Guild Wars 2

Without the specialized roles of a tank and healer all the
dungeons just seem like the same chaos to me. Many people
just turn to kiting and ranged DPS. Even on my guard, which
you would think should be good in melee range, the approach
that keeps me alive the best is to run around and range stuff.

My heavy (green/gold mix) armor does not seem to be enough to
stay in melee range very long. As a heavy I expected to be better
there, but I don’t have the tools to last.

Many of my abilities seem to be on CD’s that are way too long
to be much help in a group…

Healing – My heals are weak compared to the dungeon damage.
I can do a so-so group heal every 40 seconds, but you can take
enough damage to die in 3-4 seconds.

Aegis – I can give you a block every 90 second! Is that a
joke? Should be like 10 seconds imho.

I can teleport to an ally with the lowest health and give a little heal
every 80 seconds. Another joke? The entire group can wipe several
times in 80 seconds and I can help 1 guy in that time frame. Should
be 8 secs, not 80.

Dodging – lol, after a couple dodges you are waiting to regen but
the mob is still coming after you. If we are to rely on dodging then
it needs to work better.

Overall, it seems like mediocre tools plus the lack of dedicated
healing and tanking make dungeon runs an exercise in silly running
around, rezing, runing, rezing, returning to waypoint, etc. Is that
the idea; we should have to rez someone a bunch of times and wipe
several times each run?

Everyone running around and ranging… that’s 80% of the trinity
replacement.

I can not see how things are more fun this way. At first it was
exciting because it was new content but the inability to manage battles
well is becoming old very fast.

I just did CoE with 2 guardians and warrior meleeing every encounter and it was very easy. I’ve done every dungeon where melee characters were quite successful. BTW melee does more damage than ranged. What does this say about your thread?

Imagine a world where there are no doctors, or heart surgeons, or dentists,
or any specialized role. Instead everyone (including you) just gets basic
fist-aid abilities. Next you need a kidney transplant… so we all gather
around and somehow do that for you with a pocket knife and some rope.
LOL – Wahaha! I guess you would think that is nifty. Until you realized that you
were no better off for it. ;-)

Lemme rephrase the OP:

“I did a dungeon and wiped. I didn’t have a healer to toss bandages at me to insta heal me back to full for my mistake. The game focuses less on players providing crutches for others and personal skill. Plz fix this devs.”

You didn’t even state what weapons you were wielding, nor your traits, nor your gear stats (yes the color is yellow is amazing, but the stats the flow together matter more.)

Everyone is responsible for themself. I’m a guardian and I’m not trying to tank mobs at dungeon, why? because they hit really hard compare to mobs on PVE world. You are not supposed to become a full dedicated healer because it will never work. Although I’m still helping people if they are down(not dead) but I also have to look for myself trying not to get killed. I’ve done several explorable mode at CoF, HoTW, and CoE. I’ve done dungeon only with pugs and we always finished the dungeon with no or few wipes only.

What I see here you are trying to keep everyone alive and tanking instead looking for yourself, which is definitely a wrong playstyle. This is not WoW so don’t expect the trinity will work here.

A hammer build guardian can soak up most of the mob’s damage (thanks god for permanent protection) beside the big attacks. It also doesn’t mean I can just sit and faceroll in melee. I still have to move out a bit to recover (waiting on cooldowns, etc…). Even though guardians are heavy armor class, we have the lowest HP so you still need to build for survivability. Running a dungeon with a glass cannon 30/30/10/0/0 in berserker’s gears for example is like asking for a repair bill.

Dead – wrong. You are not re-phrasing me you are re-writing a
version that you feel better about attacking. You should go back and read.

It is not a weapons issue – I am describing a general issue
which I have observed from more that just 1 toon btw. It just
happens of late I’m playing my guard.

If other players abilities are a crutch then why don’t you
SOLO the dungeons? You can’t – you need to rely on others,
and whatever abilities they have or use. I bet you can drive a screw
with a butter knife. I can, but it is not better than a real tool for the job.

