Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
A ele, (me lvl 63 with lvl 55 gear)= mesmer and a theif.
Did Ta explorable the upward path.
We beat it in about 30 min, with no deaths and only a couple downs.
Beat cm witha team of 3 as well. when I was lvl 43 beat the story.
I never had any trouble with the dgns, other then when I first did AC. But second run and onwards was easy. Then AC explorable the ghost eater. Was hard the first time.
After that it been way to easy if anything, I would like them to make it harder in multy ways.
Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
Apparently you do need advice, I've been running them since 35 with ease most of the time. Occasionally I get a bad group like the experience you described but I will apologise and leave lol. If a group doesn't know what to do and can't listen, not worth my time.
Your points don't stand, if you listened and took the advice others are giving you the dungeons are fairly easy. If you refuse, which is your choice, you will continue to have the experiences you've been having.
If you were correct then we'd all be having the same or worse experiences in the dungeons on a regular basis. If you are wrong, there would be people that seem to do just fine and they would attempt to offer you some advice...
Well to be fair, PUG experiences are pretty random (and that goes for most games), so he may just have had bad luck grouping.
I do disagree though, I find AC and TA explorables pretty easy now. CM I think is pretty hardcore, but maybe I just have had that random back PUG luck that I'm talking about up there, lol.
Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
I'm not trying to tell you how to run a dungeon, or to be condescending in any way.
I guess my experience differs from yours, and I would say it's just fine to run them prior to 80. My alt (which I'm focusing on) is level 51, and I found TA to be just fine and quite enjoyable. I run a couple of explorables each day... not too many, just enough to give some variation to the other parts of the game I'm playing.
I agree, learning the dungeon is the hardest part, and after that you know what to expect, what skills to swap to before a fight, etc. My second run of TA was a lot easier than the first Experience and coordination, both as a team and individually, as you say, is the most important part.
He's talking about TA Explo, which does have some annoying volatile blooms all over the place that spawn on a very short timer. Those are very annoying and tedious imo also.
I have to agree against this games dungeon system. I love guild wars 2 and will be certainly playing it for months to come, but the dungeons are attrocious. I don't remember to play a game in which a dungeon was so "not fun"...
Not only I think that the difficulty is exagerated in some cases (although there are some I find easy), but the gameplay is just stupid... bosses have no real strategy, just tank and spank and kill adds, but it's a total corpse run all the time. One time we are running around ressing dead ppl, or those dead ppl are rssing on the waypoint and running back to the fight like headless turkeys... not to mention the several exploits and run arounds avoiding mobs people seem to love these days!
I hope they change something really, and fast, because without fun dungeons the game loses a big appeal to a great number of players
I'm not trying to tell you how to run a dungeon, or to be condescending in any way.
I guess my experience differs from yours, and I would say it's just fine to run them prior to 80. My alt (which I'm focusing on) is level 51, and I found TA to be just fine and quite enjoyable.
I agree, learning the dungeon is the hardest part, and after that you know what to expect, what skills to swap to before a fight, etc. My second run of TA was a lot easier than the first Experience and coordination, both as a team and individually, as you say, is the most important part.
I didn't mean to make it sound like I was offended, point I was making is, as far as dungeons in this game go, I've run them, and I can understand the way the OP feels. I've seen geargrinded 80s leave dungeons in frustration, and I hate being on the losing side when people decide they can't finish a dungeon. I can count on one hand how many times I've had to leave a dungeon unfinished -- luckily -- but I don't know how many times I've also been in groups and asked "Who has completed this dungeon before" and heard "We got to *X* part and then my team quit".
Everything is possible... clearly as I've done it, but some areas are extremely frustrating for no reason.. not geared towards skill but luck - like TA. Volatile Blossoms will come back extremely quickly and burst on a moments notice. As for doing Dungeons prior to 80... do the story dungeons.. explorable dungeons... not really worth grinding tokens early on, especially as you don't get that great of rewards anymore.
Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
I'm not trying to tell you how to run a dungeon, or to be condescending in any way.
I guess my experience differs from yours, and I would say it's just fine to run them prior to 80. My alt (which I'm focusing on) is level 51, and I found TA to be just fine and quite enjoyable. I run a couple of explorables each day... not too many, just enough to give some variation to the other parts of the game I'm playing.
I agree, learning the dungeon is the hardest part, and after that you know what to expect, what skills to swap to before a fight, etc. My second run of TA was a lot easier than the first Experience and coordination, both as a team and individually, as you say, is the most important part.
He's talking about TA Explo, which does have some annoying volatile blooms all over the place that spawn on a very short timer. Those are very annoying and tedious imo also.
He tried to say CM Story mode was to difficult as well... lol
Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
Apparently you do need advice, I've been running them since 35 with ease most of the time. Occasionally I get a bad group like the experience you described but I will apologise and leave lol. If a group doesn't know what to do and can't listen, not worth my time.
Your points don't stand, if you listened and took the advice others are giving you the dungeons are fairly easy. If you refuse, which is your choice, you will continue to have the experiences you've been having.
If you were correct then we'd all be having the same or worse experiences in the dungeons on a regular basis. If you are wrong, there would be people that seem to do just fine and they would attempt to offer you some advice...
So lets go run a dungeon then... your choice. I don't want to sit here talking about this nonsense when I can easily just group with you and run any of the dungeons. Just tell me which one and when.
Not to mention you contradicting yourself, you say how easy they are.. then you say you drop from groups? Not the way I play either. If I start with a group I finish with one unless they give up. And sorry but advice like "just use combo fields" isn't the magic bullet some people here think it is.
Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
I'm not trying to tell you how to run a dungeon, or to be condescending in any way.
