Guild Wars 2

First want to say, is MY OPINION and nothing more.

After trying my first dungeon and seeing plenty of people complain, i thought was just bad players. I quickly realized why everyone is complaining and not so much that it is hard. What really comes down to are a few points and, i think are things that devs will either change, or will just inform players they are not ment to be played by casuals.

1: I can play dunegons as any spec i want! WRONG this is something i think alot of players are going to have to come to grips with. You can not play as any spec you want! dungeons are designed to be done with a specific set up… while the tank/healer/dps trinity is gone, we now have the support/control/damage trinity instead. Also the MMO mentality of gear and spec that so many are stuck in could say this is the players fault… but really! Anet continually spouted that you could do these dungeons as any spec or class… but clearly this isnt the case. But i could maybe let this slide i mean is basic stuff for mmos right?

2: 1 shot insta gibbing: this is a big issue for me and probably ranks as #1 problem i have with the game right now. Idea that enemies should kill you for letting them touch you. There is no remorse, no second chances BAM dead end of story! now some like this idea because makes the game hard… however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE! idea you should INSTANTLY die for making a mistake in early content is BAD! you need to ease players into the game, or have multiple difficulties, allow players to understand what they did wrong by giving them 3-4 or even 5 mistakes before killing them. Is biggest issue with GW2 right now, insta gibbing from certain specific attacks that have a long wind up is fine, like unblockables in tekken! if you get hit by one you deserved it! but in GW2…pretty much every attack in game will slaughter you instantly.

3: Gear damage, gold sinks, and Dungeons: if you build your dungeon around dieing alot you seriously need to cut repairs in half, it cost me 1.5 silver to fix my stuff and i only died 4 times before i called it a day. One of my guildies is broke from dungeon runs, and this is a problem… they are not worth the headache involved in doing them… rewards do not justify the time involved…

4: they feel like zerg fests: they really do… they feel like a zergfest… dont feel strategical or, involved its basically run in pew pew hope the enemy dies before you do. I know i personally HATED the trinity BUT least was some coherent semblance of strategy involved. CC, buffs things felt like they made a difference in GW2 doesn’t feel that way…things feel so fleeting that they barely matter… but again sure if i had a balanced group maybe this wouldnt have felt like this BUT still majority of folks i talk to have said this is what they felt like as well.

What can be done to fix it?

I think biggest step in the right direction is the following
1: Needs to be some hint at how to gear yourself in the game. Most people i hear about are slapping themselves in full damage spec/gear and getting trashed. I am begining to think this is probably biggest wall people are hitting. A nice post on forums or, a page on main forum explaining how you are expected to gear would be a big plus.

2: Damage has to be toned back, on basic attacks and special attacks in general. Need to make it feel like i can run in and deal some damage with out being instantly face planted. But certain BIG attacks need to be CLEARLY animated, and a warning of some kind(red ring is just not good enough) and need to give players ample time to see and react(not saying 30 seconds but 3-5 is good atm have less then a second in most cases). Early dungeons these attacks should do 1/4 of average players damage, with bosses doing 1/2 damage and later on can start killing players instantly for not moving. Ease players into the difficulty…

3: Repair costs in dungeons either need to go away, or be halfed or have durability go down to say 5% and stop or half or what ever but its a big issue right now.

4: multiple difficulties is probably the way to go, allow players to ramp up the difficulty factor boosting drop rates for hard mode, while leaving easy mode for the more casual folks. i know was what exploreable dungeon was suppose to be BUT lets just face facts, right now general GW2 player is kind of put off by 1 shot insta kills, and those that are enjoying it are your more hard core players.

At end of the day i want to like dungeons as i was a BIG time love of 5 mans in other mmos, but at the moment i am just put off of dungeons as they remind me to much dark souls with out the insanly deep combat system and ability to block attacks.

This again is way i feel about dungeons… i have no problem with hard but i feel dungeons right now are a massive step beyond hard.

Lokai.7850:

2: 1 shot insta gibbing: this is a big issue for me and probably ranks as #1 problem i have with the game right now. Idea that enemies should kill you for letting them touch you. There is no remorse, no second chances BAM dead end of story! now some like this idea because makes the game hard… however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE! idea you should INSTANTLY die for making a mistake in early content is BAD! you need to ease players into the game, or have multiple difficulties, allow players to understand what they did wrong by giving them 3-4 or even 5 mistakes before killing them. Is biggest issue with GW2 right now, insta gibbing from certain specific attacks that have a long wind up is fine, like unblockables in tekken! if you get hit by one you deserved it! but in GW2…pretty much every attack in game will slaughter you instantly.

Are you gearing glass cannon? Gearing for survival and using utility skills that help keep you alive makes a huge difference.

The very first time I stepped into a dungeon I was a straight glass cannon build. I’ve since switched over to a lot more toughness and vitality and it makes a huge difference and allows me to be able to react and not die instantly.

Just checking/offering a suggestion.

Barimen.6291:

Lokai.7850:

2: 1 shot insta gibbing: this is a big issue for me and probably ranks as #1 problem i have with the game right now. Idea that enemies should kill you for letting them touch you. There is no remorse, no second chances BAM dead end of story! now some like this idea because makes the game hard… however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE! idea you should INSTANTLY die for making a mistake in early content is BAD! you need to ease players into the game, or have multiple difficulties, allow players to understand what they did wrong by giving them 3-4 or even 5 mistakes before killing them. Is biggest issue with GW2 right now, insta gibbing from certain specific attacks that have a long wind up is fine, like unblockables in tekken! if you get hit by one you deserved it! but in GW2…pretty much every attack in game will slaughter you instantly.

Are you gearing glass cannon? Gearing for survival and using utility skills that help keep you alive makes a huge difference.

The very first time I stepped into a dungeon I was a straight glass cannon build. I’ve since switched over to a lot more toughness and vitality and it makes a huge difference and allows me to be able to react and not die instantly.

Just checking/offering a suggestion.

I believe that’s what he was talking of in his first point, sure switching to toughness and vitality will help you, but it still mean we have change our build for a dungeon build which doesn’t match how Anet wanted it to be. Anybody with any build was suppose to be as useful as other. And just as the thread starter said, the Holy trinity isn’t gone it changed that’s all.

Other may say it’s all about strategy, true but I wish I could use my berserker 2Handed sword set instead of vit/toughness hammer set in dungeon but me and my team will just get wipe by monster in 2 seconds.

Every profession is useful, and it’s bring the player, not the profession. HOWEVER, you can’t go in with a glass cannon build unless you’re incredibly skilled at avoiding damage. The trinity is gone, which means you have to take care of yourself.

