I think the problem is that GW2 doesn't replace the trinity with anything understandable. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of the trinity if you are going to replace it with a different system that has its own understandable rules and you explain those rules to your players. GW2 doesn't do that. Oh, you got to figure out combo fields. OK, then what? I know what combo fields do. I know how to use them. That doesn't fix the probolem that there is still an enormous amount of random and unavoidable damage flying around. 2 sec CC? ok, so you stop the boss from getting 1 shot off. then its 20 -60 sec of kiting? Tera may have failed in every other respect but at least the combat was understandable. You could see the mobs begin a move and you could get out of the way. Or even if you got hit the first time you could see the pattern and learn to avoid it. I am not seeing that with GW2. How are you supposed to dodge an Ettin's boulder toss when it lockes on to you and hits every time. For a game that has no healing there should be absolutely no target lock on ranged attacks.
Everything in GW2 is so great. Such a step up. But the combat system is shit. There is no skill in constant strafing in the hopes that you will miss just enough damage to allow your cooldowns to cycle.
I don't care what system they choose to use but it needs to be a system that they can explain to people. A system where people can understand what is expected of them in a fight. And in a system with no real healing they need to make ALL damage avoidable.
I think the problem is that GW2 doesn't replace the trinity with anything understandable. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of the trinity if you are going to replace it with a different system that has its own understandable rules and you explain those rules to your players. GW2 doesn't do that. Oh, you got to figure out combo fields. OK, then what? I know what combo fields do. I know how to use them. That doesn't fix the probolem that there is still an enormous amount of random and unavoidable damage flying around. 2 sec CC? ok, so you stop the boss from getting 1 shot off. then its 20 -60 sec of kiting? Tera may have failed in every other respect but at least the combat was understandable. You could see the mobs begin a move and you could get out of the way. Or even if you got hit the first time you could see the pattern and learn to avoid it. I am not seeing that with GW2. How are you supposed to dodge an Ettin's boulder toss when it lockes on to you and hits every time. For a game that has no healing there should be absolutely no target lock on ranged attacks.
Everything in GW2 is so great. Such a step up. But the combat system is shit. There is no skill in constant strafing in the hopes that you will miss just enough damage to allow your cooldowns to cycle.
I don't care what system they choose to use but it needs to be a system that they can explain to people. A system where people can understand what is expected of them in a fight. And in a system with no real healing they need to make ALL damage avoidable.
I just don't see this at all!
Between dodge, block, Aegis, and Blind inducing skills I can pretty much avoid everything in PvE if I time it right.
I also use a Heal that gives me 2 seconds of blocking and Utility skills that create invulnerability pretty much for everyone inside.
Might just be whatever profession you are playing? What would that be? And how are you spec'ing traits and what weapon sets do you use?
I think the problem is that GW2 doesn't replace the trinity with anything understandable. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of the trinity if you are going to replace it with a different system that has its own understandable rules and you explain those rules to your players. GW2 doesn't do that. Oh, you got to figure out combo fields. OK, then what? I know what combo fields do. I know how to use them. That doesn't fix the probolem that there is still an enormous amount of random and unavoidable damage flying around. 2 sec CC? ok, so you stop the boss from getting 1 shot off. then its 20 -60 sec of kiting? Tera may have failed in every other respect but at least the combat was understandable. You could see the mobs begin a move and you could get out of the way. Or even if you got hit the first time you could see the pattern and learn to avoid it. I am not seeing that with GW2. How are you supposed to dodge an Ettin's boulder toss when it lockes on to you and hits every time. For a game that has no healing there should be absolutely no target lock on ranged attacks.
Everything in GW2 is so great. Such a step up. But the combat system is shit. There is no skill in constant strafing in the hopes that you will miss just enough damage to allow your cooldowns to cycle.
I don't care what system they choose to use but it needs to be a system that they can explain to people. A system where people can understand what is expected of them in a fight. And in a system with no real healing they need to make ALL damage avoidable.
I just don't see this at all!
Between dodge, block, Aegis, and Blind inducing skills I can pretty much avoid everything in PvE if I time it right.
I also use a Heal that gives me 2 seconds of blocking and Utility skills that create invulnerability pretty much for everyone inside.
Might just be whatever profession you are playing? What would that be? And how are you spec'ing traits and what weapon sets do you use?
So I have to be a certain profession with a certain spec to avoid damage?
I think the problem is that GW2 doesn't replace the trinity with anything understandable. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of the trinity if you are going to replace it with a different system that has its own understandable rules and you explain those rules to your players. GW2 doesn't do that. Oh, you got to figure out combo fields. OK, then what? I know what combo fields do. I know how to use them. That doesn't fix the probolem that there is still an enormous amount of random and unavoidable damage flying around. 2 sec CC? ok, so you stop the boss from getting 1 shot off. then its 20 -60 sec of kiting? Tera may have failed in every other respect but at least the combat was understandable. You could see the mobs begin a move and you could get out of the way. Or even if you got hit the first time you could see the pattern and learn to avoid it. I am not seeing that with GW2. How are you supposed to dodge an Ettin's boulder toss when it lockes on to you and hits every time. For a game that has no healing there should be absolutely no target lock on ranged attacks.
