The Dead Collector: “Bring out your dead!”
Zhaitan: “Challenge accepted.”
Zhaitan: “Challenge accepted.”
Story mode dungeons are for the 1%.....maybe 2%
Another interesting trend I am seeing on these boards is that all the people who swear these dungeons are easy and for A Net not to change them are the ones farming explorable dungeons.
So, why defend keeping Story Mode the same? How does changing Story mode affect your Explore mode gameplay?
the reason these companies make forums is for feedback. right now these dungeons are under heavy fire by the community. If A Net was smart they would get the clue and adjust something. You can call us whiners, but feedback is feedback. People are posting their party makeups, builds, and tactics and stating that it is frustrating. That means A Net messed up.
I checked the WvW and PvP forums. Not much complaining there except on the part of the usual class balancing. not much complaining in the class forums either. But come here and 50% of the post state “I hate Story Mode dungeons!” This is an issue that needs fixing.
I like how you leave out the part where the majority of the whiners aren’t playing the game properly.
You went on a long laundry list of how you were trying to be a healer, tanks couldn’t aggro properly, and how you needed “proper” gear to do the dungeons.
This game isn’t set up like that and you are playing it with the wrong mindset.
That is why you are failing. Not because Anet messed up.
People complaining doesn’t change that.
It just shows that we have a large player base of people from other MMOs that don’t realize this game isn’t other MMOs.
Wait….so my heavy set guardian is wrong. I’m not supposed to be able to survive mob aggro? I see a lot guides online about the Boon heavy tank Guardian.
For a game where everyman has to be able to take their own aggro, why am I not able to take the aggro I get with my toughness healing Guardian and engy. My Guardian can only tank 1 person at a time and my engy doesn’t have neough tricks to effectily kite a mob for 5 minutes straight.
If A Net wants me to drop the trend of the holy trinity, then maybe they should not give me Holy trinity tactic mobs. As Guardian, I HAVE to build tanky and supply Boons, and disrupt enemies. As engy I HAVE to build support. If I don’t, not only will I die but all my team members.
I mean seriously, what purpose is a Mace and shield guardian if it is not for tanking and buffing the team.
Another interesting trend I am seeing on these boards is that all the people who swear these dungeons are easy and for A Net not to change them are the ones farming explorable dungeons.
So, why defend keeping Story Mode the same? How does changing Story mode affect your Explore mode gameplay?
the reason these companies make forums is for feedback. right now these dungeons are under heavy fire by the community. If A Net was smart they would get the clue and adjust something. You can call us whiners, but feedback is feedback. People are posting their party makeups, builds, and tactics and stating that it is frustrating. That means A Net messed up.
I checked the WvW and PvP forums. Not much complaining there except on the part of the usual class balancing. not much complaining in the class forums either. But come here and 50% of the post state “I hate Story Mode dungeons!” This is an issue that needs fixing.
I like how you leave out the part where the majority of the whiners aren’t playing the game properly.
You went on a long laundry list of how you were trying to be a healer, tanks couldn’t aggro properly, and how you needed “proper” gear to do the dungeons.
This game isn’t set up like that and you are playing it with the wrong mindset.
That is why you are failing. Not because Anet messed up.
People complaining doesn’t change that.
It just shows that we have a large player base of people from other MMOs that don’t realize this game isn’t other MMOs.Wait….so my heavy set guardian is wrong. I’m not supposed to be able to survive mob aggro? I see a lot guides online about the Boon heavy tank Guardian.
For a game where everyman has to be able to take their own aggro, why am I not able to take the aggro I get with my toughness healing Guardian and engy. My Guardian can only tank 1 person at a time and my engy doesn’t have neough tricks to effectily kite a mob for 5 minutes straight.
If A Net wants me to drop the trend of the holy trinity, then maybe they should give me Holy trinity tactic mobs. As Guardian, I HAVE to build tanky and supply Boons, and disrupt enemies. As engy I HAVE to build support. If I don’t, not only will I die but all my team members.
I mean seriously, what purpose is a Mace and shield guardian if it is not for tankign and buffing the team.
There’s a post on page 1 detailing control, damage and support.
you should read that.
The problem with every group that fails these dungeons is that they try to play this game like every other MMO.
And this is where AC fails as a first dungeon, because it does not train players how dungeons may work differently in this game than in other MMOs (it just beats you to death until you learn). Why should players just assume they have to play a completely different way than in other MMOs? It’s the responsibility of the game to instruct players about its systems, not players to divine how the game wants them to play. The open world PvE does not prepare players for AC and other Dungeons, and because of that people are coming in unprepared and getting destroyed. I really don’t understand how some of you can blame players for this by telling them to L2P when the game does not prepare them for harder content until they’re basically being beaten and wiped out by it.
Please give me an example of how other MMO’s held your hand for how to do dungeons before the trinity was the standard.
Because if I remember correctly you had to figure it out yourself.
Why play a game if you aren’t going to invest time in playing it better?
There seems to be a clear separation between certain players.
There are the ones that like learning a dungeon as it throws the stuff at you and figuring it out, and then there are the ones that want the developer to tell them everything and a guidebook through the area.
This isn’t some super hard game that doesn’t tell you. " oh yeah if you don’t stop damaging this monster after 1.5k damage and switch to another weapon to blind the opponent before it instakills you…well you die". All you have to do is slightly pay attention and be interested in the game you are playing and you will know these things.