1. That’s not really true. Was running 2 explorables with another Elementalist in my team who ran a completely different set-up than I did and used a different weapon set. Sure it may not allow literally every build to work, there’s still enough freedom to give you choices.
2. I’ve learned by dying lots from this that being on the move all the time is extremely important in order to survive. Red circles generally appear in time and give you a little bit of time to react with a dodge.
Also there are multiple difficulties. Story-mode which is the normal version of the dungeon, and explorable, which is the hard mode version.
3. If you complete the dungeon you should be able to make a profit. Unless you really died a lot of times (15-20+ times).
4. No wonder you have problems with dungeons if you see it as just a mindless zergfest… The moment you see it as teamwork it’ll get better and more do-able for you.

The biggest “cheese” mechanics of bosses are the ones where tiny bosses like Kudu have a charge-up graphic for their shot that doesn’t at all differ from the beginning than the end – so even if you can see the zappy charges through the fire, fire-field, 2 bigger-than-the-boss players slashing at him, and other fields, you can’t differentiate the beginning of the cast from the end – before a huge deathray (that cannot be dodged once fired) 1-shot downs you.

Kudu is the biggest offender with this – but other bosses have similar issues.
Aside from the cheesy bosses, the non-boss packs are more difficult.
Very disappointing, overall.

Milennin.4825:

1. That’s not really true. Was running 2 explorables with another Elementalist in my team who ran a completely different set-up than I did and used a different weapon set. Sure it may not allow literally every build to work, there’s still enough freedom to give you choices.
2. I’ve learned by dying lots from this that being on the move all the time is extremely important in order to survive. Red circles generally appear in time and give you a little bit of time to react with a dodge.
Also there are multiple difficulties. Story-mode which is the normal version of the dungeon, and explorable, which is the hard mode version.
3. If you complete the dungeon you should be able to make a profit. Unless you really died a lot of times (15-20+ times).
4. No wonder you have problems with dungeons if you see it as just a mindless zergfest… The moment you see it as teamwork it’ll get better and more do-able for you.

@1:That’s true, there’s a good deal of workable builds – but I have to say, Melee has a much tougher time of doing anything than Ranged. It takes far more effort for the same amount of success.
@2:The worst mechanics are the ones that activate without red circles. Things like the boss who’s the same size as a player winding up, but you can’t see due to him being on fire, players slashing at him, etc – before getting 1shotted by that mechanic.
That is a cheesy mechanic. There should be a way to turn down other players’ spell effects – that would really help with seeing the tells.
Aside from the big wind-up ones, the “normal” hits hit way too hard. Meleeing as Thief on bosses is ridiculously tedious, because a single normal swing drops me down to half health.
@3:That’s true. Dungeons give a nice chunk of silver.
@4:Regardless of good teamwork, you can beat a dungeon by just repeatedly running int oa boss after dieing because their health stays the same. MAJOR design flaw, if they wanted anything about it to be challenging.

Barimen.6291:

Are you gearing glass cannon? Gearing for survival and using utility skills that help keep you alive makes a huge difference.

The very first time I stepped into a dungeon I was a straight glass cannon build. I’ve since switched over to a lot more toughness and vitality and it makes a huge difference and allows me to be able to react and not die instantly.

Just checking/offering a suggestion.

1850 toughness and 1780 vitality, and I still get one shot by non telegraphed attacks in some explorable. And yes I dodge any that are actually telegraphed that give me more than 0.64-1.00 seconds notice. I even have the fantastic trait that guardians get, that gives me Vigor every time I crit, it allows me to dodge often, I also have protection up almost permanent too.

Some attacks just need to be adjusted, and the tell signs re-thought out. It is clear that there is issues when some instances(explorable) are so much easier than others that are all 80.

Edit:
Also it may be worth note, report any boss and trash that may feel a little odd, the developers can look at the boss and see if its intended to hit for 23k on an instant cast attack or not.

I did Arah story mode and learned that there’s basically zero downside to speccing pure ranged. Your damage uptime is ridiculously higher than for melee, your potential to dodge high-damage attacks is better (especially anything with a travel time) and you’re also far less likely to get gibbed by autoattacks and non-telegraphed attacks (and telegraphed attacks by smaller boss mobs that are blocked by particle effects and your own character’s model,) less likely to suffer multiple conditions simultaneously, and less likely to get knocked down/back. Towers, eyestalks, multiple red circles, hard-hitting mobs… just go ranged, my son. Go ranged.

As melee DPS, I was pulling aggro on mobs just by being near them. It became hilarious at one point when I was doing nothing but kiting mobs around without even damaging them while everyone else in the party hit them repeatedly (mostly with ranged attacks) with absolute impunity, because those monsters just would not target anybody else besides me. I’ve got multiple pieces of exotic tough/vit gear, and am specced 15 deep into defense on my warrior. But alas, unless you go full tank (you know, that thing that doesn’t exist anymore,) apparently you’re PvE catnip. The weakest character will not get focused down by mobs, but the person who needs to actually be next to them to deal damage will be. Again, this occurred when I was not doing any significant damage to the mobs.

For melee damage to be a viable role on the Story Mode run that I just did, 1 of 2 two things would need to happen:

1) Melee Damage output would need to increase in dungeons by a factor of at least 5, to account for downtime, gibbing, and the (currently tremendous) opportunity cost of not speccing into support/control skills and traits; or

2) Either genuine healers or tanks would need to be reintroduced into the mix in order to keep melee DPS alive.

It’s not a good situation. Currently, Support and Control as roles are completely superior to Melee Damage, to the point where anybody who wants to play melee is essentially expected to play a tank, though one made less effective by the fact that they can’t guarantee that mobs will attack them.

Barimen.6291:

Lokai.7850:

2: 1 shot insta gibbing: this is a big issue for me and probably ranks as #1 problem i have with the game right now. Idea that enemies should kill you for letting them touch you. There is no remorse, no second chances BAM dead end of story! now some like this idea because makes the game hard… however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE! idea you should INSTANTLY die for making a mistake in early content is BAD! you need to ease players into the game, or have multiple difficulties, allow players to understand what they did wrong by giving them 3-4 or even 5 mistakes before killing them. Is biggest issue with GW2 right now, insta gibbing from certain specific attacks that have a long wind up is fine, like unblockables in tekken! if you get hit by one you deserved it! but in GW2…pretty much every attack in game will slaughter you instantly.

Are you gearing glass cannon? Gearing for survival and using utility skills that help keep you alive makes a huge difference.

The very first time I stepped into a dungeon I was a straight glass cannon build. I’ve since switched over to a lot more toughness and vitality and it makes a huge difference and allows me to be able to react and not die instantly.

Just checking/offering a suggestion.