Everything in GW2 is so great. Such a step up. But the combat system is shit. There is no skill in constant strafing in the hopes that you will miss just enough damage to allow your cooldowns to cycle.
I don't care what system they choose to use but it needs to be a system that they can explain to people. A system where people can understand what is expected of them in a fight. And in a system with no real healing they need to make ALL damage avoidable.
I just don't see this at all!
Between dodge, block, Aegis, and Blind inducing skills I can pretty much avoid everything in PvE if I time it right.
I also use a Heal that gives me 2 seconds of blocking and Utility skills that create invulnerability pretty much for everyone inside.
Might just be whatever profession you are playing? What would that be? And how are you spec'ing traits and what weapon sets do you use?
So I have to be a certain profession with a certain spec to avoid damage?
Hmm I wouldn't say that you have to be one, but I would say that you need at least 1 person in your party that is very support specced, in combination with everyone having an idea what combo fields do what, for the harder encounters. Basically stuff that is not very needed in the open world, if you're mainly at events with a lot of people.
Yo don't have to be a specific profession, but you do need to change your traits and build to suit the dungeon and the composition of the group. A great example last night was a player who insisted she was a pure healer elementalist and did little else. Every fight she demanded we group on her for heals. Wrong game, it was so obvious she wanted to be back in the comfrey zone she had been in for the last x years.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Theres really no problem changing the trinity up and making things different, the problem comes that it wasn't done correctly. Even if you play the new trinity near perfectly, people ARE going to be downed and its possible to wipe. It won't be because your bad, it will be because you only have so much you can do before you can't dodge anymore and your CC is all used up.
It needs tweaking when the hardest thing in a dungeon is trash mobs, specifically focusing around multiple pulls at once you can't avoid. Once your past them, the bosses are a cake walk in comparison.
And I am not saying it can't be done. But it does involve a lot of luck. I can kill normal mobs and vets all day long on my own. But in dungeons, it is generally a game of kite the mob around while others beat on it using your skills to reduce how much damage you take and hope that you can hang on until the boss decides to beat on someone else.
The trinity was a simplistic system that they tried to make artificailly hard by forcing groups to do odd dancing around routines. But it was at least an understandable system. What goes on in GW2 is more of a cluster---- of trying to use your skills and combos to simply slow down the rate at which the boss picks off the people in your group and otherwise rely on graveyard zergs or rezzing the down and someone else kites the mob. Ok, sure, that will get the job done but frankly, it is not fun. I like organized groups that depend on people doing the right thing at the right time.
Ok, so you have a blind that last 1 sec. a slow that last 5sec and maybe a retailiation that last 3 seconds. 2 dodges. what do you do with the rest of your 30-60secs? Sure kiting works but it is not fun.
I am just saying that I think the combat is to random and random is not fun when you have little to no healing. This is not a skill based system. This is a luck based system that will also punish you for standing still. If you keep moving and you use your skills at the right time it will bring you far enough that if you also get lucky you will gain the prize.
I perfer something a bit more deterministic.
Of course this setup doesn't keep you from exploring the world which is the biggest draw for me. I have lots of fun in DEs when half of them are not broken. It is just the dungeons that I am finding to be not fun. Maybe I am alone in that opinion.
This game by far has blown me away in almost every category, the gameplay is fun and the world is bueatiful. The Dynamic events are a great way to level because there is no go fletch quest hubs and so on, but last night I tried a dungeon for the first time.
I was a a level 50 Ranger doing a level 40 CM story mode. I had heard the horror stories of how unorganized, zerg fest they were but I kept telling myself I've played MMO's for so long that it can't be that bad. It was, the lack of a trinity was clear right away.
When entering the zone we started thru the story. First mob is a Golem, solo, and didn't go to bad. One death by a warrior but we got him up fast. I'm thinking ok, not to shabby. Second group of mobs is where it all went downhill. Your first pull there is about 4-5 mobs. Each one of them are "elite" which means even if all 5 of us are attacking it, it takes about 45-60 seconds to burn it down. Except there is no way to do ANYTHING about the other 4 beating on you. There is no tanking, no offtanking, no CC that is worth it. Most CC in this game last 3 seconds maybe. So needless to say, nearly every pull was a wipe. We spent as much time rezing people as we did fighting.
We beat the dungeon, but our strat was to all attack one mob, burn it down hopefully before we wiped, and come back and do it again. We would burn the barrel placers first and so on.
I know that CM was made harder recenetly, but this was just storymode. I felt like I didn't learn anything from the story because I was to busy cringing at this system. There was NOTHING FUN about this dungeon. We also had a person quit and we had to replace them during this dungeon because he said (sorry guys..this dugeon system is horrible..I am going to uninstall).
My character was setup for PVE and grouping. I had healing spring with some points into healing, search and rescue to help with rezing and the healing spirit. There was no way to heal thru that damage. We also had a guardian and that helped some but just prolonged how long it took us to wipe.
