Guild Wars 2

I missed out on Flame and Frost so I decided to hop in to Secret of Southsun even though I’m only in my 20s.

I am getting absolutely wrecked by the mobs even though I’m scaled up to level 80.

My repair bills are getting to be really high and it’s super annoying to die during an event and not be able to return because the waypoint is contested.

Sure, I guess I could leave the area and go level, but I don’t know when Arenanet is planning to remove this content from the game like they did with Flame and Frost.

For all I know, all this could disappear tomorrow.

Is there some sort of buff or something that I’m missing?

This zone is hard for everyone. I’m level 80 with all exotics and I still have to be careful when fighting more than one non-young mobs at a time. They have high hps and strong/annoying attacks. With so many players running around, events are getting scaled up to level 84 mobs.

Call out in chat to form a group. This zone was almost designed to require teamwork.

The mobs in Southsun Cove are annoying, even if you got full exotic gear. When being scaled up, you are not equal to a real lvl80 with full equip.
I do not think you are missing a specific buff, you are rather missing a group to help you.

It was peole in your situation I was thinking about when I was offering to try to help them get the achievments. Even then I did caution that I could not prevent all deaths. I had fun with the one person who took my offer over the three days.

Depends on what class you are as well. If you have a ton of reflects then the karka are very easy and quick to kill. Skelk and everything underwater should be easy to kill. The only thing I see being difficult are the drakes if you fight more than one at a time.

Yeah….being uplevel doesn’t uplvl your gear. Still gonna be handicapped. Isn’t really a solo friendly area unless you know how to deal with it. And that takes dying for a while.

Just got to know how to pick your fights :P I’ve taken my level 30 from one end of that zone to the other with no problem (though she is a mes, and I’ve also run 2 80’s over the whole place so I know what I’m dealing with). Get a small group together, attach yourself at the hip to whatever zerg is running around, and in most cases you’ll be fine. That said, they are tough mobs, and even the most prepared and experienced 80s fully decked out can still be caught unawares and face kitten d…especially by drakes :/

Sleel.8365:

Yeah….being uplevel doesn’t uplvl your gear. Still gonna be handicapped. Isn’t really a solo friendly area unless you know how to deal with it. And that takes dying for a while.

Quite the opposite. It does up-level your gear. It levels your gear up in relation to how good it is for your level. In other words, you need to ensure that you have the best possible gear you can in order to remain comparable.

The main disadvantage is the gear will likely only favour 1 stat instead of 3-6. If you pop on power runes (10 power among different runes) to each armor and get the power/precision armour, you should be OK up levelled.

It’s kind of funny though, the way that works, when you gain a level in Southsun you actually become less powerful, because the equipment you are wearing is weaker compared to your level.

Treadstone.2564:

I missed out on Flame and Frost so I decided to hop in to Secret of Southsun even though I’m only in my 20s.

I am getting absolutely wrecked by the mobs even though I’m scaled up to level 80.

My repair bills are getting to be really high and it’s super annoying to die during an event and not be able to return because the waypoint is contested.

Sure, I guess I could leave the area and go level, but I don’t know when Arenanet is planning to remove this content from the game like they did with Flame and Frost.

For all I know, all this could disappear tomorrow.

Is there some sort of buff or something that I’m missing?

The main handycap you have is probably not having all your skills and traits yet. I’m level 80 exotic/ascended geared, and I still die a LOT on southsun, much more than in the rest of the areas in the game, and dying on an event and having to run back isn’t uncommon either (luckily, if you participated in the event, you still get the rewards even if you’re not actually there when it ends).

If you have access to them, I’d suggest trying to invest at the very least in some condition removal, specially useful when fighting the drakes, pick your fights carefully, and if possible stay in groups… that’s something even level 80’s have to do there.

Southsun is in essence ANet trolling everyone that claimed pre-patch Orr to be facerollingly easy. Sadly i suspect most of those claims were a lot of digital hot air, but i guess that i water under the bridge at this point.

Everything on Southsun hits like a truck. Some are delivery, others are big rigs.

