Guild Wars 2

Posted something about this on guru the other day, I will just repost it here for the people having problems with AC story mode.

Some tips for AC story mode especially:

- don’t rush, pull carefully. In AC story mode you never need to pull more than three mobs at once
- always keep moving, preferably in circles around your target (circle strafing), like this you kite melee and dogde AoEs at the same time
- pull mobs out of narrow corridors into more open areas whenever possible, or the camera issues will be your downfall (there is one nasty spot right at the beginning of AC story where this applies)
- focus fire priority targets, you should have a leader who pulls mobs, sets targets and makes sure everyone knows what’s going on, can be hard in PUGs though…
- boons and conditions can have a huge impact, if weakness is up on your enemy and protection on you, you take around half damage from hits, blind, aegis and interrupts negate strong single hits altogether, melee mobs never reach you if you keep CC up
- don’t all go pure damage and remember you can swap out your utility skills if you need a certain effect like condition removal, you can also change around your major traits to a more group friendly style
- if you didn’t do it already you should increase the mouse turning speed in the options to be able to react faster

on the individual mobs, from highest priority to kill to lowest:

- monks heal and are more durable than you’d think, but are easy to kill on their own. I never saw how much they heal, but you usually want to take out the healer first anyway
- elementalists are the most damaging on range, both their standard attack and fire rain deal much AoE damage. From my experiences, they seem to be weaker in melee, but I don’t if they just preferably attack targets at range or they can’t use their damaging attacks in melee range. Either way, a good opportunity for your melees, jump in and slaughter them, they also die a bit faster than the others
- rangers can be very nasty, especially the one pull right before the Ranger boss where you pretty much have to pull 3 at once. They shoot a special projectile that creates a spike trap, which does a lot of damage, cripples and poisons. If they hit you, you are pretty much a sitting duck because you are slow and your heal is less effective because of the poison. Here you want condition removal (preferably AoE, the Necros Well of Power works wonders here), you can also dodge the incoming projectile when you see it, but once the trap lands it is usually too late. I don’t know if reflecting the projectile works (it should I think), but may be a good way to deal with them as well. Technically another melee target, but can knock you back so be careful.
- Necromancers have a channeled lifesteal with a rather short range (just keep at range or move back a bit when they start it, it has very distinctive visuals and sound effects) and they do every condition at once (like the signet of spite of the necro), since I had Well of Power they were more of a nuisance than a threat. Condition removal hoses them.
- Mesmers are pretty easy as well. The only notable thing about them is the projectile shield, slaughter them in melee or use non projectile ranged skills. I never noticed them doing anything apart from the shield.
- Warriors are pretty straight forward, meat shields with a self heal. If everyone in your group moves around, they shouldn’t be a problem, just kite them and kill them last

I agree that AC is a quite extreme jump in difficulty compared to the event content.

Hi,

First I’d like to say, very good topic! This is a concern of mine as well since I love doing instanced dungeons as well. In other games, I have always played a tank, and I do find myself missing it in Guild Wars 2. Anyway, I don’t have an answer to this question, but I’d like to share my experience in order to hopefully shed some light in the subject. I’ve only run 3 dungeons so far for a total of 4 runs as I’m waiting until I hit Lv. 80 to do the rest.

I play a Warrior.

1st Dungeon Run:

Ascalonian Catacombs Story:
- Mostly DPS group, including myself. I was a Greatsword and switching to a Mace & Shield when things got hairy. We got destroyed; we didn’t make it to the first proper boss and once the first person dropped out of the group everyone else followed.

2nd Dungeon Run:

Ascalonian Catacombs Story:
- Right after the previous run, more diverse group; this time we had a Guardian and I was rocking a Hammer with the same Mace & Shield as backup.

We cleared the entire dungeon, we wiped at almost every trash mob but downed every boss on our first try except for the king at the end.

The Guardian did a great job with using skills that healed the group slightly while he did damage.

We came up with a routine where one of us would mark a target (CTRL+T) I would then run into every trash mob encounter with my shield up first, blocking as soon as the MOBs noticed me. This would make the rangers shoot me, but thanks to the reflect projectiles trait the arrows would bounce right back to them knocking them down. At this point I’d have all the aggro so I would dodge around as much as I could while the rest of the group took the heat off me. I would then switch to Hammer and knock down, push back, and interrupt as much as I could.

Someone would go down every encounter, and in most encounters we’d take out one or two MOBs, wipe, then take out the remaining ones. We took down the King by basically respawning every time he killed us and running back. Our repair bill was huge, but we beat the dungeon and had fun.

3rd Dungeon Run:
- Calwhatever Mansion Story: Using the same build as before, we also had a Guardian. We wiped the floor with this instance, not a single wipe from beginning to end. It was a guild run, but it was the first time the 5 of us played together as this is a PUG guild basically. No voice chat.

4th Dungeon Run:
- Ascalonian Catacombs Exploration Path 1: Feeling kitteny from our CM run we decided to take a stab at this. It destroyed our characters and our spirits. We downed the spider fine; however the boss after that with the two adds in the room where the king used to be wiped the floor with us. Each encounter lasted less than a minute, I felt there was not enough warning for his whirlwind skill and he wiped the whole party with it every single time, first use as it caught up by surprised. His adds were horrible too, Rangers are the worst.

Conclusions based on my 4 runs:

- I feel that every dungeon run needs a Guardian which makes me very sad.

- CTRL+T is the single best weapon in a dungeon; use it, mark your target, make sure to focus fire!

- Story mode trash needs to be toned down. Sorry; but Story mode should be doable by a PUG without wiping on almost every trash encounter, leave that for Explorable.

- A little more warning on certain bosses’ special skills would be great. Until then, pay attention!

- CM needs traps set around the dungeon like AC has. Make the bosses a little more interesting instead of regular “tank and spank” (Without the tank part…), I loved that each boss in AC had a different strategy, a theme if you will. I didn’t get that feeling in CM at all. The trash was fine here, we didn’t wipe on any of them but we still had to pay attention.

- Because the dungeons are so hard, when you actually complete one the sense of accomplishment is great! Don’t give up, but get ready to spend a lot of money in repairs, you will die a lot! Also, don’t expect any good rewards; you get nice exp and a helm at the end of AC Story, but that’s it. Do it for the fun, not the rewards.

- I see absolutely no reason to do Explorable other than wanting to do it to experience it. It’s hard and the rewards are crap.