I will give you this – I suppose it is easier for the devs to code to just have
random attacking mobs and less aggro management issues to think about.

Hey Sentinel, I appreciate what you are saying and I’m not trying to act as
a full tank or healer – but the CD’s on the abilities I mentioned seem silly.

gwzog.6418:

Hey Sentinel, I appreciate what you are saying and I’m not trying to act as
a full tank or healer – but the CD’s on the abilities I mentioned seem silly.

You have to use your skills on the right time to avoid having the cooldown when they are needed. There are some traits that can reduce the cooldown on certain skills like shout, meditation, etc for 20% which is quite nice imo. If you use your virtue a lot, you might want to spend your trait points on “Virtues” which reduce the cooldown. Heck even I rarely use virtue of resolve or virtue of courage, I usually only use virtue of justice because it has a really quick cooldown time.

I’m a mesmer running a 30/30/0/0/10 build

Want to know something silly?

I die last and last longest, while dealing the most damage.

It doesn’t get more simpler than this: L2P Scrublord

But see Sentinel, what you are saying is that you rarely use some stuff, apparently because of the CD. So doesn’t that suggest that the skill needs a fix? Otherwise it is just
toolbar clutter.

Assmodeus – I can last long in a battle too… just stay back and range stuff and watch others take the main damage. Not what I expected to do as a guard – but YEA, I can do that.
Is that fun? Thanks for your help.

I like it this way way more than the trinity.

Guardians actually have it pretty good in melee. In fact, pretty much any mixture of melee guardians + warriors is the best kind of group I’ve encountered. It just steamrolls through everything.

Dead.7385:

Lemme rephrase the OP:

“I did a dungeon and wiped. I didn’t have a healer to toss bandages at me to insta heal me back to full for my mistake. The game focuses less on players providing crutches for others and personal skill. Plz fix this devs.”

I’m actually curious why you think group content should be focused on individual skill, rather than players watching out for each other. I’m not saying Trinity > GW2 method, nor am I saying the opposite, I just find it odd that someone would take that stance. Usually group content is designed to encourage all party members to give each other support.

I always run with a hammer on my guardian, i have usually a staff on swap and greatsword, scepter, mace, an shield in my bags. I switch it up depending on what the situation calls for but never had a problem meleeing for the majority of any fight. You aren’t suppose to face tank for extended periods of time. With the guard you also have so many blinds, blocks, protection, aegis and what not that helps you sit comfortably right in melee. And yes, my guard can still shrug off hits even the biggest ones, just gotta heal when that happens.

Power/vit/tough with 3k armor 16k hp, still got 2.9k attack and 965 healing when swappin to staff for support. Instead of just healong, there are so many way to prevent an reduce damage. Healing is just the most basic form of it. It’s also the least exciting way to support your team. Warding off mobs, reflecting projectiles, givin people breathing room is what support is in this game, not watching hp bars.

roles are stupid, if mobs were smart they would all kill the healer right away because he just can’t get away and has no survivability. Now everybody is kept on their toes. And you can melee, you just have to get good at it. You can’t melee forever, at some point you have to break out and heal but definitely possible to melee in this game. Not to mention the amount of damage you can do is awesome.

gwzog.6418:

But see Sentinel, what you are saying is that you rarely use some stuff, apparently because of the CD. So doesn’t that suggest that the skill needs a fix? Otherwise it is just
toolbar clutter.

I use all my skills, yep all including my secondary weapons as well and I’m not having problem using my skills properly. If you know WoW you can say what a real toolbar cluster is, GW2 skills system is one of the simplest in mmorpg. So if you can’t use properly I can’t say anything much rather then tell you to practice on how to use them because I’m having no problem running dungeon with my guardian at all.

Asmodeus.8042:

I’m a mesmer running a 30/30/0/0/10 build

Want to know something silly?