Yes i was, and i simply jumped into dungeon with my present lvling spec, and i was pointing out that anet said could do dungeons and content with out the trinity. which is a bold faced lie…

Old MMOs Archetypes
Tank
Healer
Damage
Support/Buffer/Debuffer/Controller

GW2
Support/Heal
Control
Damage

to say that trinity is gone…is kind of a lie…it still exists just different combo of trinity, and no control for tanky characters over mobs. Thus end up with pure chaos, and healing wont keep everyone alive like in other mmos. Damage is pretty useless since get 1 shot for the most part, which leaves you with just tanky/support specs do to damage output of mobs.

The Trinity still alive and kicking anet just used smoke and mirrors to hide it well which is kinda false advertising since they clearly said that wasnt the case at all. Again i love the game just feel mislead….

I play solo 99% of the time. My guild is just a few friends who are on different playing schedules. I spent 3 hours in AC at lvl 39, with a PUG of course, spent 40 silver on repairs, and never even got close to beating the lovers or whatever they are called. I’m sure we all just suck, but for the first dungeon to eat up a third of my total money in repairs with nothing to show for it except a headache is pretty idiotic. I for one will not bother with dungeons again until anet tones them down.

as a matter of a fact, since that time, my playing time is less than half of what it was. dungeons was one of the main features i was looking forward to. if i wanted to be miserable i’d just go back to work and put some overtime in.

Lokai.7850:

however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE!

I love this comparison. GW2 is definitely bad at teaching you what, if anything, you did wrong. Some bosses are absolutely toxic to gameplay and do not help the player learn how to beat them. I encountered a few bosses in Arah that were actually very well designed, but most of the bosses that I’ve faced are either pointless zerg-fests that are really easy to just do damage, die, run in, and repeat, or ridiculously impossible fights where the boss spams massive AOE that is instant-kill and impossible to avoid.

There is a very small number of bosses that are truly enjoyable in this game, two of which are in Arah. The boss in story mode that summons grubs that slowly move towards him and then give him a buff is definitely a well designed boss that checks the coordination of a group. The first boss in the Warden path in Arah Explorable, the one that is an archer and a crusher is also fairly well designed, in that you have to keep them separate and burst one of them down as fast as possible, avoiding the combination of the ranger’s CC and the crusher’s instant kill. Both of those bosses definitely test coordination and individual skill, and I think if every other boss was designed with those in mind, the game would be better as a whole.

Dunno why so much QQ. The Game is pretty fine atm. Who said a “Tank” must be able to tank every mob group perfectly? And one hit? hmm the only mob i know who can one hit me is Deadeye when i stand far away which hit me for 70k dmg
Btw i play Elementarist with 13k hp and i rarely die… I would say u do something wrong in most cases.

Moreover, they said before that we can play any character we want. But we can’t! We must grind dungeons with one character only because tokens are soulbound! =)

Flay.3625:

as a matter of a fact, since that time, my playing time is less than half of what it was. dungeons was one of the main features i was looking forward to. if i wanted to be miserable i’d just go back to work and put some overtime in.

If you are here for the dungeons you are in the wrong place.

I don`t think that we will see many improvements in terms of dungeons, either than make them face – roll and so sticking to the “you can go as whatever spec/class you want” statement.

Otherwise you need a proper group with a proper spec and by so we need, as someone stated above, another type of the holy trinity than the tank/heal/dps, but still a trinty.

My first experience with a dungeon was very dissapointing, I totally aggree with Lokai. I’m used to play hard games but this is insane. EVERYTHING happends so fast that you don’t have time to see what its going on… no casting bars to know .. and with the millinons of spells and nice particles effects u cant do nothing. I think game should be a bit slower paced. And give more clues of whats comming if its going to be this hard. :/

Forgot to add that it first time I went to Ascalonian cats. Was before it was bugged that nobody could join, today I did another run and it was lot easier after the patch, felt a bit better for sure. But first time was a slaugher house for the group and not that the first group was bad or anything.. people were getting one shooted like crazy.

Barimen.6291:

Lokai.7850:

2: 1 shot insta gibbing: this is a big issue for me and probably ranks as #1 problem i have with the game right now. Idea that enemies should kill you for letting them touch you. There is no remorse, no second chances BAM dead end of story! now some like this idea because makes the game hard… however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE! idea you should INSTANTLY die for making a mistake in early content is BAD! you need to ease players into the game, or have multiple difficulties, allow players to understand what they did wrong by giving them 3-4 or even 5 mistakes before killing them. Is biggest issue with GW2 right now, insta gibbing from certain specific attacks that have a long wind up is fine, like unblockables in tekken! if you get hit by one you deserved it! but in GW2…pretty much every attack in game will slaughter you instantly.

Are you gearing glass cannon? Gearing for survival and using utility skills that help keep you alive makes a huge difference.

The very first time I stepped into a dungeon I was a straight glass cannon build. I’ve since switched over to a lot more toughness and vitality and it makes a huge difference and allows me to be able to react and not die instantly.

Just checking/offering a suggestion.

Not really sure I understand the people who always ask “Are you building glass cannon” and some how thing building toughness and bringing utility skills makes a difference. It doesn’t. I have my Guardian Spec’d fully into defense and utility. Stacking toughness, vitality and +healing with all defensive traits and skills, damage reduction signet, just about everything. so I put a protection buff on myself. which probably netted me a ridiculous amount of damage reduction and I pull a group of nightmare hounds and am downed almost instantly. So yeah, I learned my lesson and realized the mistake I made. I got hit. I agree 100% with the OP. Mobs insta-gibbing people is a problem and encourages graveyard zerging and it also discourages people from not building glass cannon, as you still get decimated even if you sacrifice damage to build stats like toughness and vitality. If you’re gonna go down fast you might as well do decent damage.

Best words on dungeons I’ve heard so far:

“Dungeons aren’t PvE, they’re PvP in disguise.”

Like its been said, no one is looking out for you anymore with the holy trinity gone, so take measures to protect yourself.

PSquid.8530:

Best words on dungeons I’ve heard so far:

“Dungeons aren’t PvE, they’re PvP in disguise.”

Like its been said, no one is looking out for you anymore with the holy trinity gone, so take measures to protect yourself.

Except… the trinity isn’t gone…. maybe you should read more closely…

Tank/Healer: now replaced by a support healing or buffing style spec, while any class can fill this roll are clearly some classes that do it better. You are going to get MAN HANDLED! by mobs if you dont have this class with you.

Dps: exists in pretty much same format

Controller/Debuffer: focuses on controlling, debuffing and reducing damage of incoming mobs as much as possible.

So again trinity DOES exist only difference is that is no aggro management, so if you pull aggro you are on your own, but in reality it is your TEAMS job to insure you stay alive by using debuffs, and control effects to try and keep you alive.

So no…in reality if was just a matter of dodging at the time time and positioning alone people wouldnt have these issues THE problem is that are alot of attacks you just cant avoid and if you arent running X class spec/set up you will get trashed… event with the set up people are struggling just to get by.

