I coyote'd into a brick wall playing PoF Personal Story...

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@"emopausal.5362" said:I simply can't get my head wrapped around how impossibly difficult aspects of this game are and why they're written this way in the first place.

Not every player is an op grinder with max gear ... that being said, I expect to die, a lot playing the Fires/Thorns xpacs b/c, as I was told, they're not meant to be solo content. I've got level-400 self-crafted gear but even that seems to be insufficient. The game, apparently, penalizes, harshly, for being a solo player. (Yah, yah, sure, GUILD Wars... I get it...)

Ok. Fine. Expectations set.

But, when I'm doing a personal story in PoF, I don't expect to get my fanny waxed repeatedly resulting in a reset (go back to the beginning) of the story's chapter (Path of Fire::The Sacrifice) either. That's asinine behavior and incredibly poor design, imo. Exacerbated by the NPCs, literally, just standing around during mini-boss and boss fights. Oops. Sorry. AI taking a break... I'd rez you but I'm too busy scratching my butt...

Do they not play test? With normal toons?

Or, if this level of difficulty (remember, games are supposed to be challenging and fun) requires doing the LW stories first, then where's that intuited/taught?

First game I've ever played, in literally decades, where the designers work this hard to discourage my in-game spending and investment in additional xpac content.

I know this post will get all the fanbois riled up... "noob!", they'll shout!

And they'd be right and that's my entire point.

You level up/down for zones changes, why don't you do the same for personal stories based on gear?

In the Sacrifice story line you are expected to die and get over powered by Baltazar (he is a God after all). If that is your problem, then it is probably that you give up and go back to reset this fight instead of waiting to see what will happen after that.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Sacrifice

As for getting gear: you can buy most exotic on Black Lion Trade Post. Use gear that have at least Power or Condition Damage as main attribute and some defensive attribute like Vitality or Toughness (you should as base have health pool around 14-15 K and armour around 2300-2500 [this is with Toughness + base]. Most important to have enough HP to have time to mitigate damage, to be able using healing skills or passive regenerate (boon) or to have time to use condition cleanse from traits, sigils on weapon (on swap - 9 sec CD). Baltazar is a fire God, so you will need to avoid getting hit by fire condition which can burn rather intense.

You can also by armour with Karma or other token then Gold, so look it up on wiki. Don't forget to add runes on armour as some runes can also add a passive trait when you use healing skill, elite skill or procs from something. Food and Tools are consumables that also can be used to reduce condition damage or increase attributes.

As we don't know anything of your profession (LA, MA or HA) or your skills that you use and traits it is not possible give more precise advice then make sure to have enough damage that you can deal while you avoid getting hits and take damage from AoE (Baltazar place large fire fields on ground and move fast from one place to another). For bosses that move fast and have a Defiance bar it is best to have condition damage (at some level) and duration for that time you can't damage him with Power damage (direct damage) you can let that damage work while you re-position yourself or even while you are downed. Don't forget that mobility is also a defensive as offensive tool in this game. If you have active skills that teleport you around, then equip it on your bar (or weapon that can move you away or forward towards target).For this fight you will also be best off with a picking weapon that have enough range to still hit him without standing on his toes and have a melee weapon that hit strong when he will be too close to avoid and have some built in defensive traits like Protection, Blind or something like that to reduce damage.

If you would die, don't use that option where you can be set back to last starting point. Wait and see if you can be resurrected by NPCs (there are parts in PoF where Aurene will resurrect you after some time). Most player don't wait and just click on back to last point to continue story line and miss out on that they can be resurrected by NPCs if they wait long enough.

Before you complain do look up on YT how other have done this fight. It might be that you don't understand what is expected to happens and that can cause that you die from not knowing that you need to pick up a bundle, use a special item or something else that is part of story. PoF do expect that you have unlocked Mastery from HoT and core Tyria, so get at least Counter Magic so you can use that special skill (and make sure you have a key bind in Option>Controls - otherwise you will not be able to use it in time) when it is needed.

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@Blocki.4931 said:Spend 15 gold on gear.

It is possible to buy gear with Karma or token from PvP, WvW also....

[Waffler.1257]

This mission was pretty easy, I'm pretty sure the personal story is designed to be solo'd.

