Guild Wars 2

Last night me and another four guildmates ran AC path 1 and it was my first explore mode dungeon. I’ve heard the explore mode is meant to be hard and requires team work but this was an understatement. We took ~3 hours to clear it and that’s because in one particular fight we had to try 3-4 different tactics before we figured out how not to get wiped out and keep the key NPC alive.

This lack of the holy trinity is the best thing ever because it really forces you think out of box instead of having predetermined boring roles.

Even tho it was hard as all hell and sometimes borderline frustrating, it was fun all around.

Can’t wait to see the other two paths.

you should try Arah in Explore mode . you will rage quit !

try 80% of the instances and you will cry

Calavera.1086:

This lack of the holy trinity is the best thing ever because it really forces you think out of box instead of having predetermined boring roles.

It actually forces you into a much smaller box.

Gohlar.3671:

Calavera.1086:

This lack of the holy trinity is the best thing ever because it really forces you think out of box instead of having predetermined boring roles.

It actually forces you into a much smaller box.

Really? What’s smaller than “you take damage, you hit em hard and I heal you all”?

You are right, removing 2/3 of the equation made it more complicated.

/facepalm

Alright Mr. Facepalm let me tell you a little story.

We tried this pure DPS approach and we had our behinds handed to us on a plate. Then we tried the good old HT approach but not having specific classes to each role it turns out it was even worse.

So we had to think (you should try it, it doesn’t hurt) and we came with this plan: Two of us would use our control skills to kite the mobs, two others would use ranged skills to hit one of them and try to separate him from the flock and another player would run around and rez the NPC till he finished his work.

That’s thinking outside the box.

removing 2/3 of the equation? Does everyone realize when they say they “removed the trinity of tank/dps/heal” they MEANT they have a different trinity? It’s called control/dps/support :-P it’s just done differently.. there are still roles and you can do them all and are sometimes expected to do all roles in one encounter.. making the encounters much more complex.. the people running dungeons that are just running back from the WPs and going all dps are just doing it wrong ;-)

Calavera.1086:

Alright Mr. Facepalm let me tell you a little story.

We tried this pure DPS approach and we had our behinds handed to us on a plate. Then we tried the good old HT approach but not having specific classes to each role it turns out it was even worse.

So we had to think (you should try it, it doesn’t hurt) and we came with this plan: Two of us would use our control skills to kite the mobs, two others would use ranged skills to hit one of them and try to separate him from the flock and another player would run around and rez the NPC till he finished his work.

That’s thinking outside the box.

Thank you! Thank you for the love of all that is right in this world! Someone gets it! You know.. I read the forums every day.. every day and I reply quite a bit but to posts that comment on dungeons I generally just move on and don’t say anything.. but I’ve read too much today to take another word of “the holy trinity is a must for structured play” that I had to say SOMETHING.. I think I need to take a break from reading the forums :-(

callidus.7085:

removing 2/3 of the equation? Does everyone realize when they say they “removed the trinity of tank/dps/heal” they MEANT they have a different trinity? It’s called control/dps/support :-P it’s just done differently.. there are still roles and you can do them all and are sometimes expected to do all roles in one encounter.. making the encounters much more complex.. the people running dungeons that are just running back from the WPs and going all dps are just doing it wrong ;-)

even with my party running a good mix of support/damage/utility/control we still gotta wipe and get back up a couple times. feels bad man.

And pugs aint know how 2 dungeon for poo, tis the worst

Gohlar.3671:

You are right, removing 2/3 of the equation made it more complicated.

/facepalm

Removing 2/3 of the equation that were constants and turning them into variables actually made the equation more complicated, yes.

When classes are much simpler as they are in GW2, you have less options. With less options come less variables, not more.

There is a reason the combat is constantly being blasted as too simple.

Dice Dragon.4326:

callidus.7085:

removing 2/3 of the equation? Does everyone realize when they say they “removed the trinity of tank/dps/heal” they MEANT they have a different trinity? It’s called control/dps/support :-P it’s just done differently.. there are still roles and you can do them all and are sometimes expected to do all roles in one encounter.. making the encounters much more complex.. the people running dungeons that are just running back from the WPs and going all dps are just doing it wrong ;-)

even with my party running a good mix of support/damage/utility/control we still gotta wipe and get back up a couple times. feels bad man.