I miss my healers, tanks, and true CC. I lost motivation to level now because I do enjoy PVE more then PVP and knowing that is all I have to look forward to in dungeons is quite dishearting. I love every other aspect of this game, crafting, quest, pvp, graphics, but this is to core of a system for me to overlook. There is a difference between core mehanics and difficulty. The core mechanics on dungeons is just broke. Even if they made it super easy and a zerg fest, there would still be no "skill" to the system. It is either boring no pay attention killing, or just a wipe and res as fast as you can event. I miss strategy.
The dungeons and combat in the dungeons are great. The problem you had was a bad group and very little to no experience. Combo fields help a great deal, secondly you have to get your priorities straight. The list below may help.
1) Focus fire, and make sure if you have a gold or a purple boss you kill the silver and below trash first. Trying to focus down the big guy while getting wailed on by the rest doesn't work. You will simply be respawn zerging which leads to negative runs which make it seem like a waste of time.
2) Raise... sounds like a simple concept but if someone goes down unless you are either kiting mobs away or throwing up barriers or something similar to aid in that raising process/protect those raising.
3) Before an encounter, stop and talk. Make sure the group has a plan and understands the plan. If you simply run in and mark a target and start fighting a lot of players new to the dungeon or simply inexperienced for what ever reason go after their own targets and can end up getting you killed.
4) Stick together. You can't just run off and leave your group behind because you know the way. A lot of players again don't have the experience many of us do. You more often than not will end up in a situation where you need backup but they have no idea how to get to you.
5) Take a breather when you need it. When your health gets low and you have no heal or anything get behind everyone and see if there is some way you can help while waiting on health to regen or for your heal to come off of cooldown. Throw out a shield, a boon, debuff the mob, throw out some DoT's or CC's (Yes you do have them and done right they can help a lot).
6) This is the most important one, learn your profession. Learn what it can do and learn it's weaknesses.
Lets take Guardian for example, that Spirit shield that no one uses can stop projectiles... you know how much of a help that is in CM? Guardians have an absorption shield while raising they can get through traits. This to is a huge help.
Just those 2 things for guardian can make a huge impact on team and individual survivabillity. If you are going to be doing a lot of dungeon runs it helps to know what your going up against and how YOU specifically can help. Glass canon zerg is crap, if you aren't worrying about your own survivability worry about your teams. You don't have to make it your whole focus, but do consider picking a skill or two and a trait or two that can help you or your team out in the dungeon. Then focus on how you will contribute to taking down mobs and bosses.
The dungeon system doesn't need the trinity, it needs players to learn their professions and to learn how to function in a group environment where everyone is equally relying on everyone else.
I don't get why people when left without the crutch of a solid roles don't like learning to adapt? It makes solid sense that in this kind of team play you need to be thinking about what benefits the team, not what it is you enjoy doing and only that. GW2 doesn't support people who only want to play one role of tank, dps or heal in a dungeon, we've known this since well before release, everybody needs to be fluid and adjust according to what's happening, don't want to do that? then really you shouldn't be playing the team content. It's not possible to stand at the back pew pewing while watching tv, stroking the cat and having your lunch. Anet are expecting you to work as a team and ADJUST, that was the whole thrust of the change of trinity and it's dungeons where this becomes (often painfully) obvious.
Adjust, learn to play as a team or die, simple as that. Learn your class and look at which skills are useful in which situation. Nobody is going to take you in to a team in this game and only expect you to play one role, why would you think it's ok to 'only play as I want', that's for solo play people, this is about TEAMWORK. That really means knowing your class well and how to play it in different situations. The tools are there, you can switch skills, weapon sets and some traits while out of combat really easily, look at them and see how they can improve the current encounters.
I'm loving the organised chaos, there is definitely problems with mob tuning and they need to change having just more HP for some mobs. Res and zerg needs to go as a viable tactic too. Far from perfect but a solid move in the right direction, it allows much more interesting encounters and for EVERYONE to play more than one role.
AC is probably the worst encounter to start with, far more chaotic than the two that follow , they need a gentler approach for story mode in that one for sure.
Edit: OP this wasn't aimed at you, this was aimed at a few comments made during the thread about being unable to play 'the way I want'.
Sorry you're not enjoying it and you're obviously not the only one. Have you tried Twilight Arbor story mode, that to me felt much more like a traditional dungeon than the others, maybe give that a go? (gotta kite the spiders though)
Theres really no problem changing the trinity up and making things different, the problem comes that it wasn't done correctly. Even if you play the new trinity near perfectly, people ARE going to be downed and its possible to wipe. It won't be because your bad, it will be because you only have so much you can do before you can't dodge anymore and your CC is all used up.
It needs tweaking when the hardest thing in a dungeon is trash mobs, specifically focusing around multiple pulls at once you can't avoid. Once your past them, the bosses are a cake walk in comparison.
It's worse, you don't worry about wiping as you can kill bosses by choking them with corpses. While i know it is possible if played correctly to complete all encounters with minimal deaths it is also equally possible to just kamekazi chain-die to win. Guess what the majority of PUG's do on my server...
I seem to be saying this a lot these days but personally the ONLY place i miss the trinity is in dungeons, otherwise the class/skill system is fine. Dungeons without the trinity is a chaotic mess and often you win more by luck than skill.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
And I am not saying it can't be done. But it does involve a lot of luck. I can kill normal mobs and vets all day long on my own. But in dungeons, it is generally a game of kite the mob around while others beat on it using your skills to reduce how much damage you take and hope that you can hang on until the boss decides to beat on someone else.
