Guild Wars 2

Cisza.9540:

Xhaine.4120:

This is because gear is only 50% of the game, the rest is skill.

As for clearing dungeons – gear is not even 10% of the game compared to skill – my friends with me run some testing in dungeons with green quality gear (with stats we wanted, not random ofc) – clearing most of the dungeons is still easy, thou it takes bit more time than running full exotic set (15-20 mins to about 35-40 mins).

I agree with rest of your post.

I agree with you more on 10%, but I just picked a number out of my kitten to be honest. 50% seemed like a number to not scare people I guess. Whatever the arbitrary percentile is, gear is not the majority

- Xhaine

One of the best fights yet! The fact that my group didn’t one shot him the first time is usually a good sign!

I think it’s hilarious to instead of learning his mechanics (not that tough) people decided to spend 10 minutes kitting him to a way point and then racking up repair bills to kill him? no wonder they are complaining they are making it way worse on themselves (First time hearing of this strategy).

- Xhaine

I’ve seen a lot of posts, Dungeons are bad. That’s all I get, I don’t get, “why”, most of the time. Mainly the, “why”, is I failed and all I can blame is the game and the design, not me, definitely never me.

Some people have good arguments. Bugs, bugs will be fixed in time. Large hp pools, have to agree on some mobs just seem to be there to lengthen the run (2 champs infront of the destroyer of worlds SE path 3 as example). This problem has already been stated by anet and they are looking to shorten/lengthen, add mechanics to stale fights. Rewards are the same as everything else? that is their design so a player can do any part of their game and ignore the stuff they dislike and still get best in slot gear. This is because gear is only 50% of the game, the rest is skill. They don’t care that everybody can get the same gear because that’s only half of it. As you already see “my group is in full exotics and we can’ t beat this particular boss, impossible!” threads. No trinity in this game, yes, it’s going to stay fortunately/unfortunately. There are plenty of games that use the other system that are still out there and popular.

Lots of the points above can be fixed, and fixed in time once data is gathered. Lets stick to constructive posts.

There are people here saying there is no group teamwork like trinity which is false, I play with tons of co-ordination, step back to re-evaluate our strategies, make on the fly changes/decisions, to make sure we all stay alive. It’s why my group can complete these encounters and lots can not.

- Xhaine

One trick is to strafe left and right quickly (careful not to double tap to dodge). This causes the grenadier to miss he grenade 75% of the time. Even though the red circle is on you he throws it at your directory and it will over shoot most of the time.

But yeah, just keep one alive while the rest 4 man the 2nd boss, the grenadier tanker does the trick above while hitting the mob so it keeps aggro.

- Xhaine

Warrior here,

I run with full soldier gear (vit/toughness/power) and knight jewellery (power/precision/toughness). I have around 25k health and 2500 toughness. I do not have full exotics. I also run with the dolyak rune but I will probably switch to the soldier rune for the condition removal on shouts. It removes a condition to everyone effected by the shout.

This is my Build| with this I can keep weakness on most of the time. I have a leap finisher for combo finishing. I also have 2 blocks (1 a counter) and 3 dazes to interrupt. I have 2 shouts (plus 1 in traits “Shrug it off”) for healing me and the team. Lots of conditional removal. Finally my elite standard to rally any hard to res team mates.

With that out of the way. I can basically what you would call a ‘Tank’, for 90% of the mobs and bosses I can just stand in everything they got with some smart dodging here and there. I don’t, I try to preserve my HP as much as possible with my team mates helping me with the heal and me alternating my cd’s to stop big attacks.

My friend is a guardian, helps keep up the protection while I have the weakness. He also builds a tanky style spec and gear (clerics gear). Between us we can tank forever.

I don’t know his specific spec or abilities if you asked me though. I could try and get him to post if you requested.

- Xhaine

Aelelan.1639:

Even the dungeons in their current form have their strong points which illustrate the potential power of the system. Lt. Kohler comes to mind immediately for me. Having to dodge that scorpion wire was probably one of the most fun mechanics of a PvE encounter I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The immediacy of the danger (knowing that if you didn’t time it right you’d be pretty much boned) created an element of excitement that was lacking for me as a DPS character in encounters from other MMOs.