And pugs aint know how 2 dungeon for poo, tis the worst

I hear you, pugs are crap… I prefer to run with my guild mates but I’ve suffered through a few pugs as well.. all I can say is, try to get everyone that can to bring their mass res skills and explain to everyone before you run in how combos work and how certain conditions being kept up can help the group survivability… weakness, crippled, chilled, immobilize and poison are some beautiful conditions.

Calavera.1086:

Alright Mr. Facepalm let me tell you a little story.

We tried this pure DPS approach and we had our behinds handed to us on a plate. Then we tried the good old HT approach but not having specific classes to each role it turns out it was even worse.

So we had to think (you should try it, it doesn’t hurt) and we came with this plan: Two of us would use our control skills to kite the mobs, two others would use ranged skills to hit one of them and try to separate him from the flock and another player would run around and rez the NPC till he finished his work.

That’s thinking outside the box.

That’s working within your new, smaller box. It’s like playing with only a fraction of the options in most games.

You adapted to the rather extreme limitations of GW2, good job. Anet really did design themselves into a corner with this and it shows in the content.

Gohlar.3671:

When classes are much simpler as they are in GW2, you have less options. With less options come less variables, not more.

There is a reason the combat is constantly being blasted as too simple.

He said 2/3 were removed.. he was talking about removal of dedicated tanks and healers… you realize that the boss is still targeting someone at times right? and that everyone can heal right? those 2 things are still happening, but everyone is responsible for them.. and it’s classified as control/support/dps here… and all people must do all roles for the fights to work out well.. that means every person in a 5 person group has 3 jobs to do instead of just 1.. it’s more complex.

Gohlar.3671:

Calavera.1086:

Alright Mr. Facepalm let me tell you a little story.

We tried this pure DPS approach and we had our behinds handed to us on a plate. Then we tried the good old HT approach but not having specific classes to each role it turns out it was even worse.

So we had to think (you should try it, it doesn’t hurt) and we came with this plan: Two of us would use our control skills to kite the mobs, two others would use ranged skills to hit one of them and try to separate him from the flock and another player would run around and rez the NPC till he finished his work.

That’s thinking outside the box.

That’s working within your new, smaller box. It’s like playing with only a fraction of the options in most games.

You adapted to the rather extreme limitations of GW2, good job. Anet really did design themselves into a corner with this and it shows in the content.

It’s not a limitation if they’re giving you MORE things to do.. 5 people each have 3 jobs instead of just 1… what don’t you understand about this?

“I hear you, pugs are crap… I prefer to run with my guild mates but I’ve suffered through a few pugs as well.. all I can say is, try to get everyone that can to bring their mass res skills and explain to everyone before you run in how combos work and how certain conditions being kept up can help the group survivability… weakness, crippled, chilled, immobilize and poison are some beautiful conditions.”

Dont forget boons. Before I walked into dungeons I thought protection was silly, since “damage, I never take that!”

then come dungeons, oh boy is protection great, as is condition removal. Where as in overland pve, those two things are silly to have really.

callidus.7085:

Gohlar.3671:

Calavera.1086:

Alright Mr. Facepalm let me tell you a little story.

We tried this pure DPS approach and we had our behinds handed to us on a plate. Then we tried the good old HT approach but not having specific classes to each role it turns out it was even worse.

So we had to think (you should try it, it doesn’t hurt) and we came with this plan: Two of us would use our control skills to kite the mobs, two others would use ranged skills to hit one of them and try to separate him from the flock and another player would run around and rez the NPC till he finished his work.

That’s thinking outside the box.

That’s working within your new, smaller box. It’s like playing with only a fraction of the options in most games.

You adapted to the rather extreme limitations of GW2, good job. Anet really did design themselves into a corner with this and it shows in the content.

It’s not a limitation if they’re giving you MORE things to do.. 5 people each have 3 jobs instead of just 1… what don’t you understand about this?

You can pretend everyone is performing all roles if you like but obviously this isn’t the case. Benny Hill style isn’t skillful, it’s the last resort of a dumb combat system.