I die last and last longest, while dealing the most damage.

It doesn’t get more simpler than this: L2P Scrublord

I think your example only shows how powerful the mesmer is. The guardian is very difficult to play.

We have absolutely no issue running with 1 guardian and 1 warrior in our group.
I don’t know if you’re serious about asking for an aegis on a 10sec cd.
Though I do see the clear gap between range and melee.

My heavy (green/gold mix) armor does not seem to be enough to
stay in melee range very long. As a heavy I expected to be better
there, but I don’t have the tools to last.

tbh, you won’t notice differences in this complaint til you BUILD for them as well as get in exotics

Many of my abilities seem to be on CD’s that are way too long
to be much help in a group…

timing is everything, an aegis virtue use at the right time negates TONS of damage, prevention is the best cure and so that’s a pseudo healing right there and you should focus more on condition removal and boons which is where the guardian excels.
Could probably reduce cooldowns using traits too

Healing – My heals are weak compared to the dungeon damage.
I can do a so-so group heal every 40 seconds, but you can take
enough damage to die in 3-4 seconds.

THAT IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM, you are NOT the healer, you are NOT a tank, and healing and tanking is shared between the group, stop trying to fulfill a role that has been designed OUT of the game, if your allies don’t use team support skills, it’s a l2p issue on their part and you should kick them

Aegis – I can give you a block every 90 second! Is that a
joke? Should be like 10 seconds imho.

an aoe instakill is blocked like it’s nothing on a LESS than 90 second cooldown with traits, and you think it should be 10 seconds? eh…. no

I can teleport to an ally with the lowest health and give a little heal
every 80 seconds. Another joke? The entire group can wipe several
times in 80 seconds and I can help 1 guy in that time frame. Should
be 8 secs, not 80.

THEN, you’d spec into it via the meditations traits and spam it wouldn’t you? again you’d end up being a healer, the skill IS garbage mind you, I hate it myself. But to buff it would just lead to attempts at dedicated healing

Dodging – lol, after a couple dodges you are waiting to regen but
the mob is still coming after you. If we are to rely on dodging then
it needs to work better.

VIGOR! DEFENSIVE STATS! WARDS, CC, DEBUFFS, PROTECTION!

Obviously trying to play a trinity role (“dedicated healing and tanking”) in a game which obviously does not support trinity role and then complaint that the game is silly.

Good points.

I really like the long post by Hellkaiser but it is not the solution.

Even if I or the OP himself does this, it cannot be guaranteed that the entire group that he is on will go with this build. Some might go full glass cannon while others stack on MF.

I myself tried this method out and got a separate armor set for Dungeons with vitality [I will be trying the toughness set soon] along with consumables that would reduce the damage for the specific dungeon and consumables granting upto 60 vitality. I do still get wiped even with all this and the only thing I get in return is the fact that I am trying my best. Thats all.

Bottom line – Dungeons are OP for the average gamer. This makes the title Dungeon Master more worthy. Group contribution for gear and aggro control does matter in each and every dungeon.

*For everyone whining about the repair bills being tooooo high- try repairing at the end of the dungeon. Yes, you would be naked by the end but it would still cost you only 10S 50C in total.

Svarty.8019:

Asmodeus.8042:

I’m a mesmer running a 30/30/0/0/10 build

Want to know something silly?

I die last and last longest, while dealing the most damage.

It doesn’t get more simpler than this: L2P Scrublord

I think your example only shows how powerful the mesmer is. The guardian is very difficult to play.

This is a rediculous statement. Melee in this game, in general, has a rougher time, but I play my mesmer both in and out of melee range and do just fine, because I WATCH and dodge, and use certain defensive abilities intelligently.

The group I run with usually has a warrior and two guardians in melee, and they typically survive VERY well by using their abilities wisely and DODGING. Dodging is something everyone, regardless of class, has to be good at to succeed in this game.

Helkaiser, thanks for the reply. I’m exaggerating a bit
on the time reductions but current values seem way too long to me.