Lokai.7850:

2: 1 shot insta gibbing: this is a big issue for me and probably ranks as #1 problem i have with the game right now. Idea that enemies should kill you for letting them touch you. There is no remorse, no second chances BAM dead end of story! now some like this idea because makes the game hard… however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE! idea you should INSTANTLY die for making a mistake in early content is BAD! you need to ease players into the game, or have multiple difficulties, allow players to understand what they did wrong by giving them 3-4 or even 5 mistakes before killing them. Is biggest issue with GW2 right now, insta gibbing from certain specific attacks that have a long wind up is fine, like unblockables in tekken! if you get hit by one you deserved it! but in GW2…pretty much every attack in game will slaughter you instantly.

Um, I dont know how it is in other dungeons, but so far, there is no boss in the game that will insta-kill you.

Now, there are insta gib abilities that will drop you to a down state from full HP,, but thats not instantly killing you. (example: Look at the Lieutenant Kholer fight in AC explore with his harpoon attack)

One of the biggest things I, and my team, has learned is to recover downed players as quickly as possible. In fact, one of the key tactics that I would say is important above all else, is reviving downed players quickly.

I think this is actually intended and designed this way.

HellHound.5480:

Lokai.7850:

2: 1 shot insta gibbing: this is a big issue for me and probably ranks as #1 problem i have with the game right now. Idea that enemies should kill you for letting them touch you. There is no remorse, no second chances BAM dead end of story! now some like this idea because makes the game hard… however i am going to counter that with… being hard and feeling cheesey can go hand in hand. Are games are hard and feel rewarding like say Demon or Dark Souls, but the thing is…those games actually pretty good at teaching you the mistakes you’ve made. The problem with GW2 is that you die so fast, and so quickly that you dont have time to consider what you did wrong. red circles appear so fast and give a fraction of a second to respond, sometimes even hitting you with a CC effect moment it shows up so you cant avoid it. Idea that you should be punished for messing up is FINE! idea you should INSTANTLY die for making a mistake in early content is BAD! you need to ease players into the game, or have multiple difficulties, allow players to understand what they did wrong by giving them 3-4 or even 5 mistakes before killing them. Is biggest issue with GW2 right now, insta gibbing from certain specific attacks that have a long wind up is fine, like unblockables in tekken! if you get hit by one you deserved it! but in GW2…pretty much every attack in game will slaughter you instantly.

Um, I dont know how it is in other dungeons, but so far, there is no boss in the game that will insta-kill you.

Now, there are insta gib abilities that will drop you to a down state from full HP,, but thats not instantly killing you. (example: Look at the Lieutenant Kholer fight in AC explore with his harpoon attack)

One of the biggest things I, and my team, has learned is to recover downed players as quickly as possible. In fact, one of the key tactics that I would say is important above all else, is reviving downed players quickly.

I think this is actually intended and designed this way.

doing 100% of an hp bar in a single hit is insta gibbing that isn’t innovative or interesting, anyone can slap 2000% damage on a mob and claim its harder when really mechanics behind fight are super easy, just boss in question does such a high amount of damage you need X gear to do the fight.

if you fall down from 1 attack you died in one hit… you do jack all in a downed state, and rezzing a player is downed is often suicide when boss can now smash them into the ground when they try to rez you.

Sorry but downed state is same thing as dead… only difference is in this game, you can combat rez your allies which is cool! but not fun to be instantly killed by an attack.

I 100% agree, I really hope they do something. Most people who have done dungeons will probably never do them again. I feel dungeons were the least developed and least thought out part of this game and that is really sad.

I love a challenge, I do not love having to change my spec/setting aside 2+hours, Pathetic rewards for time spent/pure frustration levels of difficulty. I really think they missed the mark with the dungeons.

I finally found a grp that could beat the lovers in AC …. now I will probably never touch another dungeon in GW2 due to the fact that they are just poorly desgined and far to hard with kitteny rewards. Its simply not fun and a complete waste of my time.

I’m not a casual but at the same point I refuse to set aside 2+ hours to do a dungeon … not a raid a dungeon.

Very dissapointed in this aspect of the game.

Itari.1063:

Dunno why so much QQ. The Game is pretty fine atm. Who said a “Tank” must be able to tank every mob group perfectly? And one hit? hmm the only mob i know who can one hit me is Deadeye when i stand far away which hit me for 70k dmg
Btw i play Elementarist with 13k hp and i rarely die… I would say u do something wrong in most cases.

I see literally noone crying around here. But I do see a rude person who definitely stands out on these forums. We don’t want your kind here. Shoo. Go away.

On topic, great post, OP. Agreed on all points.

Zetsubou.8431:

Not really sure I understand the people who always ask “Are you building glass cannon” and some how thing building toughness and bringing utility skills makes a difference. It doesn’t. I have my Guardian Spec’d fully into defense and utility. Stacking toughness, vitality and +healing with all defensive traits and skills, damage reduction signet, just about everything… I agree 100% with the OP. Mobs insta-gibbing people is a problem and encourages graveyard zerging and it also discourages people from not building glass cannon, as you still get decimated even if you sacrifice damage to build stats like toughness and vitality. If you’re gonna go down fast you might as well do decent damage.

I’m also in agreement. As a Guardian who put every point into defense and vitality, with tough/heal gear, shield and mace, I can be one-shotted as easily as if I had gone in naked. I don’t want to hear from anyone that this doesn’t happen. It has happened, therefore it does happen. One does not argue with a fact, so let’s just dispense with that notion.

Hard is OK. Difficult is OK. Challenging is OK. But the dungeons are just silly as-is. There’s a reason so many people aren’t going in there twice, and that’s because they simply aren’t fun.

If you’re going to have mobs with InstaGib Technology™ then they darn well better telegraph properly. Properly means 1) It has to happen, 2) The indicator needs to be consistent, 3) The chargeup needs to be longer than 25 nanoseconds, and 4) The indicator needs to be plainly visible through the wall of particles and camera shaking you guys went with.

If you fix all that then it might not be so bad. Again, hard is fine but what you have going right now is just not fun. I see no reason to go in your dungeons as they are today, which has some hefty implications for long-term playability.

Im fine with 1 shots if they’re reasonably.

Some reasonable examples:
Final boss of inquest path in SE. She plops down giant red circles that stay there for about 2 seconds. If you die to it then it’s quite clearly your fault. You can roll twice, or use a blocking skill. That’s at least 3 times in a row it should never hit you. She also doesnt spam it to the point where if someone does go down they cant ever be ressed.

Dredge boss in the military path. Dont remember his name. But he’ll start to tunnel, when he pops up, boom, there goes 25k hp if you werent rolling. But that’s why he telegraphs it with a fairly lengthy tunnel animation.

an example of a bad 1 shot:
The hunter fight in honor of the wave. He has an ability that summons birds to peck at you. They attack multiple times, so block spells dont affect them as much. There’s also no telegraph for when you should be rolling (at least none that my guildies noted) oh and the birds have a habit of literally straight killing someone. You will get downed and then die, purely to the damage they deal.