Dice Dragon.4326:

“I hear you, pugs are crap… I prefer to run with my guild mates but I’ve suffered through a few pugs as well.. all I can say is, try to get everyone that can to bring their mass res skills and explain to everyone before you run in how combos work and how certain conditions being kept up can help the group survivability… weakness, crippled, chilled, immobilize and poison are some beautiful conditions.”

Dont forget boons. Before I walked into dungeons I thought protection was silly, since “damage, I never take that!”

then come dungeons, oh boy is protection great, as is condition removal. Where as in overland pve, those two things are silly to have really.

Yea, world PvE and dungeons are waayyy different.. I hate banners as a warrior in open world PvE, who has the time to stay within such a small radius? but in dungeons, those things are awesome, regen for all plus some nice buffs.

I have a different gear and skill spec for dungeon and open world PVE because in the world I hardly ever get hit but in dungeons I was constantly 1 shot. In other MMOs you only have PVP and PVE gear/spec.

How’s that less complicated? The people who don’t get this are the one still locked in the traditional MMO mindset.

Gohlar.3671:

callidus.7085:

Gohlar.3671:

Calavera.1086:

Alright Mr. Facepalm let me tell you a little story.

We tried this pure DPS approach and we had our behinds handed to us on a plate. Then we tried the good old HT approach but not having specific classes to each role it turns out it was even worse.

So we had to think (you should try it, it doesn’t hurt) and we came with this plan: Two of us would use our control skills to kite the mobs, two others would use ranged skills to hit one of them and try to separate him from the flock and another player would run around and rez the NPC till he finished his work.

That’s thinking outside the box.

That’s working within your new, smaller box. It’s like playing with only a fraction of the options in most games.

You adapted to the rather extreme limitations of GW2, good job. Anet really did design themselves into a corner with this and it shows in the content.

It’s not a limitation if they’re giving you MORE things to do.. 5 people each have 3 jobs instead of just 1… what don’t you understand about this?

You can pretend everyone is performing all roles if you like but obviously this isn’t the case. Benny Hill style isn’t skillful, it’s the last resort of a dumb combat system.

Obviously this isn’t the case? With my guild runs, this is the case… You should join a guild that runs dungeons the right way man… it sounds like you’ve been seriously mislead and have been missing out :-/ I’m sorry.

callidus.7085:

Gohlar.3671:

callidus.7085:

Gohlar.3671:

Calavera.1086:

Alright Mr. Facepalm let me tell you a little story.

We tried this pure DPS approach and we had our behinds handed to us on a plate. Then we tried the good old HT approach but not having specific classes to each role it turns out it was even worse.

So we had to think (you should try it, it doesn’t hurt) and we came with this plan: Two of us would use our control skills to kite the mobs, two others would use ranged skills to hit one of them and try to separate him from the flock and another player would run around and rez the NPC till he finished his work.

That’s thinking outside the box.

That’s working within your new, smaller box. It’s like playing with only a fraction of the options in most games.

You adapted to the rather extreme limitations of GW2, good job. Anet really did design themselves into a corner with this and it shows in the content.

It’s not a limitation if they’re giving you MORE things to do.. 5 people each have 3 jobs instead of just 1… what don’t you understand about this?

You can pretend everyone is performing all roles if you like but obviously this isn’t the case. Benny Hill style isn’t skillful, it’s the last resort of a dumb combat system.

Obviously this isn’t the case? With my guild runs, this is the case… You should join a guild that runs dungeons the right way man… it sounds like you’ve been seriously mislead and have been missing out :-/ I’m sorry.

I found the dungeons pretty easy, even in pugs. You guys are in guilds and think it’s hard.

Yeah, I should really learn how to run dungeons “the right way” which is apparently getting killed a lot.

Bottom line is GW2, by design, has far fewer options and much shallower classes than other games. It was done for accessibility and I get that but don’t pretend that addition by subtraction is good. It’s good for people who are new I guess, but it gets very old very quickly to others.

Dungeons used to be hard, until they took a nerfbat to the knee

@Gohlar

I’m sorry, I must have been confused, you seemed disgruntled, I assumed you were having difficulties with the dungeons… And no, running dungeons the “right way” is not getting killed a lot.. once you know how to do a dungeon, you SHOULD be able to do it, with perfect execution, without dying at all.