It has been stated many times before release that this game was not a trinity, and people still do it.
If you are having a hard time because you don’t know that. Let it be beat into you till you do.
There’d be no point in making a dungeon if the dungeon master just told you how to do it.
I wouldn’t mind a mode copied out of DDO for story mode.
You can scale the dungeon from easy (soloable) to elite (Extremly hard). It actually made me replay the same dungeon just to unlock the hardest difficulty for it. If I wanted to play it solo I just dropped it down.
Although not sure how it would work here with places like Arah that need two people to open a door etc.
I will agree. Those Rangers need a change to their damage. Other than that, people should stop using the word “tank” in this game. It’s misleading
Them rangers have killed me more times than any boss ever has in that dungeon.
My guard puts up his shield wall, they just cast over it with there AoE.
I have done it 3 or 4 times, not cleared it just once. Very first time couple in the group got upset and left.
Dungeons here have to do with patience, expect to die.
Member of Cradle Guard
Please give me an example of how other MMO’s held your hand for how to do dungeons before the trinity was the standard.
Because if I remember correctly you had to figure it out yourself.
Why play a game if you aren’t going to invest time in playing it better?
DAOC had enemies in dungeons with strong Area Effect sleep. They introduced it by having you fight 1 enemy with the effect. Once you realized you were doomed to jsut watch your teammates get beatdown by this mob people then learned to use healers and other means to break the effect. Same went for poisons.
WoW used the deadmines to teach players about their roles. 75% of the dungeon was an easy to run slaughterfest. Once you got near the end you had to use more organization, till finally you were facing off against organized pulls that required players to use CC and stun enemies pick specific targets.
Warhammer Online taught players in their World Events to use both the friend and enemy tab targeting system and to use a wide variety of support spells and not just the big heals.
GW2 made it obvious that healing casting direct heals is only a secondary effect and that regeneration spells are way more powerful.
GW1 taught in the arena to use abilities that turn Hexes and Poisons into boons or to make them backfire on their enemies. Trying to fight with them was not an option at all.
Every Korean MMO slowly introduces every aspect of their game before pitting you agianst other players in PvP or Dungeons. Like 75% of the leveling proccess is just a bigkitten tutorial.
Yet, GW2 led us to believe that our class role we decide to do would fit perfectly well into any situation. If you wanted to heal it made a huge difference. If you wanted to soak damage, you made a difference by tanking World Event bosses or soaking up damage in PvP. Then when you entered the dungeon you got your face planted in the dirt within the first 10 minutes and was left wondering why your super build you worked on for the first 30 levels suddenly doesn’t work.
“O maybe its my gear. Oh I’m not high enough level. Level 30 is the minimum. Ill wait till level 50 then. I’ll practice in PvP on new team oriented builds then try the dungeon again.” Enter again and it’s another faceplant.
The reason this happens is because A Net decided not to program specialized enemies that werre made for dungeons. They just took the standard enemies they had and made them all supermen and figured that people could take it.
“Well an Ascilonian Mage does instant cast rain of fire outside. Well just up all her stats by 5x and drop her here with 4 other mobs. Nevermind trying to adjust her cast time or animation to support team play.”
Please give me an example of how other MMO’s held your hand for how to do dungeons before the trinity was the standard.
Because if I remember correctly you had to figure it out yourself.
Why play a game if you aren’t going to invest time in playing it better?DAOC had enemies in dungeons with strong Area Effect sleep. They introduced it by having you fight 1 enemy with the effect. Once you realized you were doomed to jsut watch your teammates get beatdown by this mob people then learned to use healers and other means to break the effect. Same went for poisons.
WoW used the deadmines to teach players about their roles. 75% of the dungeon was an easy to run slaughterfest. Once you got near the end you had to use more organization, till finally you were facing off against organized pulls that required players to use CC and stun enemies pick specific targets.
Warhammer Online taught players in their World Events to use both the friend and enemy tab targeting system and to use a wide variety of support spells and not just the big heals.
GW2 made it obvious that healing casting direct heals is only a secondary effect and that regeneration spells are way more powerful.
GW1 taught in the arena to use abilities that turn Hexes and Poisons into boons or to make them backfire on their enemies. Trying to fight with them was not an option at all.
Every Korean MMO slowly introduces every aspect of their game before pitting you agianst other players in PvP or Dungeons. Like 75% of the leveling proccess is just a bigkitten tutorial.
Yet, GW2 led us to believe that our class role we decide to do would fit perfectly well into any situation. If you wanted to heal it made a huge difference. If you wanted to soak damage, you made a difference by tanking World Event bosses or soaking up damage in PvP. Then when you entered the dungeon you got your face planted in the dirt within the first 10 minutes and was left wondering why your super build you worked on for the first 30 levels suddenly doesn’t work.
“O maybe its my gear. Oh I’m not high enough level. Level 30 is the minimum. Ill wait till level 50 then. I’ll practice in PvP on new team oriented builds then try the dungeon again.” Enter again and it’s another faceplant.
The reason this happens is because A Net decided not to program specialized enemies that werre made for dungeons. They just took the standard enemies they had and made them all supermen and figured that people could take it.
“Well an Ascilonian Mage does instant cast rain of fire outside. Well just up all her stats by 5x and drop her here with 4 other mobs. Nevermind trying to adjust her cast time or animation to support team play.”
So basically every MMO but Warhammer and korean MMOs threw enemies at you till you learned the proper response?