Really agree with the above poster (Vanderhelm). Specifically, the trash in AC was miserable, but the bosses were either dirt easy (Master Ranger Nente) or reasonably difficult but still one-shottable with a PUG (The Lovers). My group only wiped on trash mobs, never on bosses. And this was with a defensively traited Guardian, defensive/support traited Warrior (me), a support traited Elementalist, and two Thieves who had to switch to dual pistols and heavily used their spammable blind because any time someone got in melee they were immediately dead.

Even with my banners and shouts, the Eles heals, the Guardians shields and heals, and the Thieves blinds, we struggled heavily against the trash mobs, but then absolutely wiped the floor with the bosses. I had to keep explaining to my Ele friend which mobs were bosses and which ones weren’t, because the difficulties were so off.

The Lovers was my favorite fight. It felt tricky, required coordination and strategy, but didn’t feel particularly punishing to any of us. The first half of the dungeon was the hardest part by far, and definitely felt the least rewarding. It was a slow, annoying trudge through wave after wave of tiny little death monsters, then we get to the ‘big bad bosses’, and they pretty much fall over dead without any effort on our part.

Ranger Nente in particular was laughable. The only person that moved the whole fight was our Guardian because he switched to a melee weapon for the fight. Other than that, we all stood still and used mostly DPS abilities. We didn’t even bother killing the ‘adds’ until the end, since nothing did any noticeable damage to us.

Not sure if the other dungeons are the same way, but the difficulty of trash compared to the difficulty of bosses in AC story was way off. The bosses need to be made harder, and the trash needs to get toned down. Honestly, I think they even need to add another real boss to it, as the first half of the dungeon feels like you aren’t making much progress.

Arena Net – Keep the difficulty as hard as it is. Just increase the reward significantly…

Having played Story mode on AC for the first time recently, I have to say that I think the biggest thing people don’t recognize about the damage they’re taking is the additional condition damage. Ranger traps cause bleed. Mesmers cause Confusion. Elementalists are causing burning. They wittle you to death and you don’t even notice it. Our group got through the Ranger trio with little trouble, for instance, but wiped on the Lovers twice because I was the only one that respec’d enough control to push anyone around.

I see that a lot of people are saying some dungeons are to hard but i found a big problem today when i ran story mode Sorrow’s Embrace. The boss Kudo summons golems and one golem has the ability to purge conditions on him and heal himself. That ability makes my condition build engineer useless and i have no weapon swap abilities besides kits which IMO suck (most kits also do condition damage). That is a big problem because it make it seem that Anet want metas in this game when the policy i know is everything is do able by anyone.

@ZetaStriker.
I agree with that. That was the biggest gripe with the instance(except the drops).
The condition damage was a bit over the top.

If the damage is avoidable, for example boss is charging up to smack you, if you do not get out of the way and dodge the attack, yes, you should be dead(or close to dead).
However, the random damage that is going around and the conditions that are being afflicted, should be looked at.
I’m all for making regular damage harder(as it’s your responsibility to avoid it), however the dots like poisons and bleeds were at times unavoidable.

I doubt anyone here is suggesting that it should be easier(though that is the general perception of a lot of people here). It should be a challenge. As mentioned before, my first run was thrilling, even as we ran back to the boss after death 10 times, but by the second run through of the dungeon, it became a bit tedious.

I think I’m simply suggesting the following, tone down the condition damage, keep the hard hitting blows that can be avoided the same(or a bit more). Hell, I’ll go so far as to say, lower conditional damage from thrash and make the bosses, like the ranger hit harder.

++Cheers++
Mintyfresh

The thing with conditions is you can cleanse them so easily. I can think of 5 abilities that cleanse them not to mention almost all combos through Guardian skills cleanse conditions. I think it’s more people are still trying to break away from the old ways of doing a dungeon and coming to the reality that your sole survival depends solely on you. Sure, you can get buffs and area denials that help you survive a bit longer, but no one can make you dodge/kite better.

Actually my problem with a lot of it is that it actually breaks the whole thing that Anet was going on about “IS IT FUN?”

According to ANET that was the heart and Soul of this game IS IT FUN TO DO? IS IT FUN TO PLAY?

I’ve got news for you, Wiping 25 times in a dungeon is never fun for any one especially at low levels… Some one messed up big time when they ticked the Oh this is very fun options in the Beta obviously.

That being said first run through yes wanted to throw my computer but in the end we 4 manned the Lovers, the Chick to the north of them and the King because the Instance bugs took out our Theif.

Second Run though knew the fights better not so hard.

I have to say that the dungeon content in this game is pretty horrible. It feels disorganized and just a zerg fest. Everyone trying to kite simultaneously while being spammed to death with conditions like poison and cripple. Its completely over the top and unfun if every possible way. I have a condition remover that I might as well as remove from my toolbar. Its on a 45 second cooldown and conditions are applied every 2.5 seconds.

Add to this how many HPs the mobs have, how totally underpowered the skills we have are and you have just a plain krappy gameplay experience. I play a mesmer and got the regeneration or phantasms……it barely does anything, and if I use anything other than the ranged pistol phantasms they die just within seconds of being deployed. Every fight in AC feels like a MMO fight gone haywire where the group was forced to cheese and kite and run around like little fairies to eek out a humiliating victory.

People getting downed over and over, people spawn rushing, people getting one shotted, chain knocked down and killed. There is no way to control the flow of the fight absolutely no tactics beyond focus fire on one mob. Other than that it is limp around because you are crippled and poisoned and try and kite and use your dodge to last long enough to use your piddly self heal.

GW2 has completely dropped the ball on the group play. If you want to drastically change how MMO group play is done than for the love of god make the content we are required to do make sense in light of all the limitations placed on us. The elite skills in this game are absolute garbage, the cool down on them is so long it makes them more of a novelty rather than anything useful in the grand scheme of things. Condition removals that remove conditions every 45 seconds? REALLY? If a mob sneezes he confuses you, poisons you, cripples you, blinds you…what have you EVERY mob applies conditions….and they SPAM them.

Quite frankly people might like GW2 for a lot of reasons but the dungeon play is definitely the weak part of this game I’d give it a D-. Its not so much hard as frustrating and requiring people to run around and kite frantically…no one stands toe to toe with anything. Oh and lets talk about the pittance we get as a reward? 15k xp? I can get more than that doing a trot around some newb starter zone.