Just avoid those evil drakes on the coastline. They will eat your face. Play defensively if you’re alone, try to only take out singular karka or reef riders if you can. I did most of the content with a character around level 50, and died a few times. Also, like others have said, sticking with a group helps a lot, even if just travelling with them from one safe-ish area to another.

Crossplay.2067:

Everything on Southsun hits like a truck. Some are delivery, others are big rigs.

…and some are trucks holding slightly smaller trucks.

just have as many “get me out of here” skills on your bar as poss. speed boosts ect .. look for a commander tag (blue triangle) on the map and head their and just stick with the groups, hang back….participate and collect loots and such. ask in chat if anyone else is doing what your doing and group up.

even as a mesmer soloing things can get a bit scary in SS, most regular mobs are like veterans from other zones…be carefull.

As long as you steer clear of (most) veterans outside of a group you should be fine. The key thing is that each mob in Southsun requires specific tactics to defeat it. once you’ve figured out the best tactics for your profession it gets much easier. Get a reflect for young karka and they become trivial, condition removal and range attacks for reef drakes, etc.

Something still feels off about it though. My then lvl 25 ranger solo’d F&F without even stopping to think about scaling or anything else. It was a complete non-issue. Now at lvl 65, she has to run from the beach with her tail between her legs? My lvl 60 S&P thief has been running over enemies like speed bumps. I hit the beach and I literally couldn’t dent the health bar of the 1st veteran wind rider. I don’t mean defeat it solo. I mean the health bar didn’t drop any noticeable amount in 60 seconds of spammed pistol whips attacks. I went back with a lvl 30 condition ranger and sapped the sucker out in 2 minutes, but to me that suggests a scaling problem for lower level players trying to do direct damage —- like my thief.

Still, it is curious to make Flame & Frost accessible to most everyone, and then make Southsun a ball breaker. Did I miss the post where the devs said F&F was too easy so were going to ramp things up?

Treadstone.2564:

Sure, I guess I could leave the area and go level, but I don’t know when Arenanet is planning to remove this content from the game like they did with Flame and Frost.

For all I know, all this could disappear tomorrow.

The first part of the event is until 28th this month. On this day the second part starts and the third starts at 5th of June. Don’t know when the achievements of the first part will stop being available.

To know something like this it would help to read the official announcements. Or the sticky here in this forum-section.

my level 30 engineer had no problem, even soloed a vet karka with her

Vampirial.9056:

my level 30 engineer had no problem, even soloed a vet karka with her

With condition damage? Or did you rifle it out?

crossoverAtt.9680:

Vampirial.9056:

my level 30 engineer had no problem, even soloed a vet karka with her

With condition damage? Or did you rifle it out?

i used pistols until it lost its armor, then i switched to a rifle cause it did more dmg

and i had turrets the whole time to distract it

Vampirial.9056:

crossoverAtt.9680:

Vampirial.9056:

my level 30 engineer had no problem, even soloed a vet karka with her

With condition damage? Or did you rifle it out?

i used pistols until it lost its armor, then i switched to a rifle cause it did more dmg

and i had turrets the whole time to distract it

Interesting, I wonder why it didn’t go into fast health regen once you got out of combat.

binidj.5734:

Vampirial.9056:

crossoverAtt.9680:

Vampirial.9056:

my level 30 engineer had no problem, even soloed a vet karka with her

With condition damage? Or did you rifle it out?

i used pistols until it lost its armor, then i switched to a rifle cause it did more dmg

and i had turrets the whole time to distract it

Interesting, I wonder why it didn’t go into fast health regen once you got out of combat.

Maybe because veteran karka have two phases. When they lost their armour and are in the next phase they can’t go back to the first and so it’s no problem when you go out of combat. Between these phases you come up from downed modus, too.

The main idea of those monsters – you can’t fight them with high dps only.

You should dodge or interrupt first Karka attack.

You should not buff yourself with might hardly when you fight Reef Riders. They are stealing your boons. You don’t want to fight reef rider with 25 mights, really!

Dodge Reef Drakes pulls AND interrupt confusion attacks.

And everything will be fine.