The trinity was a simplistic system that they tried to make artificailly hard by forcing groups to do odd dancing around routines. But it was at least an understandable system. What goes on in GW2 is more of a cluster---- of trying to use your skills and combos to simply slow down the rate at which the boss picks off the people in your group and otherwise rely on graveyard zergs or rezzing the down and someone else kites the mob. Ok, sure, that will get the job done but frankly, it is not fun. I like organized groups that depend on people doing the right thing at the right time.
Ok, so you have a blind that last 1 sec. a slow that last 5sec and maybe a retailiation that last 3 seconds. 2 dodges. what do you do with the rest of your 30-60secs? Sure kiting works but it is not fun.
I am just saying that I think the combat is to random and random is not fun when you have little to no healing. This is not a skill based system. This is a luck based system that will also punish you for standing still. If you keep moving and you use your skills at the right time it will bring you far enough that if you also get lucky you will gain the prize.
I perfer something a bit more deterministic.
Of course this setup doesn't keep you from exploring the world which is the biggest draw for me. I have lots of fun in DEs when half of them are not broken. It is just the dungeons that I am finding to be not fun. Maybe I am alone in that opinion.
With my guardian I can give my group 2 blocks, heal them for about 6k hp in 7s, take conditions off them, give them protection(33% less dmg), put up a bubble that blocks projectiles, put up a wall that reflects them and put up another wall that enemies can't pass through. A thief can put down a blind combo field in which, if people whirl, they can keep every mob around them blinded for about 4-5s. You can also cripple, snare or daze enemies. If you use a blast on another certain combo field (don't rememeber which now), you can turn the whole party invisible for a few sec. Once you learn how to handle each type of enemy, it doesn't seem so random anymore, as far as my experience goes.
And I am not saying it can't be done. But it does involve a lot of luck. I can kill normal mobs and vets all day long on my own. But in dungeons, it is generally a game of kite the mob around while others beat on it using your skills to reduce how much damage you take and hope that you can hang on until the boss decides to beat on someone else.
The trinity was a simplistic system that they tried to make artificailly hard by forcing groups to do odd dancing around routines. But it was at least an understandable system. What goes on in GW2 is more of a cluster---- of trying to use your skills and combos to simply slow down the rate at which the boss picks off the people in your group and otherwise rely on graveyard zergs or rezzing the down and someone else kites the mob. Ok, sure, that will get the job done but frankly, it is not fun. I like organized groups that depend on people doing the right thing at the right time.
Ok, so you have a blind that last 1 sec. a slow that last 5sec and maybe a retailiation that last 3 seconds. 2 dodges. what do you do with the rest of your 30-60secs? Sure kiting works but it is not fun.
I am just saying that I think the combat is to random and random is not fun when you have little to no healing. This is not a skill based system. This is a luck based system that will also punish you for standing still. If you keep moving and you use your skills at the right time it will bring you far enough that if you also get lucky you will gain the prize.
I perfer something a bit more deterministic.
Of course this setup doesn't keep you from exploring the world which is the biggest draw for me. I have lots of fun in DEs when half of them are not broken. It is just the dungeons that I am finding to be not fun. Maybe I am alone in that opinion.
Again the trick is to use the skill, using your example Blind, when the boss is using a skill. The idea is to understand the tells (what skill goes with what initial movement). This is the trick to GW2 - understanding the situations and knowing that what works in one situation doesn't work in others.
I completely agree that the dungeon system is one of the worst systems I've had to deal with. Difficulty is one thing... CM Story is a good example as the OP mentions the difficulty is extremely punishing. Understand this is only the second dungeon... and substantially less forgiving then the first dungeon. I've done all of the dungeons, and most paths of the explorable dungeons as well....
The balancing is WAY off. Most mobs you encounter are tougher then at least a few of the bosses you'll encounter. In some parts of certain dungeons, you need extreme DPS, or exceptional healing coupled with strong DPS capabilities (AC path1). Working together only does anything for you about half the time apart from focusing a target, heals and boons..protection skills, often go wasted because everyones out to save themselves from dying, and theres rarely a chance to communicate during a fight. I usually give a heads up on bosses prior to fighting them so people know what to expect, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of times where all the forewarning in the world won't help.
People are going to tell you their little tricks about doing combos, or staying together, or spinning in a circle clockwise instead of counterclockwise.... but the truth is, the dungeons are frustrating. Some of them are just ridiculously frustrating for the sake of being frustrating, such as Twilight Arbor. Volatile blossoms are literally a pain in the ass to deal with and excessive, making it increasingly tough just to navigate the map - even for those that have run the dungeon multiple times and know what to expect, much less new players.
Then you have some bosses like in HotW where its virtually impossible to take damage and tough to heal through it when they literally AOE an entire room with DoT -- and it doesn't matter how many times you run these dungeons, it doesn't get easier.
Thats just talking about difficulty, that isn't even getting into how they screwed up rewards.... I've opted to stay out of dungeons until I'm level 80.. because prior to that.. there really is no reason to do them.
