Guild Wars 2

Been playing about a month and just got my first 80 character, a guardian. It was easy to get to 80 just exploring the world, doing heart quests and events, but I feel like I didn’t really need to be very good at the game to do this.

Now that I’m 80 I’ve started doing dungeons and I realize that I’m just not very good at this game. I’m the person that dies the most in my dungeon groups. Partly it’s because I don’t know the dungeons and the other guys want to rush through. So I need to get more familiar with the dungeons, but even then I think I need help with combat in general.

First, I seem to take a lot of damage from dungeon mobs and bosses. My gear is all level 80, at least rares, and I expected as a guardian to be a better tank. Can I tank at all against bosses or do I need to dodge all their attacks? It seems like I can take just one or two hits before I need to pop my heal or run away.

And since I have really only one good heal, what do I do when I’m low on health and I’m waiting for the cooldown on that? Do I need to stand off to the side and just hit boss from range with a scepter? I never used a scepter throughout the whole game, because I could take everything with melee. Do I need to use a scepter in dungeons?

Yesterday I did the Crucible of Eternity dungeon. It was very hard, I died a lot and spent probably half a gold on repairs. Some parts were so hard that we were just dying over and over and it just wasn’t fun. Is this dungeon supposed to be like this or was my group just not good, or not doing it right?

Yesterday I also did the Shatterer dragon event. I tried to run up to him and melee him and died a few times. I notice that most people were standing off to the side, hitting him with ranged I guess? What is the proper way to fight a dragon like this, for me, a guardian?

Thanks for any help.

Yeah, don’t expect to be able to stay in melee range all the time. You’ll have to know when you can melee and when you have to retreat to heal and do some ranged combat.

You should be able to tank some bosses, or at least some of their attacks, but it takes time to learn which bosses/attacks you can handle without dodging, and which you can’t. Also, as a Guardian you have access to plenty of ways to buff yourself and grant regen. Make use of those. Like one of their traits will give them a bit of healing every time they apply boons to allies (which is something Guardians do all the time). Their staff skill #4 is an AoE heal which you can use for yourself and allies. Then you’ll want to learn to use your virtues. One of them grants you a heal, but use it wisely (personally I only use it for emergencies).
I would recommend bringing either a Scepter + something or a Staff so you can stay ranged if you need to.
If you plan on doing dungeons more often I’d also very much recommend investing in exotic gear as soon as you can. It’ll make a difference.

As for Crucible of Eternity, it’s a pretty tough dungeon for newcomers. Maybe better to start with an easier one. Ascalonian Catacombs has recently been toughened up, but it’s still a good place to learn the dungeon basics in my opinion.

Hello, legion.

The first thing to remember is that there are no dedicated tanks or healers in GW2. Thus, you won’t be able to “tank” in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, as a guardian, you’ll focus on supporting the party by providing damage-mitigating boons such as protection, regeneration, and aegis while controlling the enemy by using knockbacks, immobilizes, and blinds to keep the enemy from landing attacks.

Secondly, yes, you cannot eat hits no matter your class. Always stay moving in combat and dodge out of red circles and other major attacks. GW2 is about avoiding damage, not outhealing it. You’ll be able to stand still for weaker enemies, but certainly not for many dungeon enemies, especially Subject Alpha.

You do not need to always use a scepter in dungeons. I say this as a melee elementalist who has run with melee guardians. If you get good at avoiding damage, melee is perfectly fine- if you’re traited for heals other than your number 6, you’ll can gradually recover your health as you avoid further attacks. Again, it’s all about avoiding damage in the first place.

Crucible of Eternity is the absolute worst dungeon to run for people who don’t move or dodge, as Subject Alpha fights are all about movement, coordination, or timing. It’s personally one of my favorite dungeons, though, and I’ve run it in the past with no deaths. Those perfect runs, however, were with guildmates who knew the fights- I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it with a PUG.

Finally, about PUGs in general- to be blunt, many of them just suck. The people you run with do make a huge difference in how well the dungeon goes, as no amount of gear can carry a player in GW2. I would highly recommend finding friends to make a static group or joining a good guild.

Also, it’s been a while since I’ve done Shatterer, but I remember meleeing him in a hit-and-run way.

Group with me on CoF p1 and p2. Or go to GW2LFG.com and do CoF p1 and p2 all day. It’s the best way to lern dungeeons!

Isaac.6041:

Group with me on CoF p1 and p2. Or go to GW2LFG.com and do CoF p1 and p2 all day. It’s the best way to lern dungeeons!

