Guild Wars 2

I’m almost 80 and haven’t done a single dungeon. My previous game was LOTRO and grouping was by far my favorite part.

What do I need to know to get started?
Will being quest geared make me liability to my group?
How long is the typical dungeon?
Can dungeons really be completed with any group combination?
Are dungeons typically run in, kill, and loot? Or is there typically a gimmick you have to know?
Also, paths? Is that like tier 1 tier 2 tier 3 difficulty levels?

Thanks for the replies.

Dungeons have different difficulties. I don’t want to go through and explain them all, but honestly once you do them once properly they become pretty easy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/strife025/videos?view=1&flow=grid

if you want to know about a dungeon before doing it, watch strife’s videos. You won’t go as fast as him though, at first, because you will probably be in a pug group.

If you are not geared properly i would suggest doing easy dungeons that have armor suitable for your build. Hint: go berserker.

Also i dont think you mentioned what class you were, but anyways before you go do a dungeon find a good build suitable for your class. Check out gw2guru, they have alot of great builds posted there by great people. For almost all cases DPS is best.

Dungeons can take from 12min – 4 1/2 hrs. (Yes someone did take that long to finish an arah path, though for the most part you wont take longer than an hour or so to finish even the hardest dungeon path) Pretty much check strife’s guides again and usually just multiply his times by 2 and that will probably be what your group will take (if you are in a pug group).

Dungeons can be completed in any group combination. Its just if your group is mainly dps than it will go much smoother and any lack of competence from other members will be made up for in kill times.

Dungeons you just skip trash mobs (most of the mobs). Then you kill any bosses that you have to and do any mechanics you have to. Mostly you will just try to finish it as fast as possible.

Different paths are different paths not different difficulties. for example path 3 of Arah is easier than p1 or p2.

some more links for you to eat:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dungeon – list of dungeons
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_armor_sets – what you can get from dungeons using tokens which you get as a reward
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Dungeon_weapon_sets -weapons you can get
http://gw2lfg.com/ – to get a group

-Watch the videos sticky here at dungeon subforums.
-I’m assuming that you have at least the cash to get rare gears, so use those until you get exotics.
-Probably the easiest explorable dungeon is CoF path 1. Experienced PuGs usually finish this in 10 min or less.
-Dungeons are typically run in, stack, then dps it down quick. That’s how speedruns are done. Of course there are other gimmicks but those are easily done.
-There are 3 paths on every dungeon (Arah has 4). One of them is usually easy/fast, one is hard/long.
-Dungeons can be done in any class but speedruns have a meta.

This refers to dungeoning; not Fractals of the Mists(FOTM)

Q) What do I need to know to get started?
A) Know your character and game mechanics. Know how threat works, look at the forums for good PVE dungeon builds(basically straight DPS builds, don’t stack conditions).

Q) Will being quest geared make me liability to my group?
A) Depending on group, probably not. However, your DPS will be quite low compared to the rest of the group. Generally for Dungeoning, Beserker > ALL; unless you are Anchoring a group (think tanking in GW2 sense).

Q) How long is the typical dungeon?
A) Good group; 5-30mins for most. Baddies 30+

Q) Can dungeons really be completed with any group combination?
A) Yes; certain classes make things easier.

Q) Are dungeons typically run in, kill, and loot? Or is there typically a gimmick you have to know?
A) Can be both; Most of the wiki pages have decent write-ups. Don’t be afraid to look there or at youtube videos. Hell, even ask questions. Do something; I cannot stand when someone comes in, doesn’t know what they are doing and doesn’t ask a single question. I do not have time for people like that. I’ll gladly take all the time to explain the dungeon and answer any questions.

Q) Also, paths? Is that like tier 1 tier 2 tier 3 difficulty levels?
A) Usually 1 story path and 3 explorations paths. No difficulty scaling.