I guess my experience differs from yours, and I would say it's just fine to run them prior to 80. My alt (which I'm focusing on) is level 51, and I found TA to be just fine and quite enjoyable. I run a couple of explorables each day... not too many, just enough to give some variation to the other parts of the game I'm playing.
I agree, learning the dungeon is the hardest part, and after that you know what to expect, what skills to swap to before a fight, etc. My second run of TA was a lot easier than the first Experience and coordination, both as a team and individually, as you say, is the most important part.
He's talking about TA Explo, which does have some annoying volatile blooms all over the place that spawn on a very short timer. Those are very annoying and tedious imo also.
He tried to say CM Story mode was to difficult as well... lol
Post patch, after the difficulty revamp.. it is too difficult for the second story dungeon.
Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
I'm not trying to tell you how to run a dungeon, or to be condescending in any way.
I guess my experience differs from yours, and I would say it's just fine to run them prior to 80. My alt (which I'm focusing on) is level 51, and I found TA to be just fine and quite enjoyable. I run a couple of explorables each day... not too many, just enough to give some variation to the other parts of the game I'm playing.
I agree, learning the dungeon is the hardest part, and after that you know what to expect, what skills to swap to before a fight, etc. My second run of TA was a lot easier than the first Experience and coordination, both as a team and individually, as you say, is the most important part.
He's talking about TA Explo, which does have some annoying volatile blooms all over the place that spawn on a very short timer. Those are very annoying and tedious imo also.
He tried to say CM Story mode was to difficult as well... lol
Post patch, after the difficulty revamp.. it is too difficult for the second story dungeon.
Post patch its still a faceroll... Story mode is as easy as the dungeons come. As far as running a dungeon together, I'll pass from what you posted and your views on the difficulty of CM story mode I think I'd lose some hair. I don't have a problem giving advice while I'm on the forums and can't play anyways but my game time is for fun, not for teaching someone that has expressed a lack of interest in learning.
Post patch its still a faceroll... Story mode is as easy as the dungeons come. As far as running a dungeon together, I'll pass from what you posted and your views on the difficulty of CM story mode I don't think I'd lose some hair. I don't have a problem giving advice while I'm on the forums and can't play anyways but my game time is for fun, not for teaching someone that has expressed a lack of interest in learning.
Of COURSE you'll pass... that was me calling you out, and you buckling. Lets be honest, you've never run CM post patch.. and you're blindly defending the game. Thats okay, I understand.. everyone here is a "L33T G@M3R" and everythings so easy for them.. right?
If not that, then we can do some sPvP instead maybe? I think you believe I don't know what I'm doing, and I'll be happy to prove you wrong. I'll even let you pick the class I'll play lol.
Having played many of the dungeons now, and most in Explorable mode, I have to disagree.
My first impressions were also much like yours, I thought they were frustrating and I was close to giving up on them. Then I had a few nice runs with Pugs of all things, where peple seemed to have improved their builds (more toughness, vit) and weren't running around like headless chickens all the time, and I started to have this "Oooooh!" feeling, where it all started to make more sense.
Since then I've had many great explorable runs and I quite enjoy them. I guess the problem is a lot of people are coming from WoW, or Rift, or Swtor (I played all those games, btw, raiding and doing dungeons) where dungeons have become such an easy, watered down experience, that actual hard content is a major shock. That combined with a pretty new way of thinking, with regards to being your own tank/healer, I can completely understand people's reaction.
Still I sincerely believe they are quite fun, and people should stick with them. I had the most fun in Twilight Arb. last night than I've had in a dungeon for years.
A couple of points -- it IS true that you need make use of a lot of your utility skills. I was always swapping my extra skills around during the dungeons and it helps a lot. Also as others have said, combo fields are you friends... including laying down combo fields in the place where you can see your party can benefit the most by them.
You don't need to tell me how to run a dungeon, I'll gladly run any dungeon with you and see how you fair.. and that honestly goes for everyone here, I've been in groups with 80s in full exotics, and I've been in groups with random PUGs that just leveled up and its their first time running it. I've brought people through their first explorable missions in AC and CM while leveling up time and time again...
But my point stands... running any dungeon NOW.... PRIOR to 80 just doesn't make sense. Twilight Arbor... I'd like to run that dungeon with anyone here who says dungeons aren't frustrating... and do the forward path -- no actually it doesn't matter, any path on TA would pretty much do it.
The only thing I will say about being prepared and beating a dungeon... more important than anything you'll hear otherwise... you have to know what to expect... after you run these dungeons a couple times each, you'll know which weapons work best on which parts, what to do, and how fast you should or should not do it. Coordination in the objectives is way more important then a combo field.
I'm not trying to tell you how to run a dungeon, or to be condescending in any way.
I guess my experience differs from yours, and I would say it's just fine to run them prior to 80. My alt (which I'm focusing on) is level 51, and I found TA to be just fine and quite enjoyable. I run a couple of explorables each day... not too many, just enough to give some variation to the other parts of the game I'm playing.
I agree, learning the dungeon is the hardest part, and after that you know what to expect, what skills to swap to before a fight, etc. My second run of TA was a lot easier than the first Experience and coordination, both as a team and individually, as you say, is the most important part.
He's talking about TA Explo, which does have some annoying volatile blooms all over the place that spawn on a very short timer. Those are very annoying and tedious imo also.
He tried to say CM Story mode was to difficult as well... lol
Post patch, after the difficulty revamp.. it is too difficult for the second story dungeon.