I think you hit something here I’ve been trying to explain. Those times where your entire group dodges the pull and you get a feeling of pride in yourself and your team mates. The difficulty is what is fun. The part where if you as a player or your group makes a mistake it will cost you more. That more is what draws me in. That’s what I liked about the souls games.

Without something on the line it’s just the ‘grind’. Remember when MMOs when you died it cost you experience points? even in FFXI you could down level. No one wanted to die, each encounter was edge of the seat. When you did die you said to yourself, “I’m not making that mistake again”.

Who cares about the arbitrary in-game currency that you have to pay in armor repairs if you fail. Failing is how you learn. Eventually those will go away. After many runs of SE it was normal for me to run to the anvil and get repaired before doing the next run. Eventually I was running up there and then noticing my armor wasn’t broken. Eventually I could do all 3 paths without dying a single time. Now i’m making that in-game money in dungeons and taking it to pay for repairs of the next one I try to accomplish.

- Xhaine

@Hawken Best thing I read all day. Love it.

- Xhaine

@EverythingXen First off, love the name, second, nice post.

I can call out “I can’t dodge/block the next one, can someone slow/immob so I can get some time to regen.”

My team didn’t just throw out their slow/immob for the sake of using the skill cause it was off cooldown earlier. They waited to use their skill that would help me when I needed it as I was tanking Lupicus.

- Xhaine

Ender.3508:

I think this post in some ways applies to all of us, even the OP. I know that usually I do a good job of swapping up my utilities, weapons, utilizing combo fields and communication, calling targets, and reading enemy telegraphs, but I know that there are times where either through inexperience, or absent-mindedness I continue to use skills or weapons or tactics that simply aren’t as effective as they could be.

So take the post with a grain of salt. Experiment and learn as much as you can.

Well said. This topic is full of good posts. Reminds me of this quote

“The moment one gets into the ‘expert’ state of mind a great number of things become impossible” – Henry Ford

There is always room to learn more

- Xhaine

BlackToof.8710:

I agree with the poster above me ‘Tetsuo’
The tank had many other tasks such as:
- Positioning the boss (Back towards group),
- Kiting the boss (Away from AoE for example),
- Switching aggro to different tanks,
- Keeping aggro (Which used to be an issue in PUGs but not now it seems).

These are all used in GW2 as a tank as well.

I get so many conflicting stories here. People complain how hard these dungeons are, mainly because they lack a group co-ordination and cohesion. There may be no trinity but all the jobs are split up between the group members, couple tanks, couple healers, couple support, couple controllers, and of course the damage everybody does.

These are just as important in GW2. On chat i’m calling out events and adds just as much as any raid in the tough fights (hope there is more of these! looking at you lupicus).

- Xhaine

@WBL Do you have trouble with timing the dodge roll? It just takes practice.

Story mode being a teacher of sorts. I saw this in a post earlier a player suggested that the NPCs interact with you more, calling out when to dodge, when to combo field, what types of boons/conditions to use over the course of all the story modes. Second their should probably be a warning on the difficulty of exploration mode with (recommended level 80 down-leveled) not to say it isn’t do-able without being level 80. Just recommended.

There should be some things people just can’t complete because there is a gap. Not every players skill level is the same, just like every other game or videogame in the world.

Everybody can’t do everything. You add a ‘hard’ mode in that gives different rewards and people will complain that the ‘hard’ mode is too ‘hard’ and I should get the rewards from it. Which doesn’t make sense but it will happen.

Most people expect to be able to get everything. That is how our internet generation has been taught. Instant gratification. Luckily I was born before the internet (I’m 29).