[Cobrakon.3108]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@"Cobrakon.3108" said:Problem 1: Unfortunately, I believe meta builds are now factored into even the personal story. If you don't run a meta build or dmg focused build, the fights can go slow, and being slow gives the opportunity for the enemy npc to get more damage in.No.Have you ever gone into a hard story instance such as Hearts and Minds or Scruffy 2.0 with a meta build and then purposefully geared in Masterwork and observed the difference?I know you have not.If you had you wouldn't make an unfounded ignorant comment like this just to grind a personal axe on "meta builds".Story instances are absolutely not balanced around meta/top 10% dps.None of them.They aren't even balanced around exotics.Problem 2: Fight mechanics aren't always clear. As an example in the dark rhimes zone for personal story, I was curious why the break bars were so strong on the enemies, only to find out later that the extra weapon they give you for that zone takes away a bunch of the break bar making the fights in there much easier/quicker. My game play style seems to be a magnet for missing key mechanics like this.There is an interface callout regarding the weapon in this Story instance. It needs to be clicked/dismissed.How much clearer does it need to be?

So you are saying you don't notice the difference with something closer to a meta build than some sort of hybrid build? Also, all I remember seeing was being able to interact with the sword and didn't have some message popping up saying one of the 5 skills on the sword did good damage towards the break bar.

You will also notice that you could switch from that Sword to your other weapon sets on the fly, making it ambiguous as to any special ability that gave you an edge. If there was some obvious tool tip or something that indicated or hinted at it being powerful for breakbar then that's one thing, and maybe I had missed it. However, if there wasn't then you are utterly and undeniably wrong and need to expand your ability to think outside of the box, that is your own personal experience.

[Lumikki.1725]

@"Khisanth.2948" said:but how long is that newness supposed to last?

"The Sacrifice" is theoretically at a point where the player has gone through the entirety of the personal story as well as the HoT story.

Hard to say. How fast people learn to play more efficient is personal thing. Some learn fast and some slower.

I have played this game maybe five month and I'm still pretty newbie. How ever, I seem to now able to defeat solo some enemies that when I stated playing, killed me in instantly. I ques my point is that what seem to be easy for some, aren't always that to others. Specially when you are real new player for the game.

Also I think main story should be more about story it self, not to challenge players too hardly. Mostly I think this way because challenge can be created other ways and main stories are way too important for players to know the world backgound. Also some stuff seem to be connect main storý missions, what are important for players game fun. Example cliders, mounts and so on. To get stuff faster, many times you are lured to play story content too early and wrong order for story. I remember that when I did all core land personal story mission (solo), I was forced to be in zones where I had never even been yet. Running there to find quest entry was painfull. This all was because I leveled up faster than I did zone content. In the end I did find story quest very painfull experience and a few quest mission annoying, even when I did not die that often at all. Don't get me wrong there was also good fun mission, but total experience wasn't really good.

[Vayne.8563]

The stories are hard but not that hard...depending on class and buld obviously. If you're having trouble and want help in game, I can probably teach you some strategies to solo content and also help you with your build. Hit me up here or in game if you're on a US server.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Lumikki.1725 said:

@"Khisanth.2948" said:but how long is that newness supposed to last?

"The Sacrifice" is theoretically at a point where the player has gone through the entirety of the personal story as well as the HoT story.

Hard to say. How fast people learn to play more efficient is personal thing. Some learn fast and some slower.

I have played this game maybe five month and I'm still pretty newbie. How ever, I seem to now able to defeat solo some enemies that when I stated playing, killed me in instantly. I ques my point is that what seem to be easy for some, aren't always that to others. Specially when you are real new player for the game.

In that case the answer becomes "forever".

Also I think main story should be more about story it self, not to challenge players too hardly. Mostly I think this way because challenge can be created other ways and main stories are way too important for players to know the world backgound. Also some stuff seem to be connect main storý missions, what are important for players game fun. Example cliders, mounts and so on. To get stuff faster, many times you are lured to play story content too early and wrong order for story. I remember that when I did all core land personal story mission (solo), I was forced to be in zones where I had never even been yet. Running there to find quest entry was painfull. This all was because I leveled up faster than I did zone content. In the end I did find story quest very painfull experience and a few quest mission annoying, even when I did not die that often at all. Don't get me wrong there was also good fun mission, but total experience wasn't really good.

So it would be okay if the story is saying "so and is a threat, we must stop him" but then you go and just steamroll him in the encounter?

