Trying to Play GW2 and I'm Just confused by the games mechanics

[Lokai.7850]

As someone who has played MMO's since the Ultimia Online days, and has Played every RPG known to man and someone who absolutely adores action combat. trying to play GW2 just leaves me kind of lost, confused and scratching my head. While most action MMO's clearly use Telegraphs, and have a very understandable mechanics system, that i can pick up on GW2 has since the early days baffled me on just how to survive in a game where healers are either not needed or somewhat discouraged in most content. Today i was hit with the same thing that made me walk away in early GW2, and that is the " get one shot and pray someone revives you " mentality.

Is that the core of GW2? just get downed all the time and pick up your team mates? Or is there some inherent system i'm missing, because i really want to like GW2 but i feel like the game has nothing in place to deal with the truck load of DPS it throws at you. It doesn't matter what class i play it feels like enemies will just randomly decide your health bar needs to go, and deal 1/3 or more of your life bar instantly. You press your heal skill and, you restore maybe half of what you lost or you restore most of it only to instantly lose it a second later. No Telegraphs, no explanation, no way to avoid it at alll...

This is my conundrum... I don't fully understand how you are intended to not get steam rolled by the harder enemies in the game, like the champions onward. These enemies seem designed to just hit you like a truck without warning and without many ways to avoid that damage. I know there are some debuffs that help but not every class has those debuffs available.... and it seems like the enemy will just turn to you and kill you at random in combat.

So my question is... what am i missing here? how are you meant to actually survive in GW2.

For reference i've been playing an engineer mostly solo, i play a guardian with some friends and i played elementalist back in the day.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Linken.6345]

If there are no floor tells then watch the enemy mob for indication of their attacks.

[AliamRationem.5172]

To elaborate on Linken.6345's succinct response, I went ahead and recorded a quick demo.  The champion in this video is very large and fairly slow and all of his telegraphs are animation-based.  He also hits very hard, so it's important to avoid his attacks!

If you have specific encounters where you aren't understanding how you're dying, let us know and we'll try to work through that on a case by case basis.

[Harfang.1507]

I feel for you. I used to get downed a lot out of nowhere and it still happens to me a little more frequently than I would like to see. When alone, there is often a telegraph, but it may be more subtle than in other games. In group play, especially big meta events, it is often lost in the fireworks of everyone activating flashy skills.

Another factor may be the kind of gear you are using. Most of the better players seem to look at combat like a dps race: dead foes don't dps you down. Based on that they often go for berserker gear that fits that mentality. Nevertheless, until you get that good, it may be a good idea to have some vitality or even toughness mixed in, like marauder gear.

I personally find that staying mobile is a great help. Staying in one place is asking for a big target sign to be put over your head.

BTW, there are a lot of people in the forums that can routinely solo champions. That is not necessarily representative of the actual player base. Most players will get completely chewed up by champions if they dare tackle them solo.

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 minutes ago, Harfang.1507 said:

I feel for you. I used to get downed a lot out of nowhere and it still happens to me a little more frequently than I would like to see. When alone, there is often a telegraph, but it may be more subtle than in other games. In group play, especially big meta events, it is often lost in the fireworks of everyone activating flashy skills.

Another factor may be the kind of gear you are using. Most of the better players seem to look at combat like a dps race: dead foes don't dps you down. Based on that they often go for berserker gear that fits that mentality. Nevertheless, until you get that good, it may be a good idea to have some vitality or even toughness mixed in, like marauder gear.

I personally find that staying mobile is a great help. Staying in one place is asking for a big target sign to be put over your head.

BTW, there are a lot of people in the forums that can routinely solo champions. That is not necessarily representative of the actual player base. Most players will get completely chewed up by champions if they dare tackle them solo.

This is a good perspective. 

I design my solo play builds for versatility rather than maximum DPS with the idea that they can handle most anything I come across with plenty of margin for error.  Toward that end I used Celestial stats in this clip, which are the same stats a new player is given with a level 80 boost.  It's a great all around set with very high sustain, yet capable of solid damage output as you can see.

Staying mobile is definitely good advice.  Many attacks are directional or ground-targeted, and simply being in motion can often allow you to avoid these types of attacks without even having to dodge or see them coming!  Also, against very large bosses like the arrowhead the act of turning to face you is a bigger telegraph than the attack itself.