Hate to use WoW as an example, but my guild could not do Naxxramus (vanilla), we could only clear the spider wing and a couple other bosses. Did I think I was entitled to be able to beat the whole thing? no, I did not, I did not think myself and my fellow guild mates were able to; without a large amount of time, more than we were allotted before BC came out. There was a gap and when I saw people in full Tier 3 gear I felt amazed at their co-ordination and dedication. I did not think “Wow, this guy has no life”, or “Nerd!”. As I was probably just the same as him anyway.

MMOs have now changed, WoW now set the bar that casual and low skilled people can be in the same gear as the rest of the people playing. Now, if you get into the financial side of things, do you spend money to create content that only a certain percentage of people can achieve? I think this great, I wouldn’t want to be able to complete everything in the game. Keeps me playing. When I beat every dungeon in WoW in the first month I get bored and they stop getting money from me.

This is coming from someone that probably will not complete the hardest thing to do possible. Although I have beat Arah and I didn’t think it was that hard, or my skill level has increased since the days of vanilla WoW.

- Xhaine

Someone said this to me as well, but when we ran it last night he still was the same old alt-tab fight. If it happens sometimes it must be how it works I can’t really see a bug like that. Hopefully the bug is that sometimes he doesn’t spawn adds.

I hope to fight him with the adds next time

- Xhaine

Hmm, I do think getting karma every dungeon is the right path. If you want karma you do events and if you want dungeon gear you do dungeons. Everybody likes being efficient in the way the play/do something.

However, if they ever implemented their random chance encounter/bosses system I think that is a good opportunity to reward some karma.

- Xhaine

I wasn’t insulted by it, if you are insulted by it…

I’ll leave it there. Don’t want to spark more anger.

- Xhaine

Yeah, Elementalist’s can’t do everything, I know I run with two usually, but other classes can make up for the rest. It is a group effort after all

- Xhaine

Ender.3508:

Kiyoki, exactly. My first time in AC we wiped 4 or 5 times in the first room because everyone was opening coffins. We had NO CLUE how to play it right and pulled tons of mobs without being prepared.

Now we can run every Ex path with very few wipes. Dont get disheartened, just learn from your mistakes.

Learning and adapting, it’s one thing as Humans we are good at and should use it more often!

- Xhaine

Sojou.2067:

In D&D campaigns, a reasonable dungeon master is not going to have one person tunneled to death because the mechanics of that ruleset won’t allow it.

If I don’t try and kill my party they won’t have fun. They know when I’m going easy on them, but I also don’t break the tactic of the monster to break immersion. Keeping intelligent being on one character breaks immersion.

Sojou.2067:

In games with the trinity system, mobs are allowed to tunnel a tank because the system allows for it. The game is designed for this type of combat structure, and as a result the fights can be better balanced.

It took years and an expansion before WoW got better at making trinities engaging and fun. Most bosses were tank and spank. There are a few exceptions. But compare old Motlen core bosses mechanics to ones in Wotlk or higher. It’s quite the difference.

No one has tried a system like GW2 has, it will take time to master. I already find it engaging and fun. I can’t wait for the future of this game.

Sojou.2067:

As a developer you KNOW the tank is going to be dealing with damage from X, Y and Z. At that point you know the tank will be doing A, B and C to survive (getting healed is one of those metrics). As a developer you can then chose to make the rest of the encounter engaging for everyone else, in a balanced, fair, and enjoyable fashion.

As a developer (as I am one, not for games though) you can also collect data and turn that data into fun. It does not matter what system you use.

Sojou.2067:

The majority of our fights have mobs or the boss pick someone and tunnel them for 90% of the fight, if not the entire fight. Occasionally we’ll have a run where the boss swaps targets, but it’s rare.

I’ve only seen a few like this, but most of the time I get it on me, which is a good thing. Since I’m the ‘Tank’.

- Xhaine

Well said.

- Xhaine out

Kind a turns it into a tank and spank for the 4 other people, but at least I have fun keeping the boss at bay.

Ender.3508:

Unfortunately, blind is useless against bosses :/ And some 1-shots cant be avoided, reflected, or dodged. Collosus Rumblus cough

He’s hard and fun, but that scream is a bit absurd. Huge range, huge cone, 1 shot downed.

