Guild Wars 2

Thanks to many guildies who contributed to this list. It’s not complete, so feel free to add to it as you see fit and I’ll try to update it. Upvote or report for sticky if you like this post.

Elementalist:

Dragon’s tooth – Giant fire spike above your head. Lands in about 1.5s for large damage. Move if near the edge, dodge if in the middle.
Ice Spike – Same as Dragon’s tooth but with an ice spike.
Phoenix- Flaming bird that slowly travels in a line and explodes for big damage. Can hit 3 times if it passes through you first before explosion. Move out of the line or dodge away.
Churning Earth – Ground rumbles, ele is standing still crouched for 3s. Major damage + bleed if hit. Usually just walk out, dodge if necessary. This is often paired with a teleport, so if an ele is churning earth somewhere else, be ready to dodge at the end of the cast.
Ride the Lightning/Updraft – Ele turns into a ball of lightning and rushes at you, minor damage but often followed by an instant-cast knockdown. Dodge just after/as the lightening explodes to avoid it.
Earthquake – Ele hops up in the air, knockdown and low damage. Dodge during the jump, on the way down.
Meteor Shower – Ele stands still for 3s, flaming hands. Cast continues for a short duration after casting is over. Meteors crit hit for 2-2.5k. Move out of the circle, usually no need to dodge.
Burning Speed – Ele slides toward you shoulder first, explodes for large damage. Dodge when you see him rushing at you, shoulder first.
Shockwave – Ground disturbance, travels in a line. Bleeds and immobilizes. Dodge or move out of the way, it’s pretty slow.
Gust – Same as shockwave but it knocks back with no bleed.
Eruption – Rumbling rocks form and compact, then explode ~2s later. Good damage, 12s bleed. Takes forever to go off, move out; dodge only if necessary.
Lava Font – Small fire pile on the ground, major damage if stood in. Move out quickly or dodge if necessary.
Fire Grab – From chest, ele reaches out and does a short range fire blast. Massive damage if on fire. If you’re burning, they have a dagger OH and close the gap on you, dodge.

If you see an ele with a brown bubble around them, they’ll reflect all projectiles for the next 3s.

If you get immobilized/stunned vs an ele, use a condi removal or stun break or it’s gonna hurt.

Engineer:

Any Immobilize – If a giant net is flying at your face, either dodge or be ready to clear all conditions. Don’t trust that you’ll hit it with a single target condition removal because Engi spams conditions easily to cover it.
Big ol’ Bomb – AoE Knockback with a pretty big radius. It looks like an Asura sized Barrel on the ground and has a couple second delay. It’s best to just run out to get clear of the radius but it is possible to time your dodge to evade the KB.
Overcharged Shot – This one is hard to see but you can predict it if you have good game sense. It has a very short range and most Engi’s use it immediately following Jump Shot – So if an Engi runs up to you and hops up in the air expect to get the KB next. Some practice is likely needed for timing on this one.
Static Shield/Magnetic Field – Both of these can be predicted by watching for the Engi putting up a shield and no longer auto-attacking. One is a reflect so just keep an eye out for the tell-tale reflect bubble for that one.
Turrets – Rocket, Thumper, Net all have CC tied to their activatable. The activatable though is an on next hit attack, so just keep an eye out for when the attacks are hitting you and you can know when each cc could possibly land. For the Rockets KD it can be seen by watching the rockets themselves, a normal rocket will fly essentially straight at the target while the KD rocket has a ballistic approach and will travel much higher before hitting.
Air Blast – This attack is tied to the Flamethrower. Although it doesn’t have an easily spottable animation you can bet that if you are sitting on an Engi’s kitten and they equip the Flamethrower all the sudden that this is the first thing coming out.
Throw Mine – This works similar to a trap or mark from a Necro, so just look for the radius circle and avoid it. Mines in general also have a beacon type light on them that can be seen flashing dimly. One thing to note is that the auto trigger proximity is a bit less than the radius of the KB and the Engi can manually detonate at any time. Because of this I’d just steer entirely clear of it.

Guardian: This is half “When to Dodge” and half “What to Do.”

General Stuff: If you see a Guardian put up a big, transparent, blue-ish wall, you can’t walk through it. If you attempt to walk through it, you will fall on your kitten and lose about a second of uptime. If you get locked inside one, then run around the interior.