The dungeon play in this game needs a serious rework…it might be doable but it is totally unsatisfying and humiliating to have to play this way. All your skills and tactics are useless…the only thing that matters if you are a good kiter. Kiting and being one shotted are always examples of poor design…when players are doing this you have poor design. Yet it seems Arena Net decided that they wanted their game to FEATURE this sort of gameplay.

Its bad…very bad. I will be quitting as soon as I can find an MMO or online game with a decent coop mode in it.

Yes there does need to be some tuning to the dungeon content. Yes the trash is the hardest part. Yes you do need to plan what you are doing to succeed. NO they do not need to make it so you can faceroll through the dungeon instance.

If you cannot adapt and overcome in this game you are going to fail horribly at dungeon content. THIS IS NOT WOW or any other MMO you have played. If you take the time to learn something and apply the tried and true concepts of all instanced dungeon running you will succeed. And let me tell you from the experience of having cleared a couple of these nightmares its prettykittengratifying when you do!

I’ve seen a general attitude in the dungeons so far that things are hard and lot’s of QQ about not being able to just storm through them on the first try and get all of the loot. On the other hand, I’ve also seen very little team-work so far (largely due to people not understanding this new way of working together, proper use of combo fields, etc). People aren’t running group builds part of the time, and just have maxed out damage for their general PvE leveling.

On the other hand, I have been with groups who had a very good grasp of this new style of group dynamic, and they blew through the place with little or no problems — the experience was radically different. It was orderly, there were very few deaths, and I got a real rush of excitement knowing how differently it could be done.

I think people need to take a step back and understand that these dungeons are going to be here a while, and having difficult content is a GREAT thing for the game overall. These are not meant to be zerged, these are instances in which we can test our knowledge of our class and our ability to work in synergy with our team-mates. Just give it some time… and not judge the design in the first few weeks after release.

Guild Members and I have done AC. Voicechat, decent gear, target focus and all of us were using support skills. After way to many wipes, we got it done. It was not fun. It is really sad I can’t bring my casual player friends into that, because it is just way to hard. I thought at least Story Mode would be doable with PuGs, but it isn’t. The game claims to be for casuals, but the difficulty will drive them away for sure.

Does the game claim to be for casuals? Where does it say that on the box, I must have missed that!

Again, as I said above, I’ve had different experiences, but have cleared it with pugs. Sometimes with wipes (if people were running around and not working as a team) and sometimes with not many at all.

Edit: also I might add that I found it awesomely fun. More of this please, Anet!

Lylin.5687:

NoFate.3786:

I’ve just posted in other thread about AC, it is pure disappointment. Explore mode was impossible to finish (Asura path) for group that had most players of lvl 50+, only I was lvl 33. We died infinite times and spent hella lot of money to repair gears and got nothing. 1st boss dropped green dagger and blue shield for whole group, so 3 of 5 ppl got nothing. And we could not complete second boss cuz of mobs that kept overwhelm us, wasted 2 hours there for nothing. And gorgules that 1shot you, srsly, who designed such things that 1shot players?!
And Relic, how do you think we gonna control, aoe, kite, blind 50+mobs that keep multiplying and run faster than we do with runspeed buffs?

2nd boss = the Lieutanent? Or one of the bosses down the paths? I found path one (the one involving the ghost) to be very doable though it takes a while to figure out the strategy. Once you’ve the strategy nailed down it is a very reasonable encounter.

No, i think you are talking about story mode where Rythlock is your guide. Story mode is possible to finish and somewhat fun when you boulder everything.
I am talking about exploration mode, where you get to camp with male human and then pick up with whom are you going to proceed, we picked up asura (tiny guy), and after that 1st boss was swordsman that pulls you, stuns and 1shots with spinning attack. Kinda dodge or die. and as for 2nd boss we didn’t even got there, cuz we needed to fill somekinda devices with energy first, and those devices were being attacked by swarms of gravelings, and I can not see how was it possible to do it with our group setup, we had mostly squishy classes who were eventually dead before devices are ready and one warrior who was able to kite mobs abit more but not long enough to finish. Killing those mobs were not anyhow possible, cuz they kept multiplying.

I was with a pub team that beat TA with my first run through I guess I must have been lucky based off some of these responses. I agree with most of the posters here that say it is unbalanced and horribly developed. Compared with underworld and FoW in GW1 it just doesn’t seem like it is as much fun.

In GW1 Underworld was difficult but it took organization with some thinking and forthought, this is just a cluster freaking mess with everyone dodging everything and trying to stick to one target while getting attacked by other targets. No champion seems to have real burst damage so the only really good skills are for sustain and survival. It makes sense gaurdians are doing well because they can sustain in a fight. There is no balance and its a just mess. In my mind its just not fun, its beatable and you can dodge your way to the finish, but its just not fun.

GW1 was really fun and had great replay value. GW2 seems to always want to keep you below the level of the monsters and weak…Its stupid and makes for a boring grinding feel and I really dont see the purpose of leveling and getting great gear. Everyone gets put on the same even level, you dont even get that fun uber fighter feeling that everyone likes becuase you are always underleveled. Sometimes I wonder if the developers actually played this game. It sounds like a good idea to make people low level and to not have agrro but it doesn’t make for as fun of a game imo. Some things like crafting and other components seem cool but the balance and aggro is too far off for me. I’ll play for awhile until I hit eighty and I think I’ll be done with GW PVE.

Hecate.9403:

Sometimes I wonder if the developers actually played this game.

Of course they played the game; are you trolling, or do you seriously believe that the developers of a game can go for many, many months and years without playing it?

Here’s an interesting thought; this game uses a rather interesting, new and unique dynamic (in my experience, at least): the lack of the Holy Trinity. You know what’s interesting about new things? Almost nobody is good at them first off, unless you’re a whiz (beta aside). Try actually sticking with it. Try actually saying ‘well that sucked’ and working out what went wrong, and then do something new. Try and come to terms with the fact that new things are HARD, and not everything in the world can be understood in a single try of its more difficult components (dungeons, in this case). Try realising that actual skill is the product of practice. Lots and lots of practice. Natural talent is something that people have to work really hard for (yes, that is a joke, and I hope you get the point).