I agree, I can’t stand games that one shot you. That is not fun in any way, the fun part is learning the dungeon and the challenging part should come from overcoming obstacles and patterns, or figuring out puzzles. Sure, dying can happen if you can’t figure those things out, but that should be without some stupid overkill damage.

The fact that you have to spend most of your time running back, having no idea what is killing you, and constantly fiddling with camera angles because you have to run around to stay alive is just bad mechanics to combat and it’s not worth doing the dungeons as long as they are in this state. There are even plenty of events that aren’t worth the cost of repairs because they want to have this silly one shot deal. Dying in a game makes sense, but only if we know what’s killing us, and have a chance to react without constantly running in circles likekitten

TravisTrout.6803:

Hard is OK. Difficult is OK. Challenging is OK. But the dungeons are just silly as-is. There’s a reason so many people aren’t going in there twice, and that’s because they simply aren’t fun.

If you’re going to have mobs with InstaGib Technology™ then they darn well better telegraph properly. Properly means 1) It has to happen, 2) The indicator needs to be consistent, 3) The chargeup needs to be longer than 25 nanoseconds, and 4) The indicator needs to be plainly visible through the wall of particles and camera shaking you guys went with.

This, very much so.

Trash with high HP? I actually don’t mind.
Trash that takes 30-50% of your HP with one auto-attack? NO.
You really want to one-hit me? Bring it on, Hideki Kamiya taught me well! However make sure I can dodge it: don’t place the one-hit skill at the end of a long painful chain already directed at me because I’ll run out of dodges. Don’t make it actually 2-3 part hit, because my block skill won’t work on it, either.

You know STO had the same problem. Then a a guild went in with t1 ships and beat it. There was some shameful silence for a while. Then some guilds and individuals stated dedicatedly running new people only so they could understand the mechanics and then new people joined the game and the newly taught people were like :trollface:

That being said some encounters need tuning but generally I feel most are pretty much fine. I do a few runs some guy say “you know I spent 4hrs on this yesterday? :lol:”

cherrie.8907:

TravisTrout.6803:

Hard is OK. Difficult is OK. Challenging is OK. But the dungeons are just silly as-is. There’s a reason so many people aren’t going in there twice, and that’s because they simply aren’t fun.

If you’re going to have mobs with InstaGib Technology™ then they darn well better telegraph properly. Properly means 1) It has to happen, 2) The indicator needs to be consistent, 3) The chargeup needs to be longer than 25 nanoseconds, and 4) The indicator needs to be plainly visible through the wall of particles and camera shaking you guys went with.

This, very much so.

Trash with high HP? I actually don’t mind.
Trash that takes 30-50% of your HP with one auto-attack? NO.
You really want to one-hit me? Bring it on, Hideki Kamiya taught me well! However make sure I can dodge it: don’t place the one-hit skill at the end of a long painful chain already directed at me because I’ll run out of dodges. Don’t make it actually 2-3 part hit, because my block skill won’t work on it, either.

Dn’t get hit. God, why does it feel like this is all we ever say. you are not a “tank” no matter what class you are.

Efaicia.3672:

Dn’t get hit. God, why does it feel like this is all we ever say. you are not a “tank” no matter what class you are.

Read more carefully. He doesnt say “oh i cant stand around because i get oneshot by everything”
He says, hardhitting abilitys have to be 1. clearly visible through effects 2. should not be chained with other attacks that needs many dodges/blocks/usw.

example, the guy in HotW with his birdattack. 1 needed 2 dodges and a 2 second block to avoid it, pretty unfair if you have to use that abilitys shortly before. Its also very sudden, you notice it when the birds are on you picking, the animation of himself doing it is almost instant and not distinctive. its completely doable, for a character with enough utility ready, but not very fair.

kohler on the other hand is an example of a distinctive, not to fast animation embedded in a fight that leaves room for saving a dodge for the hadhit.

the golems of the SE dungeon are also a good example of hardhitting abilitys combined with weaker attacks without being unfair or boring.
but sometimes its just poor design

that said, that doesnt mean i share the opinion of others here about encounters and their difficulty. often a encounter that seems unfair is doable after practice. but thats not always the case, especially as a melee, when there are many mobs around and you cant possibly keep track of all of them, cant avoid damage that easily because there are many low-medium hitting abilitys almost all of the time.

and doable is not the same thing as interesting, challenging and well and fair designed.

To the OP (1st post stating issues):

1: To a point you are right, no one is walking into explorable mode Arah with 5 glass cannons and getting past the 1st pack of elites. But as a counter to that, the game is chock full of mostly avoidable damage, so you feasibly could have 1-2 more heavily DPS oriented people, but it can’t be someone like an Elementalist or a Thief. You are glass to the point that if something looks in your general direction you have a 50/50 shot of dropping dead. Warriors and Rangers can generally do this okay if they aren’t god awful at their class (which funny story, most are).

Remember, you can’t be healed through red circles like in other unnamed MMOs, you are essentially the only one able to keep yourself alive, and you should be speccing to do that. Even in WvW or sPvP, that which cannot die, can always kill. It’s a war of attrition, and if you aren’t ready for it, good luck in these trenches, it’s going to be one ugly day for you.

2: You’re only getting one shot/insta gibbed/locked down in red circles because you are using a glass cannon spec or have bad utilities. There are 3 things you need to succeed in this game, large HP pool, high defense value, condition removal. If you have those, you can live thru a lot of focus fire, even as a squishy as hell Elementalist.

3: The sheer amount of money you need to do various things is somewhat out of control, but welcome to Guild Wars. More importantly, you get at least 26 silver for completing an explorable mode, plus all the crap you can vendor/salvage/Trading Post. So unless you are just that bad at avoiding mechanics and keeping yourself alive, there are many dungeons I farm for a few hours a day doing speed runs of and end up with 3-5g at the end of a LIGHT day of farming.

4: I have nothing I can comment on here that won’t directly insult you and the people you have played with/talked to. So I’ll do it anyway since the cat is out of the bag. It’s only a zergfest if you continuously die and respawn/run back to him. Some fights you simply cannot even go downed on, otherwise you will end up doing this because there is absolutely no good time to rally someone up. If that isn’t strategy, I don’t know what is.

Giganticus Lupicus Now this SOB just takes way to long to kill, but if all of this doesn’t boil down to how you group handles itself together and individually, I don’t know what does. Yea, a couple of us died and had to make the 2 minute walk (that’s with perma swiftness on btw) but for the most part we all lived fairly long, and executed it close to perfectly.