A ranged weapon swap (poor sword weaver!) can really help make life easier for most classes.  It can be very difficult to see animations clearly when you're at melee range, especially against very large bosses (I really hate the wyverns in Jahai Bluffs with their wings blocking my entire screen!).  You also have more time to react against attacks that have some travel time.

Although it may seem obvious, I think the most important thing you can do is make sure you keep your eye on the boss!  Simple, right?  But how often do you miss telegraphs because you're looking at your skillbar?

[Stx.4857]

What class and weapon type are you playing?  Finding a solid build is a good way to start in this game.  A lot of guides will tell you to use Berserker gear even for open world but that will make you very squishy and you will die a lot if you are newer.  

 

This game is all about learning enemy attacks.  Some attacks are barely telegraphed but you need to gain experience with each mob.  Also make sure your build has stun breaks and sources of stability, this is huge because getting CCd is one of the easiest ways to die and certain mobs chain CC you if you can't break it.

[Lokai.7850]

Currently i'm playing
Engineer, Healing Elixer/Rocket turret/Auto turret/Flame Thrower/Racial Elite (need to unlock the class ones yet)
Weapon: Rifle and dual pistols, i dont use the rifle or pistols much as i run flame thrower mostly it works fine 90% of the time, but then that 1% where the boss just decides it doesn't like my face.

Guardian i play with a friend
This is all over the place but i tend to run
Cone Heal/Purging Flames for cleanse/stand your groud for CC removal/spirit sword for vulnerability

Weapon: Scepter/Shield or Mace/Shield and Staff
i swap weapons depending on what we are doing, champs i tend to use sceptor, but anything else i tend to use mace for the regen and healing.

Edit: when ever we face tougher enemies i tend to use the staff and sceptor together to stack might up i think i can do like 10 or 12 stacks pretty quickly which seems good all around.

Gear wise i MOSTLY rune gear with Power and Precision on Engi i do the same on my Guardian but, i do intend to swap to support gear later but early on i figured leveling would go faster if we were both dps even if i was throwing heals out and so far its worked well enough. Still a few enemies i died alot on, but those are almost always the champion+ enemies and most of those we seem to do ok on.

For me it just seems to be certain champions that seem to do really HIGH damage hits out of no where or with little warning. My friend doesn't seem to have the same issues so its probably just me, but i'm trying to figure this all out.
 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Lokai.7850

[The Boz.2038]

What specific champions killed you with no telegraphs?

Do you utilize your dodges? Both guardian and engineer have access to some sweet blocking skills. Try using AED as your heal on your engie, one of the heftiest heals in the game, if you get hit in the face with it on.

[Danikat.8537]

You haven't mentioned dodging, or kiting, so I suspect that may be the mechanic you're missing.

Staying alive in GW2 relies a lot more on 'active defences' than passive ones like high health or armour or healing damage after it's hit you, and the core of that is simply not being there when the attack hits. All professions can move while attacking and in most cases it's a good idea to change position frequently during the fight. All professions can also dodge which evades attacks (so they do no damage) and moves you quickly out the way. It takes some practice to get the timing right and you may not manage it every time you need it, but it makes a big difference.

Health and armour (and by extension vitality and toughness) will help too, but it won't do the job for you. You can build a character who can absorb many of the smaller hits so you only need to worry about dodging the biggest ones, but you can't make a traditional tank who can simply stand there and let everything hit you.

When I was learning dodging I used wurms - they have a fairly obvious wind up to a relatively slow moving projectile so it's easy to see when it's coming and dodge out of the way, and don't do much other damage (especially the small ones) so it's easy to stick with 1 wurm and just focus on dodging their projectiles.

There are other forms of active defenses too, like skills which can remove conditions from you or block incoming attacks but those are more limited, whereas dodging is a core mechanic - something all professions are expected to use in most fights.

[Jukhy.2431]

Greetings! Another Ultima Online veteran here 

As others said avoiding damage (dodge, evade/mitigation skills) to stay alive is the most important thing. As a friend put it once: a dead dps does zero damage.