If the story presents something as a threat the encounter with them should provide some challenge otherwise the story doesn't make any sense.

If the story presents no threats then there isn't really much motivation for the PC to do anything.

[Lumikki.1725]

@"Khisanth.2948" said:So it would be okay if the story is saying "so and is a threat, we must stop him" but then you go and just steamroll him in the encounter?If the story presents something as a threat the encounter with them should provide some challenge otherwise the story doesn't make any sense.Yes, but that doesn't mean the challenge has to be fully for player as long player is part of that encounter. Because it doesn't make anymore sense in story if single character is defeating all the encounters. Like one character is ending the "wars".

If the story presents no threats then there isn't really much motivation for the PC to do anything.You are right if player playes "only" for challenge, but some play just for fun or exploration or roleplaying or interesting story or someting else. Motivation why everyone playes the game is they own. How big the challenge should be in story is depending everyones own viewpoint how it should be. We have different needs and opinions about that.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

So, the Devs should try to hit a middle ground.I think that's what they've done, or attempted to do. There's just as many, "Story is too easy" claims as there are "Story is too difficult".

Also, considering, likely, more of the game's population is experienced than new, content is skewed more to veterans than newbies, to all the Specializations than just Core, I would think. Just like L70+ maps in Core aren't the same difficulty as L1-15 maps. Otherwise, it's all just face-roll for much of the population.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"emopausal.5362" said:But, when I'm doing a personal story in PoF, I don't expect to get my fanny waxed repeatedly resulting in a reset (go back to the beginning) of the story's chapter (Path of Fire::The Sacrifice) either.

Which part of the Sacrifice are you having trouble with? Did you start your "after Core" experience with Path of Fire?

[kharmin.7683]

@Lumikki.1725 said:I have played this game maybe five month and I'm still pretty newbie.Many players have played GW2 for a lot longer than five months by the time that they got to PoF. Many of those players also completed the core Tyria and HoT personal stories. That prepared them more for PoF. Have you gone through all of the previous personal story content to this point in just five months?

[Donutdude.9582]

I am sorry to hear that you are struggling. All I can do is offer an opinion on the content based on my own experience.

I can confidently say that I have not struggled with any of the personal story or any of the Living World story. I put this down to a good understanding of game and class mechanics. I have taken the time to master my chosen classes and combined that with good observational skills to enable skill dodging and superior positioning.

My advice:

• Master your class: I mean really make an effort to understand its interactions, both with traits and its weapon sets, in order to be the best you can be.
• Master the environment: Look to improve your observational skills so you can more easily pick up on skill tells and AoE rings. It can be hard due to the large amount of visuals that this game has (I love them but a lot do not).

Please accept my apologies in advance if you feel I am lauding my own skills over you. I do not intend to offend. I simply wanted to offer my point of view to you.

I wish you luck in your developing journey through Tyria.

[Lumikki.1725]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"Lumikki.1725" said:I have played this game maybe five month and I'm still pretty newbie.Many players have played GW2 for a lot longer than five months by the time that they got to PoF. Many of those players also completed the core Tyria and HoT personal stories. That prepared them more for PoF. Have you gone through all of the previous personal story content to this point in just five months?

This starts to be little too much about me than as orginal for real new players. I just support the idea that story missions can be difficult, if real new player starts to do story missions as level they become available. Because in my opinion it takes little longer to learn how to really play this games characters.

Personally I stoped to do story missions after I got clider in HoT, after I had done hole personal core land quest story, because I did not like the story missions. Point be, they where not fun for me. As for difficulty, for me it was avarage, some easy and some harder. Meaning I had difficulty issues only very few quest missions. For me the issue wasn't so much about "combat" difficulty than annoying gameplay content/choises and doing them too early as really new player. But to be fair I was that time very annoyed by the mastery popup reminder message. So now I take game slowly and learn zone by zone what different kind event's are there. After that maybe someday I continue story missions. I also played while in HoT to get enough hero points to unlock few a my characters elite skills. But without mount it wasn't that good experience, I had to kill all enemies in the path to while running into places while others just used mouth to by pass them, so I returned back to explore the main lands. There is so much content in this game that it can take years to see it all.

