Guild Wars 2

I’ve been a successful WoW raider from vanilla through Cata.
I understand traditional MMO mechanics and know how to execute them.
I understand that GW2 does not follow those.

That said, I would love to learn how to CORRECTLY play GW2 dungeons.

So far (I’m playing a 45ish Ranger), I’ve only run the first two dungeons and both were in story mode. We did it with a guild group of similar experience level players. We were all on vent. It still turned into a complete massacre and zerg-fest or rezzing and throwing ourselves at fights.

I regularly go from full health to down w/o ever seeing what got me. It’s not like there was a big boulder coming my way and I didn’t dodge in time.

So since the game apparently has no dungeons that teach you the right way to play them, I’m coming to the community for help. Teach an old MMO’er new tricks. How do you run GW2 dungeons the right way?

Thanks in advance,

Belak

Well, unless you’re in an organized and coordinated group with TS/Ventrilo, you don’t run dungeons. Constant wiping, immense length, tedious and not to mention hard is what characterizes the average PUG in endgame dungeons, often leading to the group dissolving after a few wipes with leavers and mounting repair costs.

Most casual PvE’ers either farm dynamic events in Orr, or stick to AC and TA explorable, because they’re the easiest and fastest, sometimes doing CoF and CoE exp, though that’s risky aswell with a PUG. Arah exp is out of the question.

The problem is that the equivalent of normal mode dungeons in GW2, storymode, plays like heroics in WoW, though with crap loot and no dungeon tokens, often the only reward is a repair bill or ending up at +-0, whilst the next tier is similar to 10man raids, i.e explorable mode, at least in the upper end dungeons. There’s no inbetween.

So my advice would be to gather up friends or join an organized guild, though be suspicious if you’re in a PUG where the others are from the same guild, since they can kick you before the last boss and you’ll get squat for your efforts. PUG’ing is not viable in endgame.

Several things to keep in mind for dungeons from someone only slightly beyond your current situation:

1 – tanking and healing are not there in traditional MMO perspective, but they still exist and are still needed. If you don’t have a tank with the armor and spec for it, you will be splattered by any specials done by “big boss man”.

2 – because threat is not a fixed concept in this game, and because healing is not targeted, group utility and situational awareness take precedence over damage output.

3 – a big priority in these dungeons is teamwork. something I’ve noticed as a noob mistake is people will ignore downed players. Help them rally and have others help you rally while others distract the boss.

4 – bosses have resilience against crowd control, but its not necessarily 100% like in certain other mmos. You can and should use daze/stun etc to interrupt major attacks.

5 – many fights have mechanics which involve creative uses of envrionment in addition to your own skills. If you’re having trouble, you’re probably missing something.

Hi Belak,

I was in a similar position when I first started dungeons in this game.
I remember clearly uttering to myself “That’s impossible!” & “What the mega-f***” haha.
Exploration Mode just gets harder. But I like it.

Although it’s not necessary, It helps to know bosses before hand. (Coming from a WoW background yourself, it’s usually standard that you learn bosses before doing them, well at least with raid ones.)
Not that I want to self-advertise but I have done some Dungeon Guides for Exploration mode which is useful to watch. If you don’t want it spoilt watch it to find out which is the easiest route so that you can ‘ease’ yourself to it, aswell as trash priority.
Youtube: KingBlackToof
Although I say it’s not necessary as I went blind into Twilight Arbor – Exploration and came out as winner and a MAN!

Here are some areas to consider:

- Trash mobs in this game are hard, they can kill you pretty easily, it’s definitely a case priority order.

- Do talk to your group about what they experienced during a boss fight to better understand it, if you fail. Providing your figuring it out for yourself.

- There might be some boss special moves that are hard to spot. (Since you’ve done 2 Story modes, I imagine 1 was Ascalonian Catacombs? Well we died a lot against King Adelbern due to his FoeFire rings, being hard to spot on the light blue floor.)