Post patch its still a faceroll... Story mode is as easy as the dungeons come. As far as running a dungeon together, I'll pass from what you posted and your views on the difficulty of CM story mode I think I'd lose some hair. I don't have a problem giving advice while I'm on the forums and can't play anyways but my game time is for fun, not for teaching someone that has expressed a lack of interest in learning.
I'm not sure I feel it's a faceroll -- some of those trash pulls would probably be overwhelming for casual players. I don't have a big problem with it though, as I like challenging content personally. That said, I haven't run it post-changes more than once.
I have mixed feelings about the story modes overall. I don't personally plan to run any of them more than once (with the exception of AC which I've run a few times), as I don't really see what the point would be. Explorables are the real dungeon for me, and I will mostly concentrate on them later other than a dungeon or two a day. I wouldn't be too sad if they nerfed the hell out of story modes and left the rewards as they are now, and put a lockout on them. Then casuals could have their easy content and they could control how many times they could be farmed. I think they tried to shy away from the lock system, but obviously it has its advantages for this reason (right now, I think the difficulty is supposed to be the "lock")
I'm not sure I feel it's a faceroll -- some of those trash pulls would probably be overwhelming for casual players. I don't have a big problem with it though, as I like challenging content personally. That said, I haven't run it post-changes more than once.
I have mixed feelings about the story modes overall. I don't personally plan to run any of them more than once (with the exception of AC which I've run a few times), as I don't really see what the point would be. Explorables are the real dungeon for me, and I will mostly concentrate on them later other than a dungeon or two a day. I wouldn't be too sad if they nerfed the hell out of story modes and left the rewards as they are now, and put a lockout on them. Then casuals could have their easy content and they could control how many times they could be farmed. I think they tried to shy away from the lock system, but obviously it has its advantages for this reason (right now, I think the difficulty is supposed to be the "lock")
The way I see Story Modes, they should be really casual friendly, but still somewhat challenging. I feel they should be more balanced then anything. For example you say you've run AC a lot for story... I think the boss encounters are just right in AC but the mobs.... rangers with their ranged traps, elementalist AOE and necromancer lifesteal does way too much damage, but all manageable... the thing about it is, they are much tougher then the bosses... so I would like to see that balanced a little bit to where trash mobs aren't the worst of what you experience.
People seem to think I'm saying everything is too hard... I don't believe that at all. You do need a lot of coordination, and some skill.... more importantly (again using AC as an example) you need the right mix of players to achieve success. Path 1 needs some okay heals and good DPS to take down mounds and protect hodgins, path 2, is pretty easy overall, path 3 you need very high DPS to take down mounds and protect crystals. If your DPS isn't high enough you'll get overrun and fail. To me, that doesn't allow for "any build can do anything at any time" . I also think that some dungeons.. while challenging and able to be completed, are still frustrating at certain parts.
Not to mention you contradicting yourself, you say how easy they are.. then you say you drop from groups?
He said they are easy as long as you are playing with people who are either good at what they do, or are willing to follow directions. If you are in a really terrible PUG and they won't follow directions, then there is no point wasting your time. IMO he is doing the right thing by politely excusing himself.
Not the way I play either. If I start with a group I finish with one unless they give up.
Which may be why you are having such a bad time... Let me ask you, how many of the dungeon runs you did were done with a coordinated guild group and how many were PUGed?
And sorry but advice like "just use combo fields" isn't the magic bullet some people here think it is.
Its not a magic bullet which will somehow miraculously /win for you. It IS an integral part of the game and absolutely necessary for success IMO... And that is directed at the OP who complained about slow kills, and too much difficulty. Just a couple of examples... a Guardian drops a symbol and hits one of his whirlwind attack, all of the members of his party lose conditions. I drop a fire fields just as everyone pops off their blast finisher, much increased damage against the target. He was complaining about taking as much as a minute to take down each mob in a group while the others beat on you... That is excessive and strikes me as being a gap in play style, or knowledge, or gear. Assuming that they aren't way undergeared(which is a big assumption), it is either how they are built and their play style or else it is a lack of knowledge about ways to increase your damage and survivability... And the one that seems to be consistently lacking when I've spoken to people about this in the game is the combo system, so that is the one that most people are forgetting in their equation, and that is the reason why it is stressed so much.
Do we die or wipe occasionally? Sure... In CoF when you have those big groups with the bombers in them, we tried to take the entire group at one time and wiped badly... Tried again with controlled pulls and it was cake... Do we have a problem killing things? no, not really... And since that is the big complaint from the OP, that is what we are addressing.
Not to mention you contradicting yourself, you say how easy they are.. then you say you drop from groups?
He said they are easy as long as you are playing with people who are either good at what they do, or are willing to follow directions. If you are in a really terrible PUG and they won't follow directions, then there is no point wasting your time. IMO he is doing the right thing by politely excusing himself.
Not the way I play either. If I start with a group I finish with one unless they give up.
Which may be why you are having such a bad time... Let me ask you, how many of the dungeon runs you did were done with a coordinated guild group and how many were PUGed?
And sorry but advice like "just use combo fields" isn't the magic bullet some people here think it is.
Its not a magic bullet which will somehow miraculously /win for you. It IS an integral part of the game and absolutely necessary for success IMO... And that is directed at the OP who complained about slow kills, and too much difficulty. Just a couple of examples... a Guardian drops a symbol and hits one of his whirlwind attack, all of the members of his party lose conditions. I drop a fire fields just as everyone pops off their blast finisher, much increased damage against the target. He was complaining about taking as much as a minute to take down each mob in a group while the others beat on you... That is excessive and strikes me as being a gap in play style, or knowledge, or gear. Assuming that they aren't way undergeared(which is a big assumption), it is either how they are built and their play style or else it is a lack of knowledge about ways to increase your damage and survivability... And the one that seems to be consistently lacking when I've spoken to people about this in the game is the combo system, so that is the one that most people are forgetting in their equation, and that is the reason why it is stressed so much.