I completely agree that the dungeon system is one of the worst systems I've had to deal with. Difficulty is one thing... CM Story is a good example as the OP mentions the difficulty is extremely punishing. Understand this is only the second dungeon... and substantially less forgiving then the first dungeon. I've done all of the dungeons, and most paths of the explorable dungeons as well....
The balancing is WAY off. Most mobs you encounter are tougher then at least a few of the bosses you'll encounter. In some parts of certain dungeons, you need extreme DPS, or exceptional healing coupled with strong DPS capabilities (AC path1). Working together only does anything for you about half the time apart from focusing a target, heals and boons..protection skills, often go wasted because everyones out to save themselves from dying, and theres rarely a chance to communicate during a fight. I usually give a heads up on bosses prior to fighting them so people know what to expect, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of times where all the forewarning in the world won't help.
People are going to tell you their little tricks about doing combos, or staying together, or spinning in a circle clockwise instead of counterclockwise.... but the truth is, the dungeons are frustrating. Some of them are just ridiculously frustrating for the sake of being frustrating, such as Twilight Arbor. Volatile blossoms are literally a pain in the ass to deal with and excessive, making it increasingly tough just to navigate the map - even for those that have run the dungeon multiple times and know what to expect, much less new players.
Then you have some bosses like in HotW where its virtually impossible to take damage and tough to heal through it when they literally AOE an entire room with DoT -- and it doesn't matter how many times you run these dungeons, it doesn't get easier.
Thats just talking about difficulty, that isn't even getting into how they screwed up rewards.... I've opted to stay out of dungeons until I'm level 80.. because prior to that.. there really is no reason to do them.
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.
I've run dungeons with PUGs and then gone in back to back with guild groups, and I can tell you the difference is night and day.
I had a similar experience with a PUG group in AC. Eventually we broke up(didn't even finish).
Went back in with a guild group with people I know knew how to play and with better communication and we breezed through it. Wiped once on the lovers(as in everyone died at least once) but since we were running back at the same time that the fight was going on it wasn't really a wipe.
Went back in with a different guild group(to help with someone else's story) and again breezed through.
When we got to CM it was pretty much the same thing.
Moral of the story: Get a good group who knows what they are doing, get on vent, communicate, communicate, communicate, learn how to use combo fields and finishers, communicate, communicate...
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention... You really need to communicate. As an example, I play a melee guardian and have 3 combo fields I put up... so the others in my party are aware and every time I pop one I just say the type ("light", "fire", "light", "light", etc)
I completely agree that the dungeon system is one of the worst systems I've had to deal with. Difficulty is one thing... CM Story is a good example as the OP mentions the difficulty is extremely punishing. Understand this is only the second dungeon... and substantially less forgiving then the first dungeon. I've done all of the dungeons, and most paths of the explorable dungeons as well....
The balancing is WAY off. Most mobs you encounter are tougher then at least a few of the bosses you'll encounter. In some parts of certain dungeons, you need extreme DPS, or exceptional healing coupled with strong DPS capabilities (AC path1). Working together only does anything for you about half the time apart from focusing a target, heals and boons..protection skills, often go wasted because everyones out to save themselves from dying, and theres rarely a chance to communicate during a fight. I usually give a heads up on bosses prior to fighting them so people know what to expect, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of times where all the forewarning in the world won't help.
People are going to tell you their little tricks about doing combos, or staying together, or spinning in a circle clockwise instead of counterclockwise.... but the truth is, the dungeons are frustrating. Some of them are just ridiculously frustrating for the sake of being frustrating, such as Twilight Arbor. Volatile blossoms are literally a pain in the ass to deal with and excessive, making it increasingly tough just to navigate the map - even for those that have run the dungeon multiple times and know what to expect, much less new players.
Then you have some bosses like in HotW where its virtually impossible to take damage and tough to heal through it when they literally AOE an entire room with DoT -- and it doesn't matter how many times you run these dungeons, it doesn't get easier.
Thats just talking about difficulty, that isn't even getting into how they screwed up rewards.... I've opted to stay out of dungeons until I'm level 80.. because prior to that.. there really is no reason to do them.
THere is no balance issue. In GW1, any build was not UBER as there was always another build to counter and beat it. Every build has it's strengths and weaknesses - that is the key to GW1 and GW2. Knowing what they are to the particular build you are using is an important aspect of this game and one you are not seeing. Warriors and Guardians are susceptible to blind skills, as an example.
Unlike RIft, which all Rogues for example, are squishy and have to play the same way, in GW2 each build you use requires a different style of playing. It is more of a finesse game, rather than a brute force game.
It's amazing how fast the crying begins when people don't have a good tank or healer (or both working in unison) to carry them through content like "other games" allow.
GW2 is a severe dose of reality for players with the mentality that dungeons should be a a quick and easy speed run for shinies. If you go in expecting others to do most of the work your group will fail nine out of ten times. Solid teamwork and synergy among your groupmates/builds is key, good communication is a must.
Keeping your gear up to date is essential if you want to have successful, non-frustrating runs.
If two of your group members are wearing gear that is ten levels out of date, that's a problem, and it is going to make things exponentially harder for the rest of the group. Which will often create excess frustration and lead to the run breaking up or not being completed.