(where is -1 when one needs it …)

Stay away from speed-runs they are not place for learning… there is enough runs around witch can be done at normal pace allowing to learn your class and dungeon.

Also as other posters said — never stay in one place, switch between ranged and melee depending on situation (sometimes its pure suicide going melee), dodge, … and with some practice dying will be thing of the past — from the experience of another guardian.

BTW, play with traits and builds and find one you like and have fun with it

you just gotta keep on moving. remember that the attack animation of mobs usually are pretty slow so even if you’re in melee, you gotta learn how to kite them. If you’re having problems surviving, i suggest a staff and a scepter/shield as they’re more support/defense-oriented weapons. You probably won’t do a lot of damage, but it might help you survive and learn the dungeon.

I don’t know what kind of gear you’re running but until you get used to dodging/etc. I recommend running something like Knight’s Armor and Cavalier Jewelery to get your self the maximum toughness possible and you’ll do decent damage

penatbater.4710:

you just gotta keep on moving. remember that the attack animation of mobs usually are pretty slow so even if you’re in melee, you gotta learn how to kite them. If you’re having problems surviving, i suggest a staff and a scepter/shield as they’re more support/defense-oriented weapons. You probably won’t do a lot of damage, but it might help you survive and learn the dungeon.

That is mostly true but Virtue of Justice’s burn can make it impossible to see what a mob is doing.

Anyway you CAN stay melee nearly all the time. There are only a couple of cases where you need range. One place that comes to mind if the Ascalonian fractal where you have to destroy the oil(I guess you don’t HAVE to but it makes things a lot easier and less risky). Those types of things you’ll learn about on the first encounter.

Your first couple of runs of a particular dungeon path doesn’t really mean much, they are basically all for learning what to expect. Once you have learned what to expect you should be adjusting your skills and traits and possibly the rest of your gear to deal with what is coming.

You can melee the Shatterer but you have to pay attention to when it flies up. If you stand where it’s claws(possibly the rest of the body) land then you will take a huge amount of damage. By being at melee range you are also more likely to end up in the crystals(this can be dodged but it’s hard to see at melee range), if the other people do not get you out fast enough then you will be downed.

You usually CAN melee anything, but it doesn’t mean you always should do it. Make sure to retreat and pull out your ranged weapon, when your health gets too low. It all comes down to knowing the content, knowing how and when to dodge and knowing which skills to use. Keep running the dungeons, listen to what more experienced players say, look up some guides to help you out and you should be fine after some time.

Sorry but I’m in a hurry, just hit me up in game or with a pm and I’ll be glad to help you. Will edit this post later to add something useful

failing

that’s how i learn(ed) to play a dungeon.
it’s vital. you don’t know the dungeon yet, so you will fail sooner or later depending on the dungeon, unless you got an experienced player giving orders.

and once you’ve died, you know how to avoid you death the next time.

if you’re saying, that you’re a “enter dungeon name here”-newb after joining a PUG, depending on the PUG (and their rethorical abilitys and how friendly they are), you’ll get orders before the dangerous parts.
or you’ll get kicked…

More importantly, what build are you running with your Guardian?

I melee all the time at the Dragons (except Jormag) and no probelm surviving. You just need to know when to pull back, heal, and use your shouts and utilities. In dungeon run, I always run with Greatsword and Hammer, and has no problem with bosses. The idea is to intelligently use your shouts (as you might have guess by now, I use lots of shouts), virtues and other skills. Don’t think yourself as a “tank” where yyou need to face the boss and “absorb” hits all the time – you pull back and heal away from the boss when you need to, dodge when you have to, and (again) use shouts and distributes boons to your party members as much as possible (because I am running Altruistic Healing, that’s why).

Some basic ideas:

1) Don’t be discouraged. Everyone spends time re-learning their profession when they start doing dungeons, even if they know the encounters from previous characters. Dungeons are a very different experience from open-world PvE, and as you’ve found out, most of them require much more of your attention and skill.

2) Since you mention dying a lot: Do not blindly follow the crowd with gear stat choices. Lots of people talk about running Berserker armor no matter what profession they’re playing, but full sets of DPS armor are not always the optimal choice. Consider what you want to accomplish and choose stats accordingly. My guild has four people who all run Guardians regularly. One uses Knight, one Magi (I think), and two use Cleric stats on their armor. All four of them use slightly different builds to accomplish everything from holding aggro to group healing.