Thanks for confirming what I said.
Doesn’t matter what you did outside of dungeons. You obviously have to take a different approach inside a dungeon.
I still don’t know where you are getting these tank and heal roles from for GW2.
If anything it was in reference to surviving yourself not helping others.
And this is where AC fails as a first dungeon, because it does not train players how dungeons may work differently in this game than in other MMOs (it just beats you to death until you learn).
I have said this 1000 times. ANet wanted to “show off” in Beta with AC. Just by the boss dynamics it should have been the 2nd tier dungeon if not the 3rd.
CM had (I have not run the buffed version) little to no great boss fights other than the robot at the start, which could of easily been moved to the end as a final boss.
Seriously compare such amazing abilities as “Does more damage when you move” to something like the lovers and it is from two different worlds. CM should have been the first tutorial dungeon, but I fear they didn’t want to show off a dungeon the l33t crowd would of though “too easy” and not delve deeper into the game. So they tossed AC in first with abilities ripped right from WoW raid mobs that casuals will still have problems with.
Sorry your having a hard time. I have pugged it many times. Some times the group fails at the Twins (why i always make the group do all the other bosses first). But once you figure out how to fight the twins its not that bad, and i have completed it with many pugs. Your problem and your groups problem when it comes down to it is a L2P problem. Sadly there is nothing you can do about your teams skill. This is no different than running instances in wow or any other mmo. The only difference is that GW2 is harder and has a higher learning curve. Next time you play, watch the shear number of players that fight mobs by just standing in place trading blows. Too many players play this game like any other MMO.
When i ran CM it was so easy. Have not been in since the buff to it.
Setnnex-Necro
All of those games had an obvious easy progression into the mode of gameplay the devs were pressing. GW2 just ruins your whole world by not giving you any warnign of what dungeons are like. Any build you can think of will work in osme way in every aspect of this game except dungeons.
A minion spec necro will not work. Most Mezmer builds won’t work. Offensive melee warriors don’t work. But there is no progression to introduce this. Jsut an instant crash and burn; and a majority of the people don’t know how.
As for guides.
http://guildwars2grandmaster.com/builds/guardian-boons/
http://guildwars2warrior.com/warrior-builds/gw2-warrior-defensive-heal-and-tank-build/
All of those games had an obvious easy progression into the mode of gameplay the devs were pressing. GW2 just ruins your whole world by not giving you any warnign of what dungeons are like. Any build you can think of will work in osme way in every aspect of this game except dungeons.
A minion spec necro will not work. Most Mezmer builds won’t work. Offensive melee warriors don’t work. But there is no progression to introduce this. Jsut an instant crash and burn; and a majority of the people don’t know how.
As for guides.
http://guildwars2grandmaster.com/builds/guardian-boons/
http://guildwars2warrior.com/warrior-builds/gw2-warrior-defensive-heal-and-tank-build/
My Main is a mesmer and unless you are using sceptor, I don’t know what you are talking about.
People in other MMOs don’t level tanky, they level with damage and switch.
If you can’t do that for a dungeon on here, you’re the problem not anet.
The only time ive had to change my build is to figure out how to better help allies so we could clear faster.
I have never had problems surviving in a dungeon because i know my characters mechanics and how to live well without dying.
And if i do go downed, i don’t have a team that doesn’t know the meaning of reviving with f.
Ive seen two problems with story mode:
1. The learning curve is too steep. That fact that many of the fight mechanics arent very intuative and there are a few design issues makes this very frustrating for people to learn.
2. Some of the fights are poorly balanced, particularly to take into account a very varied selection of builds. Kudu in Sorrow’s Embrace is a perfect example of this. Boss difficulty ranges from almost laughable to rediculous. Compared to Kudu, the Iron Forgeman is a walk in the park.
For the first issue I think Arenanet needs to work on having better lead in, in the form of medium difficulty content. Dungeons literally throw people in the deep end. Perhaps the issue is that he open world requires more challanging content to help people practice. Maybe something like Elite DEs where the task and average mobs are much more challanging and the mechanics are more unforgiving.
For the second issue I think Arenanet really needs to look at the balance for alot of its fights. In some cases (Second boss in CoF SM) giving the boss better tells before he uses key abilities would help tremendously. In other cases using the NPCs we have with us to point out the less obvious mechanics would help (Baelfire is an example of this. Its easy to miss the molten boulders at the bottem of the slope.) I also have found that some enemies chain CC abilities too quickly making evasion or countering near impossible.
first up, hi Urrelles, welcome to the I can tell how they’ve overtuned the monsters in Gw2 club.
first of all, you should not tank, yes you can take a few hits and stall a mob but you should be realistically kiting the mobs etc, blinding, stunning you name it you should be doing it, but facetanking is not gonna work. they currently just DO NOT support dungeon tanking, they should because even if you are a tank of sorts you are not going to hold aggro long but at the moment we all know they don’t. It may or may not get fixed and is a game breaker for most but meh, if the worst comes to the worst this will remain a rpg version of cod4. only…ya know…bad xD
second of all, it’s been said for a good while now, that while supporting your team alone is nice and you’re in the right mindset, ONLY doing so won’t be as much of a help to your team it has to be a group effort, so if they’re all not changing their traits and/or utilities to help as well as weapons, they’re not supporting you in return, which is a bad thing as that’s what they need to do.
toughness, healing power are both horrible stats, don’t stack em and actually avoid them when necessary, this might SOUND crazy, but if you’re going to be cheesed by a one shot fireball from a boss that burns you for your hp after, what good will toughness do for you? it doesn’t help, stack vitality, protection the effect adds more to your survival than toughness ever will from what I can tell, healing power scales to abysmally that you may as well laugh at it and it’s lame implementation, by late game regen scales less and less, and healing power falls so far behind that you may as well not have it.
after that I’d recommend traits that remove conditions, offer you survival cooldowns passively if you have em things like instinctual response etc for thief. and that you try to debuff, control and damage enemies, buff yourselves when you can, and that you use combo fields. under no circumstances should a person with aggro turn to face their attacker in melee, EVER unless they can stunlock or blind them. avoidance is key melee is risky ranged is safe.