I've ran all of the dungeons at least a few times each, and have had little to no trouble with any of them.
Unlike RIft, which all Rogues for example, are squishy and have to play the same way, in GW2 each build you use requires a different style of playing. It is more of a finesse game, rather than a brute force game.
Riftstalker's are far from squishy and have the best damage mitigation in the game once they have there buffs rolling.
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.
THere is no balance issue. In GW1, any build was not UBER as there was always another build to counter and beat it. Every build has it's strengths and weaknesses - that is the key to GW1 and GW2. Knowing what they are to the particular build you are using is an important aspect of this game and one you are not seeing. Warriors and Guardians are susceptible to blind skills, as an example.
Unlike RIft, which all Rogues for example, are squishy and have to play the same way, in GW2 each build you use requires a different style of playing. It is more of a finesse game, rather than a brute force game.
I think you heard the term balancing issue, and thought I was talking about class and abilities..... I was talking specifically about dungeon balancing. Build balance.. theres nothing you can do about that... Build balance in DUNGEONS does matter though.. for example.. on some dungeons if you don't have enough DPS, theres no reason to try and run it... thats just the way it is.
Originally posted by Khebeln I have 600+ Hours played on one character, and 3/4 of that time i spent in dungeons grinding several sets of armors.One thing to say, it is the WORST system ever for dungeons. Only things saving it is that its dynamic and action oriented, but then again Tera did far better in that department.In the end best setup is for everyone to run Toughnes/Vitality/Power Build as Semi tank only or you cant do anything but the easiest most grinded main paths. And even then it can get extremly or near imposible for certian classes like elementalist do do some paths w/o dieing (cod path where you have to split, 1 person at 1 torch far away from each other with tons of mobs respawning near torch every 15-25s and all of them semi elite) And thats just the entrance to that path.I agree some encounters where fun, but only with everyone in best posible pve gear/triat setup (and the lack of switching builds is NOT helping, you can either only do PVE or PVE you cant do both)There is only hope they will do something with that mess as after the recent dungeon changes A LOT of ppl stoped doing dungeons or logging in gw2 (pve only) as dungeons where the only reason to grind gear.Some have hope that things will improve, i can only say im waiting for the official statement about the plans for the next 6 months that is usualy realeased after first month.
600 hours? on 1 toon? damn dude. i have played wow since 2007 and have 8 75's and i still dont have that COMBINED. good god
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.
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...
Comments
I think the problem is that GW2 doesn't replace the trinity with anything understandable. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of the trinity if you are going to replace it with a different system that has its own understandable rules and you explain those rules to your players. GW2 doesn't do that. Oh, you got to figure out combo fields. OK, then what? I know what combo fields do. I know how to use them. That doesn't fix the probolem that there is still an enormous amount of random and unavoidable damage flying around. 2 sec CC? ok, so you stop the boss from getting 1 shot off. then its 20 -60 sec of kiting? Tera may have failed in every other respect but at least the combat was understandable. You could see the mobs begin a move and you could get out of the way. Or even if you got hit the first time you could see the pattern and learn to avoid it. I am not seeing that with GW2. How are you supposed to dodge an Ettin's boulder toss when it lockes on to you and hits every time. For a game that has no healing there should be absolutely no target lock on ranged attacks.
Everything in GW2 is so great. Such a step up. But the combat system is shit. There is no skill in constant strafing in the hopes that you will miss just enough damage to allow your cooldowns to cycle.
I don't care what system they choose to use but it needs to be a system that they can explain to people. A system where people can understand what is expected of them in a fight. And in a system with no real healing they need to make ALL damage avoidable.
All die, so die well.
I just don't see this at all!
Between dodge, block, Aegis, and Blind inducing skills I can pretty much avoid everything in PvE if I time it right.
I also use a Heal that gives me 2 seconds of blocking and Utility skills that create invulnerability pretty much for everyone inside.
Might just be whatever profession you are playing? What would that be? And how are you spec'ing traits and what weapon sets do you use?
So I have to be a certain profession with a certain spec to avoid damage?
All die, so die well.
Hmm I wouldn't say that you have to be one, but I would say that you need at least 1 person in your party that is very support specced, in combination with everyone having an idea what combo fields do what, for the harder encounters. Basically stuff that is not very needed in the open world, if you're mainly at events with a lot of people.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Worst? No... but not the best design.
Theres really no problem changing the trinity up and making things different, the problem comes that it wasn't done correctly. Even if you play the new trinity near perfectly, people ARE going to be downed and its possible to wipe. It won't be because your bad, it will be because you only have so much you can do before you can't dodge anymore and your CC is all used up.
It needs tweaking when the hardest thing in a dungeon is trash mobs, specifically focusing around multiple pulls at once you can't avoid. Once your past them, the bosses are a cake walk in comparison.
And I am not saying it can't be done. But it does involve a lot of luck. I can kill normal mobs and vets all day long on my own. But in dungeons, it is generally a game of kite the mob around while others beat on it using your skills to reduce how much damage you take and hope that you can hang on until the boss decides to beat on someone else.
