In general: while your blurred frenzy is higher dps the auto attacking, saving it for defensive use is the best plan 90% of the time. Also from the dueling tree you’ll have vigor on critical hits, so you’ll have pleny of dodges if you time them right.
For bosses, look up guides on youtube (Strife’s guides are old, and while some of the build advice is outdated, most of the boss mechanics are not). Watch the boss fights several times over if you need to so you can see what the attacks look like, so you’ll know when to dodge/blurred frenzy/F4/sword block. Also with the sword block, some attacks will have multiple hits to them, so make sure you don’t use the block then, or you’ll end up eating the other hit.
For trash, I’ve found myself liking pistol more then sword for trash encounters. The sword offhand daze doesn’t always hit as many mobs as you’d like, and the pistol CC is twice as long. Make sure you feedback/summon a warden/use a traited curtain on any mob that uses projectiles to avoid their damage. For non-projectile mobs, place the curtain some place that will not take the mobs away from where your meleeing them (against a wall/corner) and you can use the pull to interrupt their actions. Life steal food also helps. Slice of candied dragon rolls are like 80 copper and last 20 minutes (enough for most of the commonly spammed dungeon paths).
Also learning what mobs are more dangerous and how to avoid them helps. For instance, if I see a risen berserker start it’s axe spin, I’m getting out of range, otherwise I want to stand behind them so they can’t hit me.
Lastly, if you find your pug isn’t CCing the mobs much in melee and you’re still getting eaten alive, dodge out of range and let your phantasms to the work while waiting for your cooldowns to come back up. If this continues to be a problem, you can buy some extra time using signet of midnight for the PBAoE blind.
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