Do we die or wipe occasionally? Sure... In CoF when you have those big groups with the bombers in them, we tried to take the entire group at one time and wiped badly... Tried again with controlled pulls and it was cake... Do we have a problem killing things? no, not really... And since that is the big complaint from the OP, that is what we are addressing.
To answer your question I've PUG'd 75% of the dungeons I've done.. and again.. I've only ever walked out of a dungeon about 4 times without completing it... I've never walked out of a story dungeon. I have gear tokens for every dungeon as well.
Sometimes I do get really bad groups.. I point out bad players, and so on. I don't leave groups, I help them get through it. Thats not to say that there aren't parts of dungeons that I think are frustrating parts even with an experienced group.
As for combos, I'm not going to say they don't help... but they won't make dungeons move substantially faster IMO. I'm not saying don't use them... obviously... as for killing faster, a lot of it would have to be the spec as well as abilities, gear too.
im with the op on this one , the dungeons suck period. Taking away the trinity and trying to label it as broken and dead is stupid and just shows you how ignorant Anet really is. This system has worked in every single game since EQ and continues to allow for the most challanging content in raiding and group dynamics. People here just like to hate things for the sake of hating them. So many healers got left out in this game and a little control actually creates strategy , not pointless zerging of 5 dps classes and dodging back and forth or reviving someone who is targeted. If you think this is so fun , more power to you . Refreshing change of pace? absolutely not its a headache from majority of the people ive met in game with little to no reward but some stupid cosmetic armor sets.
Originally posted by cronius77 im with the op on this one , the dungeons suck period. Taking away the trinity and trying to label it as broken and dead is stupid and just shows you how ignorant Anet really is. This system has worked in every single game since EQ and continues to allow for the most challanging content in raiding and group dynamics. People here just like to hate things for the sake of hating them. So many healers got left out in this game and a little control actually creates strategy , not pointless zerging of 5 dps classes and dodging back and forth or reviving someone who is targeted. If you think this is so fun , more power to you . Refreshing change of pace? absolutely not its a headache from majority of the people ive met in game with little to no reward but some stupid cosmetic armor sets.
Well, there I would disagree with almost everything you've said. I'm not raging fanboy, and I do believe that I'm looking at their new systems fairly objectively -- I have played a lot of MMOs and liked them all for what they were.
The new system -- which is "mostly" without trinity -- is quite good once you get used to it. The dungeons have a learning curve and as I said above, can be frustrating at first. Overcoming that though and getting used to the new group dynamics is a lot of fun.
What I do particularly like is the idiology of flexibility and customization that they've taken on. There is no "you must take this build" to the dungeon, though you have to be smart and balance your traits with your gear. For example, I trait deeply into condition damage, vitality, and boon duration, so I need to make up for the lack of toughness and general mitigation through gear -- ie. I socket things with mostly toughness to balance it out. I found doing this helped a LOT in dungeons, that and switching out my general PvE perks for more group-friendly ones during the run. This takes some thought, and I imagine people on average are just jumping into dungeons with their regular setup.
I'm about level 55 on my Elemetalist and so far I've only done AC, once in Story and once in Explore mode. I'm running a tough/vitatlity/heal build. I honestly thought Explore was easier because that pug group was more organized. However, I didn't really like either dungeon run. There is too much trash and it takes too long to kill trash. TSW virtually did away with Trash. They gave you amazing boss fights with tons of movement and dodging required. I don't want to spend an hour killing dungeon trash that offers no reward. The only reward you get is the feeling that you survived horrible trash pulls that take an eternity to kill.
I don't really know what to think. I love group pve content, but the dungeons here just seem too much of a hassle. You have to pray you are with a half competent team, and even then you are going to be getting someone up out of downed state.
I've tried running a staff build throwing out combo fields and using Arcane Wave to do my own team combos, giving the team might for damage...using healing bursts to sustain. However, I found myself more useful running a dagger/focus build. I get two chills, a knockdown, invulnerability, and several other items that allow me to kite a little. My damage is very low, but hey I can kite and that seems the only thing to do. That's the boring part to me. Some of the mobs will kill you in two hits, even if you have a toughness build. In the graveling event, if the larger mobs knock you down, you're dead. You can try kiting them, but they are pretty fast.
Maybe AC is just a boring dungeon. Maybe I need to play more or find better teams. The most fun I had was dodging the traps in AC. I don't think that is saying a lot.
Originally posted by cronius77 im with the op on this one , the dungeons suck period. Taking away the trinity and trying to label it as broken and dead is stupid and just shows you how ignorant Anet really is. This system has worked in every single game since EQ and continues to allow for the most challanging content in raiding and group dynamics. People here just like to hate things for the sake of hating them. So many healers got left out in this game and a little control actually creates strategy , not pointless zerging of 5 dps classes and dodging back and forth or reviving someone who is targeted. If you think this is so fun , more power to you . Refreshing change of pace? absolutely not its a headache from majority of the people ive met in game with little to no reward but some stupid cosmetic armor sets.
Well, there I would disagree with almost everything you've said. I'm not raging fanboy, and I do believe that I'm looking at their new systems fairly objectively -- I have played a lot of MMOs and liked them all for what they were.
The new system -- which is "mostly" without trinity -- is quite good once you get used to it. The dungeons have a learning curve and as I said above, can be frustrating at first. Overcoming that though and getting used to the new group dynamics is a lot of fun.
