Guild Wars 2

anyone know which abilities are very very important to avoid if possible
per class would help alot thanks

Bleenko.2763:

anyone know which abilities are very very important to avoid if possible
per class would help alot thanks

Elementalist

• Burning Speed
• Meteor Shower (under maybe the last couple of seconds)
• Phoenix
• Dragon’s tooth
• Flame Touch
• Lava Font (exept maybe 1 DoT tick)

• Earthquake (Sometimes follows Magnetic Leap/Ride the Lightning)
• Magnetic Grasp
• Churning Earth
• Unsteady Ground
• Me (Shockwave)
• Eruption

• Lightning Whip
• Lightning Touch
• Updraft (often follows Ride the Lightning)
• Static Field

Obviously this list isn’t very helpful without context. Basically avoid the CC skills via positioning, or dodges if you need. They will often be followed by the heavy hitter skills. If you can’t avoid the CC, then use you’re teleports or SoH interrupt to avoid the damage.

I’m only going to list the abilities with big tells that can be avoided if you’re looking out for them. The best way to prepare yourself against such abilities is to carefully watch animations, know enemy rotations and look out for weapon swaps (on in elementalist’s case, what attunement they are in and which ones are off CD).

Warrior:
1. Eviscerate – Just be ready to dodge as soon as they switch to axe. For shield variants, you might have to dodge both Shield Bash and Eviscerate. Put out some gap so you have the time to react. Cripple via Dancing Dagger or Shadow Shot also helps.
2. Pin Down – Personally, this one’s a bit harder for me to dodge, but you can usually predict
as they’ll open with it or will use it when their weapon swap is off CD.
3. Earthshaker – Same as Eviscerate. Most might use hammer #3 first, so blind them when you get immobilised.
4. Backbreaker – Pretty big tell. Easy to dodge or kite if not already stunned.
5. Arcing Arrow – Big tell and they usually blast in Combustive Shot, so another easy to avoid skill.
6. Whirlwind – They will try to get in melee range and reposition before they spin.

Guardian:
1. Binding Blade – Hard to dodge for me, but I usually get lucky with random dodges on this one. If not, I dodge when they are about to pull and it fails quite often. Get ready to stun break.
2. Zealot’s Defense – Dodge into the Guard so you appear on the other side of this.
3. Whirling Wrath – Dodge and proceed to kite this.
4. Mighty Blow – Big tell. Easy to dodge.
5. Leap of Faith – Big damage for a gap closer. Easy to dodge.

Thief:
1. Backstab – Don’t get hit by it. Be erratic with your dodges, blind field, constantly move around etc.
2. Steal – 30 Trickery variants will use this as a stun break, so bait them to use it by immobilising or stunning and dodging immediately afterwards. Count time when it’s back up (usually by paying attention to their buffs via Thrill of Crime + another 10 secs). This alone can decide 1v1s.
3. Pistol Whip – They will precast it before they port, so dodge when you see them perform even at a distance.
4. Larcenous Strike – Another hard hitting skill that can be easily dodged.

Ranger:
1. Rapid Fire – Just interrupt this. Dodging won’t help.
2. Maul – Easy tell. Don’t dodge too soon though.
3. Crossfire – Just kidding.

Engineer:
1. Bombs – Avoid em.
2. Nades – Avoid em.
3. Incendiary Power – Meeeh, just avoid engineers in general.
4. Big Ol Bomb – Especially important while cleaving corpses. Count to 3, then dodge.

Necromancer:
1. Spite – I’m not very good at avoiding this. It’s a 1-win button. Good luck. Try to blind or dodge through necro when you expect it.
2. Marks – I just spam short bow 3 hoping I don’t get hit by chill or fear.
3. Enfeebling Blood – Easy to dodge. Weakness will end you.
4. DS 4 and 5- Interrupt them both.
5. Doom – Blind/dodge when they enter DS, especially when they are stunned. That’s when they will usually use it. Otherwise, dodge before DS 2 hits you.

Mesmer:
1. Shatters – Dodge through the clones running towards you.
2. Mirror Blade – Easy to avoid when at a distance. Close to impossible point-blank.
3. iZerker/iWarlock – First one is easy to dodge.
4. Illusionary Leap/Swap – Paying attention to the sound effect helps against this one.

