Guild Wars 2

I don’t really know where to put this post, so I figured the General Discussion section would be best.

I’m having problems enjoying the game lately—when I’m starting to run into things which are so outrageously overpowered beyond belief, that it’s taking away my enjoyment of the game when I’m literally ‘one shotted’ to death by things in the zones I’m leveling in.

And both times these have happened, have been by the same mob types and in the same zone itself.

The way I level up is that I map out ALL of the lowest level zones, then I move onto the zones of the next tier higher. Been trying to get my Guardian to Level 80, so she can do things other than PvE—I won’t do dungeons with her until she is level 80, due to how -short- the learning curve is inside of dungeons.

She’s a Power/Precision/Toughness Guardian, who uses a greatsword and a scepter/focus in the off-hand, spear and trident underwater. She has around almost 2,000 HP whilst in Kessex Hills, which is where I was leveling up at. And the Krait were able to basically ‘burst’ her health down to literally -100 HP in one hit by something called ‘Explode’. I can’t ever see them do it, I don’t see the animation que for it. But when I checked my combat logs, it listed the damage being between either 1,000 up to around 1,500 to 2,000 damage overall.

This happened twice: Once in Triscall Quey, or however you spell it—the fishing village with the slavers, and the Risen Krait in the event by the southwest corner of the map.

Now, I’m all for a challenging fight and a tough encounter—but there’s nothing tough or challenging about something that can just one-shot you without so much as a thought. It’s just aggravating and annoying. And I’m sure there’s more than enough people who play this game who have had similar experiences of their own, and not just with the Krait.

Another instance is whenever you’re attempting to do dungeons, the enemy mobs hit so hard and have so much health that unless you have as near a perfect a group as you can get—with everyone knowing how to play their class, and how to handle the mobs—you are definitely 100% assured you will likely wipe anywhere between two to six times between each fight. I’m all for Silvers being a challenge—but please, can you at least reduce how much armor or health they have so they’re not tougher than Champions—which are supposed to be a higher-ranked enemy?

And don’t even get me started about Orr.

Lately, I’ve been playing other games or doing other things between playing Guild Wars 2; because my enjoyment is decreasing the more I am exposed to how brutally unforgiving the learning curve of this game is. It’s basically ‘You miss one dodge, you mess up one time; and you’re dead’.

If anyone can toss up some kind of comment or helpful advice to HELP me with these situations, to make me able to enjoy the game again—please do so. I’m starting to near my wit’s end, and I’m beginning to hate playing the game because of how brutally HARD it is.

I’ve heard that for some inexplicable reason, they’ve buffed certain Krait. I cannot imagine why – LIKE they weren’t annoying enough before! And the same with Orr (not to mention, messing with a thief’s stealth so even a thief can’t run through without fighting every single annoying mob.)

I’m sure someone will savage you, & say it’s all easy, this being a gaming forum, but I have often questioned when MMOs make changes so things will be ‘more interesting,’ when what they really seem to mean is, "more intensely irritating,’ and then do things like making it harder for a healer to heal. (because it wasn’t boring enough, let’s now make it annoying!)

It took my group awhile to figure out dungeons. I’ve also noticed that a lot of groups seem to ‘figure out dungeons’ by finding ways to run through them without fighting, which I wouldn’t really call a solution. It’s much harder to learn how to play each dungeon if you’re pugging. Not for anything would I have done that. But if you have people you know, you can go through & figure out strategies.

The other sad truth – besides having to dodge to perfection – is that gear matters. I know they said it wouldn’t be as big a factor, but when I switched from rares to exotics, I sure noticed a difference. (especially with weapons, because I’d gotten pretty good at dodging by then)

The last thing I did that helped was to roam around forums (esp the guildwar2guru one) and read what people suggested for builds. If the person seemed arrogant & had way too many graphics, I found they weren’t to be trusted, btw. If they sounded sensible & reasonable, they seemed to have pretty helpful advice. (some guy called Strife there had a nice guardian advice topic that you might like)

My highest level guardian was 25 so I don’t know how things change in higher levels, but from what I saw guardians have a minuscule HP pool, meaning that they are most vulnerable to burst, I would recommend swapping toughness gear for vitality, or better yet soldier gear ( power/ though/ vit), this way you buy yourself some room for error.

The Krait have recently been buffed up to be more “dynamic?” so I highly suggest not trying to solo those guys on land and or by yourself. As for dungeons, for me it was a lot of practice dodging and knowing when to back off of a difficult enemy and figuring out a different plan of attack. I’d be willing to help you in certain spots because frankly, playing with others is much more fun!

Without sounding offensive it’ll be hard to give you helpful advice.

But I’ll do it.

As a guardian, your base health is among the lowest of all the professions. This is (assumingly) because you’re also among the professions that have the most ways of mitigating damage.

Along with your two dodges, you have access to protection, retaliation, aegis and regeneration in HUGE numbers. Use this to your advantage.