If you are lucky and have a team you can chat to over vent, work out builds and combos to use. Work out means of mitigating the damage that kills you. Make sure target priority is understood, and so on and so forth. Don’t go in and expect things to get mowed down. And then, in case things don’t work out, DON’T go and complain that it’s too hard and abandon it. If, in two months or three months or however long, you still can’t beat whatever is stonewalling you? Then say it’s too hard. At that point you might be justified.

I just feel they really need to tone down the amount of HP some of the bigger mobs have, its not really enjoyable to kill trash that takes 20 minutes of kiting and controlling. All of the graveling stalkers, breeders and howlers need to really tone down either their toughness or reduce the massive HP pool they have.

shizniticus.7864:

Arena Net – Keep the difficulty as hard as it is. Just increase the reward significantly…

+1

I like ex mode, but it would be nice if it gave you a little more.

I’ve seen a few people be like ’that’s it?’ after an ex mode clear.

I have to say.. This is the one part of the game I cant stand.. The dungeons and the why the classes play in the dungeons.. I dont enjoy it one bit… Its not just the lack of Holy trinity.. Its the way the dungeons are designed themselves.. Terrible camera angles and everything.. Its an all around horrible experience.. The check points and the respawning over and over to keep trying to kill the mobs.. OMG I HATE IT!!!! Sorry I just had to share that.. Spvp and WvWvW are great (even tho I HATE QUEUE for wvwvw)… But Dungeons.. Holy $@$! …

Sparrowhawk.5608:

Hecate.9403:

snip

Of course they played the game; are you trolling, or do you seriously believe that the developers of a game can go for many, many months and years without playing it?

Here’s an interesting thought; this game uses a rather interesting, new and unique dynamic (in my experience, at least): the lack of the Holy Trinity. You know what’s interesting about new things? Almost nobody is good at them first off, unless you’re a whiz (beta aside). Try actually sticking with it. Try actually saying ‘well that sucked’ and working out what went wrong, and then do something new. Try and come to terms with the fact that new things are HARD, and not everything in the world can be understood in a single try of its more difficult components (dungeons, in this case). Try realising that actual skill is the product of practice. Lots and lots of practice. Natural talent is something that people have to work really hard for (yes, that is a joke, and I hope you get the point).

If you are lucky and have a team you can chat to over vent, work out builds and combos to use. Work out means of mitigating the damage that kills you. Make sure target priority is understood, and so on and so forth. Don’t go in and expect things to get mowed down. And then, in case things don’t work out, DON’T go and complain that it’s too hard and abandon it. If, in two months or three months or however long, you still can’t beat whatever is stonewalling you? Then say it’s too hard. At that point you might be justified.

Great summary, this is pretty well it. It’s a bit depressing that people are already yelling for nerfs in the first couple of weeks. Seriously, this is a whole new paradigm of group dynamics… give it time. If anything, I’m a bit worried that we cleared story mode on my second time through without any major wiping. I’d hoped even that would be a bit more work.

Many, if not all, people complaining about the difficulty of the exploration mode dungeons totally misunderstand the purpose of them. Think for a moment WHY would you go to the said dungeons at the first place? To get good gear? Dungeons does NOT drop gear much better you can farm in any other place in the world. If not gear then what?:)

There’re only TWO reasons to do ANY of the exploration mode dungeons and that’s what they’ve been designed for.

1. To get specific gear PURELY for cosmetic purposes. Yes you can use it to gear up. Technically. But in reality to the moment you obtain enough tokens to buy the gear you gonna outlevel it by far (besides lvl 80 gear obviously). In this game there’re MUCH faster ways to get equivalent gear than exp mode dungeons.

2. To have fun by overcoming the challenge in the group who enjoys that style of gameplay.

Having all that in mind we can safely assume that ANY of the exp mode dungeons have been tuned for BIS geared people at least of lvl 60 (unlocked full trait trees) who either want small group PVE challenges for the sake of the challenges or for the people dedicated enough to get that particular skin of a weapon/armor to stand out:)

TL;DR: Why do you complain about the difficulty of the content which was not designed to suit YOUR particular needs if you’re NOT forced in any way into doing that content?

PS. The only exception is story mode Arah, which you need to do to finish the personal storyline. This can count as a ‘forcing into the content’ case:)

Sparrowhawk.5608:

Hecate.9403:

Sometimes I wonder if the developers actually played this game.

If you are lucky and have a team you can chat to over vent, work out builds and combos to use. Work out means of mitigating the damage that kills you. Make sure target priority is understood, and so on and so forth. Don’t go in and expect things to get mowed down. And then, in case things don’t work out, DON’T go and complain that it’s too hard and abandon it. If, in two months or three months or however long, you still can’t beat whatever is stonewalling you? Then say it’s too hard. At that point you might be justified.

Its one thing to have a diffuicult area and have to build strategy for an area but these dugeons are poorly designed and they don’t play out right. I would much rather play in an area that is diffcult and if I die I have to leave the area. These dugeons with the waypoints play out like a zergling fest and its boring and time consuming. You just slowly mob down people. When I played TA when didn’t die very much but when I did it felt completely random. I felt bad for the theif who almost died instanly when he did meelee. Thats stupid, why have a assasin class if he dies instantly regardless of skill. I want to feel like my skill matters not just having to slowly grind away at a target over time. Also having random blasts where you die instantly or are thrown off of ledges regardless of skill has nothing to do with tactics or team skills its just bad gameplay. I know I’m a good player and I completed the dugeon but if you think the dugeons are good then you are entitled to that opinion but to me they aren’t much fun and its becuase of poor design.

Many other parts of the game are great, I’m not knocking the whole game. However if they want to have no traditional aggro in the game they need to have really well designed tough areas, these feel like a alpha concept dugeon.

It seems that working as a unit is what is required in this game. There is no trinity, so everyone is responsible for doing their part.

If a class can AOE heal and dps then that can help the group as it stays together. The other classes can help mitigate damage on top of this.

Ranged need to snare melee mobs as much as possible to keep them away, while melee need to use blinds on ranged. Focusing down a target with Control+T will help everyone focus on that one target at time. AoE heal while saying in a group whenever possible. Remember everyone brings some utility to the fight in a dungeon. Some mobs will move very fast, so all you can hope to do is move a little and snare while focusing them down.

Example1: Boss encounter 1 in CM. Use the fountain to mitigate the AoE damage the bot does (yes you can also use the environment to mitigate damage). With the group you will want to move around the fountain and put down aoe heals as necessary and mitigate his ranged missile attacks with damage reduction. All classes should be range attacking this boss only.