Irony…. xD
All of those games had an obvious easy progression into the mode of gameplay the devs were pressing. GW2 just ruins your whole world by not giving you any warnign of what dungeons are like. Any build you can think of will work in osme way in every aspect of this game except dungeons.
A minion spec necro will not work. Most Mezmer builds won’t work. Offensive melee warriors don’t work. But there is no progression to introduce this. Jsut an instant crash and burn; and a majority of the people don’t know how.
As for guides.
http://guildwars2grandmaster.com/builds/guardian-boons/
http://guildwars2warrior.com/warrior-builds/gw2-warrior-defensive-heal-and-tank-build/
My Main is a mesmer and unless you are using sceptor, I don’t know what you are talking about.
People in other MMOs don’t level tanky, they level with damage and switch.
If you can’t do that for a dungeon on here, you’re the problem not anet.
The only time ive had to change my build is to figure out how to better help allies so we could clear faster.
I have never had problems surviving in a dungeon because i know my characters mechanics and how to live well without dying.
And if i do go downed, i don’t have a team that doesn’t know the meaning of reviving with f.
Read my very first post and tell me where I built up damaged based character. Both my characters are built for team support.
first up, hi Urrelles, welcome to the I can tell how they’ve overtuned the monsters in Gw2 club.
Hey thanks for the feedback. I’ll try the vitality stacking over toughness for sure.
The first level 30 Dungeon is terrible..
It says recommened 5 players. I had 5 players above level 30 and was still unable to complete the dungeon because of many attempts and fails, so being frustrated.. We all left. It seems they have created the Npc’s too hard for the first dungeon. I am very disappointed, and i’m sure a lot of other players are to. Please fix this! immediately!
first up, hi Urrelles, welcome to the I can tell how they’ve overtuned the monsters in Gw2 club.
Hey thanks for the feedback. I’ll try the vitality stacking over toughness for sure.
just remember, your focus should be on damage as well technically everything in this game is a damage dealer, don’t neglect your dps! if your team is built or building selfish, they shouldn’t be in dungeons.
Irony…. xD
I love the elitism argument of the supporters of dungeon difficulty. The argument from them boils down to “if you aren’t an elite player, then too bad and go suck it up.”
How is that fun? How is that supportive of the game?
Don’t stack Vit over toughness. What good is a big health pool if you have nothing to protect it? Your health will melt as fast as it does now. you’ll just notice you’re being hit for larger numbers.
At least in PvP Toughness is much better than Vit stacking.
The Dead Collector: “Bring out your dead!”
Zhaitan: “Challenge accepted.”
Zhaitan: “Challenge accepted.”
I think the difficulty of pre-nerf CM was perfect; every story mode dungeons should’ve been brought down to that level instead of the opposite. The monetary reward was excessive since even lv 80s were spamming it, but the difficulty ramp-up is silly. Now hardly anyone does it.
Keep the explorable modes hard for those e-sport fans completely geared up with exotics & voice-comms shouting out CC-order, but I think story modes should be toned down so an average PuG group can “hack n’ slash” through them without waypoint zerging.
I’ve pugged more then a dozen times now, and every time we’ve finished the dungeon :S
AC isn’t the best intro to dungeons though.
AC was too hard to bother with so now is CM. There just isn’t enough reason for me to break all my armor death zerging large groups of veterans and a captain.
Hi ennarian,
Toughness indeed does seem a lot better in pvp, where you’re going to be hit by a burst skill from a player, players will seek you out, won’t get distracted by others and generally make sure you die.
A monster will generally fire off a stupidly damaging fireball effect, or burn you with a stupid condition poison that lasts upwards of a minute, or some horrible garbage like that. in dungeons generally I’ve found if I just have the hp to just survive that one hit, I can go back to kiting them, and if they use a horrid burn/poison/dot then I can survive it longer, as toughness from what many have noted only seems to make a difference with physical attacks not special attacks of sorts. if I have wasted my stats on toughness however, I’ll barely notice the difference and usually feel that if I’ve invested in the toughness traitline of a class, I’ve wasted those points, unless they’re paired with vitality in said traitline. in which case it’s the vitality that seems to have been what increased my survival notably.
There’s a few posters on the forums that have been complaining about healing power aka compassion, and toughness to a slightly lesser degree claiming they scale so abysmally that they wonder why they even exist in the first place.
to add to this, IF we all say stacked healing powered guardians together, and all leapt into melee we’d all probably die long before the combined 3rd hits of say maces ever hit. and the healing would still even combined, probably be garbage, also regeneration doesn’t stack, meaning that even if we took say a guardians healing from a seal from his mace for example, and regeneration from a engineers turret, they don’t stack with one another and the bigger one simply overwrites the smaller one, the difference is so minimal anyways, that there’s no point bothering stacking them either which is a shame really, because if more classes could stack regens and the likes, it would create a team effort effect that would aid survival without resorting to the need for a specific “dedicated healer” player.
