said by Adalicia:It is possible to have a "tank" and a "healer" in the most basic sense but it is rather chaotic and quite frankly kind of a shit show. To be honest the thing that I hate more than anything the way they handle conditions.
Not the same way you have in World of Warcraft. The play in dungeons and fractals (the closest Guild Wars comes to raids) is centered on co-operative play. To jump in at level 30, as one person did is folly. Most of the time today, someone entering a dungeon or fractal at level 30 would likely be kicked quickly.
I assume the poster who claimed to enter a GW2 dungeon at level 20 meant level 30, as it isn't possible to enter a GW2 dungeon until level 30. If he recalls entering a dungeon at level 20, he wasn't playing GW2. The level 30 dungeon would be the Ascalonian Catacombs. Upon first entrance to any GW2 dungeon, you enter in story mode (with some exceptions an explorable mode player can invite a noob).
At level 30, the trait tree is mostly empty, the gear is mostly blue or green (which is low level gear for weapons or armor), likely the known class specific skill tree is mostly empty as well. When I as a level 80 enter the same dungeon, I will be wearing ascended gear, with ascended weapons, and have full traits and full skills. I'll also be able to use level 80 buffs. While the game will scale my level down to that of the dungeon, I keep the benefits of my traits, skills, and much better armor.
I'm guessing the poster who tried the first week and quit after a single dungeon didn't take time to understand the game.
Warriors who run dungeons or fractals a lot often speck as berserker's (aka zerker). Their goal is to liquefy anything they encounter quickly. As long as melee is possible, this will happen. Fractals are complicated by agony, which may be confusing to a World of Warcraft player.
Generally an all zerker group will kick an unknown player who dies. Unlike World of Warcraft dodging isn't static, but dynamic. Armor helps, but the trinity many love in WoW was avoided by the builders of this game.
For some dungeons and most fractals warriors will welcome a Guardian (also a heavy armor class). Guardians have many skills that help with dungeon or fractal survivability.
Dungeons and fractals are always 5 man. It is important to determine a role within a group and stick to it. Traits (which are similar to talent points in WoW) can be reset at any time when not in combat. Weapons can often be swapped by most classes when in combat, but class specific skills, armor and what not require a player to be out of combat.
Each class has unique healing, tanking and dps skills and traits. This is unlike World of Warcraft. Multiple people assisting a downed player help restore them quickly. A player who is down is dying, but not dead. Downed players are a ton easier and faster to restore than downed players.
Your traits, equipment, and gear determine how well you'll heal someone.
Like any MMO understanding how to play, how to trait, how to equip are important.
Jumping into a dungeon with random people at level 30 is like getting into a level 90 raid at level 55 in WoW. That the poster stopped playing after doing something like this is a benefit to the poster and all who play GW2.
Overall, I'm still at GW2, and enjoying it. I'm glad not to be paying monthly fees. Many prefer WoW or other MMO's, which is great.
The feature pack will be changing some class function, mostly to help round out the classes. In some cases, as in the Necromancer, an unintended scaling of some class specific capabilities occurred which was not intended and caused Necromancers to be overpowered in one of their shape shifted forms. This has been corrected.
The change to mesmers seems to be nearly 40% on some talents, which may have been over powered. My Mesmer build was designed to have the death effects of clones and phantasm's cause damage. As such traits to make them stronger or with more health were avoided. When a mesmer clone or phantasm dies it's death can be traited to release AOE's. A lot of clones, a lot of AOE's, and a well traited mesmer can make a lot of clones, quickly.
My son and I can run most fractals or dungeons with no other players. We have evolved an understanding of them, and have appropriate talents and gear. Players can get orbs which will resurrect them, or repair equipment while in combat. These can be obtained randomly as rewards in the game or purchased with gems at the gem store. In game gold can be used to purchase gems to purchase any item.