What I do particularly like is the idiology of flexibility and customization that they've taken on. There is no "you must take this build" to the dungeon, though you have to be smart and balance your traits with your gear. For example, I trait deeply into condition damage, vitality, and boon duration, so I need to make up for the lack of toughness and general mitigation through gear -- ie. I socket things with mostly toughness to balance it out. I found doing this helped a LOT in dungeons, that and switching out my general PvE perks for more group-friendly ones during the run. This takes some thought, and I imagine people on average are just jumping into dungeons with their regular setup.
no my opinion is based of the many raiding guilds ive been involved with , im not someone who dived in once and complained because i couldnt beat a dungeon. There is nothing refreshing about these things , its personal preference obviously but just because you can give your group some cleansing and small regen doesnt make it anymore tactical. When you have a tank , they have a job to do and a role , if they are allowing mobs to hit better dps classes and healers , they are not playing their role. If you have healers not healing they are not playing their role etc. This is a tried and true system that allows everyone in a group to do content at optimal performance. Yes it assigns rolls , so i guess you can say it sucks if you want to do different roles then what your class was designed to do which goes against mechanics in the first place.
This system in place now just creates 5 dps classes that will trait out a few different traits that can control a bit and allow for some debuffing and buffing others. Granted some of the scripted encounters are fun , it still boils down to out dps the boss and trash pulls before they kill you . This system is very very limited and you will not see much change or evolve in its current form with the game going forward. Yes you can add in bosses that have some different mechanics but with this system they always have to take into consideration that people are not going to use optimal builds or have control effects on. Plus on top of that the rewards for the headache of completing them is about stupid imo. Now all of this will not matter to guild runs with experienced vet players who work together well. But all you have to do is look in your chat window and see how random pugs are fairing. Also it still leads to optimal builds , so cookie cutter is no different , just look at what ele and guardians are always expected to do?
I'm about level 55 on my Elemetalist and so far I've only done AC, once in Story and once in Explore mode. I'm running a tough/vitatlity/heal build. I honestly thought Explore was easier because that pug group was more organized. However, I didn't really like either dungeon run. There is too much trash and it takes too long to kill trash. TSW virtually did away with Trash. They gave you amazing boss fights with tons of movement and dodging required. I don't want to spend an hour killing dungeon trash that offers no reward. The only reward you get is the feeling that you survived horrible trash pulls that take an eternity to kill.
I don't really know what to think. I love group pve content, but the dungeons here just seem too much of a hassle. You have to pray you are with a half competent team, and even then you are going to be getting someone up out of downed state.
I've tried running a staff build throwing out combo fields and using Arcane Wave to do my own team combos, giving the team might for damage...using healing bursts to sustain. However, I found myself more useful running a dagger/focus build. I get two chills, a knockdown, invulnerability, and several other items that allow me to kite a little. My damage is very low, but hey I can kite and that seems the only thing to do. That's the boring part to me. Some of the mobs will kill you in two hits, even if you have a toughness build. In the graveling event, if the larger mobs knock you down, you're dead. You can try kiting them, but they are pretty fast.
Maybe AC is just a boring dungeon. Maybe I need to play more or find better teams. The most fun I had was dodging the traps in AC. I don't think that is saying a lot.
Yeah I can understand. I believe AC is not the best of the dungeons. I don't think it is bad and I enjoyed it when I did it once getting the hang of it, but I had much more fun in both CM and TA, for example.
On my guardian (alt), I found running with Wall of Reflection (blocking projectiles) and Stand your Ground (stablity) were life savers for the whole team in many many trash situations. On my thief, Shadow Refuge, traited for heal, and... err... what's the wall called, hmm, smoke screen? Think that's it. Both also big life savers.
I'm about level 55 on my Elemetalist and so far I've only done AC, once in Story and once in Explore mode. I'm running a tough/vitatlity/heal build. I honestly thought Explore was easier because that pug group was more organized. However, I didn't really like either dungeon run. There is too much trash and it takes too long to kill trash. TSW virtually did away with Trash. They gave you amazing boss fights with tons of movement and dodging required. I don't want to spend an hour killing dungeon trash that offers no reward. The only reward you get is the feeling that you survived horrible trash pulls that take an eternity to kill.
I don't really know what to think. I love group pve content, but the dungeons here just seem too much of a hassle. You have to pray you are with a half competent team, and even then you are going to be getting someone up out of downed state.
I've tried running a staff build throwing out combo fields and using Arcane Wave to do my own team combos, giving the team might for damage...using healing bursts to sustain. However, I found myself more useful running a dagger/focus build. I get two chills, a knockdown, invulnerability, and several other items that allow me to kite a little. My damage is very low, but hey I can kite and that seems the only thing to do. That's the boring part to me. Some of the mobs will kill you in two hits, even if you have a toughness build. In the graveling event, if the larger mobs knock you down, you're dead. You can try kiting them, but they are pretty fast.
Maybe AC is just a boring dungeon. Maybe I need to play more or find better teams. The most fun I had was dodging the traps in AC. I don't think that is saying a lot.
I hear ya Cernan, I rolled an elementalist and have him at almost 40 now. I started out very optimistic about Staff.... then Scepter Focus... now I'm dagger dagger...... spec'd into cantrips for survivability and boons... I only swap to staff or scepter now if I need range damage (which happens usually on large boss fights or AOE bosses), and of course I have to do that prior to the fight. Healing is very cumbersome in fights with the staff.... Dagger/Dagger healing is more organic for me, swapping in and out.. and sometimes focus helps for survivability with earth. Luckily cantrips give me a lot of defense and regen... and in the high levels put out decent damage and provide good healing too.