I may be wrong on some of these aspects of course, I’m just going on a few bits and bob’s I’ve read on the forums and a few observations from ingame, but generally and I’m sure not unintentionally the tank and healer stats themselves are horrendous and we can’t even speak in terms that if you multiplied them all via widespread fields in groups of 5 so healing x5 x2-3-4 etc, because they mostly create the ONE effect, which doesn’t stack.
Irony…. xD
So in another thread I just heard that aggro is determined greatly by toughness. This seems true since my guardian did get way more aggro per a pull than my engy.
Therefore as a damage dealer, if you want to be hardy and not draw aggro, then vitality is the way to go. It makes sense, since in most of my group, my engy was the first to draw additional aggro in a fight over all the other fighters. I thought it was the healing, but I’ve seen other engineers not get monster attention so often.
EXACTLY!
the idea is that if you’re stacked to bits on toughness, you’re gonna look like a nice crunchy target and toughness is NOT going to help as much as you thought it did, that’s not necessarily to say that it’s “useless” in terms of some form of passive control to a degree but keeping your shield out all the time will pretty much end up as painting a target on your head which say’s “hit me, I’m an idiot”
Think of it like, you’re a guardian, your offset of weapons is shield and scepter, this gives you CC in the form of their immobalise, a buff cone attack that grants protection (protection, NOT toughness) and a small aoe you can drop and stay mobile, it also gives you a knock back/heal aoe skill with your 5th skill. however it draws attention to you once you’re using it because your toughness raises a lot higher with a shield out right? so you balance your kiting and cc with a lil aoe fire and forget and should you need to protect yourself from a long range devastating attack the 5 skill helps you block that and also heals nearby allies and yourself for a small amount. you can be a sort of mobile attention drawing diversion that can still cc and deal damage and should something catch you, you at least have a little toughness more to mitigate the attack though don’t rely on it is what I mean. and when you’re outta options? or the fight takes a switch to “we’re winning and the adds are dying off”
well you can have say a staff mainhand and suddenly you’ve a fantastic stacking might aoe heal a damaging seal which ofc causes the remove debuff effect on those shooting through it and i think cleansing bolts to those spinning through it etc.
I do honestly wish i could say mace and shield were the bomb. but I often find I can rarely if ever get to hit them the third time possibly due to the shield causing extra aggro. luckily a focus gives me three hits of blocking so dodging in and out of combat with a focus and mace allows me to be a sort of ducking and diving healer type role, the focus’s 4th skill causes a blind and bouncing regen effect, the shield allows you to get the slow 3 hit mace combo off safely and does dmg if the shield wears out without breaking. and any nearby allies are healed for a small amount that will work on top of regen. Not ENTIRELY sure if that’s useful for helping downed players with aggro on them but whilst regen doesn’t seem to work on them pulsing heals and “blast” type heals do work
Irony…. xD
Agree with OP
I’ve ran AC story twice with two separate pugs. First time I gave up because it was taking too long and I was getting tired of wiping every single encounter. Second time I was in a better pug and managed to finish it, barely. I was close to QQing a few times.
Today i tried running CM Story for the first time with a pug… Forget about it. That dungeon is absolutely rediculously hard. It’s not fun. It’s not challenging. It’s not rewarding. It’s cheap and It’s broken.
I will never run another dungeon again unless the difficulty gets addressed. It’s just not worth the time investment and the frustration.
I don’t consider myself an elite player by any stretch of the imagination, but IMO, story mode dungeon completions should be achievable with a pug. Right now they are not. Not even close. You should not have to be in an elite group in order to experience the story. I’m fine with explorable mode being difficult, but story mode should be somewhat doable with a pug.
id rather that dungeons start out hard and are scaled down a bit, than be easymode right off the bat (like every single WoW dungeon post vanilla). dungeons are a blast for me, really well done. rewards and odd bugs do need to get fixed though.
Conclusion: Guardian is uneffective as support or tank in situations where more than 1 enemy is present. No aggro control system. Not enough hardiness to tnak multiple targets. Spell effects are sloppy in dungeons and do not prep players for the attacks about to happen. All I see are more red circles and more enemies with glowy effects around them that don’t accuratly reflect when they are going to trigger their attacks.
im sorry, but this has not been my experience. i cant relate to you in any way at all. i ran AC right at 30 with lvl 18 gear using two guardian specs: staff/sword/torch/consecrations/virtues, and hammer/mace/focus/shouts. i had a lot of fun, and while my melee tanky guardian had a rougher time, it was still a blast. i completed AC on my first run with rifle/elixir/grenade engineer at lvl 31.
i assume you werent specced properly, and grouped with clueless people. rangers hit hard, you need to reflect/block their arrows, or blind them constantly. melee trash needs to be focused first due to knockback. theyre easily kited.
CM was a lot more challenging, but still manageable. for sure though, AC story is very casual friendly.
i would play broken GW2 dungeons any day over the best WoW dungeons ever made.
give ANet a break. they really achieved something different here, and it may take some time for tweaks. it’s definitely worth the wait =)
(edited by nerva.7940)
CM Story for the first time with a pug… Forget about it. That dungeon is absolutely rediculously hard. It’s not fun. It’s not challenging. It’s not rewarding. It’s cheap and It’s broken.
here’s a tissue broski. but youre right, CM is hard and it does need to get toned down a little. however, it’s very well done, it’s very challenging, it’s not really that broken, and i had a blast failing it with a bad pug.