You say it has shallower classes, I’m not going to go in to class structure. You also say that I’m pretending that “addition by subtraction is good”. I am not saying that.. I am telling you that there is no subtraction… I am saying that all people perform all roles.. and THAT is awesome.

callidus.7085:

@Gohlar

I’m sorry, I must have been confused, you seemed disgruntled, I assumed you were having difficulties with the dungeons… And no, running dungeons the “right way” is not getting killed a lot.. once you know how to do a dungeon, you SHOULD be able to do it, with perfect execution, without dying at all.

You say it has shallower classes, I’m not going to go in to class structure. You also say that I’m pretending that “addition by subtraction is good”. I am not saying that.. I am telling you that there is no subtraction… I am saying that all people perform all roles.. and THAT is awesome.

The fact that every class can fill every role is a horrible thing. I’ve never felt so….generic in a mmo, ever. Homogenization at its worst.

Kindstrike.1962:

callidus.7085:

@Gohlar

I’m sorry, I must have been confused, you seemed disgruntled, I assumed you were having difficulties with the dungeons… And no, running dungeons the “right way” is not getting killed a lot.. once you know how to do a dungeon, you SHOULD be able to do it, with perfect execution, without dying at all.

You say it has shallower classes, I’m not going to go in to class structure. You also say that I’m pretending that “addition by subtraction is good”. I am not saying that.. I am telling you that there is no subtraction… I am saying that all people perform all roles.. and THAT is awesome.

The fact that every class can fill every role is a horrible thing. I’ve never felt so….generic in a mmo, ever. Homogenization at its worst.

But thats wrong.

My support as a ranger is nothing like a guardians support, just because both are the same role does not mean they function the same.

Gohlar.3671:

You are right, removing 2/3 of the equation made it more complicated.

/facepalm

My warrior is tank/support with the ability to kite so thats 2/3 right there +1 for Crowd control from longbow. (Banner warrior wielding mace/shield – Longbow)

Just because you aren’t keeping agro 24/7 doesn’t make you not a tank. Also healing spring from rangers = best way to AE heal (dropping banner on top of it does a nice AoE heal) + constant condition removes (DECURSE DECURSE DECURSE).

The main difference from holy trinity is that it will not keep you alive 24/7. Got hit by an ae? No magic bandage going to put you at 100% unless well you have a guardian which CAN heal major wounds. Well unless he isn’t specced like that.

To OP:

That run will shortly go down to less than 30 mins if done right. It really is kind of shocking how less of a beating you take when you ran the dungeon so many times.

Dice Dragon.4326:

Kindstrike.1962:

callidus.7085:

@Gohlar

I’m sorry, I must have been confused, you seemed disgruntled, I assumed you were having difficulties with the dungeons… And no, running dungeons the “right way” is not getting killed a lot.. once you know how to do a dungeon, you SHOULD be able to do it, with perfect execution, without dying at all.

You say it has shallower classes, I’m not going to go in to class structure. You also say that I’m pretending that “addition by subtraction is good”. I am not saying that.. I am telling you that there is no subtraction… I am saying that all people perform all roles.. and THAT is awesome.

The fact that every class can fill every role is a horrible thing. I’ve never felt so….generic in a mmo, ever. Homogenization at its worst.

But thats wrong.

My support as a ranger is nothing like a guardians support, just because both are the same role does not mean they function the same.

Exactly.

But these folks are too filled with “It’s not the game I wanted!” rage they will never see it. All they will do is flex their kittens by saying “dungeons are easy” and try to rile you up.

Best thing to do is ignore those folks and converse with those that actually have input.

Agreed… the support type varies among the professions. However, there’s a combination of some poor design in the dungeons and players that insist they don’t have to change any utility skills or their traits (not necessarily a re-spec, but just even swapping out your 10/20/30 passive trait effects for other effects).

Yea, I definitely appreciate how each class satisfies each role in their own way… I came into this game wanting one of every class and I still do :-P

The holy trinity is awful and restricts a lot.
You’ve just used it so much you believe you NEED it.

with all exotic guys and everyone quite familiar, you ca nrun it in even less than 30 min. fastest i got i think was around 20-25min (but this was path 2, which is the easiest of all paths)

Calavera.1086:

Last night me and another four guildmates ran AC path 1 and it was my first explore mode dungeon. I’ve heard the explore mode is meant to be hard and requires team work but this was an understatement. We took ~3 hours to clear it and that’s because in one particular fight we had to try 3-4 different tactics before we figured out how not to get wiped out and keep the key NPC alive.