Example 2: Boss Encounter in Twilight Arbor, Faolains lair. You will face 4 corrupted versions of Tyrian Heroes: Rytlock, Eir, Logan, Zojja. The ranged are high priority in my opinion on this fight as they are harder to avoid, which would be Eir then Zojja. Logan and Rytlock can be burned down as you kite them in circles. You will want to stay together for this fight as much as possible and use all your damage mitigation skills you have in addition to AoE healing. ------The main element of this fight that is important is that Faolain needs to also be interrupted after downing each of the Heroes. It seems that simply dps'ing her to 75% helps to stop her from resurrecting them. If you fail then she will ressurect any of the Heroes you killed. After you have successfully killed each twisted version of the Heroes you can burn down Faolain fairly easy. AoE healing is important.

NOTE: There isn’t a trinity in this game, BUT that doesn’t mean you do not need at least one person with good aoe healing or a healing support build. Also, even though there is no tank it doesn’t mean you don’t need to have someone help the group mitigate damage. You cannot just hope to dodge everything. After running a dungeon several more times it will all likely be very easy. You need to work as a group to stay alive with what skills you have. If everyone has at least some toughness and extra health that is not a bad start.

I’ve found that the only ones who complain about dungeons are the ones that play with randoms, or “pugs” and try to zerg their way through the whole thing.

Even though there is no trinity, I have found that you need to split your group up into support and dps, however you should be constantly rotating that depending on who’s low, who is dealing most damage to that particular mob/boss etc.

take your time, evaluate each situation and react accordingly. This isn’t WoW people, it’s not made for 12yos

I cleared AC Story first time today, only had some trouble with Ralena and Vassar because we didn’t separate them well.

According to one of the other party members who has done it before, it has been tuned down a bit.

If you are a Mesmer, I recommend using Feedback on the rangers and Null Field on your allies in pretty much every fight. Also try to use combo finishers whenever you see your allies put down AOE skills.

I also suggest taking Illusion of Life, because getting your allies out of downed instantly is pretty good.

Not sure about Explorable or the other dungeons, but if anything I felt AC story was pretty easy.

Another tip is to make sure you have decent gear for your level – I purchased a set of Level 30 blues for less than 2 silver on the Trading Post, and made about 20-30 silver (including repairs) in the actual dungeon, so gearing up is definitely worth it cost-wise as well.

EDIT: To be clear, this was a PUG.

I tried the Dungeons with my guildmates and I find them really challenging.
Howewer the dungeons needs to be tuned a little:

- Trash mobs should be easier, especially on Story mode; for example: I don’t like starting a fight in AC on story mode and see my guardian lvl 80 nearly killed in a matter of 1 or 2 seconds by an AoE with a venom effect. It’s insane Those should be just trash mobs… sometimes they are more difficult than the bosses!

- Reward: right now reward isn’t enough compared with the efforts required to complete the dungeon; especially on Exploration mode!

- Repair cost: the repair cost is too high when the reward is so lame…

I did the AC story mode with my guildies and while we ran into some troubles, we finished it pretty easily.

GW is not WoW, you need to think of a collective build in order to make things easier.

And be patient, we are all still discovering the game mechanics. In GW1, the Slaver’s Exile dungeon first appeared as too difficult, impossible, etc. One mont later, we could run over it because we had understood the game mechanics and had the appropriate builds.

What is so bad about challenging dungeon? In my opinion, it’s a good thing because I have played many other mmos and it was always like “come on, kill the trash” – one aoe – trash down – “okay, now the boss” – 10 seconds later – boss down. That kind of dungeon is very common in most other mmos and it’s lame.

Dungeons should be supposed to be difficult. They aren’t neccessarily involved in the PvE gameplay to finish the personal storyline (well, Arah is) or to discover all of the world, etc. They are a challenge you can accept with some of your friends or even with random group. If you die, try it again. If you still can’t manage it, think about things that could be done better. Why does your team die all the time? Could you avoid this by standing on other positions? Maybe you should change your slot abilities? Should one of the foes be killed first?
Dungeons are most likely a tactical thing. They aren’t supposed to be runned through in 10 minutes and that’s great.

I’m happy to hear that dedicated and experienced players who have a trained and regular group are finding some challenge and fun in the dungeons.
BUT :
You all must remember that GW2 is supposed to be for every kind of players, not only very good raid specialists. Meaning that everykind of people should be able to get some fun in game.
While the challenging dungeons are great for some, i think that the other ones, the casual players, which represent in fact the major part of the population of a popular game such as GW2, should have access to some adapted content too.
Yes maybe we are dumb, slow, losers or whatever you think, but we are customers as much as you.
So concretly, keep the dungeons as they are for the ones who like it and can dedicate so much time and skill to it, but add an easier mode for casual players, with shorter sessions adapted to family life, with of course less reward etc…
WHY NOT GIVING SOME CONTENT TO EVERY KIND OF PLAYERS ? After all the dungeons are already here, it shouldn’t be that hard to add some easier modes, and yes some harder modes too if there are enough people enjoying it.

So far I have only done AC story mode but something does need to be said about it. As it is technically the first dungeon in the game, I do feel that it needs to be toned down a bit. This is the players first experience at a dungeon in GW2 and you seem to be thrown in at the deep end.

I did it with some guild members, early on our warrior had to leave us which left us with Mesmer, Necro, Ele and Thief. We tried to get another guild member in to fill up but he couldn’t get into our instance (that’s another problem though). Anyway, with 4 of us we managed to get through to and defeat N and K. After K our theif crashed and the game wouldn’t let him back into our instance (again, another problem). So with only the 3 of us left we pressed on as I knew there were only two bosses left, it took a lot of dying and running back but we managed to take down R/V and A. Needless to say it felt good completing the instance despite losing people, especially taking down what I consider the hardest boss in the instance (R/V) with only 3 light armours.

However, boss fights were actually easier than the trash in between and since this is meant to be a players first dungeon experience I think it is a good idea to nerf the trash a little bit. You should definitely still need to coordinate with your group, but AC should work players into doing that in some kind of learning curve. Rather than the bang your head against the wall till it breaks approach just now.

Aih.6892:

I’m happy to hear that dedicated and experienced players who have a trained and regular group are finding some challenge and fun in the dungeons.