Other elementalists seem to go pets... running glyphs and turrets, but that only keeps you alive for so long and won't help you mitigate damage or break stuns which.. as you said, is a death knell at some parts.
I think the lack of trinity is bit exaggerated. You can use a trinity setup if you choose to. Playing the dungeons like you usually would in an mmo make things a lot easier. LoS pulls, AoE stacking mobs, etc.
You have to use you cooldowns more and healing others isn't nearly as powerful as a traditional mmo. I think this where people run into trouble. Tanks aren't used to blowing nearly so many cooldowns and healers expect to heal from 0-full in 1 heal.
The trinity isn't necessary to complete dungeons however. You can run without them. I do think running a trinity setup is easier and less chaotic however.
I aggree the OP, worst dungeon system ever. The dungeons in GW2 match to the whole game, its made for solo players. In dungeons, there are 5 solo players fighting for their own lives, until the enemies die. Pure chaos.
In TSW, I did every dungeon while leveling up, mostly more than once. They were just pure fun.
In GW2, I did Ascalon with lvl 30 and then I quitted dungeons until lvl 80.
Those games can be compared, since both have the same fighting mechanics, active dodging and so on. Only with the difference, that TSW has tanks and healers, where GW2 only has dps and more dps.
I think the lack of trinity is bit exaggerated. You can use a trinity setup if you choose to. Playing the dungeons like you usually would in an mmo make things a lot easier. LoS pulls, AoE stacking mobs, etc.
You have to use you cooldowns more and healing others isn't nearly as powerful as a traditional mmo. I think this where people run into trouble. Tanks aren't used to blowing nearly so many cooldowns and healers expect to heal from 0-full in 1 heal.
The trinity isn't necessary to complete dungeons however. You can run without them. I do think running a trinity setup is easier and less chaotic however.
That's a good point, Atlan. It's not a complete lack of trinity, and if you go into dungeons thinking of yourselves as 5 dps, then likely you will fail.
The best of the good groups that I've been in, someone has usually stepped forward to "try" and soak the most damage. I've done it sometimes on my guardian, and other times I've hung back and played more of a support role. You can call that person a tank if you want, or whatever. The words don't really matter, but what it does is most of the time controls the movement of the active target and focuses aggro. It's still important that people know how to handle themselves when the boss/trash switches focus, but I would say there is at least a light trinity of sorts.
Post patch its still a faceroll... Story mode is as easy as the dungeons come. As far as running a dungeon together, I'll pass from what you posted and your views on the difficulty of CM story mode I don't think I'd lose some hair. I don't have a problem giving advice while I'm on the forums and can't play anyways but my game time is for fun, not for teaching someone that has expressed a lack of interest in learning.
Of COURSE you'll pass... that was me calling you out, and you buckling. Lets be honest, you've never run CM post patch.. and you're blindly defending the game. Thats okay, I understand.. everyone here is a "L33T G@M3R" and everythings so easy for them.. right?
If not that, then we can do some sPvP instead maybe? I think you believe I don't know what I'm doing, and I'll be happy to prove you wrong. I'll even let you pick the class I'll play lol.
Sorry, my Guardian is level 70 and all I did from 35 on was do dungeon runs on him. I've ran CM post patch plenty, story mode after patch was still to easy to bring myself to do more than a few times to help some friends do story mode. Explore mode I do daily, I want my tokens lol. If we are being honest, the truth is simply the highlighted part of your post.
If you aren't willing to accept advice on the forums, theres no way I'm spending time trying to show you in game.
And no, not everyone here is 1337 or w/e you want to put there. CM Story is just hands down easy, there is no challenge there. It's one of the reasons I do explore mode only, that and it doesn't give tokens. The rest wasn't me saying explore mode is easy, it will still be a challenge but it isn't exactly difficult either if you take the advice I and others have given you.
Comments
A ele, (me lvl 63 with lvl 55 gear)= mesmer and a theif.
Did Ta explorable the upward path.
We beat it in about 30 min, with no deaths and only a couple downs.
Beat cm witha team of 3 as well. when I was lvl 43 beat the story.
I never had any trouble with the dgns, other then when I first did AC. But second run and onwards was easy. Then AC explorable the ghost eater. Was hard the first time.
After that it been way to easy if anything, I would like them to make it harder in multy ways.
Well to be fair, PUG experiences are pretty random (and that goes for most games), so he may just have had bad luck grouping.
I do disagree though, I find AC and TA explorables pretty easy now. CM I think is pretty hardcore, but maybe I just have had that random back PUG luck that I'm talking about up there, lol.
He's talking about TA Explo, which does have some annoying volatile blooms all over the place that spawn on a very short timer. Those are very annoying and tedious imo also.
I have to agree against this games dungeon system. I love guild wars 2 and will be certainly playing it for months to come, but the dungeons are attrocious. I don't remember to play a game in which a dungeon was so "not fun"...
Not only I think that the difficulty is exagerated in some cases (although there are some I find easy), but the gameplay is just stupid... bosses have no real strategy, just tank and spank and kill adds, but it's a total corpse run all the time. One time we are running around ressing dead ppl, or those dead ppl are rssing on the waypoint and running back to the fight like headless turkeys... not to mention the several exploits and run arounds avoiding mobs people seem to love these days!
I hope they change something really, and fast, because without fun dungeons the game loses a big appeal to a great number of players
I didn't mean to make it sound like I was offended, point I was making is, as far as dungeons in this game go, I've run them, and I can understand the way the OP feels. I've seen geargrinded 80s leave dungeons in frustration, and I hate being on the losing side when people decide they can't finish a dungeon. I can count on one hand how many times I've had to leave a dungeon unfinished -- luckily -- but I don't know how many times I've also been in groups and asked "Who has completed this dungeon before" and heard "We got to *X* part and then my team quit".