Utilities:
Bane Signet: Guardian raises his oh-so-mighty finger of doom at you, and then knocks you down. Super obvious if you know what to look for, and has a hefty cast time.
Hammer of Wisdom: The third hit causes a knockback. Most of the time this isn’t worth blowing a dodge on, but there will be times when it is. You just need to know when people are focusing you, and when they aren’t; CC while being focused is a death sentence.

Weapons:
1h Sword: The 3 ability blocks incoming projectiles while doing a healthy amount of channeled damage. The guardian is rooted while this happens, so simply walk outside of the 600 range to mitigate what he’s doing, and don’t burn your kitten.
1h Mace: The 3 ability creates a big ol’ ring of block that absorbs incoming attacks for anyone inside. Just don’t burn your big hitters here.
OH Focus: The 5 ability creates a 3-Block shield (another big ol’ ring of block), and detonates after 4 seconds. Detonation does good damage, so take the shield down if the Guardian is being aggressive with it.
OH Shield: Nothing worth mentioning. The KB on 5 is too quick to dodge (read: instant) unless you can predict it.
OH Torch: If the guardian is breathing fire, get away from him. If the guardian is on fire, he’ll throw it at will to do a good chunk of damage. The latter is hard to predict and harder to see in the midst of combat, so duel a guardian a few times who uses torch if you want to get the hang of it.
2H Sword: Auto-attacks hurt. Don’t let him sit on your face. The 2 (rams the sword into the ground) causes AoE retaliation for 4 seconds in a short area, so keep an eye out for it if that’s dangerous for you. The 3 snares the Guardian as he spins in a circle, doing high damage to everyone around him: either dodge this, or run away quickly, as the damage ramps up quickly. The 5 ability throws out a blade, which can be dodged. If the blade hits you, the Guardian can pull you to him whenever he wants within the next 10 seconds, knocking you down. Either dodge the initial blast or keep an eye out for when the Guardian raises his sword in the air, and dodge then; getting hit by this is not good.
2h Hammer: 3 bashes the hammer into the ground, causing a chain to shoot out and head towards the target, at which point it immobilizes. Can be avoided easily as this is effectively an unaimed skill-shot, but dodge if you need to. 4 is an underhand swing with a decent cast time that causes a big knockback. 5 makes the Guardian spin in a circle and create an impassable ring around him; good luck dodging this, as the Guardian can teleport on top of you mid-cast. Be ready to NOT run away if he lands it on you.

Warrior:

Hundred blades: Warrior stands still and attacks VERY rapidly for heavy damage.
Bull Rush: Warrior slides toward you and knocks you down. DIFFERENT FROM RUSH which they charge run at you. Dodge during the slide, as this is often followed by hundred blades.
Earthshaker: Warrior leaps at you with a giant hammer and stuns you.
Backbreaker: Warrior winds up and swing overhead to knock you down.
Pin Down: Warrior fires an arrow that immobilizes. Bow is drawn back.
Eviscerate: Axe MH, Warrior leaps across to you for major damage.
Throw Bolas: Slow moving bolas travel at you to immobilize.
Flurry: Warrior takes out a smaller sword and swings it really fast at you, immobilizes and hits in a cone.
Skull Crack – MH Mace. Warrior swings to stun a single target for 2s at max adrenaline.
Signet of Rage: Axe Signet above head. Major damage incoming, so be ready to dodge.

Mesmer:

Shatters: Clones run at you, then explode. Dodge just before they get to you.
Mirror Blade: Purple axe flies at you and bounces. Can bounce off of the mesmer and give them boons before bouncing back to you. Dodge backward to stop the bouncing.
Leap->Blurred Frenzy: Illusion leaps at you which slows you, mesmer swaps places which roots you, stands still and does a series of rapid sword attacks. Dodging on the leap may be a good choice.

If you notice a mesmer is not really shattering their illusions, they are probably phantasm damage speced and if you’re fighting for any length of time, you’ll need to kill the phantasms.

Thief:

Venoms: Anytime you see venoms go up on the thiefs Buff bar. This can be an indication that steal is coming, and if it isn’t – venoms are dodgeable now – so every auto attack avoided is also a venom avoided.