We’re not dedicated or experienced. We just use our brains 10 minutes before going into the dungeons in order not to be wiped out every 5 minutes…

Aih.6892:

You all must remember that GW2 is supposed to be for every kind of players, not only very good raid specialists. Meaning that everykind of people should be able to get some fun in game.

Well, you have 95% of the game that is adapted for casual players. Why wouldn’t you leave the last 5% so that ‘experienced and dedicated’ players could find their fun too?

Ok fanbois, you are totally missing everything. 100% whooooosh over your head.

Nobody is saying that they want to tear through dungeons, nobody is saying that they want easy mode, nobody is saying they want ubar epicz in a 10 minute dungeon.

The fact is, dungeons are terrible. GW2 is a lot more PvE base than what it should be in the first place. So to throw in dungeons where all you do is kite and CC non stop or you get one shot and wipe, is not fun in any way.

Another fact. People are not going to spend 2-3 hours in a place that gives you trash. There is no reward at all for going in there, so don’t bother wasting your time.

I am willing to guess that 90% of the people here who are actually defending this PvE garbage have never actually set foot in there. They are just like “oh this isnt WoW, L2P, use skillz, etc.” In no game out there does every trash mob one shot a tank, and there is a reason for that. Challenge the player yes, but make instances where all you do is kite and CC? Sorry, no thanks. It’s not skill, it’s not challenging, it’s straight up boring.

TL;DR Bottom line is, PvE is not FUN at all. And the rewards for taking the time to do it are non existent.

Braize.4560:

Ok fanbois, you are totally missing everything. 100% whooooosh over your head.

Nobody is saying that they want to tear through dungeons, nobody is saying that they want easy mode, nobody is saying they want ubar epicz in a 10 minute dungeon.

The fact is, dungeons are terrible. GW2 is a lot more PvE base than what it should be in the first place. So to throw in dungeons where all you do is kite and CC non stop or you get one shot and wipe, is not fun in any way.

Another fact. People are not going to spend 2-3 hours in a place that gives you trash. There is no reward at all for going in there, so don’t bother wasting your time.

I am willing to guess that 90% of the people here who are actually defending this PvE garbage have never actually set foot in there. They are just like “oh this isnt WoW, L2P, use skillz, etc.” In no game out there does every trash mob one shot a tank, and there is a reason for that. Challenge the player yes, but make instances where all you do is kite and CC? Sorry, no thanks. It’s not skill, it’s not challenging, it’s straight up boring.

TL;DR Bottom line is, PvE is not FUN at all. And the rewards for taking the time to do it are non existent.

Huh. A post that completely dismisses any argument.

I think they used to call that trolling.

Story modes are fairly challenging, not hard. Explo modes are hard and I sincerely hope they stay that way. Fine tuning, yes, reducing difficulty across the board, no. I do think the particle effects, while very pretty are somewhat getting in the way. Especially those from an elementalist. Having a fire xplode on the target just as he is about to smash you usually results in a splat. Can’t dodge what you don’t see I’m sure as the game grows older, certain things will be refined.

Thing the main issue we have atm, in pugs, is simply that people do not know how to play the game yet. It’s been out for 10 days only! Even if you played it for 8 hours a day, which many can’t afford to do lol, you still don’t know all there is to it, not in regard to your prof and spec, and most certainly not in regard to other profs/specs you don’ t play. Give it time, enjoy what you can, practice makes perfect. As for loot, yes we’re badly influenced by other mmos up to date- where the primary reason for running an instance is a bag of goodies of some sort, well, looks like it’s time to start doing it for fun! If it’s no fun in a pug, make some friends. So far the community in game is pretty awesome If you don’t like making friends, well, that’s what DE’s are for, mostly a happy, chaotic mash aways:p

Dungeons arent too hard, people are simply new to the game. Trash mobs should never have existed, the amount of encounters is low, but each encounter is signifigant, it makes a dunegon more interesting when you cant just face roll to the boss.

Its a different game, and dungeons are meant to be challenging. First you have to learn the game, and get good, then you are ready for dungeons. Im not saying they are perfect, but they are entertaining for people looking for that type of thing. lowering their difficulty would essentially ruin them.

Braize.4560:

So to throw in dungeons where all you do is kite and CC non stop or you get one shot and wipe, is not fun in any way.

We don’t do that.

Braize.4560:

Another fact. People are not going to spend 2-3 hours in a place that gives you trash. There is no reward at all for going in there, so don’t bother wasting your time.

This is another problem and it’s not the subject here. We’re talking about the dungeon difficulty, not the reward. The reward problem already existed in GW1. I’m thinking about the Shards of Orr dungeon, where if you had a balanced team, you’d spent 2 hours in the dungeon with a kitteny reward. Players ended up playing with 8 assassins, rushing the dungeon in 20 minutes in order to maximize the reward/time ratio.

Braize.4560:

I am willing to guess that 90% of the people here who are actually defending this PvE garbage have never actually set foot in there. They are just like “oh this isnt WoW, L2P, use skillz, etc.” In no game out there does every trash mob one shot a tank, and there is a reason for that. Challenge the player yes, but make instances where all you do is kite and CC? Sorry, no thanks. It’s not skill, it’s not challenging, it’s straight up boring.

Oh this isn’t WoW, L2P, use skillz.

Edit : And I totally agree with the last 2 posters.

Braize.4560:

In no game out there does every trash mob one shot a tank, and there is a reason for that. Challenge the player yes, but make instances where all you do is kite and CC? Sorry, no thanks. It’s not skill, it’s not challenging, it’s straight up boring.

There are no tanks. If someone is trying to be a tank in the classical sense, they are going to get themselves killed rather nicely and spectacularly. Kiting and CC are very useful methods of dying less, if you got em (You do), why are you not using them again? Right, you’re busy trying to tank, right…ok. Dode, evade, block, get out of the fire, line of sight, kite… do what you gotta do to succeed. There is a way, you just haven’t found it yet.

Think it’s boring? Do something else. Some people do think it takes skill and that it’s challenging to coordinate proper CCs with thier group, and to chain useful combos and manage to get encounters done in a way that isn’t what we’ve been doing for 10+ years.

Braize.4560:

TL;DR Bottom line is, PvE is not FUN at all. And the rewards for taking the time to do it are non existent.