Since you mentioned champions: most are balanced to be done as a group content, so they can be difficult to do solo or with too few players. However certain classes with correct builds can solo some quite easily.

You can find different builds with instructions how to play them at the MetaBattle site. With new class I usually pick a build I like (might test a few to see what I prefer) and tune it a bit to my liking.

[taara.3217]

7 hours ago, Harfang.1507 said:

like a dps race: dead foes don't dps you down.

Nothing to do with reality.

7 hours ago, Harfang.1507 said:

Based on that they often go for berserker gear

Full Bers - the worst choice for solo champions.

Edited February 18, 2022 by taara.3217

[taara.3217]

10 hours ago, Lokai.7850 said:

For me it just seems to be certain champions that seem to do really HIGH damage hits out of no where or with little warning. My friend doesn't seem to have the same issues so its probably just me, but i'm trying to figure this all out.

It is a normal situation for a little experience player. You need time and practice. As for builds - as a good start point you can look at Hizen`s all classes overview: link here (Open World PVE Builds Playlist)

Edited February 18, 2022 by taara.3217

[Sahne.6950]

Gw2 combat is all about evading the damage in the first place. Unlike other MMO´s where you somewhat facetank your enemys and survive throu your armor and active healing, Guildwars relys heavily on dodging the enemy attacks, or using invulerability or block while being attacked. It all comes down to practice and having a good build! If you find yourself dying alot you might want to play a tankier class with some tanky stats, celestial for example.

[Lokai.7850]

I appreciate all the input, i think i found my answers!

Thanks again!

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

4 hours ago, Lokai.7850 said:

I appreciate all the input, i think i found my answers!

Thanks again!

There is one thing that nobody has mentioned with respect to champions and legendary bosses:  Defiance bars.  The little blue or cyan bar that appears under a champion's health bar is a defiance bar and you have to break that.  To break it, you have to use your CC skills on the boss.  Hard CC's are stuns, dazes, pushes, pulls, knock downs, knock backs, etc.  There are also soft CC skills that do damage over time to the defiance bar.  Learn your CC skills and use them to break that break bar.

Another suggestion - lots of people do not read the tooltips on their weapons skills and utility skills.  Certain skills and attacks will provide you with evades, basically an extra dodge.  For example, on Warrior, great sword skill 3 (whirlwind attack) is an evade, so, a warrior with a greatsword has 2 dodges, plus an evade with whirlwind attack.  And then if they are running Bull's Charge as one of their utility skills, they gain another evade with it, along with a hefty CC and a combo finisher, too.

[taara.3217]

14 hours ago, Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294 said:

Defiance bars.

you have to break that.

In fact this option might be need in group but less important in solo.

Edited February 19, 2022 by taara.3217

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, taara.3217 said:

In fact this option might be need in group but less important in solo.

I disagree.  Breakbars are even more important solo because they matter for more than just damage output (and they matter a lot for that as most bosses have the exposed debuff increasing power damage by 30% and condition damage by 100%!).  A 5 second stun against a boss buys you valuable time to deal damage and recover endurance and cooldowns without having to worry about defending yourself.  Further, the relative impact of this downtime on a boss is greater the higher the damage you deal (i.e. the ratio of downtime to uptime is greater the shorter the total fight time).

This is readily apparent in a fight like Balthazar, where the boss stops attacking both when you cause his breakbar to become vulnerable by killing one of his dogs and when you actually break the bar.  In fact, since there are two dogs if you separate the kill times on them such that the second dog dies after the boss recovers from the first breakbar stun, you can buy as much as 20 seconds of free time on this boss where he does nothing but stand there!  This is key to winning the fight solo if you can't sustain indefinitely via facetanking.

Edited February 19, 2022 by AliamRationem.5172

[taara.3217]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I disagree.

Ok.

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Breakbars are even more important solo because

It cannot be more important in solo since making your build gameplay through breakbars is very strange option - if you can solo, you can do it without breakbars option thus making your choice in favour of another damage/evade/heal skill/utility.
One unique situation when you can build your gameplay with addition of breakbars (having such intention) - if your main build has enough related skills itself. Not sure how much Specs can be build in such way not losing in another, more preferred options.
Moreover, I didn`t have any breakbars-dependent solo battle in a 2 year.