- Do be flexible with your Utility skills, make sure your party is too.
Don’t go all damage skills, have a condition removal skill on your bar at all times.
Maybe a CC skill and I like to have a reviving skill as well.
(As Elementalist – Glyph of Renewal: 3 second cast (Whilst moving) in Earth attunement revives 3 allies! AND revives them from Real Complete DEATH!!!)
It’s Amazingly useful.

I’d also like to say that I’m on standby if you’ve got any questions.
Don’t hesitate to message me here or on my channel or wherever.

Well for starters, AC and CM are really not good intro dungeons imo. They’re cramped, they cluster…felined and most bosses dont really have set strategies.

Wait until you get to 50 and do TA. That’s imo the first real dungeon. Then after that you’ve got SE which is probably my favorite dungeon.

AS for general tips. Look over yours and your friend skills to find what combo’s you can make.
(a combo is made by 1 combo field, and then 1 finisher of any kind [leap, whirl, projectile ETC] combo’s can make a huge difference in fights)

I’d also consider looking over your utility skills, and maybe even your build and gear. You may want to spec into more vitality and toughness if you can. And also consider running more defensive utilities (I know in some dungeons I roll 3 defensive utilities because it’s the only way to not die if my team isnt that good)

Dungeons right now are very hard to break into. They’re punishing, they’re unforgiving, and they’re well, bugger all challenging for your standard low level group. Dont be too discouraged if your first times end in failures.

Focus targets down in an order. Spam combo fields even if the initial effect might seem not that useful. Save your evade for aoe (or strong attacks) and learn to evade those by timing, not neccessarily by leaving the aoe range.
Communicate with your group. Make sure everyone knows the tactic if there is one, or ask for it if you don’t know it. Voice chat is superb.

Not to run pugs sounds like a stupid advice in an MMO but I find the dungeons unbearable with them. If you don’t have buddies for dungeons, then pug, yes. Only until you find good players though with whom the dungeons suddenly work. Stay in contact with those or join a guild with them. Dungeons are actually fun for me with people I know (except for COE front door path). We often join a dungeon as 4 people and pick up a random, then we keep the good ones :P

If you have a bad 5th player, you can still finish the dungeon with them, but next time you know who not to invite and you can build a solid base of contacts.

Eli Stormstrike.8637:

be suspicious if you’re in a PUG where the others are from the same guild, since they can kick you before the last boss and you’ll get squat for your efforts.

Why would you do that?

I have to disagree with Eli a bit. I’ve run a lot of PUGs and non PUGs (with guildies) without vent at all, and we do just fine. If it’s the first time in the dungeon, we may struggle and figure it out. If we have someone who has never been there before, we talk them through it before encountering each part.

But as others have said, there are a few things that every dungeon go-er should keep in mind. If your fellow party member goes down, try to help them up if you can. Try not to go full damage into dungeons, bring some support abilities with you. Focus fire on mobs. Trash mobs in GW2 are absurdly strong, and it can help to take down the heavy hitters first.

Biggest thing that people dont realize. If you fight a boss and the party wipes, learn from that. Change your utility skills. Hell, even change your traits. Try to find out what your teammates are using for synergy. You have to know how each other work as well as yourself.

I played with someone who just so happened to cast their area elite the same time as i did. It wasnt one that stacked and therefore we wasted an elite that could have helped things go faster.

ive done a lot of my runs so far without vent and they have gone fast and smooth, but some dungeons, example: arah, need verbal communication, especially when its a “dont heal me or youll die too” situation. prevent the boss reset.

Great suggestions and I like the positive tone everyone took in their posts. We need all the help we can get with these dungeons. I especially am always interested in what others do for interrupts since we don’t have any true “interrupt” skills. Is it possible to interrupt a bosses big attack? I know about stun, daze, knockback, etc. serving as interrupts, but I’m just wondering how effective those are in preventing an attack. In GW1 my favorite ranger build was an interrupt/conditions build. I really enjoyed shutting down the mobs. But here it seems that you mainly have to dodge/evade to prevent damage. Anyway, thanks to everyone for taking the time to give advice.