Everything is possible... clearly as I've done it, but some areas are extremely frustrating for no reason.. not geared towards skill but luck - like TA. Volatile Blossoms will come back extremely quickly and burst on a moments notice. As for doing Dungeons prior to 80... do the story dungeons.. explorable dungeons... not really worth grinding tokens early on, especially as you don't get that great of rewards anymore.
He tried to say CM Story mode was to difficult as well... lol
So lets go run a dungeon then... your choice. I don't want to sit here talking about this nonsense when I can easily just group with you and run any of the dungeons. Just tell me which one and when.
Not to mention you contradicting yourself, you say how easy they are.. then you say you drop from groups? Not the way I play either. If I start with a group I finish with one unless they give up. And sorry but advice like "just use combo fields" isn't the magic bullet some people here think it is.
Post patch, after the difficulty revamp.. it is too difficult for the second story dungeon.
Post patch its still a faceroll... Story mode is as easy as the dungeons come. As far as running a dungeon together, I'll pass from what you posted and your views on the difficulty of CM story mode I think I'd lose some hair. I don't have a problem giving advice while I'm on the forums and can't play anyways but my game time is for fun, not for teaching someone that has expressed a lack of interest in learning.
Of COURSE you'll pass... that was me calling you out, and you buckling. Lets be honest, you've never run CM post patch.. and you're blindly defending the game. Thats okay, I understand.. everyone here is a "L33T G@M3R" and everythings so easy for them.. right?
If not that, then we can do some sPvP instead maybe? I think you believe I don't know what I'm doing, and I'll be happy to prove you wrong. I'll even let you pick the class I'll play lol.
I'm not sure I feel it's a faceroll -- some of those trash pulls would probably be overwhelming for casual players. I don't have a big problem with it though, as I like challenging content personally. That said, I haven't run it post-changes more than once.
I have mixed feelings about the story modes overall. I don't personally plan to run any of them more than once (with the exception of AC which I've run a few times), as I don't really see what the point would be. Explorables are the real dungeon for me, and I will mostly concentrate on them later other than a dungeon or two a day. I wouldn't be too sad if they nerfed the hell out of story modes and left the rewards as they are now, and put a lockout on them. Then casuals could have their easy content and they could control how many times they could be farmed. I think they tried to shy away from the lock system, but obviously it has its advantages for this reason (right now, I think the difficulty is supposed to be the "lock")
The way I see Story Modes, they should be really casual friendly, but still somewhat challenging. I feel they should be more balanced then anything. For example you say you've run AC a lot for story... I think the boss encounters are just right in AC but the mobs.... rangers with their ranged traps, elementalist AOE and necromancer lifesteal does way too much damage, but all manageable... the thing about it is, they are much tougher then the bosses... so I would like to see that balanced a little bit to where trash mobs aren't the worst of what you experience.
People seem to think I'm saying everything is too hard... I don't believe that at all. You do need a lot of coordination, and some skill.... more importantly (again using AC as an example) you need the right mix of players to achieve success. Path 1 needs some okay heals and good DPS to take down mounds and protect hodgins, path 2, is pretty easy overall, path 3 you need very high DPS to take down mounds and protect crystals. If your DPS isn't high enough you'll get overrun and fail. To me, that doesn't allow for "any build can do anything at any time" . I also think that some dungeons.. while challenging and able to be completed, are still frustrating at certain parts.
To answer your question I've PUG'd 75% of the dungeons I've done.. and again.. I've only ever walked out of a dungeon about 4 times without completing it... I've never walked out of a story dungeon. I have gear tokens for every dungeon as well.
Sometimes I do get really bad groups.. I point out bad players, and so on. I don't leave groups, I help them get through it. Thats not to say that there aren't parts of dungeons that I think are frustrating parts even with an experienced group.
As for combos, I'm not going to say they don't help... but they won't make dungeons move substantially faster IMO. I'm not saying don't use them... obviously... as for killing faster, a lot of it would have to be the spec as well as abilities, gear too.
Well, there I would disagree with almost everything you've said. I'm not raging fanboy, and I do believe that I'm looking at their new systems fairly objectively -- I have played a lot of MMOs and liked them all for what they were.
The new system -- which is "mostly" without trinity -- is quite good once you get used to it. The dungeons have a learning curve and as I said above, can be frustrating at first. Overcoming that though and getting used to the new group dynamics is a lot of fun.
What I do particularly like is the idiology of flexibility and customization that they've taken on. There is no "you must take this build" to the dungeon, though you have to be smart and balance your traits with your gear. For example, I trait deeply into condition damage, vitality, and boon duration, so I need to make up for the lack of toughness and general mitigation through gear -- ie. I socket things with mostly toughness to balance it out. I found doing this helped a LOT in dungeons, that and switching out my general PvE perks for more group-friendly ones during the run. This takes some thought, and I imagine people on average are just jumping into dungeons with their regular setup.
I'm about level 55 on my Elemetalist and so far I've only done AC, once in Story and once in Explore mode. I'm running a tough/vitatlity/heal build. I honestly thought Explore was easier because that pug group was more organized. However, I didn't really like either dungeon run. There is too much trash and it takes too long to kill trash. TSW virtually did away with Trash. They gave you amazing boss fights with tons of movement and dodging required. I don't want to spend an hour killing dungeon trash that offers no reward. The only reward you get is the feeling that you survived horrible trash pulls that take an eternity to kill.
I don't really know what to think. I love group pve content, but the dungeons here just seem too much of a hassle. You have to pray you are with a half competent team, and even then you are going to be getting someone up out of downed state.