[mindcircus.1506]

@"Cobrakon.3108" said:So you are saying you don't notice the difference with something closer to a meta build than some sort of hybrid build?No, I am saying the story instances give zero consideration to a meta build or BiS gear for their balance or challenge level They do this to be inclusive to these who are not geared/built min-max so as not to alienate that part of the game's audience.Mechanics win just about every story fight in GW2. All a "meta build" does is completely trivialize them. This is one of the reasons players in optimal gear and builds almost exclusively find the story unengaging content.Again, you have clearly never experimented with this, so saying as you did previously "I believe meta builds are now factored into even the personal story" is just part of you grinding some personal antimeta axe on the game. They aren't.You have not gone into a story instance in a meta build and seen just how this completely breaks the game and guts anything engaging from it.Also, all I remember seeing was being able to interact with the sword and didn't have some message popping up saying one of the 5 skills on the sword did good damage towards the break bar.There is a clear interface callout to the sword.Big arrow, says "Use the sword" with story progress gated behind it's use.This isn't enough?Now it has to tell you when to use it and for what?The story doesn't even let you progress until you activate and use it properly.Your lack of use of this item after the story hard gates you behind it's use is not a design problem. it's a lack of simple problem-solving on your part.

[yorick.1305]

I did it for the griffon req'. From scratch it took me around 22 hours, minus an hour or so for achs . A long haul.

[Rogue.8235]

@"emopausal.5362" said:I simply can't get my head wrapped around how impossibly difficult aspects of this game are and why they're written this way in the first place.

Not every player is an op grinder with max gear ... that being said, I expect to die, a lot playing the Fires/Thorns xpacs b/c, as I was told, they're not meant to be solo content. I've got level-400 self-crafted gear but even that seems to be insufficient. The game, apparently, penalizes, harshly, for being a solo player. (Yah, yah, sure, GUILD Wars... I get it...)

Ok. Fine. Expectations set.

But, when I'm doing a personal story in PoF, I don't expect to get my fanny waxed repeatedly resulting in a reset (go back to the beginning) of the story's chapter (Path of Fire::The Sacrifice) either. That's asinine behavior and incredibly poor design, imo. Exacerbated by the NPCs, literally, just standing around during mini-boss and boss fights. Oops. Sorry. AI taking a break... I'd rez you but I'm too busy scratching my butt...

Do they not play test? With normal toons?

Or, if this level of difficulty (remember, games are supposed to be challenging and fun) requires doing the LW stories first, then where's that intuited/taught?

First game I've ever played, in literally decades, where the designers work this hard to discourage my in-game spending and investment in additional xpac content.

I know this post will get all the fanbois riled up... "noob!", they'll shout!

And they'd be right and that's my entire point.

You level up/down for zones changes, why don't you do the same for personal stories based on gear?

Wanted to point out that I have successfully solo'd almost every story instance. The only ones I didn't were due to navigational puzzles that are visual only, and thus I cannot do on my own as a blind gamer.

As far as fights are concerned, I use exotics and never use meta builds. All of my builds are designed by me for only me because they make sense to me. Meta builds tend not to make much sense to me in usage so I don't go that route. Even still, I'm able to successfully beat any combat encounter in the story.

One thing that I may get is that when you hit a brick wall like this, you might have to change up how you play the game in a meta way. You might have to view the fight as a logic puzzle and not through the point-of-view of your character immersed in the game. The goal is to make a color bar go down, and the constraints are the mechancis that are unique to the encounter. You have to figure out what the constraints are and figure out a solution to make the color bar go down within the boundaries of the constraints. This is what I mean by meta. You might have to view the fight as if it were lines of code telling you what the logic puzzle is rather than within the game as a guy with sword.

I understand if this is extremely unappealing. But if you're really stuck, you have to think it through from a different vantage point.

I can't stress enough that I'm blindand have successfully beaten every combat encounter in the story by myself. It can definitely be done. Some fights were hard (the last fight with Balthazar) because I can't see where the safe spots are in the "floor is lava" mini-games that are boss fights. Other than that it can be done as long as you really think about it and not just mash buttons.