I have no comments about the 2nd post suggesting fixes, because quite frankly, I mentioned ‘fixes’ all of the ‘issues’ in my response to the 1st post. Also, in response to to what seems like the majority of the people in this thread who do have complaints are complaining about, not getting one shot by an easily readable animation IS the challenge. And that has multiple of ways of overcoming that, read above commentary.

I wish people would stop posting things like “Well try not being glass cannon”.

People aren’t being glass cannon. The thing is, with the trinity gone, the dungeons are far too hard for the small amount of healing you can do. When something hits you for 15k in Arah, and your heal only does 5-6k and won’t be up again for 20s, it’s not going to cut it. Stacking healing isn’t the answer, because then you’ll have to give up defense or DPS, drawing out and making the fight harder anyway.

I bring all the healing I can as an engineer for the group. I have 600 +healing and bring enough skills to have perma regeneration on everyone and it’s nowhere near enough.

Attacks need to be way more telegraphed than they are now. Sometimes you just get hit and have no idea what even happened.

Don’t even get me started on attacks that seek, and move faster than you do. (CoE looking at you here)

Ahlen.7591:

I wish people would stop posting things like “Well try not being glass cannon”.

People aren’t being glass cannon. The thing is, with the trinity gone, the dungeons are far too hard for the small amount of healing you can do. When something hits you for 15k in Arah, and your heal only does 5-6k and won’t be up again for 20s, it’s not going to cut it. Stacking healing isn’t the answer, because then you’ll have to give up defense or DPS, drawing out and making the fight harder anyway.

I bring all the healing I can as an engineer for the group. I have 600 +healing and bring enough skills to have perma regeneration on everyone and it’s nowhere near enough.

Attacks need to be way more telegraphed than they are now. Sometimes you just get hit and have no idea what even happened.

Don’t even get me started on attacks that seek, and move faster than you do. (CoE looking at you here)

Your point is valid regarding CoE, reflecting it doesn’t even work half of the time. However, nothing in Arah except maybe Giganticus Lupicus hits you for 15k…if you aren’t glass cannon that is, at least not in one shot (unless your group miserably failed and let him get more than 2 stacks). And I would know, I’m an Elementalist, we’re just about the squishiest class in the game even with our ridiculous stun breaking utilities Mist Form, Armor of Earth, and Cleansing Flame.

Also, “Cleric’s” gear sacrifices pretty much nothing except vitality in regards to your “healing isn’t the answer because you give up DPS/toughness.” Cleric’s is Pow/Tough/Healing and Carrion gear also works if you’re heavy condition damage and have enough toughness elsewhere, the Carrion is Pow/Vit/Cond Dmg. Can always mix and match for the best stat layout as well.

Edit: I suppose his Shadow Walk can do 15k (I know it hit me that hard with 2 stacks when I was trying to find the animation/timing for it) but since then, I’ve gotten hit lemme count….zero times?

Also, I posted this somewhere else, but Elementalists specced into Evasive Arcana and lots of healing can dodge roll into any healing field or in water attunement for roughly 2-2.5k per roll. There is plenty of healing out there, but as with many things, preventing damage is a lot easier than healing it, so aim for that first.

Papaj.9035:

To the OP (1st post stating issues):

Not gonna quote everything but gonna comment on this guys responses to some degree here because i feel i need to point out a few things.

Edit: i just don’t feel i should be forced to spec myself into a defensive line just to survive basic mobs. As for gear, untill i come accross a set has 3 stats on it i am sticking to damage spec as its just better for lvling.

First off i NEVER said i was standing in red circles of doom like akitten #8230; what i did say was that time needed to escape is either REALLY short or, are mechanics involved that prevent you from moving. The giant fire elemental in asura zone is a good example, the red circle literally knocks you down when it appears, and kills you a second later. No matter of build, gear, or design will save you this is a broken mechanic.

Secondly, i thought anet said trinity was dead? if so why do i have to spec into a support build, or defensive build just to exist? This sounds like you are saying i need to spec either a support, healer, buffer, debuffer, or controller…well sounds like…a trinity of sorts to me. Are you saying anet lied and trinity still exists in a new form? but wasnt goal of guildwars to remove that element? but if enemies deal 10k damage if look in your direction how cany anyone be expected to play they way they enjoy? sounds to me like anet falsely advertised in this case then.

Lastly and going to say this one last time so people get it through there heads. Is NOTHING fun about having random minions tickle you and dieing from it. I do not enjoy mechanics that support idea that every enemy in a zone should have killing power to destroy me instantly, and i do not support idea that i should have to respec myself just to do a dungeon. If that is the case THEN WHY isn’t there a dual spec option in game?

I bought GW2 because i thought would do away with idea of having to use cookie cutter builds just to do content. As someone that played DCUO at launch/beta i remember being able to do content with out the trinity do to " skill " dodging, rolling, stunning, CCing, debuffing enemy ect… but ya know difference between DCUO’s content like that and GW2? in DCUO not even an arch villian could auto kill me by looking at me…every attack was clearly seen and were mechanics in place to help reduce and deal with damage. GW2 has NONE of that in place! least not for every class!

so i say again…if you enjoy dungeons cool but i dont and lots of others don’t

AC story seems harder than some of the lvl 75+ explorables imo. This is from the perspective of someone who did AC story at lvl 33 and is running other dungeons at lvl 80. However, I think they should tone down AC story more to make it a fun experience for lower levels. It’s the first dungeon new players experience after all.

I mean no disrespect, but I do disagree on some points.

You guys mention a number of times that the “trinity is not dead” because you’re forced into support, control, and damage roles. I don’t necessarily find that to be true. The group I run with tends to change up our builds as we progress through a dungeon. Taking the wep / utility skills that would be most helpful in a particular situation. You may call this being “forced” to change how you would like to play, but wouldn’t this be considered strategy? If I want to defeat X challenge, utilizing Y will give me an advantage. I mean, I tend to think that if everyone could just run every encounter the same exact way 100% of the time, it would be rather boring, wouldn’t it?

I took “removal of the trinity” to mean that I am not selecting a class that plays a single role. I’m not playing a dedicated healer, or dedicated tank. I’m playing a ranger, doing damage, (Though, not as much as I would like, haha.) taking a few support abilities to assist in the survival of my party. I dps, heal, buff, and rez. I can do everything.

I do think some of the instagib tells should be a bit stronger. The Nightmare dogs for example to do a charge run that will pretty much take you out in one hit. It’s rather difficult to see. But I do not have an issue with one hit knock outs in general. No one is supposed to sit there and take hits. You have to move, dodge, and learn the fights. Even the trash pulls. My personal favorite fight is the first AC explore fight. If you screw up, the guy one shots you. I feel it’s justified. If your party succeeds in avoiding his grapple lines, he’s rather easy.

Again, I mean no disrespect. I’ve no interest in telling you that “you’re wrong! lolz!” We’re just sharing opinions here.