I’ve only done a couple explore mode dungeons but I’d like to pipe in with some things that helped (my runs were relatively quick and clean).

1. Make use of combo fields that allow you to quickly apply cc. Also, pay attention to the debuffs on the enemy. You don’t need ventrilo to coordinate cc if you pay attention to whether debuffs have been applied on the UI and aim for constant uptime.

2. Rebind your dodge button to something that you can easily and quickly access. “V” was awkward for me so I put it on a mouse button, and it made all the difference. You have to be very quick to roll out in dungeons.

3. Don’t be shy about changing your skills/weapons between every pull and boss. Bring in a full arsenal so you can use the full gamut of your abilities. In HotW, I made massive use of the staff, scepter, hammer and greatsword.

4. Bring a half decent underwater weapon. These weapons are often neglected but there are and will be underwater sections. Don’t be bringing in a piddly weapon 30 lvls lower than your character.

5. Boon uptime and condition removal is king. The first thing I do when I get into dungeons is switch to boon applying abilities and condition removers. Constant uptime on might, damage reduction and regeneration makes a massive difference.

6. Run with some toughness/vitality gear. You don’t have to sacrifice all of your damage gear, but you should be able to survive 2-3 hits from trash enemies (or 1 solid untelegraphed hit from bosses).

-Never be afraid to swap out Major Traits or Utility Skills before or even during a fight. Some encounters allow you to leave the area and get out of combat, so if you have the wrong setup don’t be scared to fix that.
-Never be completely stuck on a single weapon set. If your members need some extra support or damage, always have a weapon set for the occasion. Yes, that means keeping them in your bags just in case.
-Playing with a variance of classes and playstyles can help a lot. For instance, a group with 5 total different classes has access to more possibilities than a group with 3 total different classes. If your group is running with 5 glass cannons, don’t expect things to blow over very easily. Kiting enemies can only go so far before somebody has to take a hit. My group is always mixed between support, DPS, and tanks.
-Make sure to call out targets properly and often. Your party will end up focusing/controlling them better. A little coordination can make dungeons run much smoother.

These are just my general tips.

There are a couple of threads with dungeon tips and advice. I’d like to see ANET create an official sticky thread combining all these posts. Thanks for the great ideas; it really does help. I know it’s helped me for sure.

First rule of dungeons is dead or running back=0 dps.
Take the amount of time a glass cannon build spends doing these things and realise that if you add in toughness/health and utility that your overall dps throughout the fight will be higher!

Rosen Myst.7641:

There are a couple of threads with dungeon tips and advice. I’d like to see ANET create an official sticky thread combining all these posts. Thanks for the great ideas; it really does help. I know it’s helped me for sure.

pretty much this.

GW2 dungeons are a whole another beast from WoW. The only way to really learn is practice.

If you want to get good at dungeons then try fighting tougher overland content first.
its hard as the scaling system is against you.
But dont fight your own level.
you’re 45 then fight content that is at about 50.
in a group fight stuff that is much higher.
5-10 levels higher.

IMHO that is what is wrong with the dungeons.
The overland content is so easy that people learn terrible fighting and grouping habits.
Spend 30 levels breezing through content thinking they are good and then get their kitten cut off.

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

If you want to get good at dungeons then try fighting tougher overland content first.
its hard as the scaling system is against you.
But dont fight your own level.
you’re 45 then fight content that is at about 50.
in a group fight stuff that is much higher.
5-10 levels higher.

IMHO that is what is wrong with the dungeons.
The overland content is so easy that people learn terrible fighting and grouping habits.
Spend 30 levels breezing through content thinking they are good and then get their kitten cut off.

you get ‘glancing’ at 7+ lvls higher. So about 5-7 is right. Also group would be better as you can’t learn anything about synergy by yourself.

Yeah soloing the higher level content is mostly about survivability training.
How not to get hit. How circle strafing is not the end all be all of defense.
How to use control effects.
attack interrupts and blindness.
none of this stuff is needed in the at level content.