That and you get “the book”. Having a good guardian is almost a dungeon in the bank.

-There really are no ‘roles’ you play, and most classes that have ‘utility’ can choose to use it or not. So in this sense, I don’t believe you need to tag yourself as support or whatnot because even if you’re supporting, you should do damage, and if you’re dps, you should still do your best to support if you’re the right class at the right time.

-Lastly, be a leader if you’re pugging. Especially in fractals. Telling people what you are trying to do as a group regardless of whether or not they know how to do it will likely increase your odds of victory in the event that someone is new or is confused about the way you are attempting to clear a boss/area.

@IceWyvern
I think you hit on exactly why dungeons always feel like such a colossal chaotic mess. Nobody has a job, instead everyone is trying to do everything.. and even worse, nobody is relying on anyone else to fulfill a role.

Since everyone is entering the dungeon as a generalist, it breaks every encounter into two categories.
1. You know the fight, you dodge and control etc… you could solo this fight but it would be slow so having 4 others who could also solo just speeds it up.
2. You know the fight, you dodge and control.. but there is a steady increasing difficulty mechanic (graveling burrows for example) that has a DPS hump…. so you cant do it alone so you need more DPS.

And people wonder why you get 5 man dps groups of all warriors.

Silidus.7985:

Windwalker.2047:

3 warrs 1 guard 1 mesmer fun times all around
DPS (which is one of the most,if not the most important aspects of any mmo’s instanced group content) is totally out of whack between the profs that bringing anything else but the highest dps class is silly and serves no purpose. The reason for this is that PvE is currently balanced around PvP (warrs are easy to handle in PvP,thus need the extra damage to compensate).
For instance in another mmo,the devs would check the dps meter of every class with its dps spec and buff the underperfoming ones and nerf the op ones,bringing them to
a sort of equilibrium and avoiding situations like ‘LFM fury warrs only!’,sure it doesnt work all the time,but they at least try to bring some semblance of class balance in PvE.

That is something I really hope they address in ‘Phase 2’ of the dungeon changes. Melee DPS should be higher, because it has to balance out the lack of range and the time to reach the target (or cooldown of gap closers etc), but in PvE the fights are longer, so the only mitigating factor is usually a boss ability that forces melee to move or run out every 10-30 seconds.

I haven’t taken a hard look at every boss fight, but it seems to me that ranged dps has to do more movement than the melee dps in most fights. This seems out of balance, since essentially Melee dps should always run the risk of pulling boss aggro and having to move out periodically (switching aggro back to a more tanky controller character or allowing chill/slow based controllers to help the person kite). Instead most bosses seem to have lots of ranged abilities and only a very small set of weak melee attacks. Allowing melee dps to go all out all the time, and forcing ranged dps to spend all their time dodging and running around.

Which brings us back to the class balance problem again-there is no way that a ele/necro/engi/ranger/whatever can out-dps(or even reach a similar level) a warrior in melee +all of those classes have much less base hp and armor than the warr(esp in full dps armor)

There shouldn’t be a role so to speak.. It’s more about weapon combos than anything. Having a certain profession is great.. but what is best is when the team together is using the right combos to make things work.

I ran a PUG last night and at first it was pure hell. I then decided to switch my thief from Sword/Pistol to double Pistol. Luckily I run with a weapon of every kind my toon can use so I can switch on the fly. After switching and adjusting my skills the party ran much smoother. I was able to use more CC effects and our combos worked better too. Remove Condition, Poison, Burn are great combo effects to help weaken bosses. People forget that a lot it seems.

Delvoire.8930:

There shouldn’t be a role so to speak.. It’s more about weapon combos than anything. Having a certain profession is great.. but what is best is when the team together is using the right combos to make things work.

I ran a PUG last night and at first it was pure hell. I then decided to switch my thief from Sword/Pistol to double Pistol. Luckily I run with a weapon of every kind my toon can use so I can switch on the fly. After switching and adjusting my skills the party ran much smoother. I was able to use more CC effects and our combos worked better too. Remove Condition, Poison, Burn are great combo effects to help weaken bosses. People forget that a lot it seems.

I think that that is a common misconception. I can’t find the link atm, but the original concept was to create 3 roles; Support, Control, and Damage, and allow any profession to fill any of the 3 roles.

Unfortunately either due to bad boss/dungeon design, a lack of clarity within the game, or just players not recognizing the difference.. or value of these roles and assuming everyone is the same… and we have the dungeon pug system as it is now as a result.

Delvoire.8930:

There shouldn’t be a role so to speak.

There are definitely roles in this game. The reason a group can go poorly is because they don’t understand what roles are to begin with.

• Support: Coming to the aid of your team. Every Profession is capable of Support. (Revival, for instance is Support)
• Control: Preventing a creature from harming your team. The simple act of having aggro, taking a hit, Dodging, or kiting is Control.
• Damage: This should be self-explanatory, but maximizing Damage is more involved than you think.

You can specialize your build into doing one of these better than others, or fill a void in your group. If you’re a Warrior, for instance, you can provide 8 indefinite Vulnerability from using Axe/Mace alone. (Which is comparable to Greatsword) If your group needs more Support, maybe the Guardian can slot shouts (“Hold the Line!”, “Stand Your Ground!”) so they can bring more Regeneration, Stability or Protection to the party. If you’re trying to keep the creatures from getting out of control, maybe the Thief will spam Black Powder until things stabilize.

Many players feel that we bring so much Control (Dodging) and Support (Reviving) without being specialized into anything, that we can afford to maximize Damage as much as possible for most of the dungeons. And they’re right.

Nokaru.7831:

Delvoire.8930:

There shouldn’t be a role so to speak.

Many players feel that we bring so much Control (Dodging) and Support (Reviving) without being specialized into anything, that we can afford to maximize Damage as much as possible for most of the dungeons. And they’re right.

This!!

A lot of the role definition comes from weapon choice… maybe part of the solution here is to greatly increase the cooldown time of the control/support/dps specific weapon skills (making them virtually useless other than an occasional ‘fill the gap’ or a ‘taste of the role’ without traits), and then increase the amount that the cooldown reduction traits affect those skills.

Same would go for utilities.. but i think that would be harder to balance.

Silidus.7985:

Instead most bosses seem to have lots of ranged abilities and only a very small set of weak melee attacks. Allowing melee dps to go all out all the time, and forcing ranged dps to spend all their time dodging and running around.

I disagree. Most all of those ranged abilities can also target melee. The only situations where I feel melee has a significantly easier time are abilitys where a boss faces a direction and telegraphs a big attack but wont turn after starting. A melee can just swing around or step through the boss and be safe while ranged has alot of moveing to get out of the cone of effect. There are alot of AOE abilitys that ranged are always dancing around that land in melee as well and are often harder to spot the rings thanks to the explosive spell effects all over the place. Some I’ve learned I can just soak the damage as they are not really that dangerous. Others, well I’ve got to dodge just as much as ranged when those are geting thrown around and usualy cant keep attacking while doing so.