Dungeons are a lot of fun as well as a good way to make some pocket money. However, monsters are a lot tougher than those found around the open world and going in unprepared can lead to a lot of frustration. Here is a short guide to help you with your first attempts.
Disclaimer: this guide aims to be simple and short, it does not delve into a specific dungeon, class or team strategy. As such, some of the advices here might not always be true, but they should be good enough to help you get started and enjoy your first runs.
Due to the way dynamic level works, gear is really important in dungeons1. This means the white armour you picked 10 levels ago won't do the trick.
This doesn't mean you need to spend all your money on a new set of gear you will replace in a few days either. Your best option is to look at the Trading Post and filter for items of fine2 or masterwork quality of your level. You will usually make most of your money back when you salvage these items later.
If you have the choice, it is better to favour survivability (vitality, toughness) over attack stats. Remember you won't do any damage while you're down or dead, plus you can always change later when you feel more confident. It is also strongly recommended to have a ranged weapon with you at all times.
There are a lot of useful consumables in game, some you should carry with you to dungeons:
Dungeons gameplay is team based, you will rarely fight alone. Keep this in mind when selecting your skills and prefer AoE and combos over personal benefit; if a skills improves everyone damage by 50% it has done more than the one improving only yours by 100%.
Group interactions aside, you should always have a condition removal (traits work too) as well as a stun breaker. Those are crucial to ensure your own survivability.
Story mode rewards aren't great, but there are advantages doing it. First, it lets you know the story of the place (surprising right?) if you're interested. It also often present you a (slightly) weaker version of the mobs you'll encounter in explorable as well as some of the mechanics. Finally it lets you start your own explorable instance which is always useful.
While in story mode people are expecting you to discover the place, most explorable players won't be doing it for the first time and might not bother with all explanations. Therefore, it is a good idea to get a rough picture of how things will flow beforehand. You can check our links for more specific guides.
Fire up the LFG tool and make a clear statement of what you're after. Specify you're a first timer for example, might take a bit longer to get a group but you'll enjoy it much more.
long and technical post on how level adjustment affects dungeons ↩
Fine quality offers an higher increase than others ↩