In regards to the krait, I’m unsure what they do, but I’m sure there’s a visual cue that you can use, to time your dodges. In dungeons, mobs are meant to hit hard with some abilities. Mobs that carry melee weapons are best to fight at ranged, as these are likely the ones that will one-shot you.

If you have problems with ranged mobs, try using your reflect walls. They work wonders in nearly all settings.

It’s all about rhythm, sort of. Fighting in this game is a “dance.” Your enemy strikes a dance move, and you’ll strike a corresponding dance move. The best way to practice this is probably fighting Ettins. Their “dancemoves” are forgivingly slow, and you should be able to kill them without taking damage even once.

The way I enjoy the game is by learning each mobs’ general behaviour, so I know how to fight them. This goes for pretty much every aspect of the game. In PvP, I also enjoy knowing how to “dance” with my enemy.

It’s hard to help you get to enjoy the game as enjoyment really depends on you.

For some players, all the content is too easy. I find most content borderline easy, and as such, I can’t really relate to the “hard” part of your post. You’re meant to dodge, that’s how the game is played. Dodging, and staying mobile. It might take practice for some, but it comes to natural to others.

Bind your dodge key to something easy, I use V for example. Easily accessible, and no need to double tap a key to avoid otherwise lethal attacks.

That’s all I can think of, off the top of my head, that might be useful for you.

Well, overall I don’t think the difficulty for open world is very hard, though there are random spots that seem overtuned. Krait in general are especially bad perpetrators. I’m really not a big fan of dungeons myself.

Of course, one shall not experience the true horrors of downscaling until one has played as a minionmancer where your best minion can and will get crushed by like a level 12 enemy. :/

The real problem for me is the respawn rate. Veterans respawning when you’re looking for something is totally not cool.

Dancing with Ettin needs to be set to music.

It does take awhile to learn what each mob does. I particularly hate the ones that yank me. (that krait witch in the early sylvari area – she & I are not friends. Pick on someone else, you scaly hag!)

I was not aware that Guardians had the LOWEST health pool of ANY class in the game. If I had, then I probably would have built my Guardian differently. I’m presently reading Strife’s guide to Guardians on GW2Guru.

As for the other suggestions? I have my dodge keyed to my shift key, I do not have it keyed to double-tapping anymore because I KEEP dodging off of a bloody cliff and dying. Or almost dying.

I just wish Arena Net would find alternative ways to making fights more challenging other than tossing on big burst damage abilities onto mobs, or making their hit points like 100x a normal player’s health bar.

In my honest opinion? What makes a fight more challenging is when mobs can find ways to counter what you can use, not just override everything you have with one big burst skill.

If you’re being one-shotted, is it by something named “Veteran” or “Champion”? Or is it one of the ogres/ettins/giants? Because those . . . those are no joke, if you’re not dodging your rolls off. Oh, it’s the krait.

I’m going to need to test that out., but it’s worth noting that despite wearing heavy armor Guardians seem . . . really kind of fragile when they’re not holding Aegis or something similar. It’s why I haven’t entirely gone back to mine despite really enjoying the norn story.

As for why they buffed the krait? Fabled Djannor. There are people who were basically waiting the entire time for Tequatl AFKing at the asura lab and mowing down krait, coming back every few minutes to clean up corpses. Similar to what was going on at Shelter’s Gate and Penitent Camp. They did something similar at Kessex Hills when that centaur bridge quest was permacamped by about a dozen engineers.

Why? Because if you get enough people in there then other people can’t land enough to actually get credit for being there while the people who do are either not at the keyboard or doing something else at their desk. It’s not fair, and it’s why I’m not pleased with the change (now I ran by and NOBODY was at Shelter) something had to be done.

eh? I’ve battled a number of krait mobs now from various places and they don’t seem to 1shot me. They are more challenging now, but not OP. Just note that after the mob dies, dodge away or walk away as they seem to explode on death. The prob is that guards have really low health pool and poison does nothing to mitigate that.

On silvers, er, I guess my advice is to focus on surviving instead of dealing massive amounts of dmg in a short time. I’ve been to at least 1 explo path in all dungeons and the damage/health of silvers don’t seem too OP. What’s annoying is the effects they do (knockdown on puppies in TA, stone-something spider in TA, knockdown on gravelings, CC, healing, etc).

Lastly, you should be patient with yourself :P It seems you’re too hard on yourself, always expecting a 0-wipe dungeon run. Check yourself in your skill. You should know the encounter, and know what general strategy you need to use to overcome those problems. A wipe or two or three is nothing to be concerned about. Heck, I ran a CoF path 1 and we died 3x (terrible by people’s standards, but the rewards more than make up for the repairs). You should also always be moving constantly. The fact that you can chip in a few points of damage while going behind the mob saves you alot of time as the mob has to turn around and attack you. In dungeons, in your case, it’s all about surviving. The point of dungeons is to juggle the mob’s hits to your party. So instead of you soaking up all damage by mob 1 in an instance, you split them up to your party mates by running around and kiting.