Oooh, that’s why I loved D3 ACt3-4 Inferno. They teach you the hard way that you cannot take dmg so easily when glass-cannon spec’ed. Instead, here in gw2 I go for CD/PRE/TOU and hardly die in most of explorables. Considering that pve-wise explorables are the hardest thing we can go though, I don’t find them broken at all.
Comparing it to Wow, we wiped down something like 100 times to Rangnaros Hero when it was relased (the Cataclysm one) but we were all “Well, it’s the hardest thing in this game, it MUST be difficult and hard to learn”. You cannot expect to go into high-level content and learn it the first 10 tries. And that’s a current problem with some explorables imho, they arekittentoo easy.

I really don’t mind certain one shot mechanics, though some could use some better choreographing.

My problem is that the death effect is so jarring, the second your HP hits zero your screen flashes red, the camera SNAPS down to ankle height and zooms way the hell in. Often times when I’m learning an encounter I have to die a lot more than necessary because the death effect doesn’t allow me to accurately see what actually killed me.

Well that and the ridiculous spell effects, but I think spell effects have been harped on enough.

I’ve done Caudecus’s Manor story and explorable mod as warrior (47 level )
Story mode of this dungeon is just bad jocke (like most “human” zones easy faceroll mode) but explorable mode was just strange.
We choosed finding some guy route. Bosses were not that hard (we done explorable mode first time)
But those bandits on way to bosses…omg. 10 at once, guys with bombs, with knockdowns, with 12 bleed stacks instant moves. Hard, we’ve done a lot of pulling magic and still it was hard. Imo it should be opposite, bosses should be demanding and hard not some trash guys.

First there is no trinity here, no matter how much you try to say there is.
I see no class forced into a heal spec, I see no one class forced into dps, I see no class forced into utility. By saying there is a “trinity” means every group running is REQUIRED to have 1 person specced fully into healing, 1 person specced fully into control and 1 person specced fully into dps.

No matter how much you try to play it off as a trinity it just isn’t. The responsibility of those 3 things falls to the entire group, not just 3 or 4 people to focus on a single thing. What you are trying to play off as a new trinity is just everyone being required to think about everything, instead of focusing on just one thing.

Good try though.

Alright, this will probably be a long reply so keep up with me I believe it’s worth it!
(I had to cut it into 2 parts so PART 2 is under this one)

First of all, I want you to know where I come from (as a mmo player). I’ve been playing a tank (warrior) in WoW since day 1 of the game (did warrior dps too) and did end-game content in multiple expansions. I also played a sentinel jedi on TOR (which is, by the way, considered like one of the most hardest class to play in that game as it feels like you need to be a professional piano player to be somewhat good at it) and assumed a dps role. I also played AION, WAR and I played (and still play) EVE online. So, when I tell you that I know something about modern mmos, it isn’t complete bullkitten. When it comes to PVE, you can count me in. Same thing for PVP but usually I tend to go deeper into the PVE aspect of a game before diving into the hardcore PVP. I love to do dongeons and enjoying the PVE with the friends/guildies.

Regarding Guild Wars 2 PVE, I have to say that this is one of the best PVE I’ve seen so far when it comes to the WORLD PVE (as in area events with tons of people like the shadow behemoth or the shatterer). On the contrary, in INSTANCED PVE (dongeons), this game is ’’TERRIBADLY’’ designed. The ‘’holy trinity’’ is gone in a wide environment like in WORLD PVE because there is alot of people that can revive you or because you usually don’t die in 1 hit. The absence of the holy trinity in INSTANCED PVE doesn’t do good… Basically if someone get downed it’s almost a GOOD GAME WIPE IT moment (notice the ’’ALMOST’’). You have NO CONTROL over the course of the fight whatsoever therefore making those fights chaotic as hell and sometimes confusing. We also all know for a FACT (note that when a word is in capital letter it is to emphasize this word and also because I don’t want you to miss it ) that melee roles (dps or tanks) in any games, get the most difficult job e v e r y s i n g l e t i m e. No matter the mmo, a melee role will be difficult (from my experience of course maybe there are some mmos that aren’t like that). This game doesn’t make things difficult for melee dps (let’s say dps because ANET said tanks didn’t exist anymore in their game) it makes it completly retardedlykitten It is either boring or frustrating/annoying as hell.

**NOTE: Most of the comments on this thread that goes around those lines ‘’ oh this isn’t hard I do it like that with X trait or with Y class or by doing Z things’’ are mostly playing freakin RANGED DPS.

Itari.1063:

Dunno why so much QQ. The Game is pretty fine atm. Who said a “Tank” must be able to tank every mob group perfectly? And one hit? hmm the only mob i know who can one hit me is Deadeye when i stand far away which hit me for 70k dmg
Btw i play Elementarist with 13k hp and i rarely die… I would say u do something wrong in most cases.

Play a melee role and let’s see your point of view on that matter after that.

As for me, I play a thief and to be honest with you, as far as I love the concept of ‘’no more trinity’‘, I’m starting to miss this so hated trinity… At least there was some strategy (pre-sunwell BC and stuff) you needed to do enough dps but not too much to not steal aggro and focus on dodging aoe while keeping your sheep on the right target or sometimes kite the boss around if there was a mechanic that was designed to do that. Basically, you had a strategy. Now, honestly, all I see in a dongeon is people running around pressing V to dodge stuff that appear from nowhere in a nanosecond and blow things up, one shotting anything in range or people going down, getting revived, going down, revived.

Part 2 of my reply (yes it is THAT long lol :P)

Now watch out, just for your info, when I did catacomb with my guildies/friends, we completly crushed it, no wipe on any bosses except the last one (little misunderstanding on the strat) and we were all ‘’glass-cannon’’ (at least I was..) and stuff. We also did Caudecus Manor yesterday and it waskittenfine, easy to not say completly BORING. Why? Let me explain you.

As a thief, if I go melee (which would be a reasonable idea for a thief, right?) and want to dish out some pretty good dps, I get completly trashed, destroyed, cooked and eaten alive by anything that moves. I literally spent half AC watching the floor, licking it while the ranged people where face smashing their keyboards. It was awfull. That’s when I realized that you couldn’t do an instance without being properly specced and geared. That’s why I started doing some builds and tested stuff on mobs and such. I came up with a pretty good build that allow me to almost be able to constantly blind any target that is near me for the entire fight and also gives me alot of survivability, healing and utility. In fact it is by going into the Toughness and Vitality traits lines and going Sword/Gun. The ’’5’’ ability is the aoe blind that last for a couple second.

What I am doing in dongeons: Press 2, Press 1 (get some aggro), Press 5.
When I got the aggro or the mobs aren’t moving around anymore.
Here is my rotation: 5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5……-5-5……………-5-5
(Of course I am also using my utility skills here and there to help my allies but it is pretty much that.)

