Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing for a couple of weeks, but this isn’t my first MMO. I’ve always preferred supportive roles, so I decided to be a Guardian, and have enjoyed the soloable content a lot.

The trouble begins when I get in a group and do dungeons and stuff like that. As long as everything is going smoothly, it’s all good, but if the situation takes a turn for the worse and things get chaotic, I become completely useless. It’s like I dropped my bag of marbles & am trying to get them all back in my hands. Essentially, I panic. Within a matter of seconds I’ve blown through all my abilities in a random order because I feel like I have to do something, and my HB fails to hit an ally because I’m facing wherever.

I don’t have this issue as much when I am soloing or participating in a dynamic event where I don’t feel like I am responsible for keeping everyone alive. In the very few dungeon instances I have done, no one has ever said I was there to keep health bars up, but in the absence of a dedicated healer I feel somewhat pigeonholed into that position as if by some unspoken assumption.

Is there anything I can do to keep it together when things go haywire?

^ This in dungeons found a lot of folks perceive you as dumb if you don’t have a certain set of skills or whatever. This is codswollop as it’s all about how you USE your skills and what type of player you are. I say player skills>skillset/build.

You can run explores w/o armour in any dungeon and never go down. I do this sometimes to show players that’s it ain’t really about a build or whatever but how you as a player approach and execute a plan.

@OP you as a player are not solely responsible for the other players. Sure you can keep an eye out for other players as when to apply books etc. You should never feel you are responsible for everyone. I think that may lead to panic, you do not have to use your skills. Some skills maybe situational but helpful when it may arise.

Just remember you ain’t responsible for the entire players well being. You don’t have sole responsibility for everyone.

If anyone needs help with dungeons I’m happy to help. On the EU flipside though on Fri to Sun.

However if you want to run dungeons there’s some awesome folks that will help you regardless over at Operation: Union.

This is more social anxiety than a mere game tactic… If people get downed they don’t start blaming the guardian (and if they do, you may as well kick them right then and there, you don’t need those sorts of people in your party.) the best thing you can do is to keep yourself alive, as long as your up, the battle isn’t over, you can res other people, draw aggro, by protecting yourself you’re protecting your allies.

msalakka.4653:

Is there anything I can do to keep it together when things go haywire?

Soldiers, sailors and policemen have been asking themselves this question since the dawn of time.

The best advice that I can give is to make an effort to breathe slowly and not to worry about things that haven’t happened yet. Keep telling yourself that you will remain calm.

Keep picking your targets and taking your shots. Events will sort themselves out.

It also helps to remember that it’s just a game. People may get upset if there’s a team wipe, people may even try to blame you for it, but in the end no one’s actually be harmed or killed. It’s just a game.

I think the best thing you can come to realize is that Guardians are not a Healer/Tank.

They are not the person responsible for keeping the party up and alive. They provide support, they make the rest of the party more effective at what they do. But at the end of the day, if you get downed in a dungeon, it’s no ones fault but your own. (There are exceptions. There are always exceptions.)

These people are not your responsibility.

But, ya know, if you’re not doing anything else important, and someone falls over unconscious, throw a couple protective abilities in that general direction and try and get them up. It’s the sporting thing to do.

I absolutely feel for you. I play five characters, three of them are now lvl 80: Necromancer, Ranger and Guardian. My guardian runs around swinging swords and that is just fine when playing alone. When in a group I feel pressure to play in some other way that the rest of the group wants. Therefore I prefer not to use the Guardian in groups.

When she was around lvl 40, I took her to Ascalon a few times. The last time ended it for I got yelled at for not having the right skills learned for dungeons. The guy thought that Guardians were useless without that one particular skill. I didn’t have skillpoints at that tiem to learn it, I did later. But it left me feeling people expect miracles out of Guardians.