[Cobrakon.3108]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@"Cobrakon.3108" said:So you are saying you don't notice the difference with something closer to a meta build than some sort of hybrid build?No, I am saying the story instances give zero consideration to a meta build or BiS gear for their balance or challenge level They do this to be inclusive to these who are not geared/built min-max so as not to alienate that part of the game's audience.Mechanics win just about every story fight in GW2. All a "meta build" does is completely trivialize them. This is one of the reasons players in optimal gear and builds almost exclusively find the story unengaging content.Again, you have clearly never experimented with this, so saying as you did previously "I believe meta builds are now factored into even the personal story" is just part of you grinding some personal antimeta axe on the game. They aren't.You have not gone into a story instance in a meta build and seen just how this completely breaks the game and guts anything engaging from it.Also, all I remember seeing was being able to interact with the sword and didn't have some message popping up saying one of the 5 skills on the sword did good damage towards the break bar.There is a clear interface callout to the sword.

Big arrow, says "Use the sword" with story progress gated behind it's use.This isn't enough?Now it has to tell you when to use it and for what?The story doesn't even let you progress until you activate and use it properly.Your lack of use of this item after the story hard gates you behind it's use is not a design problem. it's a lack of simple problem-solving on your part.

"Mechanics win just about every story fight in GW2. All a "meta build" does is completely trivialize them. This is one of the reasons players in optimal gear and builds almost exclusively find the story unengaging content."

Yes Meta Builds and mechanics Are OP in Personal story, and I believe they are accounted for even in personal story due to the fact how grindy it gets if you don't use either a meta build or meta rotation style of play. Just try playing in an unoptimized build with more mixed stats and no repetitive rotations and see how much longer the fight goes.

The problem here is that there is such a large discrepancy between non meta play and meta play. Its not like meta play is hard to play either. It's essentially cookie cutter. Anyone that strays to far away from a meta type build and mechanical play suffers sluggish game play, and the opposite is true anyone who plays a meta build makes the personal story far to trivial.Notice I never said personal story was balanced for Meta Builds and Mechanics, I simply said it was taken into consideration and I believe that is evident with how sluggish the personal story can be.

On sword being accessible, it gives you the option to switch back and forth, indicating that it is not essential. I don't see how this escapes you. Not everyone will experiment with all sword abilities at the beginning especially since it gives you the option to switch back. The only thing necessary from the sword is to melt things to progress further, combat is not needed with the sword and yet combat is much more sluggish without using that breakbar skill on it.

[emopausal.5362]

Sorry for the seemingly lack of response - I've had ISP issues for the past two weeks, which also contributed to game play. I finally got those issues resolved and am back to a decent, for my location, internet connection.

Thank you to all who made serious replies. I am new to GW2 and, perhaps, my expectations are more along the lines of ESO - which was what I was playing before this. I am more comfortable in GW2 leveling. For the xpacs, I've been following build advice found in metabattle. I've tried endgame with a rogue, necro, revenant and am getting ready to try engineer.

Of course, it may be my playing style... I'm not that into run-dodge-jump type playing ... I get an AOE warning, I get knocked down, I die. It's about that simple. I can't dodge out because I'm otherwise disabled...

The ones that bothered to make useful replies, thank you. I'll try to up my game play - I guess you have to be in a "raiding" mindset - run here, wait three seconds, dodge this... etc. Expectation set. I stopped raiding after our guild downed Arthas b/c I like the open-world aspect more than the pedantic 12-step program play style.

I'll keep fumbling around - again, thank you for the replies... There's a _lot _to digest here and I've very limited time for playing so replies/questions will be slow...

One immediate question - how does one "post their build"?

Thanks!

--mike

[Strider Pj.2193]

@"emopausal.5362" said:Sorry for the seemingly lack of response - I've had ISP issues for the past two weeks, which also contributed to game play. I finally got those issues resolved and am back to a decent, for my location, internet connection.

Thank you to all who made serious replies. I am new to GW2 and, perhaps, my expectations are more along the lines of ESO - which was what I was playing before this. I am more comfortable in GW2 leveling. For the xpacs, I've been following build advice found in metabattle. I've tried endgame with a rogue, necro, revenant and am getting ready to try engineer.

Of course, it may be my playing style... I'm not that into run-dodge-jump type playing ... I get an AOE warning, I get knocked down, I die. It's about that simple. I can't dodge out because I'm otherwise disabled...

The ones that bothered to make useful replies, thank you. I'll try to up my game play - I guess you have to be in a "raiding" mindset - run here, wait three seconds, dodge this... etc. Expectation set. I stopped raiding after our guild downed Arthas b/c I like the open-world aspect more than the pedantic 12-step program play style.