Awesome replies, thanks. Is it possible to work on end-game armor before hitting level 80? Or is everything before 80 pretty much just practice? IIRC you get your gear via tokens, right?

You can craft your gear, the gear with berserker stats for example is craftable, you can also buy it on the trade post.

I think you can buy the pieces of Rare quality with 30-40 silver each piece, and rare gear is not too much weaker compared with exotics, and after you get your exotics you can salvage your old rare gear to get ectos, so in the end you can recover the gold you invested on then. You can buy the exotic gear with berserker stats (power precision crit damage) on the trade post too, but they are usually very expensive compared with gear with other stats types.

You can also buy gear on the temples in Orr, i think the best stats avaliable on the temples are the soldier (power toughness vitality), you can use like 2 or 3 pieces of exotic soldier gear to improve you survivability while you are still learning how to survive on dungeons, soldier gear is like training weels you will use until you are comfortable with full berserkers, but don’t go full soldiers because that will make your dps very low, and its actually harder to survive in dungeons when the group has low dps even though you are more “tanky”.

When i got to lvl 80 i bought my rare gear on the trading post. To make it easier you click on the option “Show Filters”, if you want a greatsword for example you select the following:
Category: Weapon
Subcategory: Greatsword
Rarity: Rare
Level range: 80 to 80

This way is easier to buy than just placing a name on the search, since some greatswords for example have a different name than “berserker greatsword of bloodlust”.

You can set the order of the items displayed in your search based on price, just click on “price” in the price column, this way you can make the best deal based on the stats you want and the best looking skin avaliable for your Money (you can preview the items on the trade post by right clicking on then).

When i started playing i saw this vídeo about how to use the trade post, post bidings and stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZFIIEAZ0R8

emachine.2706:

Awesome replies, thanks. Is it possible to work on end-game armor before hitting level 80? Or is everything before 80 pretty much just practice? IIRC you get your gear via tokens, right?

Yes, it is. You can start to do AC for example at lvl 35, CoF is a lvl 75 dungeon. You spend the tokens you get in Lions Arch, on Fort Marriner’s waypoint (there is a bunch of npcs lined up, each one sells stuff from each dungeon). So you can lvl up doing AC and also getting the tokens at same time. The two easiest dungeon paths i recommend is AC path 3 and CoF path 1.

You get 60 tokens from each dungeon’s path you do each day, an exotic two-handed weapon costs 390 tokens. So if you do all the 3 paths you get 180 tokens, but dungeons usually have one or two paths that are easy so everyone keep doing then and one path that no one ever touches, like AC path 2.

Joining a good and friendly guild that does dungeons is a great way to get into running dungeons. No matter what type of gear or setup you choose you need to know the mechanics in each dungeon path and guildies are usually more patient with people new to the path but that’s not to say every PUG will bite your head off. Groups in full berserker gear can clear dungeon paths at the fastest rate but running that type of gear is a skill that requires time to master since depending on your class you may get one shotted by almost everything running full berserker (gear and traits).
The videos are helpful but if you are going to be doing a lot of PUGing keep in mind those runs work the way they do because everyone is running specific setups and can be dependent on enemies being downed quickly for less experienced players or they take too much damage and start going down. Knowing the paths and bosses will let you survive better than solely relying on speed clearing videos. The wiki is often a good source of info but isn’t always entirely accurate. It’s important to know which of a boss’s attacks must be dodged and what the tells for them are.

The main thing you need to know is that the dungeons are VERY different from open world PvE. You’ll need to learn boss mechanics/tells and when to dodge. The name of the game is to not take damage as most bosses have almost one-shot capabilities.

If you go in with other first timers, it may be very frustrating, but stick with it!

champ.7021:

Dungeons have different difficulties. I don’t want to go through and explain them all, but honestly once you do them once properly they become pretty easy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/strife025/videos?view=1&flow=grid

if you want to know about a dungeon before doing it, watch strife’s videos. You won’t go as fast as him though, at first, because you will probably be in a pug group.

