Guild Wars 2

World event difficulty is completely determined by level and the amount of people present. I’m not talking about its difficulty. I’m talking about its setup; its programming.

In pretty much all MMOs the PvE dungeon is either 1.) a zone filled with well placed mobs that need a good strategy to pull or 2.) zerg fest mobs that require each player to hold their own in a 2 v 1 against slightly inferior monsters.

In the well placed pull each player in the group must control, tank, or damage a target. In a zerg situaiton each player must grab a few targets and fight or everyone spams AE and mass controls.

Now GW2 breaks the rules but in the worse possible way. Every player on the team feels like a hybrid class. No one can excel at their task and completely contribute. Actually one group can. The damage dealers. Support cannot heal enough and their buffs are not strong enough. Tanks can’t take more than 3 hits before they drop. CC specialist can only CC bosses after they drop to 40% health, then MAYBE they can land a decent CC beyond a snare.

What GW2 does is force the whole team to be 1 role. Everyone must be healer spec. Or everyone must be CC. Everyone on the team has to layer all of that one roles abilites on the mobs to make a difference. You want heals? Everyone must drop healing and regen boons in order to out heal the damage that a mob puts out.

Now if the GW2 dev team was expecting everyone to hold their own and use their own dodging, toughness, or CC to control mob aggro, then they fail. The mobs in these dungeons are programmed in a way that requires each person to fend for themselves; YET the mobs stats are programmed in a way that requires the holy trinity of tank / healer / DPS. A person cannot hold their own against an enemy that can kill them in 2 or 3 hits with no ability to control their aggro.

If I recall we were advertised that every role in the game would be viable in all aspects of the game. Right now a tank doesn’t mean crap in Dungeons. Nor do healers, buffers, or debuffers. Yet these mobs are designed for very powerful versions of these roles.

so the reason why World Events are perfect? Because no matter what role you choose, you contribute fully. Your abilities work. You can hold your own if you get aggro. You have room for mistakes. Yet (under the right circumstances) you are challenged. I expect Dungeons to have these same mechanics yet be a guaranteed fair challenge. Right now dungeons are forcing groups down 1 specific playstyle that only a tiny percentage of the population can manage.

If anything, at least make the story mode dungeons a little more manageable for all players to enjoy.

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

“AI will focus on 1 person till there dead and defeated”
this is not true save for maybe your ice guy.
none of the AC bosses are this way that i have seen.

Oh I know for a fact that many of the regular mobs in AC do this kind of focus. the 2 Lovers boss also do this with their illusionary mages. Most of the bosses don’t have this kind of focus but many elite mobs do. Monks are bigtime offenders of relentless aggro.

I do expect that when someone stacks a vitality /toughness build that they actually take more than 4 hits from a mob when they get aggro. Not in this game. In PvP a tanky character is pretty hard to kill and has lots of time to buff his team and negate damage. In a dungeon a tank will just mildly help his team with buffs and not contribute in damage and just die instantly when he draws mob aggro. Something is not right with that.

I’m sure there should be difference between PvE and PvP. But a person’s spec shouldn’t be completely negated in one game and pro-like in another.

The dungeons don’t have 1 shot mobs. they have 3 or 4 stacked attack mobs that SEEM one like one shots. When I instantly die in Ac it is because I got his with a firestorm, ranger trap, and mob hit all at the same time.

It is still unforgiving because it is so hard to dodge most of the AE and the enemies just spam them out randomly with less than a half second warning to move.

Well DKP I can keep up quite well in PvP avoiding 3 loads of catapult fire at a time. Funny thing is when I make a mistake in WvW during a keep seige I still have a chance to recover and continue fighting.

In a dungeon however there is no recovery chance. For instance, in AC when fighting a ranger. How the hell are you supped to avoid their traps when they instant cast right under your feet. I have my dodge key hot keyed, yet the first hit from a ranger trap will always connect. And when it connects it is half your life.

No this isnt about WoW. In WoW when you messed up a pull your team had to work 3 times as hard to recover. You could wipe just as easily in WoW. Just that WoW had CC and the trinity.

If GW2 is planning to roll without the trinity, then maybe they should make the mobs managable for people of ANY role to deal with. At the moment no one can an elite mob of 3. the only thing people can do is hope an NPC grabs the aggro or snare and dodge repeatedly. I would expect that a player could take a good 6 to 8 hits before dying. Then things would make a little more sense. but in this case it is 3 hits max and you are dead. The Endurance bar does not recover nearly fast enough to effectively kite an enemy, plus there isn’t enough space.

On the subject of world events being too easy. It really all depends on the level and amount of people present. Try doing a world event that is 2 levels higher than you with only 4 or 5 people with a champion fight in the end. It will be hard as hell, but it will be managable.

I like doing PvP and I love a good PvM dungeon, but this game’s style has no tactic except run and kite. No true CC. no real debuffs. No real buffs. These buffs and debuffs work everywhere else in the game perfectly, but in dungeons the only thing that works is a snare. Make the boss limp around after someone. You can debuff his strength but he’s still going to kill you in 2 hits. You can use knockbacks, but over half the bosses have stability. It is not good PvM. It is just a zerg fest of praying the mobs go after the right people and running for your life while your team does damage.

I don’t understand. Why are the World Events perfectly setup to be difficult, fun, & rewarding yet these dungeons are just deathtraps that frustrate players? You’d think if they got it right outside they’d do the same formula inside with just a little more structure.

Instead dungeon difficulty is ramped up way to high for the average gamer to even have a chance.

1. Mobs hit way to hard. 3 Hits and a mage is dead. Tanks can’t even tank. It’s one thing to make mobs hit harder than normal. Its another to make it impossible for players to even function in their designated roles. The only thing that can tank a boss in these dungeons are Ranger pets.

