Guild Wars 2

It seems to be that the scaling of dungeons is way out of balance. In some places you have trash mobs of 6 elites 3+ higher than the player level to be dealt with by 5 players, and yet you have a boss fight that’s nothing more than “avoid circles” & DPS. There are fights where there’s 2:1 ratio of elites to players, and the only strategy that seems to work is die and hope at least 1 person stays alive until the NPC timer goes off.

Without the “standard trinity”, it seems to me that with the current balance of mobs/bosses/etc, that dying over and over is the ONLY acceptable strategy.

NB: for those that talk about gear checks, etc. When you have access to a dungeon at lvl 40, you should be able to complete it with the skills/traits/gear you would normally have at that level. A players shouldn’t be required to be max level and geared in full rares to be able to successfully complete a lvl 40 or 50 dungeon.

My disappointment in the dungeons are threefold:

(1) Loot: not much to say what other people have already said; the benefit of running a dungeon is less than most other ways of acquiring loot when factoring in repair bills, time, etc.

(2) Spacing (and this applies in other aspects of the game as well): the Norn are the biggest race in the game, and yet, we have dungeons that are built in such a way that we can barely fit in a space and see what’s happening around us, must less be able to fight (Arah airship, anyone?). If I can’t see what I’m supposed to fight and the area around me, how am I supposed to be of use?

(3) Dying as a strategy: seriously, this makes dungeons more frustrating/stupid/nonsensical than anything. So, the only strategy to move forward in a dungeon is for 2 people to enter a room, and run around until they die, to be replaced by two more people to do the same thing; rinse and repeat (explore CoF); or to have an area where the entire floor is covered by AoE that 1-shots (Arah). What’s fun for players to have no other recourse than “we just have to die enough to let some NPC do something on a timer”? I don’t mind hard mechanics or hard fights, but in order for a dungeon to be enjoyable, I think there must be a strategy of being successful – dumb AI or RNG luck or just dying and running back until a timer goes off isn’t fun – nor is it interesting enough to make me want to experience the content on other characters, since there’s nothing unique they can bring to the fight.