Whatever you do, do NOT try to fight that Champion Reef Rider in Southsun Straits alone. It will teach you the true meaning of pain…

Also, Reef Riders (not Young Reef Riders) have unusually high HP for a normal mob. If you’re running a full Berserker gear setup, you can still carve through them without much trouble, but if you’re not, it’s generally better to avoid them than tangle with them.

Zaxares.5419:

Whatever you do, do NOT try to fight that Champion Reef Rider in Southsun Straits alone. It will teach you the true meaning of pain…

Also, Reef Riders (not Young Reef Riders) have unusually high HP for a normal mob. If you’re running a full Berserker gear setup, you can still carve through them without much trouble, but if you’re not, it’s generally better to avoid them than tangle with them.

Even though some champs in the game are possible to solo (and I have done a couple) I generally don’t bother as it’s not worth the time/hassle anyways. As for the reg Reef Riders, my trapper burns through them rather quick and even when I’m not on that char I’ve found they generally don’t pose a huge threat on their own so it’s possible to just sit there for a min or 2 and just slug it out with one if you don’t mind taking the time :P There’s only 2 reg mobs in SS that I tend to avoid unless I am 100% sure nothing else will join in the fight and that’s vet Karkas and Drakes. If I’m farming or just running from one area to another anything else that gets in my way and is openly hostile dies

Yeah, you can tackle Reef Riders with a halfway decent character without dying. I just generally avoid them because they take too much time to kill for not enough reward, and the Riders are generally clustered close enough that a second one might aggro while you’re fighting the first.

Reef Drakes I don’t mind too much as long as I can keep them at a distance. I wreck Drakes on my Elementalist (snares + Bleeding and Burning and just let them bleed out while they hobble after you), Ranger (let the pet soak up all the damage) and Necromancer (explode, my minions! EXPLODE!), but my Warrior runs screaming from them. XD

…you do realize even an untraited longbow on a warrior is enough to out-range drakes completely, yes?

Also it amazes me the OP managed to get ‘expensive’ repairs in the 20’s. Even crappy low level loot should cover the repairs at that time easily.

Ah yes, the GW2 solution to everything: run in circles…

Jemmi.6058:

Sleel.8365:

Yeah….being uplevel doesn’t uplvl your gear. Still gonna be handicapped. Isn’t really a solo friendly area unless you know how to deal with it. And that takes dying for a while.

Quite the opposite. It does up-level your gear. It levels your gear up in relation to how good it is for your level. In other words, you need to ensure that you have the best possible gear you can in order to remain comparable.

The main disadvantage is the gear will likely only favour 1 stat instead of 3-6. If you pop on power runes (10 power among different runes) to each armor and get the power/precision armour, you should be OK up levelled.

It’s kind of funny though, the way that works, when you gain a level in Southsun you actually become less powerful, because the equipment you are wearing is weaker compared to your level.

Popping on runes does not necessarily help you in regards to upleveling. If your rune gives +10 power, it will give +10 power after uplevel gets applied. This is why when higher levels get downleveled, they still do large amounts of damage (and because of traits).

Esplen.3940:

Jemmi.6058:

Sleel.8365:

Yeah….being uplevel doesn’t uplvl your gear. Still gonna be handicapped. Isn’t really a solo friendly area unless you know how to deal with it. And that takes dying for a while.

Quite the opposite. It does up-level your gear. It levels your gear up in relation to how good it is for your level. In other words, you need to ensure that you have the best possible gear you can in order to remain comparable.

The main disadvantage is the gear will likely only favour 1 stat instead of 3-6. If you pop on power runes (10 power among different runes) to each armor and get the power/precision armour, you should be OK up levelled.

It’s kind of funny though, the way that works, when you gain a level in Southsun you actually become less powerful, because the equipment you are wearing is weaker compared to your level.

Popping on runes does not necessarily help you in regards to upleveling. If your rune gives +10 power, it will give +10 power after uplevel gets applied. This is why when higher levels get downleveled, they still do large amounts of damage (and because of traits).

It still helps. All I know is when I went there on my ranger with these runes applied, I had ~2800 attack, definitely not as good as my ~3400 attack now, but definitely makes the content do-able.

I haven’t specifically tested the runes to see if they are upscaled with the rest of the armor, but even if they aren’t that extra 60 power is better than not having it.