I’m glad you mentioned this!

First off his Scream is a Huge AoE Cone that can one shot most people, not me, but most. But as you mentioned… it’ s a cone. A cone can be dodged by moving behind him. A simple tactic we use is to put me in front and the rest hit the back, no one dies.

But better yet! Did you know you can interupt his scream!? Why yes, yes you can. With 3 dazes i’m able to keep his scream from going off so my hp can get back up to full before I run out. If you hit him as he’s charging up it stops his scream and he moves on.

And if I do miss one, I may have to rely on my block, yes you can block his scream.

- Xhaine

I always thought it was weird in trinity style games when the boss just sits on one player even though it’s disadvantageous for him/her/it. I come from playing many DnD campaigns as a dungeon master. Many monsters have a tactic, whether it be, kill the mage, kill the closet target, kill the most annoying player to the mob. Varying the intelligence of the creature fighting the party. I’ve recognized some similarities in this game.

I’ve had encounters where me and another guardian can switch aggro and the other pulls out of the fight to heal because he targeted the closest target. I’ve had encounters were it will switch to people ressurecting another. I’ve had a boss stick to one ranged character a whole fight. I’ve had different skills a boss did target different people.

There is probably more, you are speaking of one style of aggro. There are many. To change your tactic in the midst of battle can be a tricky thing if everybody isn’t paying attention.

Why should the super intelligent being have the same aggro tactics as a golem programmed to do one thing. The whole taunt/threat skills tank is not how it works in gw2, but a new tank is born by helping the group in other ways, ways I mentioned above.

- Xhaine, Warrior

Leveling, crafting, farming, pvp, and some dungeons you can do without communication. You should stick to those if you don’t like that aspect of multiplayer game play.

Can’t quote anymore,

GW2, Dungeons are that small subset of things you can’t do without communication. You can do some of them, you can’t do all of them. Once you’ve got them on farm, communication is less on the fight and more on How is ones day/weekend/stuff.

- Xhaine

There is Healing, Tanking, and Damage. It’s just split up between multiple players. There is also support and control. These are all helpful to succeed but you don’t need all of them. Maybe for the toughest of bosses, but you usually don’t need all of them.

My group doesn’t have a true damage dealer, we kill things rather slowly, but we don’t die.

- Xhaine

Manasa Devi.7958:

See, that’s where I get off your rails. Games for me aren’t something I want to ‘master’ and spend boring time on, organizing things with other players or even communicating to a greater extent than “hi” and “thanks”. They’re supposed to be entertaining pixels bouncing on my screen.

Then Multiplayer games are probably not for you. They kind of need those things. I hear WoW is easy enough without co-ordination. You should try that MMO, Seriously.

- Xhaine

As coming from many MMOs since EVE and Starwars galaxies up to WoW, Swtor, and now this. I’ve played a tank. I like the ability to help the team by soaking up damage.

Now with that out of the way. I love tanking… oops sorry, ‘Tanking’ in this game. Yes a tank has a role and it could also be classified as support.

I support the team by soaking up a large attack with my vit/toughness
I support the team by shouting and removing debuffs, increasing damage, and healing
I support the team by being able to rally allies in aoes due to my high defense
I support the team by using a mace to keep weakness on the enemies
I support the team by selecting the right combo field to finish with my leap
I support the team by interrupting attacks with my daze skills (I have 3)
I support the team by dropping my elite banner to revive and grant swiftness, stability and might

I can also do damage. But I don’t just stand there, even with my high vit and toughness I will die if I stand still. Always paying attention and the willingness to change and react on the fly will help you win.

I like winning. I don’t like having something changed so that I can now win.

Learn to win.

