Guild Wars 2

HI,

I’ve been away from the game for a considerable period, and never did much pve when i did play regularly. Now I am back with a few buddies that play Sunday nights only. A couple of these guys are completely new to GW2.

After a couple of Sunday sessions we all now have access to AC and are interested in doing it “at level”, or near enough.

I know from browsing around that the standard approach at 80 is full zerker. However, I am concerned that this may not be an optimal gear setup for characters in the 30-40 level range in a dungeon scenario (inasmuch as characters at that level can go “full zerker”).

Out party consists of:

2 * Guardians
1 * Necro
1 * Thief
1 * Ranger

Should we be looking to balance our gear more (say Power+Vitality, for example)?

Thanks for your time.

You should first do the story mode of AC. In story mode dungeons the downscaling allows you to be 2 lvls above the mobs, so you can be lvl 32 inside the lvl 30 instance.

From what i remember from the time i had a low lvl character in a dungeon i happened to die a lot on squishier classes like engie and thief, but i could run full power+precision armor on guardian, and that was before the new player experience change, so now low lvl instances must feel easier. So yes, get some gear of green quality for around your lvl, trinkets too and mix gear with power+vit and power+toughness. Healing power and cond damage and non power gear are garbage for dungeons imo.

At level 35, there are some rare (yellow) pieces around — I’d recommend picking up a few of them. You might be able to craft them if these are your first toons, or buy them off the TP if this is an alt. The best way IMO to get gear while leveling alts if from the dungeon token vendors — they sell rares for a modest number of tokens, but obviously this only helps if you’ve already run dungeons a lot on other toons.

If you guys are experienced with the dungeons already, a full party in DPS gear at level should be able to handle it. It might be an eye-opener if you’ve never done a lot of at-level dungeons before, but you should be able to get through it.

If the bulk of the party is not used to running dungeons, I’d definitely start with something tankier. It’s better to be too tanky while you’re first learning the encounters, especially if the entire party is new. By tanky, go with what Casmurro said — focus on power, vitality, and toughness. The rest of the non-dps stats are pretty much garbage for PvE.

You honestly shouldn’t really worry about what type of gear to use until you’re level 80.
If you really want an answer, power/vitality is usually decent at low levels, and always try to get at least rare quality gear

As some have stated rare quality gear will help your group. Its honestly gonna be rough as the skelks stack bleed so much. Dont run full zerkers thats only for advance speed run groups. Your party are I assume new don’t have the experience to dodge and use skills/utilities at the right time.

Do story first get a feel for your team comp and also remember its not like old MMOs there is really no trinity, Dodge is very important no matter the class.

Have fun with your friends and take things slow.

Thanks for the advice all. Only two of the group are completely new, although I also personally don’t have a lot of dungeon experience either.

After browsing the TP for some level appropriate gear it has quickly become apparent that at the 30-40 range it is not straightforward as saying I want a PVT setup

So at the end of it all I have opted for power/precision for me and the two new guys. Spent somewhere in the order of 15g for the three of us. I’m not bother by the money, as I have no need to save gold for anything in particular (and I can make 20g in a couple of hours on my level 80’s should I need to, although it is boring).

I’ve kitted us out with runes and sigils:

RUNES
Guardian1: 4 * Major Strength + 2 * Hoelbrak
Necromancer: 4* Major Strength + 2 * Hoelbrak
Guardian2: 3 sets of minor (+power and +might duration)

SIGILS
A selection of Major/Minor Bloodlust, Night and Force.

We will definitely be doing the story mode first (that’s the easy one, right?).

So although I did take all your advice onboard, I’ve chosen to go the bolder path :P. Main reason being that should we epic fail the dungeon at least everybody is kitted out for speedy leveling.

I’ll let you know how we go on Sunday night!

The skelk hatchlings can be completely avoided as long as you keep moving, they need to be stationary to use their attack which allows you to walk out of the range.

Healing power is usually preferred over vitality. Vitality allows you to take a big hit, but you still need to regen that hp afterwards, heal pow allows for faster regen between hits. And don’t forget to dodge, dodging saves lives.

Plan ahead on the encounters, be prepared to swap 2-3 utilities between fights. Make good use of the different combo fields. Lots of reflects possible with guardian on ranged bosses, and aegis to block powerful attacks. Necro and thief can provide blind fields. Ranger can bring warhorn + red moa for permanent fury. Thief can blast the ranger torch field to prestack might with shortbow 2.

I’m not sure if Force and Night are even worth it at levels below 60. If you have no trouble surviving at all, go with both Bloodlust and Perception for stat gain and Battle/Strength for Might.