Edited February 19, 2022 by taara.3217

[Luthan.5236]

Personally I actually found it easy - compared to other MMORPGs. Then again: I only ever really played WoW back then (when it was new) and some asia-grinder lol. There usually you could pull even only 1 normal mob (and with multiple ones you got killed fast when soloing).

For GW2 I enjoy that multiple normal mobs never were meant to be a problem. (Might be tricky if you go into HoT - the maps considered hardest for open world stuff - without enough knowledge of the class you play.) It should be posibble to do even more than 1 vetera n... and - depending on the build/class - even a champ solo. (For most players. Champ depending on the class you play.)

Have maxed an engineere and a mesmer - fully played them through everything. (Other classes only the core spec throgh the core story.) Chrono felt more sturdy and easier regarding survivability - cause of the clones and stuff (when playing ranged) - they act a bit as tank/distraction.

Engineer it is easy to make mistakes. (Turrets seemed "cool" at first - but are widely considered useless.) There are sturdier builds though.

You can ask in the class/profession-specific forums. Also keep in mind that exotic gear is good for most stuff ... but if course if you are completely new leveling a char from 1 to 80 there might be trouble ... when using underleveled gear ... still yellow/green stuff. One you are at 80 with a reasonable build with full ecotics (then later upgrading slowly to ascended but no need to rush there) it will get better.

Edited February 19, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[AliamRationem.5172]

56 minutes ago, taara.3217 said:

Ok.

It cannot be more important in solo since making your build gameplay through breakbars is very strange option - if you can solo, you can do it without breakbars option thus making your choice in favour of another damage/evade/heal skill/utility.
One unique situation when you can build your gameplay with addition of breakbars (having such intention) - if your main build has enough related skills itself. Not sure how much Specs can be build in such way not losing in another, more preferred options.
Moreover, I didn`t have any breakbars-dependent solo battle in a 2 year.

At no point did I suggest taking additional CC on your build.  The video clip I provided utilizes weapon skills to handle the breakbars rather than optional traits or utilities.

As I said, breakbars increase damage via the exposed debuff as well as the window of time they allow to deal damage without taking damage in return.  That's not up for debate.  It's how the game works.

Also as I noted, the impact of breakbars is variable.  To survive several minutes against a champion requires achieving a state of indefinite sustain, but that is not the only way to win.

This is why I mentioned Balthazar.  Due to the mechanics of this fight, the amount of downtime is finite.  Once you kill the dogs and break his bar, that's it.  There are no more downtime windows.  This buys you a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 seconds.  If you can kill this boss in 30-40 seconds as the best players/builds can, that 10 seconds is significant both for surviving and dealing damage.

If, however, you take several minutes to kill the boss, that 10-20 seconds is not significant at all.  What difference does 10 seconds of slightly higher DPS matter when you can sustain forever?  I expect this is why you don't view breakbars as an important piece of your strategy.

I don't mean to be insulting.  I mean this to be educational within the context of this discussion.  It's very pertinent to the original question asked.

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by AliamRationem.5172

[taara.3217]

11 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I expect this is why you don't view breakbars as an important piece of your strategy.

I don't view breakbars as an important piece of my strategy, because another way I need to make some changes to my build and playstyle for this - what for if BB have no any impact on battle situation?

 

25 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If you can kill this boss in 30-40 seconds as the best players/builds can

I am interested in far more stronger bosses than one of the easiest.

And, sorry, I don't participate in speed-racing-kill competition - it is about highly specialized builds I don`t need because of its limited application area.

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

Just now, taara.3217 said:

I don't view breakbars as an important piece of my strategy, because another way I need to make some changes to my build and playstyle for this - what for if BB have no any impact on battle situation?

 

I am interested in far more stronger bosses than one of the easiest.

And, sorry, I don't participate in speed-racing-kill competition - it is about highly specialized builds I don`t need because of its limited application area.

 

Apologies for interrupting your power fantasy.  I defer to your vast skill and knowledge on the subject of builds you have no use for. 🙄

[taara.3217]

33 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Apologies for interrupting your power fantasy.  I defer to your vast skill and knowledge on the subject of builds you have no use for. 🙄

You're very kind, thank you.