Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,
So I’ve been having a real tough time with dodging in this game.
I’m a big fan of games with dodge mechanics, I play a lot of Monster Hunter and recently got into Secret World. One of the things I love there is how well choreographed the enemy attacks are. In monster hunter movements are relatively predictable and therefore easy to dodge once you learn. In Secret World strong attacks are given a circle on the ground that slowly expands until they “Hit”, so you know where to move.

In GW2 I just can’t figure out where to look. The big hits seem to come with little to no warning and I find myself in a downed state. Going with full toughness/vitality gear doesn’t seem to help either.

So, tl;dr : How do I dodge? What do I look for? When do I do it?

Experience.

In world PvE the things you have to look out out for are knockdown & stun.

In dungeons, some bosses can do 1 hit downs.

In random PvP, its a lot harder because you dont know the other guys playstyle. Also lag… However a lot of people open with either their strongest attacks or cripple/stun

well, here are a few tips:

red circles=bad. avoid standing in them.

big attacks are usually by a special effect those are usually good to avoid.

Stay out of red circles and look for enemies “channeling” their big attacks. There will usually be a special effect on their weapon or somewhere, or the enemy will just stand there taking forever to attack. Those are the ways to tell.

Also, I recommend changing your dodge keybind to something easy for you. Mine is R, I forgot what the default is.

All of the above and disable double-tapping, then put the dodge command on a separate key.
I chose the middle mouse button and can only recommend it.

Now all those accidental dodges and wasting of your “dodge-pool” are a thing of the past.

Also keep in mind that certain “big hit” attacks don’t have the trademark gold vortex tell, but rather a specific mob animation that precedes them.

Karka of all varieties come to mind here. They don’t have the same “big hit” tell effect you see on, say, an ettin smash, but their big attacks have very specific leadup animations they only use on those attacks. The same can be said for many other mobs, as it is extremely uncommon for a given mob to use the same animation for two different attacks unless it’s prefaced by the “vortex” effect.

This is something you’ll learn through practice, like the way certain karka will assume a noticable “stance” before acid sprays or stomps, The risen anchor dudes will spin a 360 before their pull, and a variety of other cues used to telegraph most attacks. it often takes a little study of the mob before learning those tells that aren’t super-obvious, but they are there!

The problem for me with the anchor pull is that it has such a range, and the risen model so bony, that it simply blends into the background. Especially on Orr where terrain and “population” is equally bleakly gray…

digiowl.9620:

The problem for me with the anchor pull is that it has such a range, and the risen model so bony, that it simply blends into the background. Especially on Orr where terrain and “population” is equally bleakly gray…

Aslo keep in mind, for pulls specifically, pulls lead to knockdown, knockdown counts, functionally, as a stun, and can be reacted to with a stunbreaker. I made a quick list of “all star” stunlock breaking utility in another thread here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Stunlock-issues/page/2#post1186597

Remember that dodging is limited, so knowing your enemy’s tells, as well as taking the proper skills with you for the enemies you face is important in PvE. Simple stuff like “when facing lost of knockdowns/pulls, bring a positional stunbreak to avoid stunlock” or “when facing blind-immune mobs, swap traits/skills that become useless”

Anet has said a lot that one of the things they want and expect players to do is regularly swap the parts of the skill/trait system that are freely swapped outside of combat to fit the current situation, similar to the way swapping builds in towns to deal with the next bit of content was the way the PvE meta was designed in the first game.

The main issue with that like of thinking from ANet means you need to run into, and survive, one or more encounters where you do not optimize your build for that specific mob or area. Problem is that people may well take that as a indication that their current build is “good enough”.

I find myself doing just that, look for that one “true” setup that i feel work for me. This in part because it allows me to learn the skills inside and out and be able to apply them in various ways during fights. Constantly swapping things up results in me getting my rotations broken up, and that again interferes with my response time during combat.

In most fighting games people tend to stick to that one character that mesh with how they want to play the game, not swap between them as they face different characters. ANet has built a mashup of a fighting game and a MMORPG, yet expect us to swap characters almost at the drop of a hat.

Not sure how they thought that was going to work out ok in the end…

My problem with “staying out of the red circles” is that in most boss encounters the effect has already hit you by the time the circle even shows up.

As an example, in the colossus fractal agony hits you if you are ever in the red circle, there’s no windup. Whatever negative condition (poison, cripple, etc.) is already applied the moment the circle appears. There is no “moving out of it” to avoid it, it’s just moving out of it to avoid “more”.

Unless there’s something else I missed?