This lack of the holy trinity is the best thing ever because it really forces you think out of box instead of having predetermined boring roles.

Even tho it was hard as all hell and sometimes borderline frustrating, it was fun all around.

Can’t wait to see the other two paths.

Nice! Im gessing we are not as few as I thought!
I also had some hard times in dungeons the first time i went to them (Arah Exp path 2 is my best example… ohh boy…that was hard!) But taking our time to think diferent ways instead of QQ and quit made us succed it. Think where its the best way to stand, what to skip, what to kill, what skills to bring…. sure it got frustrating in some points, but overall it was really fun. Of course getting a good party is important, and by good i dont mean supper skillfull ppl that allready memorized the game, i mean ppl who are willing to learn, try new things/builds and instead of complaining have soe nice laughts at how you failed and try diferent. Games are all about fun, so you died?? Who cares?? Have a laugh, try again and succed!

Idk, maybe its that i got so used to be “tank spams taunts, healer spams heals, DPS spamns damage” that this game came like a hit of fresh air and i love it!

Dungeons are hard?? Yeah, some are hard. They are unbeatable?? Nopes, not even close, once you get to know them you can do it without deing once.

So wish you can keep having fun in dungeons and im hoping to meet more ppl with your attitude

Run it another 3 times it will get boring fast

wookie slayer.4259:

Run it another 3 times it will get boring fast

Run it enough to get an exotic set and… nope, still enjoying it ;-) My guild mates want some cool armor too and it’s always best to run it with your friends… makes for a much more satisfying run. It might be cool if they add a leader board though to track times for people who want to incentives to run them after their guild mates and themselves have already gotten everything they want… Like the challenge missions from GW1, that was cool.

Gohlar.3671:

Bottom line is GW2, by design, has far fewer options and much shallower classes than other games. It was done for accessibility and I get that but don’t pretend that addition by subtraction is good. It’s good for people who are new I guess, but it gets very old very quickly to others.

That’s weird because I remember certain type of MMO where, basically, you can run or jump around as much as you like, the mob will always be on your heels, and always face toward you, no matter what you can do. In such combats, I don’t see how staying in one place and spam your cycles of skills seems more interesting than having a real dodge mechanism, and different sets of weapon that allows to go from one playstyle to another.

Needless to say that the “shallower” indeed seems a bit shallow to me, when in the “holy trinity” your class is confined into one role, that cannot be changed except by creating an alt. And what’s even weirder is that a certain famous MMO, for which an addon was released recently, included “class specialization”, that forces the player to choose certain skills when he levels up, that cannot be changed later on, thus forcing people to choose a way they play their character without any way to change it back. Here, you change your traits (not necessarily unlearning them), you change your equipment, you change your weapons and… tadaaaa, brand new role in a group, or way to play solo!

But well, that’s an example among others I guess. Anyway, PvE will always be “shallow” and “limited”, mostly because of AI restriction, and particularly when you do a dungeon for the 17th time because you want the tokens. I find that PvP has a lot of potential, mostly because not every class has shown what they are capable of.

And if there’s nothing more for you to discover, because you’ve played your characters every possible way you wanted to play them… well… see ya on the next addon maybe ?

People are confused. What they did in ‘removing’ the ‘holy trinity’ is that they made every class viable for any role. You wanna play a tank ele? you can. You wanna play a healing/support ele? You can. You wanna play a glass cannon ele? you can. No class has any defined role.

Every class is viable in any role. That is the beauty of gw2. You don’t need to spend days leveling a ‘healer’ or a ‘tank’ because your guild needs one. You just need to respec your current character.

Quick Mouse.7635:

People are confused. What they did in ‘removing’ the ‘holy trinity’ is that they made every class viable for any role. You wanna play a tank ele? you can. You wanna play a healing/support ele? You can. You wanna play a glass cannon ele? you can. No class has any defined role.