They are over tuned for average players is the problem. People who run with guild groups or are just above average they are nothing to difficult.
They saw a few good groups getting through CM in 10 min and making a killing with EXP/money or whatever – and freaked out – instead of addressing the problem they said screw it and buffed everything. They also crushed the EXP/money. If anything they should have left the rewards exactly the same if they wanted to do what they did. That or make actual loot drop – god forbid.
Anyways that’s just my opinion.
In my opinion AC story mode is perfect the way it is. It is harder than CM story mode, but it’s the first dungeon. It’s a rite of passage of sort. The game shows you that, unlike in the open world, in the dungeons you can’t just brute-force your way trough any situation (or at least you can’t do it cheap). You have to play smart, use the dodge, move all the time, you have to learn to use your abilities to their best, and help other players.
You say you play guardian but you posted only 2 weapon combinations. We have more tools then that. We have hammer which is incredible tool for control. We have staff which is our second ward + healing.
I don’t think nerfing AC is such a great idea. Not because I want to be an elitist prick and deny others the fun of dungeons. It’s just that unless you learn in the first dungeon that you have to step up your game when entering the instance, every other dungeon will feel too hard.
And for the record – I first ventured into AC with a pug as a 34 guardian, and while we had our setbacks, we finished it without breaking our armors. And I don’t feel much elitist about it.
CM Story for the first time with a pug… Forget about it. That dungeon is absolutely rediculously hard. It’s not fun. It’s not challenging. It’s not rewarding. It’s cheap and It’s broken.
here’s a tissue broski. but youre right, CM is hard and it does need to get toned down a little. however, it’s very well done, it’s very challenging, it’s not really that broken, and i had a blast failing it with a bad pug.
I didn’t have all that much against ya, despite the near triple posting. then I seen the “here’s a tissue comment” and bam! you’re officially another person with an opinion and a lack of respect for others, you say you hate WoW’s dungeons etc? a sentiment I share mind you… well how about you stop acting like the stereotypical
“hah QQ moar” player that frequents that game then?
There are too many one shot mechanics and travel time issues on missiles, melee usually end up shred and the list goes on, if this falls into “tweaks” sure, whatever. but by the way you’re going on you must have some low standards design wise, and just want a nintendo hard experience at the cost of everything else :S
I WANT, to agree with you. I do, but what I’ve seen and what you’re saying don’t match up entirely. Your opinion, that you had fun is your own, but when ya go and just dump all over someone who maybe is just misinformed about the differences and not in the right mindset, I find myself trying to think of every and any reason NOT to agree with you if that makes sense.
Enjoy current content as it is if you will, just don’t patronise the players that DON’T
Irony…. xD
SO here we have the problem with the so revered f2p LOL they so scared of people making in game money and not buying gems with real money they make the game completely kitten and frustrating to achieve anything!
Crap rewards, crap money, crap experience, crap bosses with a massive health pool and nothing else!
I never thought there would be a catch with this game but here it is. I’m gutted!!!
I don’t want to patronise anyone, but…
…but yesterday, I had a lot of fun in a story mode dungeon (CM). We didn’t wipe all that often, I died only a few times and that was due to player stupidity.
I know AC story mode is very hard, but…
…even though it almost made me never set foot into any dungeon again, I’m glad I did. AC is overtuned, skip it if you can. Start with CM, CM is fine.
I said CM story mode is fine, but…
…but that does not mean you can jump in unprepared. I know it’s story mode and it’s for pickup groups. Still, do your part so the party succeeds. You’re elementalist? Consider respeccing to support. You’re a warrior? Consider a defensive setup. That might save you more in repairs than relearning traits twice costs in total.
I know it’s for PUGs, but…
…but PUG doesn’t mean you have to pick up the first person in chat. Ask them what their build is. What they bring to the party. Think about their role in the group, how well it fits the people in the group alrready. Do you really need the third support char to supplement the two full defensive build heavies? Who’ll do the damage then? Do you really need that five-signet greatsword warrior in your DPS-heavy group?
Yes, it’s story mode. Yes, it’s for pick up groups. But no, it’s not for every random combination of players, bringing any random combination of classes in builds least suited for dungeons.
And you know what? That’s fine by me.
i tried to read all the responses, but really, they were all the same.
basically, while some story-modes might be overtuned, you can’t go into a dungeon with the same exact mindset as you have with the overworld PVE content.
i’ve ran AC story five separate times and completed it each time with PUGs. the worst times i had in AC story is when i had teammates that refused to change their playstyle, mindset or think about taking different skills/major traits. they did the same crap as with solo PVE and kept dying, bringing the team down, etc.
when people get it through their thick skulls that five-signet build warriors are crappy and bringing all DPS skills/utilities and straight berserker gear doesn’t always work., the dungeons will get easier.
that said, could dungeons be tweaked better? probably.
could dungeon rewards be better? definitely.
but, no MMO has had perfect, spot-on mechanics/difficulty straight out of the box… ’cept for UO. but UO was a once-in-a-lifetime MMO.
look at vanilla WoW, for example, compared to TBC. other then AQ40, Naxx and selected encounters in MC/BWL, the mechanics of most boss fights were simple and to the point. it was only when TBC came out that they started to expand on raiding and make it more challenging/interesting.
give arenanet some time. they’re trying something different. it won’t be perfect for awhile.