Then don’t do it. There are many (many) other things for you to do if you do not enjoy instances. And instances are not all there is to PvE, it’s a rather small part of it, really. Go enjoy all the other parts. You don’t have to do everything to enjoy the game, do what you do enjoy and be happy.

Aih.6892:

I’m happy to hear that dedicated and experienced players who have a trained and regular group are finding some challenge and fun in the dungeons.
BUT :
You all must remember that GW2 is supposed to be for every kind of players, not only very good raid specialists. Meaning that everykind of people should be able to get some fun in game.
While the challenging dungeons are great for some, i think that the other ones, the casual players, which represent in fact the major part of the population of a popular game such as GW2, should have access to some adapted content too.
Yes maybe we are dumb, slow, losers or whatever you think, but we are customers as much as you.
So concretly, keep the dungeons as they are for the ones who like it and can dedicate so much time and skill to it, but add an easier mode for casual players, with shorter sessions adapted to family life, with of course less reward etc…
WHY NOT GIVING SOME CONTENT TO EVERY KIND OF PLAYERS ? After all the dungeons are already here, it shouldn’t be that hard to add some easier modes, and yes some harder modes too if there are enough people enjoying it.

There is content for every type of player. That’s the beauty of the game. That said, it does not mean every player needs to do exactly the same thing. If you find dungeons aren’t for you, you can do DE’s, that mostly require no coordination, are easily accessible by anyone, anywhere.

I have a job and a family, and being a girl, loads of housework too, I still manage to find few hours to run a dungeon. I don’t do it everyday, I do it when I can. I’m as casual a player as it gets as I simply prioritize my life over any form of entertainment, still I enjoy a good challenge. And if things aren’t going well, we just call it quits for the day, everyone goes back to look at their build and what can possibly be done to improve the synergy of the group. I do explo mods with my guild, one full of adults with families, and no, we’re not successful all the time, in fact, we wipe over and over again, but we progress, and we find overcoming those difficulties very rewarding and satisfying. I don’t expect to clear the whole explo mode in one go, I’m enjoying the progression and the learning curve. We’ve only attempted a few, but we’re visibly better and better with every try. There is a whole world for you to explore, there is no way you could’ve seen it all just yet, enjoy it. There is content for every type of player!

Alverad.3167:

and being a girl, loads of housework too

That doesn’t necessarily go together!

Mind you, I’ve only done Story Mode, but there were a few things that stood out to me, and I would assume they are even more applicable in Explorable Mode.

• contrary to what every other games teaches us, killing the healer mob first did not work out at all. What worked best was to kill Elementalists and/or Rangers first, because they have the nastiest AOE DoT attacks (Burning and Bleed), and tend to show up in pairs more often than other professions. Logic tells me this depends on the combined group build… if the group is high on damage, you go for the Eles/Rangers, if the group is high on defense, you go for the healers. But so far, I’ve made no personal experience to prove that hypothesis.
• calling out targets and assisting is an absolute must. Put Assist on a key you can quickly and easily reach.
• pulling carefully is an absolute must. Never fight in narrow pathways if you can avoid it. The more open space to dodge and run to, the better.

But I’ve also noticed some problems which I think are contributing greatly to the frustration a lot of people feel.

• in some environments, the red rings are nearly impossible to see (for example when the ground is very ‘busy’ or uneven, or when effects overlap)
• mobs sometimes reset too soon to pull them into a more reasonable area, especially when you break line of sight (not sure if pathing issue or intended)
• threat was sometimes completely illogical… I have seen mobs literally run through the group, being attacked by all four people (and possible NPCs) to chase after one ranged player who wasn’t even attacking them at that point (because they were running) for several seconds (which is a critically long time in this game)

It’s small things, and some of them are likely just buggy, but they can’t be mitigated with skill or tactics, and that tends to cause frustration.

Braize.4560:

Ok fanbois, you are totally missing everything. 100% whooooosh over your head.

No need to apply stupid prejudiced labels to other players just because they have a different opinion or interpret other player’s posts differently than you. There’s not even a commonly accepted definition of that term you’re using there.

The fact is, dungeons are terrible.

That’s no fact but your personal opinion. I like them much better than in any other game I played so they as a matter of fact can’t be terrible.

Another fact. People are not going to spend 2-3 hours in a place that gives you trash. There is no reward at all for going in there, so don’t bother wasting your time.

Again an opinion and a generalization (people as in everybody) in one.
For me there is a reward because I like doing them and I like the armor sets and achievements. Other games don’t really offer better rewards for them (items you get are obsolete with next set and you don’t become relatively more powerful because the next content is adjusted to negate it) so I’m all good with it.

I am willing to guess that 90% of the people here who are actually defending this PvE garbage have never actually set foot in there.

Labelling and generalizing other player and making up numbers that don’t say anything nor contribute to your point but makes it even more moot.

I have yet to do any of the dungeons but I am glad they are not a faceroll. The only concern I have at this time is that it will take too many runs to secure a set of the pretty stuff.

Does anyone have any numbers on how many runs it would take for someone to get a full set of the AC armor? My hope is that it isn’t something I have to do 50+ times as that tends to become way too grindy for my tastes.