Scorpion Wire – Slow moving black cable moves toward you, knocking you down and pulling you to the thief. It’s fairly slow, so move out if you can, dodge if necessary.

Backstab: when a thief uses a move that stealths him, a big hit is likely following it. This can be a bit of a guessing game, a good thief will stealth, wait for the dodge – and then attempt the backstab. Dodging away from their incoming direction and constantly moving can help you avoid the backstab.

Pistol Whip: Thief will often infiltrator strike in to immobilize you, then proceed to pistol whip you. If they pop haste immediately, you may not be able to escape the first 2-3 PWs, though spamming dodge while you are stunned can sometimes break you out of their PW cycle, leaving them with no endurance b/c of haste, so go to town. If they don’t pop haste, PW takes a moment to cast in which you can dodge or move out of the initial stun, breaking the entire damage cycle.

Necro:

Marks: AoE patches on the ground, very noticible, all very bad. Dodge or run out.
Lich Form: Run and hide behind something unless they are very near death, you cannot tank this damage 1v1.

Condition removal vs necros is key. If you don’t have any, it could be an uphill battle if the fight lasts very long.

Ranger:

Shortbow: Crossfire rapidly fires and causes bleeding when from the side or behind. Often paired with quickness for massive bleed stacks. Muddy terrain, crippling shots, entangle, and pet snares can all be used to put you in the position required for this skill. Watch your back, use dodges wisely (QZ is only 4 seconds), and prepare condition removal when encountering this type of ranger.

Reserved for future additions.

Awesome work just 1 more thing that eles can use blink whenever before they finish the channeling of Churning Earth, which will make sure it hits if u just walk to try to evade it.

Would help if you double-checked your stuff. For example “Leap->Blurred Frenzy: Illusion leaps at you, mesmer swaps places, stands still and does a series of rapid sword attacks.” Leap slows you, Swap roots you. Can’t dodge Blurred Frenzy while rooted. Which is what makes this chain so effective in the first place.

Mirror Blade is a sword, not an axe. If you are far enough away (600+), bounce won’t happen at all.

Engineer’s Big Ol’ Bomb has such a long fuse that you can easily walk away from it, even slowed. No need to burn dodge on that.

You could also add Moa Morph to the list of Mesmer skills to dodge. Too bad it has a 1 sec cast time, and you could easily confuse it with a phantasm cast which is 3/4 second time. Giving you a 0.25 sec window to realize it’s a Moa and try and do something. Which won’t help you, if he does Decoy->Moa, by the time he comes out of stealth, assuming you’re looking straight at him, there’ll be 1/10th of a second left before you’re a bird due to stealth lag.

Great list. Unfortunately, dodge is not infinite, and most everybody’s skills that break stuns are at 20+ sec CD’s. So, more than 3 of these in a row, and you will get more than 3, you’re screwed.

Great list. Unfortunately, dodge is not infinite, and most everybody’s skills that break stuns are at 20+ sec CD’s. So, more than 3 of these in a row, and you will get more than 3, you’re screwed.

True. These are primarily so people know what to dodge, as many don’t know the animations or how much damage to expect.

Considering people dodge my auto-attacks, I think this list is useful. Some damage it’s better to take, and knowing the things that are going to be heavy hitters will allow you to mitigate as much as possible.

Great list so far, keep up the good work!

I just typed up 5 paragraphs of tips on how to easier spot and handle mesmers (from a r27 mesmer) proceeded to hit post reply, then the website said – “L0l sry bruh, problem dun happened.. you’re SOL”.

Now I CBA to retype it all :/

this helps a ton. I play all classes but mesmer and engi so having this list is awesome. great work.

Thief also has scorpion wire, which pulls you in and does a KD. The wire takes a bit to get to you depending on distance. Can be dodged, LOS and just plain out-of-range’d.

The problem with dodging a Thief Backstab is that a smart Thief pre-casts Cloak and Dagger and THEN casts Steal so you get damage from Mug (assuming they have it), Cloak and Dagger, which is quickly followed by a Backstab. Most of the time it’s done with macros from a gaming keyboard or mouse making it virtually unavoidable.

What about Skull Crack?

Updates added. Upvote or report for sticky if you liked this post :-). Bump if you feel led.