I don’t think that it is bad design or any major flaws that people are really having issues with right now from a dungeon perspective, but more that some of the skills are very badly shown.
For example, in melee when fighting a Giant, rather than seeing his arms swinging around or a shaky eyeball, he is too tall to see due to the camera, so people get instant killed and have no clue why, because the ranged players are not paying attention because its so easy to stand back and never be in danger to let the melee players know what is going on with the upper half of the bosses body that cannot be seen up close.
Or just our right triggering an attack with no animations or audio queues, and this is one of the major offenders that people are upset with. Most of it comes down to melee issues, and more often than not, it is not because of lack of player skill, even though many people on here that do not even run explorable modes would love to have you think. That and they are running the under tuned CoF.
And that leads on to another issue, while COF is a 75 explorable instance, there is no real scale or build up in the instances, the difficulty are out of whack, some of the 80 explorable modes are easier than some of the sub 65 ones, and this alone already scream that there will be future tweaks to the instances. Completing COF in 16-18 minutes while taking 46-60 minutes to complete Sorrow’s embrace seams rather odd. Some need tuning up and others need tuning down.
And when we say tuning down, we do not mean reduce damage and neuter mobs. Increase visibility, give better notice on attacks intended to be dodged, you could even try another approach of increasing the durations of Protection, weakness and give better accessibility to such skills including but not limited to the two above, blind and chill, this is especially true on melee based weapons, taking a weakness debuff from 5 second to 6 would go a surprising way, while maybe increasing the damage a small bit on such weapons.
The weapons that are based around control (Soft & Hard) are mostly very low on damage compare to other options, while informed players know that not all fights need to be rushed and using these types of weapons give the group especially melee players a huge upper hand, not every one has this kind of knowledge. But this is something that will come with time as players learn that being able to reduce boss damage with protection and weakness by a constant 33% and a infrequent 50%(standardization of 25%), can lead to a very impressive 83(58)% mob damage reduction. You also have other options such as Blind and Chill that also reduce overall damage.
But I see in instances how often some of these boons and conditions are over looked, and not just in the dungeons, how many times have you been to Grenth only to see that there is no weakness debuff on the boss? Or any other boss at that.
If you honestly intended the game to be played as such, that you have to have these boons and conditions to be able to melee, then make the melee have access to these more freely, with greater appeal.
As for range, its in a very comfortable position right now, you could leave it how it is, or you could add in a few simple mechanics to wake them up once in a while from their current sloth like game play of stand around and shoot, and once in a while move out of a circle. Pull them in to melee, global area aoe (1600R) there are many options to spice up ranged, but not many bosses use these tools.
Are you gearing glass cannon? Gearing for survival and using utility skills that help keep you alive makes a huge difference.
The very first time I stepped into a dungeon I was a straight glass cannon build. I’ve since switched over to a lot more toughness and vitality and it makes a huge difference and allows me to be able to react and not die instantly.
Just checking/offering a suggestion.
1850 toughness and 1780 vitality, and I still get one shot by non telegraphed attacks in some explorable. And yes I dodge any that are actually telegraphed that give me more than 0.64-1.00 seconds notice. I even have the fantastic trait that guardians get, that gives me Vigor every time I crit, it allows me to dodge often, I also have protection up almost permanent too.
Some attacks just need to be adjusted, and the tell signs re-thought out. It is clear that there is issues when some instances(explorable) are so much easier than others that are all 80.
Edit:
Also it may be worth note, report any boss and trash that may feel a little odd, the developers can look at the boss and see if its intended to hit for 23k on an instant cast attack or not.
One-handed sword is a fantastic weapon with its Blind, if your combo that with a Focus the blind is fantastic, especially with how important blind is right now. Scepter is incredibly boring however, and could benefit from a three combo chain with something interesting at the end of it, and making Smite a symbol so it gains the benefits of traits.
Wish we had a better ranged option than Scepter/Focus. Until they balance some of the pve content, its 100x easier just to range every thing in the explorable no need to think at all, especially when you can have powerful tools like Blind from range lol…