I'll keep fumbling around - again, thank you for the replies... There's a _lot _to digest here and I've very limited time for playing so replies/questions will be slow...

One immediate question - how does one "post their build"?

Thanks!

--mike

Place the three trait lines in here, and for each line, indicate ‘top’ ‘middle’ or ‘down’ is an easy way for each of the three picks.

Stating your weapons and gear stats helps as well.

One way you can provide a link is through gw2skills.net which is a build editor. You can play around there.

Another way is through Metabattle.com which has some good starter builds that can be effective.

Both sites have a linking function which allows others to glimpse at your build and can suggest tweaks.

[kharmin.7683]

You should be able to copy your build template from the game and then paste the code here.

[Mahou.3924]

@emopausal.5362 said:

Thank you to all who made serious replies. I am new to GW2 and, perhaps, my expectations are more along the lines of ESO - which was what I was playing before this. I am more comfortable in GW2 leveling. For the xpacs, I've been following build advice found in metabattle. I've tried endgame with a rogue, necro, revenant and am getting ready to try engineer.

As someone who just came back and has to re-learn GW2 gameplay, I'm using metabattle's solo Barrier Brusier (Scrapper) build and think it's quite comfortable to play. Without weapon sigils due to laziness and being poor in-game xD.

[Smoosh.2718]

Play to what you know works, if you struggle, adapt change parts of the build.

if you stick to one build and believe its the be all end all despite it not working, you are doomed to always fail.

Personally I have found the content in most of PoF and some of HoT too easy for someone to solo. I like to face mobs that take more than 2 skills to kill, without that the game would be too easy and lose its drive.I would hate for Anet to give in to pressure to make content easier than it already is.Keep playing with the build and find something that fits your play, as for the armour make sure its all the same stat type and ascended if you crafted it. Then select the appropriate runes/sigils. Once you find 'your' build, you wont be writing any more of these too hard posts (^.-)

[kharmin.7683]

@Smoosh.2718 said:

Personally I have found the content in most of PoF and some of HoT too easy for someone to solo. I like to face mobs that take more than 2 skills to kill, without that the game would be too easy and lose its drive.I would hate for Anet to give in to pressure to make content easier than it already is.The problem that I have with mobs, more specifically in PoF, is the large aggro radius. I would like to be able to enjoy the journey and not engage in a continuous battle.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I recently competed the PoF story for the first time, having held off because of near-constant DC issues that seem to be gone, at least for now. I played it on a Dire Condi Soulbeast, so definitely not meta.

The worst parts of the Path of Fire Story for me were:

! The Departing: Having to endure knocking Balthazar down to 10% health while being downed every few percent was the most tedious game-play imaginable.

! To Kill A God: In order to remove the enemy's invulnerability, one has to free Aurene, but on two occasions, she was knocked into the fire that set the edge of the arena the fight is supposed to take place in.

The best parts were in one episode,

! Enemy of My Enemy. The mini games involving controlling the undead and chasing down the Devourer on speed were far superior to ANet's usual attempts to step outside normal gameply.

[Cuks.8241]

So if I get you correct you just came back, are practically new in the game and entered PoF. Keep in mind that PoF is lvl 80 content and this is not like WoW where everything open world is complete pushover. It is not hard for most players but it still content that is meant to be played and repeated and that is why some challenge is present.Some tips while not getting to into depth.

People will tell you you need gear and some specific build. You don't really need any of this for open world. Will it help? Yes. Is it crucial? No, unless you really went for some strange combination. Many of us who came later to the game lvled and went through the whole story without any gear or build knowledge and we managed. But going from A-Z, you learn the game. Starting at the end is harder. Also if you copy meta builds, dont copy raid or fractal builds. Those are specialized for that environment.

Are you a clicker? This is one of the hardest mmorpg to be a clicker. Moving and pressing abilities is crucial. Otherwise you will have a hard time with the red circles.

Dodging is important. You just can't get around it. Learn to use it. A tip: don't use double tap to dodge. It stops your movement and requires 2 button presses to dodge instead of one. This is not required for pve but it will help. In pvp it is just a no no.

Check your utility skills. Regardless of the build and gear everyone has some oh shit skills in there. If you are getting hit a lot, pack some skills that will help you survive while getting hit. Stun breaks, evades, super speed, blocks, stability, protection... Still, dodge is the ultimate survival tool.