Guild Wars 2

I am pretty turned off by the expansion already due to the seemingly unavoidable damage that is everywhere now. I’ve been dodge rolling twice in a row and I still take hits that bring me to ~20% health. Should we all be going back to bunker builds or something?

I’m all for making the game difficult, but never before have I died so many times to things I can’t even see. It has sapped the fun from the game and I’ve found myself logging in less and less since the xpac dropped

Try adjusting your build and adding in some toughness and other stats/skills that increase effective HP.

This new PvE environment works a bit like WvW IMHO. Players in WvW had to adapt to “damage that is everywhere” through their builds and playstyle. It is good IMHO for some of that to come to the PvE environment. Makes it more interesting. You have to bring along some CC and condition damage even.

He’s not wrong though, enemies are relentless in HoT areas any non tanky builds get downed pretty fast while running away from enemies. Then again that’s a good reason to get a non zerker build and get some defensive skills for once.

The answer is yes. Part of the point of HoT is to break the zerker meta. That said, bunker build or not, I have no idea what you’re even talking about. The only things that have come close to that for me have been patches of pocket raptors around Tarir. Otherwise my enemies are always immediately visible and easily avoidable.

I am not having any trouble in full zerk. You’re doing something wrong, figure out what it is or change armor.

Jitsuryoku.9038:

He’s not wrong though, enemies are relentless in HoT areas any non tanky builds get downed pretty fast while running away from enemies. Then again that’s a good reason to get a non zerker build and get some defensive skills for once.

No one said he was wrong about the enemies. The suggested corrective action is to adapt the playstyle and build if he’s having trouble. That’s part of the game, figuring out how to win.

I sometimes have trouble in HoT in zerker gear, but my reflexes are rather slow, so this is to be expected.

But I notice that I sometimes get hit when I think I should not have been, like during the distortion sword attack of the mesmer or in the middle of a dodge.

I’m in full zerk, and not running into issues. My suggestion is traiting defensively, or changing gear.

I always advise buds to have as much dps gear as possible, up to the point you’re not consistently dying.

well my recent [yet pre-hot] run of personal storyline as paper thief relying on evades as defensive measures prooved quite a handfull of enemies yet in base game with some unavoidable moves….

Not complaining but … some damage is darn near unavoidable though. If you are in a narrow passageway with enemies that can summon minions that race around you in circles knocking you down and they have a damage aoe thrown on top for laughs , well that’s that.

I’ve just got my mind around the fact that if I’m running around solo, occasionally I’m going to die from time to time in ways that don’t always feel fair.

Enjoying the new areas a great deal. But to pretend like all situations can be dealt with by new builds and couple of extra dodges and the like is bit disingenuous.

edit: kitten filter once again.

Zerk or a Dps focused build can still work find for HoT stat wise.

You just have to bring in additional movement abilities, blocks, or ways to increase your Endurance.

That said personally I’m messing with my current build not going to add and tough or Vit but rather looking at increasing Concentration and Healing Power. Tough and Vit aren’t the only ways to increase survivabilty and as a Mesmer I can create a deal of regen already. Still haven’t messed with stats though and I won’t until more info is given about legendary armor.

I play in zerker just fine. Buddy I think it’s time to use actual blocks and defensive abilities and not play full signet builds while hitting 1 and double random dodging things.

Certain enemies seemingly have one-shot abilities that pretty much kills you if you’re hit. So far on my hate list are frog archers, mordrem archers, mushroom bombers and smokedogs. Some mushrooms even spawn adds that spawn pools that if you stand in, you’re 1 shot, and that’s pretty difficult to avoid when you’ve spend your defensive CDs on avoiding the 3-4 spawns that come out of the darn thing.

I don’t mind a challenge, and finding that strategy that works is part of the fun with any game. But right now I’m on the verge of just scrapping my elementalist in favour of the revenant and some good toughness just to be able to do the jungle without smashing everything in my sight. Right now I’m avoiding certain maps because it’s no use trying to get through an area filled to the brim with things that have a CD on their one-shot abilities far lower than the CD on your defensive abilities. And yes I’m stance dancing as much as possible, for all the good that does.

Lol yea, taking one of the frog spreadshots in the face will hurt.
Pocket raptors are weak, and easily killed, only issue I have is they seem to have an incredible range of attack, beyond a melee attack range.
There are rolling dinos that do nothing but roll at you, which I found to be the most annoying, especially if you’re fighting a few at the same time.

For some mobs, I think we as players just need to get experience n realize which ones you should focus first, before letting them overwhelm you.

I still run through em with zerk, little riskier, but a little more fun because of it, you can’t just walk around leisurely anymore.

It’s fine the way it is. Full glass builds are still viable, but full glass builds also require a higher level of attention and skill, so they have a more balanced risk/reward style of play.

This is in stark contrast to vanilla open world content, where full glass builds incurred virtually no addition risk for completely ignoring defensive stats, traits, and abilities.

You can still run glass damage builds. You just have to actually play them like they’re glassy damage builds now.

A big part of it is learning the new tells and scripts. Normal mobs are more punishing than before with a gimmick burst attack every 10-15 seconds. Still, most of them to give you a fair chance if you study them. There is also lots of new stuff to not stand in like the blue goo from the chak and the fire lines from the snipers. Mushrooms are quite fun – on their own they are easy but a couple together love to combo you in a hilarious way with knockdown followed by bomb. Some of the Vet mushrooms also troll you by casting a red circle around themselves but then the actual spell is leaping to a random player.

A few types are a bit ridiculous like those rolling devils which seem to just pump out constant damage to anyone in melee range.

Eulolia.2467:

A big part of it is learning the new tells and scripts. Normal mobs are more punishing than before with a gimmick burst attack every 10-15 seconds. Still, most of them to give you a fair chance if you study them. There is also lots of new stuff to not stand in like the blue goo from the chak and the fire lines from the snipers. Mushrooms are quite fun – on their own they are easy but a couple together love to combo you in a hilarious way with knockdown followed by bomb. Some of the Vet mushrooms also troll you by casting a red circle around themselves but then the actual spell is leaping to a random player.

A few types are a bit ridiculous like those rolling devils which seem to just pump out constant damage to anyone in melee range.

The devils are extremely easy. Pretty much any hard cc, or just 4 or 5 soft ccs like cripple disables them for five seconds, knocking them down and preventing them from taking any actions at all.

alot of this is preventative… for example, pocket raptors, hit them with an AOE CC, and then as much AOE dmg as you can and you will find they die before even hitting you. Or you can walk into the middle of them, and wait about 1-2 seconds then hit dodge and tehy all miss with their first atacks, then cleave into them. Smokescales, is a waiting game, use any type of block for the first 3 seconds. then wait an additional 3 seconds before you start whailing on them so their eveade is down, then have at them. they usually die fast. rolling dynos just need to be interupted when they are in packs of 2-3 is all, then they die fast as well. Its just a mater of learning how to deal with them is all.