- Xhaine, Warrior

There are many ways to deal with these ‘1 shot skills’ (I’ve never seen them done to me, but I stack vit and toughness). Here is a list:

Dodge – get it out of the way
Protection – 33% less damage, easier chance of surviving these
Weakness – boss now does glancing blows 50% less dmg
Blind – Makes the boss now miss his 1 shot
Vigor – More dodges
Block – Their are many skills that can block attacks, not all class have them
Interupt – Interupt their main attack with a daze (yes, even if they are immune to daze, you can still interupt the attack)
Reflect – If it’s a ranged attack, it can be reflected
Destruction – If it’s a ranged attack, it can be destroyed
Decoy – Put a minion in the way
Tank – Put a high toughness/vit character in the way

Just to name the ones off the top of my head. Look for the ‘tells’, if there is no tell it’s not a big attack, you probably just need protection and weakness

- Xhaine, Warrior

Fony if that is your group, I’m glad this was posted. I did a full guild run of this and cleared it the first time we entered the dungeon. I’m sure now that were all 80 with exotics we could 3 man it as well.

Would be fun to try… Especially now that we’ve killed all the ‘impossible’ bosses.

- Xhaine

The rewards for dungeons are the same exotics you can get everywhere else, crafting, pvp, karma, random drop chance. The only reason to do these dungeons is for fun and/or you like the look of a certain type of armor. (Yes I have fun doing these instances and working out strats on how to deal with the encounters)

These are not all the tips and/or tricks if you know of others feel free to add

In Conclusion these dungeons are tough and will take time to learn and deal with the new style of mechanics. You may or may not complete an entire dungeon in one night, don’t lose hope! (and don’t come complain on the forums after!) You may not have gained any loot for that night, but you did gain something. You gained knowledge on how to better equip yourself for that encounter, whether it be gear, skills, or information.

- Xhaine, Warrior

Hello fellow guild wars 2 dungeoneers,

I see a lot of posts on difficulty, how hard and not hard it is. This is because there is different levels of skills and different experiences with each player. I’ve have not completed all explorable modes yet as I’ve just been focusing on ones that I like the type of gear ‘look’. Right now it’s Arah and Sorrow’s Embrace. I have done others like AC, TA, CoF, CoE but not all paths. I am not a hardcore player; I have a 9-5 job and a wife. I do not get to play all the time. I do however play with friends sometimes all 5, sometimes 2-3 and pug the rest.

With that out of the way here are some tips and tricks I’ve found out through my play to help you guys (may not be the same as your groups). As I’ve seen a lot of posts about “difficulty is fine deal with it” but no comments on how to help these people complaining it’s too hard. Hopefully they want to try and learn.

1. GROUP COMPESITION:
Although there is no holy trinity (Tank, Damage, Healer) you need to cover your bases with what you have. All the classes can cover all the roles from what I’ve seen so you just need to find right players. TANK: A character with high toughness. Yes a Warrior in plate can do the same as a Elementalist in Earth/Water. More than one can help. SUPPORT: As I said before any class can cover these, even a Warrior with Tactics spec can make his shouts heal and give effects. You will need a couple of these types to make these dungeons easier. CONTROL: This can be linked with the tank as well some one to put the mobs together or kite the mobs around with cripples and immobilizes. DAMAGE: Everybody covers this job.

2. BOONS:
Try and get your group to cover multiple boons. Vigor, protection, and regeneration will keep you alive. Try a 100% up time or close to it. Vigor does not need to be 100% but it helps. Might and Fury will increase the damage you do which will in turn make you live longer. Might can stack up to 25 so don’t worry about having too many with it.

3. CONDITIONS:
This is just as important as boons. Weakness is extremely useful and make sure at least one person can keep this condition up 100%. Warriors with Mace for example. It turns criticals into normal hits and normal hits into 50% damage. Frozen reduces cooldowns on the enemy by 66%, less attacks means less damage. Poison reduces healing done which is great for those bosses/enemies that heal. Blind causes the next attack to miss which can be their ‘powerful’ attack.

4. INTERRUPTION:
Most bosses are immune to daze but not the interrupting part of the attack. You can interrupt big attacks in fact route 3 end boss colossus guy you can interrupt his shout that pretty much one-shots everybody but behind him. Once you know this it’s a walk in the park. I don’t know if you can interrupt all big attacks but most I’ve seen you can. This is a huge help to your group.