Super last, read up on the encounters. Read guides, general strats, things to expect in dungeons as they help you immensely. Know what hits you can afford to take and what hits you desperately need to dodge so you can manage your endurance levels. For fractals, while a bit outdated on some stuff, I still recommend dulfy’s guides.

I hope I was helpful.

EDIT: Knight’s armor on guard is incredibly useful as your %healing is gonna be so much better. But I recommend putting some healing there instead of going full-on knights so you can abuse your guard’s low health pool. (just be wary of conditions!) I recommend either getting Voice of Pure trait or getting 6 soldier runes for instant condi removal on shouts, getting a shout build, and since you have Knights gear, try to get clerics trinkets to buff your healing while supporting your tough and pow at the same time.

Something like this http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#7|0|3527|3408|1311|3410|3411|0|0|0|0|15|1828|0|0|30|2281|2175|1395|20|866|2274|0|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

(just look at the traits). This way, every boon you give to yourself and your allies heals you for a decent amount. With renewed justice, you can heal yourself while providing might to your allies. And your GS crit hits also heals. You then have protection on demand so if you see a big attack coming, pop that in and you instnatly gain 33% damage reduction. I have a build exactly like this (but I don’t have cleric trinkets yet and soldier runes so my condi removal is kinda iffy for now) and I don’t really rely on my healing skill often. As soon as I take damage, I pop in some boons which heal me anything from 1-3k. The good thing with this build is that you benefit from your elite as well, in that not only are you going invul (which essentially buys you time till you can dodge-roll out or heal), but spamming f1-f3 before you use it and after can heal you for a hefty amount.

Thing is my guardian is only level 50, so she doesn’t have access to anything like Knight’s or Cleric’s or anything like that—that stuff is only available, at the very minimum? Level 60. I’m still having to deal with things like Strong, Hearty, Honed, etc…

Dark Shadoan.9413:

Thing is my guardian is only level 50, so she doesn’t have access to anything like Knight’s or Cleric’s or anything like that—that stuff is only available, at the very minimum? Level 60. I’m still having to deal with things like Strong, Hearty, Honed, etc…

Try Vigorous?

Thanks everyone, I’ll try out some of these suggestions on my Guardian and see if there’s any improvement. Also, feel free to message me in-game about anything. I’m always up for grouping up in higher-level zones due to how tough they can be to solo in at times.

Dark Shadoan.9413:

Thanks everyone, I’ll try out some of these suggestions on my Guardian and see if there’s any improvement. Also, feel free to message me in-game about anything. I’m always up for grouping up in higher-level zones due to how tough they can be to solo in at times.

If you’re on Stormbluff I’ll probably run into you at some point, if not . . .

I’m not guesting until the pitchforks are put away towards guests.

Others have given good advice. I am not particularly good playing a Guardian, so will stay away from second guessing there. A couple of general observations:

1. Playing in Greatsword tends to be a “glass cannon” in any class in this game, that is, it tips the balance away from defense and toward dps.

2. This game is not designed to allow a solo player to “face tank” (in the sense of the way tanks were used in EQ, WoW, etc) a Champion mob. Face tanking in this game requires the synergy of several classes, for example one group member is keeping weakness up on the boss close to 100% of the time, while a mesmer is keeping a Defender up, at that point a melee class specced/geared for 1900+ toughness could face tank…but can probably cut the damage they take in half by staying in constant motion…and as other posters have pointed out using the defensive cooldowns to counter incoming “blow of doom” type attacks.

3. One of the people in my small guild has a guardian which can function as the “main tank” when we run 5-mans. This requires an extraordinary degree of skill and an extremely fine tuned spec and gear at 80. In general, Guardian is a support class, designed for synergy with other classes rather than to stand on its own.

4. I really dislike the Krait, because they tend to “BAF” to such a degree that I do not see all of them (could be culling) and therefore can’t keep track of the animations on all of them to see that blow of doom coming. When I do fight Krait, I try to find open water and pull a few at a time using long range pulls…but open water means learning the patrol patterns of the moving ones, not just a glance around. Oh, and if I remember correctly, this particular attack of doom is a grenade thrown from range.

5. Group play in this game is less about individual DPS and far more about synergies from fields and finishers, boons and conditions. Those stacks of might on your team mates and vulnerability on the boss/mobs make far more difference than the last 20% in individual DPS, and I’ve been in situations where my finishers did more damage than my melee DPS. This isn’t WoW where 5 random strangers placed in rigid roles by a dungeon finder could “solo a 5 man together”. This is a bigger learning curve than soloing a class and you may not want to wait for 80.

6. I notice in describing your spec that you pointed to where the numeric bonuses went rather than to the selection of 10, 20, and 30 trait point abilities. Those abilities are the key to a spec; if they put numeric points where they aren’t needed, just compensate in choice of armor, runes, jewelry, the gems socketed in the jewelry, weapons, etc.

Oh, and everyone has that experience in Orr. It’s why people learned to outrun aggro (which is OK) and train it onto others (which is very antisocial). I think the devs intended Orr to cause people to learn to group and learn to use synergies if they hadn’t before.