Every class is viable in any role. That is the beauty of gw2. You don’t need to spend days leveling a ‘healer’ or a ‘tank’ because your guild needs one. You just need to respec your current character.

This. Anyone play a class based first person shooter (team fortress 2, battlefield)? All the classes can pretty much do a little bit of everything but each class has something they’re better at then the other classes. Whenever a team is just a random group of classes they can still win, but not nearly as efficiently as a team that is cooridinated and has each class doing something specific to contribute towards the team. In a few months once people will really start seeing the way combat in gw2 was meant to be played the game will truly shine. Until then just try and learn as much as you can about it.

People don’t really have the grasp of the mechanics of the combat yet. It’s actually extremely more deep then every man for himself.

You need to learn and master ALL of your characters traits including how they work with other players. Reset your points and try something different as well as all of the different weapon combinations. Once you master this you will realize you are a damage dealer, healer, tank, conditioner or a little of everything all at once, all you have to do is reset your points accordingly and learn how best to set them for certain situations. The guy argueing about losing the “holy trinity” doesnt seem to realize all of those roles are still in the game and can be changed to in a minute or two. Instead of rolling as a TANK you get to roll as a Guardian and spend your points to make the character you want to play as and change them as you see fit.

People are confused. What they did in ‘removing’ the ‘holy trinity’ is that they made every class viable for any role. You wanna play a tank ele? you can. You wanna play a healing/support ele? You can. You wanna play a glass cannon ele? you can. No class has any defined role.
Every class is viable in any role. That is the beauty of gw2. You don’t need to spend days leveling a ‘healer’ or a ‘tank’ because your guild needs one. You just need to respec your current character.

Except that a guardian of any spec is a better tank then even a mace/shield defense spec warrior, so I don’t really see the point of specializing your ele into defense because you probably won’t be preferred to tank if a guardian is there. And since guardians are designed to be the class for support-oriented players, they’re way ahead at that role without even trying. (I don’t mean to rant against guardians, they just happen to be way ahead in two roles.) If the design is that everyone should be able to do everything, logic suggests that they would be in a huge hurry to fix what would be an imbalance big like the world.

Yea I did one in AC and it was hard as heck! There was these 3 different class clones and you had to fight them but the trick was one of them was healing all the time. So much fun, these dungeons do have tactics!

Daddyrage.6902

I grinded 390 AC tokens when it was 30/20 I used to pug all the AC paths with ease. They only tactic is dodge the pull and spam the spikes. ( it is the best dungeon, but far from hard n tactical) not trying to be an kitten im just wishing they were harder

wookie slayer.4259

I guess but honestly their figuring it out, and for just coming out this game has a lot going for it with more paths coming eventually and more DE’s in new area’s. I personally enjoy this game and it does have some tactics but they’ll add more eventually.

@daddyrage
Your likely right and I’m sure it will get better, I hope it does soon or with new content which i will come back for

@Calavera, the OP. I am glad that you had fun in your first Dungeon Explorer mode. Congratz! However, you would soon realize that all content in GW2 is not static and has a diversity. I wouldn’t go to the extent of Arah or the higher level dungeons but try out the other dungeons. AC is one of the easiest and most rewarding Dungeons in the entire game.

Bearhugger.4326:

People are confused. What they did in ‘removing’ the ‘holy trinity’ is that they made every class viable for any role. You wanna play a tank ele? you can. You wanna play a healing/support ele? You can. You wanna play a glass cannon ele? you can. No class has any defined role.
Every class is viable in any role. That is the beauty of gw2. You don’t need to spend days leveling a ‘healer’ or a ‘tank’ because your guild needs one. You just need to respec your current character.

Except that a guardian of any spec is a better tank then even a mace/shield defense spec warrior, so I don’t really see the point of specializing your ele into defense because you probably won’t be preferred to tank if a guardian is there. And since guardians are designed to be the class for support-oriented players, they’re way ahead at that role without even trying. (I don’t mean to rant against guardians, they just happen to be way ahead in two roles.) If the design is that everyone should be able to do everything, logic suggests that they would be in a huge hurry to fix what would be an imbalance big like the world.

You would be surprised how well a tank spec’d ele can do. It’s on par if not better than a guardian tank.