Think about how many attacks can occur in 90 seconds of melee,
and I can give the group a block ONCE in that span of
time… Really? That probably represents <1% block.
I realize that if it is well placed it can be a big help, but
why make it so constrained. Imagine that it was on a 20 sec
CD, and imagine that I spammed it (if u can call it spamming
at that rate) – would that be extreme?

Re Healing – Yes, I accept that I am not the group healer -
well… at least not exclusively. But it seems to me that
the way GW2 works we are ALL the group healer. I expected
my heals to work better. Yes I could invest more in gear
that buffs heals but that seems pointless because toughness
would likely suffer.

Teleport to an ally and heal every 80 seconds – I do not
know how that can be considered a proper CD. It’s not even
a massive heal. In 80 seconds with a group of 5 people I can help 1
guy, 1 time, with this skill. Seriously 20 secs would not be
excessive imo. Maybe with a better CD you would not think that
skill is… as you say – garbage?

BTW: These CD issues really only feel like a problem to me
in Dungeons because they are so much more demanding than soloing,
(It is FINE that they are demanding) I just feel like my tools don’t scale
to the demand.

Maybe if CD’s were reduced by some percentage inside dungeons it
would help.

Nethelli I think yours is a good point. Some have
basically suggested to me that I should just take
care of myself in dungeons – the “every man for himself”
mentality. But for me it is the team work and
inter-dependency that makes a group fun.

I can always do solo content. Treating dungeons like
a joint SOLO activity is not as fun (to me).

Warrior here,

I run with full soldier gear (vit/toughness/power) and knight jewellery (power/precision/toughness). I have around 25k health and 2500 toughness. I do not have full exotics. I also run with the dolyak rune but I will probably switch to the soldier rune for the condition removal on shouts. It removes a condition to everyone effected by the shout.

This is my Build| with this I can keep weakness on most of the time. I have a leap finisher for combo finishing. I also have 2 blocks (1 a counter) and 3 dazes to interrupt. I have 2 shouts (plus 1 in traits “Shrug it off”) for healing me and the team. Lots of conditional removal. Finally my elite standard to rally any hard to res team mates.

With that out of the way. I can basically what you would call a ‘Tank’, for 90% of the mobs and bosses I can just stand in everything they got with some smart dodging here and there. I don’t, I try to preserve my HP as much as possible with my team mates helping me with the heal and me alternating my cd’s to stop big attacks.

My friend is a guardian, helps keep up the protection while I have the weakness. He also builds a tanky style spec and gear (clerics gear). Between us we can tank forever.

I don’t know his specific spec or abilities if you asked me though. I could try and get him to post if you requested.

- Xhaine

I have seen both properly built Warriors and Guardians tank. They tank like a champ. I am surprised that their durability is so high. The Warrior is Defense/Tactics built. used Knight armors with Valkyrie accessories. Slap in your soldier rune, and he tanks like a champ. Weapons of choice were GS and Sword/Shield combo.

The Guardian I PUG once with … I have no idea what gear or traits. He used Mace + Shield. He is probably the most durable Guardian I have grouped with. He could stand there and soak all the hits and hold aggro.

Even an elementalist like me – if I equip Knight + Valkyrie or Carrion + Cleric … my survivability goes up by A LOT. So if you find you are dying a lot, it is time to stop using your current gear or traits. Check out the better Guardians and find out what build they are using. I see a lot of Warrior and Guardians running around in full berserker gear… Yeah right. Every fight I see them getting down at least 3-4 times.

Just wanted to point out that the constructive posts outnumber the “l2p scrub posts” that’s always encouraging to see.

There is no effective direct healing/tanking in GW2. No matter how much you want it to be an apple, it’s still an orange.

That being said, it doesn’t negate the effectiveness of teamwork in dungeons. I can’t say how many times I (or a teammate) was saved by a well timed knockback performed by another player.