Let me preface this by saying I am a returning player. I played for about 3 months, or so, at release and had an 80 engy and played through most/all of the dungeons as I was leveling up. I stopped because, at the time, there was really nothing besides WvW—And I had solo roamed enough(not a person to zerg, one of the reasons I convinced my friends to play. 3 person roam team!)
As a returning player(starting new) that has brought along 2 friends, this thread scares me.
My friends are used to the trinity, but I knew what to expect as I had run them all before. I told them what to expect. That skill and watching/dodging is the biggest part, and we will die and fail—It will not make sense at first, but some of the PvE encounters are very rewarding when you figure out what/when to dodge and beat it.
Then I read the forums. We’re all in our mid-20s, so AC is coming up. I’m scared, though, because what I thought would be a fun experience of leveling up and experiencing the dungeons as a different class, and with friends, sounds like it’s going to be the exact opposite of that.
From the sounds of this thread(and others), what I can expect is to not learn any mechanics of any fights while leveling up, and to be pigeonholed into certain group setups/gear setups in order to be even half-competent.
Is this really the state of (pug) PvE/Dungeons in this game? I understand min/maxing, and efficiency, but I have never seen it permeate so much into the general populace, and be so polarized in actual groups. I/We never had that problem in Rift, TERA, WAR, Aion, etc. While there were certain setups and speedrunners, they were in no way mandatory or the “norm.” — That seems the opposite in GW2. There is so much homogeny(in builds, gearing, and tactics[stack/DPS-burn to ignore mechanics], from what I hear) it’s scaring me, and I feel my friends will not stick with it--Not even to 80. And, from what I can see, there is a lot of vitriol towards people who don’t follow this strict “meta.”
Could we reasonably beat dungeons with 3 people? I remember leveling up at release—Everything was a giant clusterkitten. However, in the groups I joined we eventually downed stuff. I couldn’t see doing what I did at release with 3 people.
tl;dr
Is this thread really what I should expect as a new/returning player? Are my options either to spend hours in a dungeon, or not learn anything mechanic-wise?
or
is this me reading into the forums too much?
Yes you could beat ac with 3 people but you might have a hard time on burrow events if you dont have power mainstat gear.
What about other dungeons beyond AC?
Most pugs aren’t meta/dps/zerker at all. Don’t join groups that specify “experienced zerker speed clear” and you’ll be fine running whatever you want. The community that cares about playing as well as possible is much smaller than the broad community, and the most “elitist” folks avoid pugs anyway.
If I don’t join parties with any tags like that, will it be reasonable to expect to actually do the fights with intended mechanics? And it’s not exactly like I want to run whatever I want—I understand there is(and should be) some level of optimization and synergy in order to overcome challenges. I understand you also can’t just use Condition characters due to debuff caps/burnings non-stacking. Would it be reasonable to run a condi/“support” build while others use the “meta” of power gear?
What exactly are you scared about? Being “pigeonholed” into a select way of doing things isn’t exactly what this thread was about.
This thread was, generally, about how people don’t learn/can’t do actual mechanics of fights, instead relying on a stack/burn method(that they were told, and don’t understand why). As in some posts before, “the boss is dead before it even gets an attack off!”
And, as I said, I understand efficiency. If my friends and I stick with it, I 100% guarantee we will be doing it—But, we also want to know the fights. We want to know the mechanics, and know that we are “good” enough to do them. That’s what has been fun, to me, about PvE before—And same with my friends. We haven’t raided since HK in Rift(mostly been game-hopping trying to find our place), but HK was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had. I know that isn’t the magnitude of PvE in GW2, but I also know that personal skill plays a huge factor. That’s what I want to test and see, and that’s what I thought the thread was about—People not having the skill to actually do fights “as they were intended.” Not min/max’d, but just in general play.
BASICALLY what I want out of my post: Can we reasonably pug groups and be able to actually “experience” the fights? What will be the LFG time? We will look into the guild as well.
(edited by Koe.3549)