Elementalist:
1. Phoenix: Must avoid. Random dodge when it’s up and they attune to fire.
2. Earthquake: Avoidable most of the time.
3. Ring of Fire – Stay put or it will stack burns if you keep moving in and out of these.
4. Fire Grab – Big tell with sound effect. Expect it after you have burning on you.
5. Burning Speed – Easy to avoid. They will spin around before they use it.
6. Auras – Shocking and Frost are both bad. Kite a lil when these are up.

I think that covers most of it. There are probably other ones I forgot to list out, but the important thing is to pay attention to what your opponent is doing and react accordingly.

Bleenko.2763:

anyone know which abilities are very very important to avoid if possible
per class would help alot thanks

You, as a thief, must avoid using:
dagger: backstab, auto attack, heartseeker, cloak and dagger and vs mesmers – dancing dagger
sword – tactical strike, auto attack, infiltrator strike/return, flanking strike, pistol whip
shortbow – cluster bomb, disabling shot, choking gas, infiltrator’s arrow for running away and auto attack vs mesmers
pistol – black powder, auto attack and sneak attack if condition spec

others – all dodges, evades and stealth giving utilities

Threat – if you use any of these too much, cries “OP”, “IMBA”, “NERF PLZ” occur, resulting in a nerf hammer to said skill.

Do you mean avoid using the skills yourself? Or if you as a player has to avoid certain skills your opponent is using against you?

I reckon it’s the first one, but good to know.

Edit: Rome and Shock pretty much covered it

As to Pavel, he was just hysterically funny. He’s right tho, Anet sadly listens to whiners…

Knowing the name of the skill does little really, you have to know what each skill looks like to avoid it and you can’t do that by reading a list.

Rome.3192:

Guardian:
1. Binding Blade – Hard to dodge for me, but I usually get lucky with random dodges on this one. If not, I dodge when they are about to pull and it fails quite often. Get ready to stun break.

That’s a bit of an understatement, considering the pull can’t be dodged oO

Crovax.7854:

Rome.3192:

Guardian:
1. Binding Blade – Hard to dodge for me, but I usually get lucky with random dodges on this one. If not, I dodge when they are about to pull and it fails quite often. Get ready to stun break.

That’s a bit of an understatement, considering the pull can’t be dodged oO

That is true, but if you dodge right before they pull, you don’t get pulled the full distance. Often you’ll just get knocked down on the spot.

Crovax.7854:

Rome.3192:

Guardian:
1. Binding Blade – Hard to dodge for me, but I usually get lucky with random dodges on this one. If not, I dodge when they are about to pull and it fails quite often. Get ready to stun break.

That’s a bit of an understatement, considering the pull can’t be dodged oO

What Zach said. Timing your dodge when they are about to pull will knock you down on the spot instead of pulling you all the way. Sort of like how Magnet or Scorpion Wire would fail when you pull a target that’s out of combat. It doesn’t work every time, but worth a try if you know you don’t have your stun breaks up.

If your overwhelmed a good general rule, is the flashier the animation the more its gonna hurt. I have no idea for the most part the skill names, but I know what they look like

Splatter Paw.7238:

If your overwhelmed a good general rule, is the flashier the animation the more its gonna hurt. I have no idea for the most part the skill names, but I know what they look like

Not all painful skills have flashy animations, unless you meant flashy as in style then the twirling strike from eviscerate is the winner!

Which reminds me, I’m seeing a lot of people just full on sitting under dragon’s tooth. Are people just unaware of the big molten dripping tooth above them or are they unaware of what it does yet? So many people just drop from it, it’s kind of funny.

NinjaEd.3946:

Splatter Paw.7238:

If your overwhelmed a good general rule, is the flashier the animation the more its gonna hurt. I have no idea for the most part the skill names, but I know what they look like

Not all painful skills have flashy animations, unless you meant flashy as in style then the twirling strike from eviscerate is the winner!

Which reminds me, I’m seeing a lot of people just full on sitting under dragon’s tooth. Are people just unaware of the big molten dripping tooth above them or are they unaware of what it does yet? So many people just drop from it, it’s kind of funny.

Yah I was playing s/d the other day and was completely shocked how many ppl got blown up with Dragon Tooth/Phoenix combos..

I feel like I get immob’d more often than not. I run SS and RoI for it, but it’s not enough because it seems like even though I get out of the way of the next big attack coming in, I still get caught in some AoE or something especially from a Necro or Mes. Warriors are ok because I’m getting better at dodging them / interrupting them. Or like a S/P / S/D thief that spams 2 to just keep getting me immob’d. What do you do when faced with this?