If you are not geared properly i would suggest doing easy dungeons that have armor suitable for your build. Hint: go berserker.

Also i dont think you mentioned what class you were, but anyways before you go do a dungeon find a good build suitable for your class. Check out gw2guru, they have alot of great builds posted there by great people. For almost all cases DPS is best.

Dungeons can take from 12min – 4 1/2 hrs. (Yes someone did take that long to finish an arah path, though for the most part you wont take longer than an hour or so to finish even the hardest dungeon path) Pretty much check strife’s guides again and usually just multiply his times by 2 and that will probably be what your group will take (if you are in a pug group).

Dungeons can be completed in any group combination. Its just if your group is mainly dps than it will go much smoother and any lack of competence from other members will be made up for in kill times.

Dungeons you just skip trash mobs (most of the mobs). Then you kill any bosses that you have to and do any mechanics you have to. Mostly you will just try to finish it as fast as possible.

Different paths are different paths not different difficulties. for example path 3 of Arah is easier than p1 or p2.

some more links for you to eat:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dungeon – list of dungeons
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_armor_sets – what you can get from dungeons using tokens which you get as a reward
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Dungeon_weapon_sets -weapons you can get
http://gw2lfg.com/ – to get a group

Watching speedclear vids won’t help you learn how to fight bosses, mostly because speedclears typically rely on coordinated DPS, reflects, blocks, blinds, etc. to bypass or avoid mechanics that normally require actual effort to avoid. For example, speedclear groups just melee Lupi, dodge his kick, then just stack and DPS, reflect spray, Aegis swipe. A pug group isn’t going to be able to just randomly decide to stack on Lupi without knowing how to dodge his melee mechanics, not if they don’t want to wipe.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Watching speedclear vids won’t help you learn how to fight bosses, mostly because speedclears typically rely on coordinated DPS, reflects, blocks, blinds, etc. to bypass or avoid mechanics that normally require actual effort to avoid. For example, speedclear groups just melee Lupi, dodge his kick, then just stack and DPS, reflect spray, Aegis swipe. A pug group isn’t going to be able to just randomly decide to stack on Lupi without knowing how to dodge his melee mechanics, not if they don’t want to wipe.

I have to agree that you cant utilize every strategy that speed run groups use, but it is a good idea in my opinion to watch these videos before doing a dungeon run. Before my first arah run i watched the video strife made twice and even though at lupi we didnt melee, the rest of the path was made easier by understanding what would happen at each boss. Maybe strifes videos arent the best for pug groups but i thoroughly enjoy watching his videos and they have helped me greatly.

Going from LOTRO to GW2 you’ll be quite surprised at the lack of communication. There are common knowledge tactics used by many pick up groups and they will expect you to know them. Make sure you ask about them, even though people tend to explain tactics badly but still expect you to take care of yourself during a fight. Groups also tend to skip a lot of trash mobs by running past them. This can be really dangerous for inexperienced players so make sure you know what skills and traits will help you there.

You don’t need anything better than rare items to start dungeons. You can get your exotic gear with dungeon tokens. There is an anvil at the start of each dungeon for repairs. If you die you have to wait until your group is out of combat to revive. If you’re on an EU server, try to get your first groups with people who share your language. Avoid groups that want to fast runs or speed clears until you know the dungeons.

Pretty much all points have been covered already.
As a footnote, avoid Ascalonian Catacombs path 2, Sorrow’s Embrace path 2, Citadel of Flame path 3, Honour of the Waves path 2 and 3, Twilight Arbour Forward→Up until you’re more used to whole functionality of dungeons.
These are what I consider to be the “totally not worth the time and effort” paths (more so for PuGs, I mean we guild run Twilight Arbour F/U all the time) and might turn you away from dungeons if you dive straight into these “harder” paths. I suppose the same goes for any path in Arah, Lupi is not the guy you want introducing you to the concept of dodge or die xD