5. COMBO FIELDS/FINISHERS:
Look up tables if you don’t know what combos with what. These can really help cover areas that you don’t have in your party. Example; you don’t have frozen but a water field plus leap finisher will give the leaper a frozen shield and apply frozen to everything around him. There are ones to give all types of boons, conditions, and healing.

6. BOSS SIGNATURE SKILLS:
Bosses can have skills that one-shot you or your party. These large skills will have ‘tells’. The boss will sparkle, glow, flash, etc. Example: Lieutenant Kohler of AC, his skill he shoots out a roped spear that will pull you and your party in and then proceed to spin and kill, only high toughness characters can roll out in time. This move is preceded by a charge like animation where he pulls his arm back. This gives you indication and timing to dodge out of the way. (I know all the people that played wow need to have a flashing screen with big words ‘Boss is doing this attack now prepare yourself!’ but this game doesn’t have that. Get used to it, it’s not those other games. You have to pay attention.) Really that’s my only point out of this… pay attention.

7. LEVEL 80:
Explorables to me are the end game dungeons, I didn’t even try explorables till I was 80 as the good rewards were level 80 rewards. Not to mean I haven’t been able to complete explorables without level 80s. First time I completed route 3 AC (not having done AC before) I did it with two 80s (not in exotics) 35, 47, and 55. Yes we wiped (you will wipe, I know this is different than you are used to), but we completed the whole instance.

8. CHANGING SKILLS:
Sometimes you will need to change your elite, utilities, healing, and weapon skills to fight certain bosses. I never had to change my traits, but weapons and skills I change often. Don’t stick to one set and be happy with it. This bo

Even in real life human’s achieve to separate their “greatness” from the rest, there is no difference in massively multi-player online games. I have 1-2 pugs with me in most dungeons and I haven’t had to kick one yet, they listen and we win.

You absolutely should do some research. Especially on group mechanics. Once you find some good group compositions and strategies you can apply it to almost all the fights. Thinking you are going to win by doing nothing but throwing your body at something is …. well it’s not smart play

Play smart

- Xhaine

Kain.9167:

Mighteous.9281:

They don’t need to do this. You kids need to get smarter. That’s it.

You need to not be a pompous kitten and consider other people that don’t have no life.

Has nothing to do with no life, or time for that matter. Time will obviously get your better at doing dungeons. As in not giving up after you die and complain on the forums about it.

I have a 9-5 job (or more most of the time, during crunch times) and a wife. I don’t get much time to play, but when I do I beat some dungeons. (sounds like a quote from the greatest guy in the world). Play smart.

- Xhaine

Some people like to brag how ‘easy’ things are when other cannot complete. For me the bragging rights is when people see my armor in game and associates that with the difficulty of the dungeon. I just want to help people get prepared for the dungeons and how I’ve learned how this game is played. For all I know this could be completely wrong and there will be a new way to make it easier. Humans are all about finding the most efficient path.

- Xhaine

Are you talking about the part where you have to protect the two ecto collectors and their are many borrows opening up?

Not enough information to help you, what point are you having trouble with?

Looking for party/group tools would be nice, but not a group finder. There is no ‘set’ trinity, well kind of one, but not really enough to say you are tank, healer, or dps. Setting up a group finder could be difficult on that pretense. Unless you want to go with the just group 5 people up or 5 different classes up and hope the group can sort out the roles. If you go the 5 different class route than you’d have people waiting in long queues on the over populated professions.

I think just a tool to help get groups (set yourself as looking for group and people can search kinda tool) would be nice. With a comment sections to say how amazing you are at the deeps or… to say how you can contribute to the group

- Xhaine

Someone with good english writing skills (not me, I’m just a math brained programmer) should compile a list of tip and tricks for this dungeon thread and try and get it stickied

- Xhaine

The game is young Wasselin, the game is still young.

I too hope for higher difficulty because I know over time people will have these on farm. No need to drop the difficultly.