I am, literally, smashing ’’5’’ each time the AOE blind is gone. Awesome right? You may tell me ‘’why are you doing this then?. Well kitten it worked the instance was so EASY it was boring except for the first boss the robot that one shot you with his missiles when you’re in melee range because it isn’t telegraphed enough… I’m a fan of hard games, heck I played Demon Soul and Dark Soul and loved it. The point is, it isn’t hard anymore nor impossible, it’s completly ridiculous. You either die one shot, or eat the encounter like it was a piece of cake/cookie/pie. Making a fight hard isn’t making the mobs one shot you it is making a mechanic that challenge the player. A non-telegraphed ability isn’t challenging because people don’t ’’dodge’’ it, they just learn to completly avoid it (like I did with perma blind). People are right, the holy trinity isn’t gone, it just changed. Tank/heal/DPS is gone, replaced by Support/heal/dps(ranged dps at that because melee are dead meat).

Exemple of hard but fun fight is Rotface in Icecrown Citadel in WoW. (Pre-buff and before you had awesome gear) Yes the fight wasn’t easy at first but when you learned it, it wasn’t so bad but you still had to have a perfect coordination between group members to do it. You had the slime on you? Run and make it merge with the bigger slime while STILL DPSING. <——- THAT is challenging. DPSING while dodging stuff is incredibly challenging. When you focuse on just dodging abilities because of the ONE HIT YOU’RE DEAD fear well it isn’t challenging nor fun anymore. There is a flaw in their instanced PVE and it can be fixed it’s not a lost cause but as for now, it is incredibly boring/annoying, at least from a melee perspective.

I am sorry for using WoW as an exemple, knowing that many people hate it when it is used as one but it is still one of the best exemple in the genre. Not saying it is a better game too, there are plenty of fight in WoW that are boring as well. Don’t get me wrong I love guild wars 2 it’s just that it’s not a perfect game for now and we have to be objective and expose the flawed design.

TL;DR

There is no TL;DR read it all lol.

My first experience in the dungeon actually wasn’t that bad…I died a few times and that was once to a trap and then 2-3 times to the hardest boss in the dungeon which was the twins until we figured out what to do and I had a mix match of different gear on with some of it way below level 30 playing a thief. Stop crying and asking to have things nerfed right away always. It is so kitten annoying. Fixing bugs should be their main priority not nerfing things already.

The reason you like open world PvE Jmc is because it is a faceroll zergfest, much like your so beloved wow instances.

There is no trinity means if you do not like using all of your abilities (even the healing, cc and other utility ones) and only want to mash your dps button(s) then you probably will like your facemash games better and should return to them.

If you still have no clue how to use combo fields then you are missing the point entirely. (because I saw nowhere in your enormous post where you mentioned how you use your abilities with others to increase your (dps/healing/cc) through triggered effects)

Efaicia that’s my point. You either can’t read, or didn’t read me at all. I am smashing 1 button in instances and we are doing them easily. I said I was watching the floor in AC but that was because I went melee more than anything. We one shotted the so dreaded lover fight that everyone call hard (which was easy as lying to be honest) as soon as I went mega-blind build things started to be piece cake walk. You’re just throwing non constructive comments raging on about WoW only because I mentioned it once as an exemple. World PVE isnt ALWAYS a zergfest. Where have you been? You’re probably one of those that goes right for the big dragon in sparkfly fen, not watching behind them the people killing the zombies and reviving the technician to activate the cannons. That’s not what I call a zerg fest… The last event in Mount Maelstrom in the volcano. People had to be organized to do it, there is a timer and he does some nasty aoes that one shot you if you don’t move properly or don’t dodge in time. You are obviously playing another GW2 because not all events are zergfest.

I’ve done a few dungeons now and I must say that I find them disappointing as well. The first one I did, Ascalonian catacombs, was kind of a mess. The biggest problem I find is that the mechanics aren’t clear. You don’t really know what kills you, the boss doesn’t have a set strategy, it just kind of does whatever. In fact, I read that a lot of people are complaining about mobs being harder than the bosses. It’s very true, the mob packs in AC that include elementalists are almost impossible to survive. If you stand in the elementalist aoe for even a second you’re taking half your life in damage, take any other hits and you’re done. Me and my friends actually carried 5 boulders with us and abused the hell out of the knockdown. By the end of the day it was Boulder Wars 2.

Generally the fights feel cluttered and chaotic, there’s no way to tell when some bosses will do something that will kill you, and you feel like you don’t really have control of the fight. Another big problem is how inconsistent dungeon design is. For example, the first boss in explorable Cadecus manor, the guy with the shotgun, he walks up then shoots with his shotgun, giving you time to dodge. He also does a rapid fire from afar that you can see coming. It might be a little easy and bland, maybe it could use more timing required, but at least it’s clear what exactly players should to do win.

Later in the same path, you come to a hallway with spikes with no clear solution to it other than trying to run through. This gets you killed every time and you can’t evade it, we tried. This isn’t fun Arena net, it’s an extremely stupid mechanic, especially for a dungeon that has sub 80 gear as the rewards. Speaking of dumb mechanics, the CoF breach part where you have to kite increasing amounts of mobs seems to be made specifically to charge you for repair bills. It’s not hard to survive just by ressing each other and running back, so what exactly is the point of it? You can’t have enough dps to deal with the enemies as they come. The only thing left is to run and kite them around which will also eventually fail you unless you’re running 5 guardians with walls of reflection

I just thought I would leave my opinion, whether Anet pays attention to us or not. To be blunt, they could learn a lot about PvE design from certain other popular MMO’s. I feel like PvE is perhaps the weakest part of the game. Either way, I doubt anything major will be done until the expansion. I can only hope they learn from their mistakes and bring us a proper PvE experience when that time comes.

I see you only read the first 2 lines of my post before going on yet another tangent, now read the whole thing, here i’ll even provide a link for you to see some more interesting things you can do with other players abilities. (if you can make it past the first few lines anyway)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage
http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/combo-fields-and-finishers

Using these means you SHOULD be using more than your dps abilities. you have other abilities for a reason.

Yes, I could very possibly be playing a different GW2 than you, Some people play zergfests in Open world, Some people play rez zerging in instances (and mash 1 button dodging), where I play combo fields and find them hugely entertaining.

I don’t know why people are bashing WoW, there’s no denying that their PvE system is extensive. The only problem I really had is constantly moving around from guild to guild with a few of my friends. I would have loved to see mechanics like that, really tough ones like jmcdg mentioned only scaled down for 5 players.

I want to like the world events like the dragon, but it feels like you could tag the event with a bit of damage and just AFK while it resolves itself. I don’t feel important or entertained. Overall I think GW2 is primarily PvP focused. The poor PvE implementation isn’t going to keep people away from other MMO’s for long.