2. No aggro control. Once a mob targets you, you must spend about 2 minutes running, dodging, kiting just to survive. If you die, the mob continues hitting you while your down. If you are rezzed the mob instantly takes you down again.

3. Hard to time enemy attacks. Too much are effect abilities and not enough time to get out the way. Couple this with the fact that everything hits like a freight train, no one is surviving.

4. Crap rewards for story mode. If it’s gonna be this hard give me some decent money and item upgrades. I’m not expecting epic gear but giving me blue trash is not helping.

Now we look at events, which do everything right.

1. Large masses of enemies to accommodate large groups of people. Everyone is challenged, but it is not completely overwhelming.

2. All classes can function in the roles they desire. Tanks will tank. Support can put out heals and boons. It’s all good.

3. Champion Bosses have realistic aggro that switches targets repeatedly.

4. Mobs can hit hard but only champions hit like trucks.

I think the dev team needs to take elements from their world events and rebalance their dungeons to fit those criteria instead. At least lower mob damage in dungeons and allow classes to do the jobs they specced to do. It saddens me to see fully decked out warriors shooting guns and running from aggro.

Try this webpage. It has a lot of facts that will give you all the standard builds people have been using. Most of this stuff revolves around the skill traits you choose. The spirit weapon build requires you to put trait points into burning weapons, duration, reusability, and power.

http://guildwars2grandmaster.com/guild-wars-2-builds/guardian-builds/

Ive tried the Spirit weapon build with many other weapons. People tend to dodge the sword AE ability. Using a scepter is still really good with spirit weapon build, but the hammer is far superior if you want to kill people with extreme amounts of speed.

BTW there are a ton of people without stability in structured PvP. I’ve trapped so many people using the spirit hammer & trapping ring combo.

I’ve also tried hammer with the burning retaliation build. It is also the best weapon there. It’s a difficult weapon to time hits with but it pays off greatly. Mezmers are no problem now because I kill there pets in 1 or 2 hits. With the greatsword I was still getting swarmed and being forced to run in circles fighting and army of clones.

Also Brutality, I like how you elevate yourself by making your standards and tactics seem like the pro tactic that every “selfrespecting pvpplayer” should know. It’s that mind set that always allows people like me to come into the scene with an unorthodox weapon, like the hammer, and completely wreck your world.

I just played around with hammer today in structured PvP.

OMG!!!

Make a fiery spirit weapon build and use a hammer and you are nearly unstoppable. The spirit weapons chase down kiters. They deal constant damage. The spirit hammer ability can stop someone long enough for you to catch them. Then you have the CC of the 2H hammer itself; allowing you to snare and trap opponents. Once they are in the ring with you, just blast away with the hammer smash, and spirit weapon attacks and they will drop down 75% health instantly. from there you just have to hit them a few more times with your combo or class abilities.

The other build was the fiery retaliation build. No spirit weapons just 2 H Hammer and reflective dmg and fire. People basically kill themselves hitting you then pop in a few well placed hits from the hammer and its victory.

I had huge doubts with hammer skills before, but when placed in builds that focus all of your damage in the abilities, the hammer just becomes an insane secondary damage CC item that delivers better than any other weapon.

Im mid 30s. Right now I feel like a Master of all situations. My support build right now is stronger than a Guardians when it comes to curing conditions and healing. In structured PvP I can take out 2 melee fighters solo and hold a point just form stacking toughness and kiting with bomb kits. WvW I am an excellent support suing elixir gun. Soloing I feel confident going anywhere 3 or 4 levels above me to explore.

Basically the Bomb Kit, Grenades, and Elixir gun make this class amazing. At least right now at lvl 30.

Turrets are horrible. Pistol is the only good gun for dealing damage. Flame kit is fun but it is outshined by bombs and grenades. Kits are never set to auto attack so you have to set it manually each time you switch.

PvE 1. Flamer or elixer Gun.
PvP 2. Elixer Gun & Bombs
WvW 2. Elixer Gun & Bombs or Grenades (depending on if you are near a keep or not).

Bomb kit is the ultimate anti-melee kit. I typiclaly run with Elixer Gun & Bomb. I set my poison dart on auto and support my team with debuffs and heals. Once someone notices me I switch to bombs and start kiting. the explosion radius is insane so you really won’t miss.

grenades are only good in WvW when defending or seiging a keep. Other than that theyre a bit hard to use and still be mobile. they are ok in PvE but bombs pack more punch and you don’t have to worry about missing or trying to ensure all 3 grenades hit their mark.

I just discovered the spirit burn too and actually came to these forums to see if it was viable. The damage is amazing when you pop off the spirit weapon skills.

However my most successful build in Structured PvP is Greatsword with Burning retaliation build.

Under Zeal I grab 1, 7, 12. For the initial Greatsword and burning.
Radiance grab 1 for repeatable retaliation buff.
Virtues grab 2, 4, or 6 then 8, then 11. Im not sure if 8 and 11 conflict with each other. I gotta check that out.

My armor will have Sigils of the Forge on them.

This is a very good anti-melee build. I simply just stand on a point and let the enemy come at me. I ocncentrate on using AE shouts and instant cast skills that give Aegis and small bits of healing. Even if you lose a fight the enemy will be below 25% health and probably with a burning on them.

For good damage and survivability I roll with Mace + Touch. During PvE I don’t need weapons that allow me to chase down my target or yank them around. I just need something that defends me or hits them.

the mace has a good combo of both attack and defense. Every move helps you while hurting the enemy. The torch is just an amazing offhand that dishes out good constant dmg.

2 H hammers are nice but you will notice it takes skill and the CC moves it has youll rarely use.