(edited by nvmvoidrays.2158)
My personal experience: did Ascalonian Catacombs story mode yesterday. Semi-pug group (there were 3 people from the same guild + me and another person); none of us had ever done it although a couple had apparently read about the tactics needed on the bosses. We also were a pretty unbalanced group with 2 guardians, 2 warriors and a ranger. Levels varied from 30 to (IIRC) 45. Personally I went in with a level 38 guardian. We were a bit worried as we had all read the horror stories about dungeon difficulty in GW2.
Completed the dungeon dying a total of 3 times. Hardest fight was the lovers; died once there, the rest of the group died 2 or 3 times. The fight was annoying but I believe with properly executed tactics we could have done it in 2-3 more tries “the proper way” i.e. without graveyard zerging it (letting the fight reset after a wipe).
First death was after a pull of 3 mobs at the start of the dungeon. After that, I started calling targets on every pull. Worked wonders.
I think the problem is that AC is the first dungeon and doesn’t offer any proper learning curve. You simply jump from stupid open world mobs which can just be zerged to dungeon bosses requiring proper tactical analysis and coordination, without the slightest hint, training, or preparation in between.
Another very annoying factor: with all the particle effects sparkling around it’s often extremely difficult to detect a “charged” big attack. Some easier to distinguish visual clues would go a long way toward making the experience more fun.
All in all, as far I’m concerned, AC could do with a VERY SLIGHT downtuning but the difficulty level is not really the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that you don’t have any previous “learning mobs” i.e. single bosses with some specific (and quite obvious) mechanic which let people have a better learning experience and be more prepared when they start encountering “the real stuff”.
I really don’t understand why people don’t just join guilds. On any mmo pugs are the most vile experience known to gaming. Why continually subject yourselves to a disorganised mess with random people who are quite likely to spend the entire run swearing at each other?
You don’t have to join some kind of GW2 version of a raid guild if you don’t want to. There are plenty of decent social/levelling guilds that can run storymode with no trouble.
People need to also not be confused about the “3 roles that needs to be filled” there are no roles that need to be filled, there are 3 skill types everyone in a group needs to bring to a dungeon with them and that is control support and damage. If there is someone in a group that is in a glass cannon build because they are trying to “fill the dps role” they are a detriment to their group, the same with people who are bringing full support or control builds, everyone in a group needs to be able to do those three things above all else. Every class has the ability to set themselves up with them.
This isn’t Rift, quit trying to fill roles.
AC is harder for most people than it really has any right to be for a starter dungeon. That said, once you get used to it… it’s simple enough. Learning it though is annoying. You really have to take it slow and pay attention your first few times if you’re new to MMOs or are… you know, level 35.
Part of the problem seems to be you and your allies have a WoW mentality for this game, which is not the case. There are no tanks. There is no aggro. Your greatest asset is debuffing and disabling your foes to ramp up all of your survivability, as opposed to trying to just heal through it or tank it.
Only problem with AC is people trying to do it in their solo builds, that’s just not gonna happen.
Theres are great deal of exaggerating about Story mode difficulty going on here. AC is easily puggable, did it on my warrior at launch with one wipe and again on monday with my engineer and not a single party member had to waypoint, both times done in a full pug group. I’ll grant you that the ranger mobs are a bit of a shock the first time you come across them but once encountered you should have a plan to deal with them.
CM is harder now than it was at launch, but still puggable. Just did it pugged it last night on my engineer with a thief, 2 ele’s and the worlds worst ranger. We managed it fine despite having a party memeber who was essentially dead weight. The dog pack’s are a little obnoxious now but still doable.
I understand how these dungeons could be a bit of a culture shock to players more used to traditional mmo’s, but honestly once you have seen the dungeons once its really not that hard to adjust. Try to avoid players who classify themselves as DPS, they are often a liability. Balanced builds are the way to go if you want a smooth run.
Personally I went on an all pug AC storymode dungeon on my lv36 guardian, the minimal traits I had put into honor and valor, then virtues. I was able to take a few hits without dying, obviously cant sit there and tank, but buffed as I could, and did damage. That’s really unavoidable, I would switch out of mace/shield to greatsword to do damage, pull mobs into a nice ball for aoe’ing, get down the symbol of wrath, then back to mace and shield before I died. Can’t really just set out to do a single thing the whole dungeon aka support with the same skillset the entire time. There’s a reason why you can swap your traits, skills, weapons, etc in the middle of the dungeon. Can’t honestly perfectly remember the rest of the team, I knew there was a warrior and another guardian. All in all, none of the boss fights were hard. Relena and Vassar wen’t rather smoothly really, we just kept knocking Relena back with the boulders then killing her first. Back in the 3rd beta weekend, my friends hit AC story as soon as we were all lv30 and didn’t even find the dungeon all too hard then either. Guardian, warrior, necro, 2x ele then.
I disregarded your very first post when you tried to play a Guardian like a WoW Tank, and I disregarded your posts later when you claimed Colin said dungeons are “For the elite”. Colin DID NOT say that. His comments were in reference to EXP MODE dungeons, which yes, ARE supposed to be hard.