Alright. Alright! I wasn’t going to say anything. I really wasn’t going to say anything. I was just going to sit back and let this debate take its course. We all know the nerfs WILL come, anyway, so there wasn’t any reason for me to put my two cents in.
TL;DR –
IT’S GOIN’ RAIN! Dungeons aren’t fun. Move along. This is not the tongue in-cheek post for you.
The dungeons? Oh, they’re fine as they are. A friend and I managed to carry an entire group through (Me being the only one spec’d at all for any sort of healing/regeneration and taking advantage of Elixir R’s revivification as an Engineer, he taking care of conditions as a Mesmer, with everybody else… yeah. Fairly much doing whatever they wanted, since they weren’t listening to instructions other than, “Focus on this mob!” – oh, they had some buffs being thrown around, example being For Great Justice by our Warrior, but it’s not like anybody was waiting until it was an opportune time for the group or anything. They were just popping off their buffs left and right) an Explorer run of Ascalonian Catacombs.
Let me tell you again.. it’s fine! Just fine! I mean, hey. Everyone else in the group aside from my Mesmer friend and I were dropped to black-and-white-doom-and-death about thirty times or so – he died once outside of the Kholler fight, I died about seven times trying to babysit everybody else and make a show and dance to get them to dodge or draw aggro (Oh, shaddap. There may be no aggression table, but everything will still attack whoever is closest and/or doing the most damage to them) off of them to give them a breather, since nobody else other than the Mesmer friend and I understood the concept of playing Piggy in the Middle. But you know. He and I have known each other for about a year. We’ve played through dungeons in other games, we know each others’ styles; He knows I’m always scanning the area for what needs to be done now, and I know he’s thinking about what’s going to happen next. Together, we kept the ball rolling and made sure we kept each other (And others as much as we could without being a risk to ourselves (I’m sorry! The Virgo in me demands I go out of my way to help someone when they’re downed… even if I can see the AoE coming) up).
We honestly didn’t know anybody else in the group nearly quite as intimately. And we knew they didn’t know how to work together, how to look out for visual and/or listen for audible cues that a big-rift attack was about to come up against them. And, hey. I can’t blame them. Trying to watch for Kholler’s stance, or hear his, “COME OVER HERE!” is rather hard when you’re in the moment of a fight. Hell, if the Mesmer and I didn’t have our legions’ worth of experience backing us up, we wouldn’t have even gotten nearly as far, let alone FINISHING the boss – not to bring any mention toward the rest of the dungeon!
Onwards to the next objective, blah, blah, blah, more trash pulls – oh, hey! Look at that! I died once on the way, everyone else… well, naturally – but we got there,kitten We got there!
And you know what? What a waste of gorramn effort. Every boss fight was a matter of, “Hurry up and die so you can run back quickly before they reset,” and the last one? Even more so. But it wasn’t the silly little Spider-Man Lizard that got us down.
HOW MUCH POISON CAN ONE SPIRITUAL BEING POSSIBLY CARRY THAT IT CAN CREATE FIVE LARGE POOLS OF THE STUFF? And this isn’t the normal poison. Oh, no, no, no. This is poison that just loves to mess with you. Oh, you can get rid of it – but hahaha! Joke’s on you. Guess what? It’s right back. Know why? Because you’re crippled, you’re out of Energy, the group is spread out (Because, hey, what other known tactic is there to combat a cluster-… I’ll censor myself to, “Clusterbomb,” of AoE bombardment? Let alone constant, life-threatening AoE that just keeps coming?) so you can’t rely on them to heal you (If you were that coordinated of a team to begin with), AND your heals?

No. Really? No. The reward is absolutely atrocious, and in all honesty, nearly turned me right off of even continuing to play the game at all. 25 tokens? Yeah.. that’d be well and dandy, if the gear itself from the vendor cost ~30, 40, maybe even 70 tokens. But to cost 330 for an exotic chest piece?

The level 60 one.. Yeah, yeah. Same old as Ascalonian Catacombs. It’s a zerg-spawn-point-abuse-fest after you get squashed by some AoE of grandeur that makes you feel inadequate. I honestly only did it because I like the look of the gear associated with it from the vendor Morro, but no. I’m done.

The dungeons in this game? They’re not fun because they’re a great, all-around happy experience that brings together a group of people in the glow of victory. Not one bit. I mean, I didn’t like WoW-style raiding where a group of people POOF! into some place, run amok and walk away with riches, but this is stupid.

Once again now. I’m done.

Well there is no way for killing last boss of AC without die-respawn-attack-die circle.

rhodoc.2381:

Well there is no way for killing last boss of AC without die-respawn-attack-die circle.

And that doesn’t strike anybody else as a HUGE problem of gameplay?

In story mode? You can definitely kill him without dying.

In exploring mode I don’t know, haven’t tried yet

Yeah, in storymode AC I downed twice, and of that only “died” once on the final boss. First time. In a PUG.

Dodge the AOE, revive the guys who have been downed, and make good use of support-style elites. Roll out of the AOE attacks and heal when you need.
The only dangerous thing is his pull, and that’s countered by taking something like Blink (my death was from him pulling me into foefire and I didn’t have Blink equipped, since I didn’t expect it – second time round that won’t happen).

I have mixed feelings about dungeons, one of the problems is I think, fairness. Or maybe equality. If you (the devs) give a mob the ability to cast conditions, you need to give the player the ability to either remove, outlast or heal them.
If you give mobs the ability to hit hard. You have to give people the ability to evade, survive or reduce those hits.
If you have a lot of mobs spawning, you have to give players the ability to outlast the damage to kill them one by one/scatter them so they can be can be dispatched off harmlessly/AoE them down.
I think the above three examples are easy to agree with (if not, I really want to see it from your point of view). If you are not granted several counter abilities, then you will inevitably die, very soon in fact.
Let me ask a few questions though:
Why do condition removal skills have a very high cooldown, while the conditions get spammed on you all the time?
Why do mobs keep hitting hard while all the dmg reduction skills have long cooldowns compared to the time they are up?
What if you face a group of mobs but your AoE move is on cd because, hey, it’s actually the move that does the most single target dps as well, so you HAVE to use it, or do little to no damage?
What if you face a combination of all these?

I believe that those last foursituations resemble a few of the problem of GW2. It’s not that we do not have the skills to survive, obviously everybody can buy them and the currency isn’t a problem either.

The answer to survive those situations? You survive with knowing which skill to use when, to have the foresight to put them in your slots, to have traits in their effects so they are usefull enough, to have the luck that they are not on cd because you needed them before. For me, it’s the last one that gets me killed after a while. You might find yourself in a different situation, but that is the bottleneck for me.

One last point to make. It may seem strange. But without the holy trinity set-up I actually feel less of a group with other people than normal. I suppose it’s because of a lack of control though, if I have mobs going after me, I cannot trust a tank to pull them off me, because there is no tank and nobody can taunt. If I take damage, I can’t trust the healer to heal me, because there is no healer and group healing isn’t all that good. The only thing I can do is trust my own skills. And I feel that the other four do that as well. Mind you, it often goes well, especially story mode is easy enough that you usually make it. But if it gets dodgy in explorable mode, you have five different people that are focussed on staying alive. Not on keeping other people alive. Because, maybe only at this moment in time, nobody has a full grasp on everything yet. There is very little control. There is less teamplay than there should be, because nobody feels in control. Or knows that someone else has that control.

If you have no problems with that, fine. I personally am going to make some crafted gear and avoid explorable mode for now. It’s a lot safer, and dare I say, cheaper?

It’s been about an hour ago since I started making this post, I have long since lost the points I was going to make. I hope you found atleast something you agree with.