The trinity was a simplistic system that they tried to make artificailly hard by forcing groups to do odd dancing around routines. But it was at least an understandable system. What goes on in GW2 is more of a cluster---- of trying to use your skills and combos to simply slow down the rate at which the boss picks off the people in your group and otherwise rely on graveyard zergs or rezzing the down and someone else kites the mob. Ok, sure, that will get the job done but frankly, it is not fun. I like organized groups that depend on people doing the right thing at the right time.
Ok, so you have a blind that last 1 sec. a slow that last 5sec and maybe a retailiation that last 3 seconds. 2 dodges. what do you do with the rest of your 30-60secs? Sure kiting works but it is not fun.
I am just saying that I think the combat is to random and random is not fun when you have little to no healing. This is not a skill based system. This is a luck based system that will also punish you for standing still. If you keep moving and you use your skills at the right time it will bring you far enough that if you also get lucky you will gain the prize.
I perfer something a bit more deterministic.
Of course this setup doesn't keep you from exploring the world which is the biggest draw for me. I have lots of fun in DEs when half of them are not broken. It is just the dungeons that I am finding to be not fun. Maybe I am alone in that opinion.
All die, so die well.
The dungeons and combat in the dungeons are great. The problem you had was a bad group and very little to no experience. Combo fields help a great deal, secondly you have to get your priorities straight. The list below may help.
1) Focus fire, and make sure if you have a gold or a purple boss you kill the silver and below trash first. Trying to focus down the big guy while getting wailed on by the rest doesn't work. You will simply be respawn zerging which leads to negative runs which make it seem like a waste of time.
2) Raise... sounds like a simple concept but if someone goes down unless you are either kiting mobs away or throwing up barriers or something similar to aid in that raising process/protect those raising.
3) Before an encounter, stop and talk. Make sure the group has a plan and understands the plan. If you simply run in and mark a target and start fighting a lot of players new to the dungeon or simply inexperienced for what ever reason go after their own targets and can end up getting you killed.
4) Stick together. You can't just run off and leave your group behind because you know the way. A lot of players again don't have the experience many of us do. You more often than not will end up in a situation where you need backup but they have no idea how to get to you.
5) Take a breather when you need it. When your health gets low and you have no heal or anything get behind everyone and see if there is some way you can help while waiting on health to regen or for your heal to come off of cooldown. Throw out a shield, a boon, debuff the mob, throw out some DoT's or CC's (Yes you do have them and done right they can help a lot).
6) This is the most important one, learn your profession. Learn what it can do and learn it's weaknesses.
Lets take Guardian for example, that Spirit shield that no one uses can stop projectiles... you know how much of a help that is in CM? Guardians have an absorption shield while raising they can get through traits. This to is a huge help.
Just those 2 things for guardian can make a huge impact on team and individual survivabillity. If you are going to be doing a lot of dungeon runs it helps to know what your going up against and how YOU specifically can help. Glass canon zerg is crap, if you aren't worrying about your own survivability worry about your teams. You don't have to make it your whole focus, but do consider picking a skill or two and a trait or two that can help you or your team out in the dungeon. Then focus on how you will contribute to taking down mobs and bosses.
The dungeon system doesn't need the trinity, it needs players to learn their professions and to learn how to function in a group environment where everyone is equally relying on everyone else.
I don't get why people when left without the crutch of a solid roles don't like learning to adapt? It makes solid sense that in this kind of team play you need to be thinking about what benefits the team, not what it is you enjoy doing and only that. GW2 doesn't support people who only want to play one role of tank, dps or heal in a dungeon, we've known this since well before release, everybody needs to be fluid and adjust according to what's happening, don't want to do that? then really you shouldn't be playing the team content. It's not possible to stand at the back pew pewing while watching tv, stroking the cat and having your lunch. Anet are expecting you to work as a team and ADJUST, that was the whole thrust of the change of trinity and it's dungeons where this becomes (often painfully) obvious.
Adjust, learn to play as a team or die, simple as that. Learn your class and look at which skills are useful in which situation. Nobody is going to take you in to a team in this game and only expect you to play one role, why would you think it's ok to 'only play as I want', that's for solo play people, this is about TEAMWORK. That really means knowing your class well and how to play it in different situations. The tools are there, you can switch skills, weapon sets and some traits while out of combat really easily, look at them and see how they can improve the current encounters.
I'm loving the organised chaos, there is definitely problems with mob tuning and they need to change having just more HP for some mobs. Res and zerg needs to go as a viable tactic too. Far from perfect but a solid move in the right direction, it allows much more interesting encounters and for EVERYONE to play more than one role.
AC is probably the worst encounter to start with, far more chaotic than the two that follow , they need a gentler approach for story mode in that one for sure.
Edit: OP this wasn't aimed at you, this was aimed at a few comments made during the thread about being unable to play 'the way I want'.
Sorry you're not enjoying it and you're obviously not the only one. Have you tried Twilight Arbor story mode, that to me felt much more like a traditional dungeon than the others, maybe give that a go? (gotta kite the spiders though)
It's worse, you don't worry about wiping as you can kill bosses by choking them with corpses. While i know it is possible if played correctly to complete all encounters with minimal deaths it is also equally possible to just kamekazi chain-die to win. Guess what the majority of PUG's do on my server...