- Xhaine

I like this Idea, Combo fields is an area that is not talked about often and they can make or break a fight. Food buffs, Boons, conditions, boss ‘tells’, when to use dodge, group mechanics. Maybe we will get less complaints on difficulty due to not knowing how to truely play the game.

Yes, I wish they had implemented the token reward system at the end of the dungeon sooner or at launch. Speed runs really ruin the feel of wearing your achievements.

Bugs can be fixed (IE getting less badges) but difficulty doesn’t need to change.

Thank you Artorous for bringing up combo fields. That slipped my mind and it’s extremely important! learn the fields and combos that fit your group.

One I like is water field plus leap finisher = ice field that freezes everybody around myself. 66% less cooldowns on boss/mbos.

- Xhaine

From my point of view I like the difficulty. I don’t want to see everybody in these dungeon sets. It doesn’t become an visual achievement then.

I would like something that I couldn’t beat and then being able to see someone that is wearing his ‘achievement’ of beating that dungeon multiple times. When I see that I strive to play better and achieve the same goal.

Example CoF speed runs were easy and fast. Now I see everybody wearing this armor, as cool as it looks I don’t even want it. (I don’t want something everybody has)

Over time people will find strategies and tactics on how to beat these bosses and they will become second nature to everybody. Hopefully that takes awhile.

If I beat the dungeon in 1 run without difficulty I will get bored and not want to continue that dungeon for more runs.

I love the feeling of beating a boss after time dedication. Beating a boss on the brink of losing feels great. Last person up gets the final blow before he falls over from bleed damage kind of scenario. The second time you do it you’ll see your improvement. This time we had the whole team alive for his death.

The goal of making them harder is to have something to achieve without the title (and they are not autopilot right away) The goal of making them easier makes it too boring and you WILL autopilot through them everytime. It becomes a chore and not a ‘game’.

Wait a couple weeks till strategies start forming then try dungeons again. You sound like the type that doesn’t like a challenge (and that’s fine, there are all types of people) some dungeons are easier than others. Let the skilled players have their visual achievements.

Copy and pasting this from another post I made that may get burried and not seen:

Here are some dungeon tips I found from my runs. In no particular order and they may or may not be what you use, this is just from my experience:

1. Design the group to get all the boons you can: regen, protection, vigor are good defensive ones to keep you alive; fury and might, to kill mobs faster (again to keep you alive). These are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

2. Use conditions to help your team; blind, daze, crippble, immobilize, weakness. Weakness is extremely useful; reduces your foes crititcal hits to normal hits and normal to glancing blows (50% dmg) combine that with protection boon and your group is now a tank.

3. Try and have more than one person for healing/Support; almost every class that i’ve seen can do this. Even warrior with his shouts can heal and support.

4. Have someone that can remove boons from a target; protection or regen on a boss is going to outlast you.

5. Watch for major boss ‘tells’ (a signature move that it will do before an attack) charging or flashes will usually give it away from what i’ve seen. Save a block/Dodge/Repel for these situations. Don’t waste your dodge on minor things.

6. Have some kind of toughness stacked character to be the focus. Get this character to stand in the way of enemy projectiles or block big attacks. Someone that can keep the mobs together without dying fast. (this character will still have to dodge the ‘big’ attacks) This character will also be a good resser; being able to stay in aoes to rally an ally

7. Do not try and ressurect dead characters; downed is priority if you see it. Assign 1 or more people to this task. A dead character will take to long and they are better off teleporting to the closet way point and running back.

In general build your character to help your team. Can’t stress this enough. The stuff you use to solo farm may not be useful in a group environment.

My group did this yeseterday route 3 (protect the 2 collectors) and we wiped twice and completed it the third time.

We all switched to high aoe type weapons. For me as a warrior I switched to greatsword as I’m normally shield/mace. Greatsword let me kite the stuff in spins as well as hit the borrow at the same time.

Once we knew where all the spawns where we split the group into two and put a single person in the middle to help either side at desperate times.