I've tried running a staff build throwing out combo fields and using Arcane Wave to do my own team combos, giving the team might for damage...using healing bursts to sustain. However, I found myself more useful running a dagger/focus build. I get two chills, a knockdown, invulnerability, and several other items that allow me to kite a little. My damage is very low, but hey I can kite and that seems the only thing to do. That's the boring part to me. Some of the mobs will kill you in two hits, even if you have a toughness build. In the graveling event, if the larger mobs knock you down, you're dead. You can try kiting them, but they are pretty fast.
Maybe AC is just a boring dungeon. Maybe I need to play more or find better teams. The most fun I had was dodging the traps in AC. I don't think that is saying a lot.
I agree with gelraen - QFT.
no my opinion is based of the many raiding guilds ive been involved with , im not someone who dived in once and complained because i couldnt beat a dungeon. There is nothing refreshing about these things , its personal preference obviously but just because you can give your group some cleansing and small regen doesnt make it anymore tactical. When you have a tank , they have a job to do and a role , if they are allowing mobs to hit better dps classes and healers , they are not playing their role. If you have healers not healing they are not playing their role etc. This is a tried and true system that allows everyone in a group to do content at optimal performance. Yes it assigns rolls , so i guess you can say it sucks if you want to do different roles then what your class was designed to do which goes against mechanics in the first place.
This system in place now just creates 5 dps classes that will trait out a few different traits that can control a bit and allow for some debuffing and buffing others. Granted some of the scripted encounters are fun , it still boils down to out dps the boss and trash pulls before they kill you . This system is very very limited and you will not see much change or evolve in its current form with the game going forward. Yes you can add in bosses that have some different mechanics but with this system they always have to take into consideration that people are not going to use optimal builds or have control effects on. Plus on top of that the rewards for the headache of completing them is about stupid imo. Now all of this will not matter to guild runs with experienced vet players who work together well. But all you have to do is look in your chat window and see how random pugs are fairing. Also it still leads to optimal builds , so cookie cutter is no different , just look at what ele and guardians are always expected to do?
Yeah I can understand. I believe AC is not the best of the dungeons. I don't think it is bad and I enjoyed it when I did it once getting the hang of it, but I had much more fun in both CM and TA, for example.
On my guardian (alt), I found running with Wall of Reflection (blocking projectiles) and Stand your Ground (stablity) were life savers for the whole team in many many trash situations. On my thief, Shadow Refuge, traited for heal, and... err... what's the wall called, hmm, smoke screen? Think that's it. Both also big life savers.
I hear ya Cernan, I rolled an elementalist and have him at almost 40 now. I started out very optimistic about Staff.... then Scepter Focus... now I'm dagger dagger...... spec'd into cantrips for survivability and boons... I only swap to staff or scepter now if I need range damage (which happens usually on large boss fights or AOE bosses), and of course I have to do that prior to the fight. Healing is very cumbersome in fights with the staff.... Dagger/Dagger healing is more organic for me, swapping in and out.. and sometimes focus helps for survivability with earth. Luckily cantrips give me a lot of defense and regen... and in the high levels put out decent damage and provide good healing too.
Other elementalists seem to go pets... running glyphs and turrets, but that only keeps you alive for so long and won't help you mitigate damage or break stuns which.. as you said, is a death knell at some parts.
I think the lack of trinity is bit exaggerated. You can use a trinity setup if you choose to. Playing the dungeons like you usually would in an mmo make things a lot easier. LoS pulls, AoE stacking mobs, etc.
You have to use you cooldowns more and healing others isn't nearly as powerful as a traditional mmo. I think this where people run into trouble. Tanks aren't used to blowing nearly so many cooldowns and healers expect to heal from 0-full in 1 heal.
The trinity isn't necessary to complete dungeons however. You can run without them. I do think running a trinity setup is easier and less chaotic however.
I aggree the OP, worst dungeon system ever. The dungeons in GW2 match to the whole game, its made for solo players. In dungeons, there are 5 solo players fighting for their own lives, until the enemies die. Pure chaos.
In TSW, I did every dungeon while leveling up, mostly more than once. They were just pure fun.
In GW2, I did Ascalon with lvl 30 and then I quitted dungeons until lvl 80.
Those games can be compared, since both have the same fighting mechanics, active dodging and so on. Only with the difference, that TSW has tanks and healers, where GW2 only has dps and more dps.
That's a good point, Atlan. It's not a complete lack of trinity, and if you go into dungeons thinking of yourselves as 5 dps, then likely you will fail.
The best of the good groups that I've been in, someone has usually stepped forward to "try" and soak the most damage. I've done it sometimes on my guardian, and other times I've hung back and played more of a support role. You can call that person a tank if you want, or whatever. The words don't really matter, but what it does is most of the time controls the movement of the active target and focuses aggro. It's still important that people know how to handle themselves when the boss/trash switches focus, but I would say there is at least a light trinity of sorts.
Sorry, my Guardian is level 70 and all I did from 35 on was do dungeon runs on him. I've ran CM post patch plenty, story mode after patch was still to easy to bring myself to do more than a few times to help some friends do story mode. Explore mode I do daily, I want my tokens lol. If we are being honest, the truth is simply the highlighted part of your post.
If you aren't willing to accept advice on the forums, theres no way I'm spending time trying to show you in game.
And no, not everyone here is 1337 or w/e you want to put there. CM Story is just hands down easy, there is no challenge there. It's one of the reasons I do explore mode only, that and it doesn't give tokens. The rest wasn't me saying explore mode is easy, it will still be a challenge but it isn't exactly difficult either if you take the advice I and others have given you.