I seem to be saying this a lot these days but personally the ONLY place i miss the trinity is in dungeons, otherwise the class/skill system is fine. Dungeons without the trinity is a chaotic mess and often you win more by luck than skill.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
With my guardian I can give my group 2 blocks, heal them for about 6k hp in 7s, take conditions off them, give them protection(33% less dmg), put up a bubble that blocks projectiles, put up a wall that reflects them and put up another wall that enemies can't pass through. A thief can put down a blind combo field in which, if people whirl, they can keep every mob around them blinded for about 4-5s. You can also cripple, snare or daze enemies. If you use a blast on another certain combo field (don't rememeber which now), you can turn the whole party invisible for a few sec. Once you learn how to handle each type of enemy, it doesn't seem so random anymore, as far as my experience goes.
Again the trick is to use the skill, using your example Blind, when the boss is using a skill. The idea is to understand the tells (what skill goes with what initial movement). This is the trick to GW2 - understanding the situations and knowing that what works in one situation doesn't work in others.
I completely agree that the dungeon system is one of the worst systems I've had to deal with. Difficulty is one thing... CM Story is a good example as the OP mentions the difficulty is extremely punishing. Understand this is only the second dungeon... and substantially less forgiving then the first dungeon. I've done all of the dungeons, and most paths of the explorable dungeons as well....
The balancing is WAY off. Most mobs you encounter are tougher then at least a few of the bosses you'll encounter. In some parts of certain dungeons, you need extreme DPS, or exceptional healing coupled with strong DPS capabilities (AC path1). Working together only does anything for you about half the time apart from focusing a target, heals and boons..protection skills, often go wasted because everyones out to save themselves from dying, and theres rarely a chance to communicate during a fight. I usually give a heads up on bosses prior to fighting them so people know what to expect, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of times where all the forewarning in the world won't help.
People are going to tell you their little tricks about doing combos, or staying together, or spinning in a circle clockwise instead of counterclockwise.... but the truth is, the dungeons are frustrating. Some of them are just ridiculously frustrating for the sake of being frustrating, such as Twilight Arbor. Volatile blossoms are literally a pain in the ass to deal with and excessive, making it increasingly tough just to navigate the map - even for those that have run the dungeon multiple times and know what to expect, much less new players.
Then you have some bosses like in HotW where its virtually impossible to take damage and tough to heal through it when they literally AOE an entire room with DoT -- and it doesn't matter how many times you run these dungeons, it doesn't get easier.
Thats just talking about difficulty, that isn't even getting into how they screwed up rewards.... I've opted to stay out of dungeons until I'm level 80.. because prior to that.. there really is no reason to do them.
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.
I've run dungeons with PUGs and then gone in back to back with guild groups, and I can tell you the difference is night and day.
I had a similar experience with a PUG group in AC. Eventually we broke up(didn't even finish).
Went back in with a guild group with people I know knew how to play and with better communication and we breezed through it. Wiped once on the lovers(as in everyone died at least once) but since we were running back at the same time that the fight was going on it wasn't really a wipe.
Went back in with a different guild group(to help with someone else's story) and again breezed through.
When we got to CM it was pretty much the same thing.
Moral of the story: Get a good group who knows what they are doing, get on vent, communicate, communicate, communicate, learn how to use combo fields and finishers, communicate, communicate...
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention... You really need to communicate. As an example, I play a melee guardian and have 3 combo fields I put up... so the others in my party are aware and every time I pop one I just say the type ("light", "fire", "light", "light", etc)
THere is no balance issue. In GW1, any build was not UBER as there was always another build to counter and beat it. Every build has it's strengths and weaknesses - that is the key to GW1 and GW2. Knowing what they are to the particular build you are using is an important aspect of this game and one you are not seeing. Warriors and Guardians are susceptible to blind skills, as an example.
Unlike RIft, which all Rogues for example, are squishy and have to play the same way, in GW2 each build you use requires a different style of playing. It is more of a finesse game, rather than a brute force game.
It's amazing how fast the crying begins when people don't have a good tank or healer (or both working in unison) to carry them through content like "other games" allow.
GW2 is a severe dose of reality for players with the mentality that dungeons should be a a quick and easy speed run for shinies. If you go in expecting others to do most of the work your group will fail nine out of ten times. Solid teamwork and synergy among your groupmates/builds is key, good communication is a must.
Keeping your gear up to date is essential if you want to have successful, non-frustrating runs.
If two of your group members are wearing gear that is ten levels out of date, that's a problem, and it is going to make things exponentially harder for the rest of the group. Which will often create excess frustration and lead to the run breaking up or not being completed.
I've ran all of the dungeons at least a few times each, and have had little to no trouble with any of them.
Riftstalker's are far from squishy and have the best damage mitigation in the game once they have there buffs rolling.
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 think you heard the term balancing issue, and thought I was talking about class and abilities..... I was talking specifically about dungeon balancing. Build balance.. theres nothing you can do about that... Build balance in DUNGEONS does matter though.. for example.. on some dungeons if you don't have enough DPS, theres no reason to try and run it... thats just the way it is.
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.
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...