The third run was close, at around 65% we lost one of the collectors. We switched our tactic to have 1 person (me) with greatsword defend the collector from the random silver or little mobs while the other 4 ran around and focused down borrows.

This worked well, I’m high toughness and vitality and was able to sustain minor damage protecting the collector while the group killed the holes and we were successful.

The quick tactic change helped us win. In conclusion, I’d say keep two alive as long as possible and if one goes down change to 1 protector and 4 seek and destroyers.

That was how we passed it. Everything after that was not too difficult. I can explain the rest if asked.

- Xhaine, Warrior

If you are casual don’t expect to clear the dungeons at the same speed as someone that is ‘hardcore’ or in the middle. People will clear at the pace that they play the game. This is not as much as a numbers game as it is skill and co-ordination to learn boss ‘tells’ and tactics. Numbers do help, as more gear and being level 80 will make things easier, but not to the point where you don’t have to pay attention.

Here are some dungeon tips I found from my runs. In no particular order and they may or may not be what you use, this is just from my experience:

1. Design the group to get all the boons you can: regen, protection, vigor are good defensive ones to keep you alive; fury and might, to kill mobs faster (again to keep you alive). These are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

2. Use conditions to help your team; blind, daze, crippble, immobilize, weakness. Weakness is extremely useful; reduces your foes crititcal hits to normal hits and normal to glancing blows (50% dmg) combine that with protection boon and your group is now a tank.

3. Try and have more than one person for healing/Support; almost every class that i’ve seen can do this. Even warrior with his shouts can heal and support.

4. Have someone that can remove boons from a target; protection or regen on a boss is going to outlast you.

5. Watch for major boss ‘tells’ (a signature move that it will do before an attack) charging or flashes will usually give it away from what i’ve seen. Save a block/Dodge/Repel for these situations. Don’t waste your dodge on minor things.

6. Have some kind of toughness stacked character to be the focus. Get this character to stand in the way of enemy projectiles or block big attacks. Someone that can keep the mobs together without dying fast. (this character will still have to dodge the ‘big’ attacks) This character will also be a good resser; being able to stay in aoes to rally an ally

7. Do not try and ressurect dead characters; downed is priority if you see it. Assign 1 or more people to this task. A dead character will take to long and they are better off teleporting to the closet way point and running back.

In general build your character to help your team. Can’t stress this enough. The stuff you use to solo farm may not be useful in a group environment.

A 5 man boss that takes tactics, skill, and co-ordination on the level of a raid boss. This is a perfect example of a boss in my books.

The fact that me and my guildies couldn’t beat him on the first try and multiple tries after the fact was extremely fun.

We’ve only tried him a couple times now as it was getting late. But i’m excited to try again and again.

Then having the fact to show off that you’ve obtained this honor of defeating him and the rest of Arah by obtaining the gear is even more satisfying.

- Xhaine

Me and my guildies can do all 3 paths every day.

Not all of us are in exotics and some never ran it before. Just to get those introductions out of the way.

Path 1 does seem bugged and the grenaders have a lot of HP and hit pretty hard in area of effect type skills applying freeze and poison. Spread out.

We also noticed that they only send another wave of these grenaders when you kill all of them.

Therefore we came up with the idea to keep one alive. One grenader is not that big of a deal. The first boss we clear and let him throw grenades at us. Then we have one person kite him with us through all the destructable gates.

The second boss we 4 man him and have one person keep the last grenader at bay away from the group, but not too far as to help. But far enough to keep the 4 out of the grenade range. This I took at my job, I am a warrior with a shield/mace and gun. with gun I was able to move side to side shooting while dodging every grenade. You have enough time to go from one side to the other before the grenade hits, and reflect the occasional one back.

Once you complete the boss kill the last gate and take the grenader with you. Once you leave the ramp kill him and you’ll see another pack spawn at the 2nd bosses location but they will not come after you. Even if you aggro them they will not come down that ramp.

The rest of that dungeon is easy. I can explain each boss if need be though.

- Xhaine, Warrior spec’d 30 defense, 30 tactics, 10 strength