Now back to the first issue-It really boils down to your playstyle. Am I a really good player? No. Have I died numerous times on story mode dungeons? Yes. Have I cleared all that I’ve attempted? Yes. The story mode dungeons ARE NOT HARD. They require you to play the game with only SLIGHTLY more intelligence than regular open world PvE. They require things like dodging out of the clearly labeled red circles, watching for the obvious charging animations on bosses. Instead what I read is that you stood there trying to soak up all the damage on your guardian like a traditional tank. This game is about MOVEMENT. Except in cases that were already stated in this thread, such as enemies dealing more damage to moving targets, there is no reason why you should NOT always be moving unless you are channeling a spell that requires you to be stationary.
TL;DR-You have not yet adapted to GW2 combat, don’t hate the game because you seem to fail to grasp simple concepts.
All I’m seeing from most of the Dungeon threads is… don’t bother. Just get to 80 and if you want a gear grind you’ll find one there.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Then leave the rest to Batman.”
(edited by bpphantom.8243)
I didn’t find AC ridiculously hard but it was certainly a wake up call before I got used to it. for me the hardest parts were the mobs bottlenecking in hallways and the traps (usually in combination).
pre-patch CM right after was a complete joke in comparison. the difficulty of story modes is definitely all over the place.
teachers live in schools, garbage men live in garbage, and firemen live in fire.
Premise, I didn’t read most of the posts. I’ll simply quote one of my posts from another thread since you insist calling me an “elite player”.
“You see, I’m not an “elite” player by any means, I think I’m pretty average as far as “skill” goes. When I run a SM dungeon I don’t prepare before-hand, don’t respec, don’t bring specific/good gear and group everyone regardless of their class. Still I got through AC (whose difficulty, imo, should be slightly lowered), CM (pre-patch you could do it with your eyes closed), and TA with relative ease and little-to-zero wipes
All I do is call a target, read the text under the enemies, don’t overaggro and write some lines in /party when a particularly tough boss/trash requires a strategy ( “kite the melees, focus the rangeds” or “equip condition removals for this fight” are good examples). I don’t think this classifies me as an “elite/hardcore/pro gamer” but rather as an average mmo-player. Mind you, my PUGs weren’t perfect: one guy in TA kept dying, yet we made it through."
In short: average players can clear the SM dungeons with a little effort. You don’t need l33t mad skillz.
Should Anet lower the current difficulty/add a lower-difficulty tier? Probably. Is it because the dungeons are insanely hard? No. It’s because people and are, in short, “doing it wrong”:
“We have no first-person view because stupid people would lock into it”
“You can’t have more than 10 HS decks because that would confuse people”
“30 fps is more cinematic”
“You can’t have more than 10 HS decks because that would confuse people”
“30 fps is more cinematic”
I disregarded your very first post when you tried to play a Guardian like a WoW Tank, and I disregarded your posts later when you claimed Colin said dungeons are “For the elite”. Colin DID NOT say that. His comments were in reference to EXP MODE dungeons, which yes, ARE supposed to be hard.
Now back to the first issue-It really boils down to your playstyle. Am I a really good player? No. Have I died numerous times on story mode dungeons? Yes. Have I cleared all that I’ve attempted? Yes. The story mode dungeons ARE NOT HARD. They require you to play the game with only SLIGHTLY more intelligence than regular open world PvE. They require things like dodging out of the clearly labeled red circles, watching for the obvious charging animations on bosses. Instead what I read is that you stood there trying to soak up all the damage on your guardian like a traditional tank. This game is about MOVEMENT. Except in cases that were already stated in this thread, such as enemies dealing more damage to moving targets, there is no reason why you should NOT always be moving unless you are channeling a spell that requires you to be stationary.
TL;DR-You have not yet adapted to GW2 combat, don’t hate the game because you seem to fail to grasp simple concepts.
Well, the only reason I tried to play my Guardian like a WoW tank was because of my first experience with my engineer. Mobs were hitting so hard that I saw it impossible for any melee class to just walk in with Power Precision gear and survive. So I looked up guides on Guardians builds and crated him to be a team supportive player. Sadly people are saying it was a “mistake” to orient myself for team play and for a tank style of combat. Guardians don’t come with a lot of debuffs, just a ton of burning damage. So the only viable dungeon build I could think of was a buffing tank.
It’s a mistake on Arena Net to think that the common player is going to suddenly figure out that they need to turn their heavy armor melee fighter into a glass cannon debuff fighter, on their own without guidance from earlier game experience.
Disregard it all you like but the game makes you think you need to be tough and tanky to survive. Classes like Mesmers and necros have obvious builds that promote the use of conditions like blindness etc. But in general, Arena Net underplays the importance certain conditions, like blindness, a lot throughout the game and promote much use of Protection, Regen, Vulnerability, Weakness.
The second thing you decided to disregard is in fact something that should be paid heavy attention to. We were told dungeons were meant for everyone. Then later in a Forum post were told “Oh explorables are made for the elite though.” Well an explorable dungeon is still a dungeon. But my beef is not with explorables. The hardcore gamers gotta go somewhere for their challenge.
Oh and I don’t hate the game. Just SM Dungeons. The rest of the game delivers 100% perfectly. I chose my character roles (as advertised) and I played them in PvP, WvW, and Open PvE successfully, and had a blast.
never failed to complete AC story. EM mode im 2 for 4. All pugs.
first ac story was a waypoint zerg but we did it and the xp was good.