3) Gradually get your exotic gear. This will come from playing dungeons more, but exotics do give an extra edge. Check out what stats the dungeon vendors offer on their gear, and then maybe focus on a dungeon that offers the gear you want, as you’ll have to run it quite a bit to get a full set of six pieces.

4) Also, don’t forget about your trinkets, weapons, and runes, as they are just as important as your armor pieces. Dungeon vendors offer exotic weapons in various stats, just like the armor. Runes are easiest to purchase from the TP, if they’re not craftable. Trinkets are expensive to craft, but you can also get them from fractals and the laurel vendors. These items add a lot to your stats.

4) Traits make a huge difference. Sometimes using defensive and survivability traits can allow you to use DPS stat gear for a hybrid build that does good damage, but will help you avoid being downed/defeated constantly. Elementalists do this a lot with their Water traits, for example.

5) I suggest trying Honor of the Waves path 1 to introduce yourself to dungeon group play. Citadel of Flame paths 1 and 2 are absurdly easy at the moment, but because they’re so easy, they won’t give you much to learn as far as how a group can work together. HotW path 1 is probably the next easiest dungeon path after CoF 1 & 2, and you will start to get a feel for how a group can work together, especially now that the final boss can’t be glitched out anymore.

6) You didn’t mention a guild in your post. Having people you play with regularly makes a huge difference in knowing how your group is going to handle a given encounter. Pick-up-groups (PuGs) are inherently more difficult for anything. Effective communication is more difficult (many guilds use voice chat clients that make communication easy), you don’t know your teammates’ builds and/or play styles, and the players’ expectations may be entirely different (speed run vs casual run). On top of all of that, with a guild group, challenging content can be enjoyable even if you fail a few times at first, depending on the group’s attitude. Players tend to have less patience when playing with people they don’t know.

As a final note, try using Virtue of Justice just after the boss uses one of his big attacks. Many boss tells are spaced out so that the burn animation will have faded before you need to see his next tell. It isn’t always the case, but maybe that’ll help.

Good luck!

Most people I see go down in dungeons a lot tend to stand still, whether that is inside of an AoE circle or standing still in front of a mob in melee range, soaking up their hits. No class can just stand there and attack in a dungeon. Great idea to practice your dodges and know your limits. CoE for example becomes pretty easy once you know how to time your dodges right.

The Guardian class is very forgiving if you make a mistake – even when your healing skill in on CD. We have access to 2 aegis skills plus Renewed Focus which makes you invulnerable and recharges your virtues, giving you instant access to another aegis. With Altruistic Healing I can refill half of my health using staff skill 4 (not to mention all the other boons we throw around). I tend to pop aegis when I’m healing with staff skill 4 so I don’t get downed while floating about :P

And I do recommend using your ranged weapons once in a while. Your DPS might suffer vs using a GS all the time, but remember (and I can’t stress this enough) that lower DPS is better than no DPS (aka dying)! I keep a GS, hammer, staff, scepter and shield in my inventory at all times and am always switching my weapons out, but knowing what to switch to in each encounter will come with experience and will vary with each Guardian depending on your comfort level and play style.

If you ever want to try CoE again (or any other dungeon) I’d be happy to tag along with ya. Good luck to you!

wauwi.9162:

and once you’ve died, you know how to avoid you death the next time.

My group didn’t have so much of this, that is to say, figuring out how to avoid death the next time. The only thing those of us who stuck with the game after getting crushed in a couple of dungeons figured out was that we needed a LOT more practice at hand-eye coordination, speed of keyboard entry, and learning animations along with fast twitch reactions to them. We got that through practice in dungeons, soloing veterans, and trying to solo/duo Champions outdoors. We are still not good enough to lead dungeons, but can be adequate teammates in them and at least have pulled our death rate up to “average”, as many people die before us as after us in the average PUG.

Vick

Citadel of Flame paths 1 and 2 are absurdly easy at the moment, but because they’re so easy, they won’t give you much to learn as far as how a group can work together.

I have teamed with groups which fail P2, my success rate is about 70% on it. I still also see tpks on P1, though have not been on an outright failed run unless it was bugged. In my opinion anything that generates a tpk is not absurdly easy. Those who have regular enough play or a large enough group of friends/guild to actually do a dungeon with the same team more than once may have different experiences, though.

Definitely avoid speed runs on these, though, you learn little from them and they tend to be impatient with anyone who hasn’t run it dozens to hundreds of times.