Guild Wars 2

Since a lot of people recently got the game black friday-christmas-new years etc etc there are a lot more people who have recently hit 80 and are hitting the dungeon scene or maybe its just me who has had the pleasure of running with them here and there. Now I will give them props for looking up the meta and gearing appropriately and fulfilling the “zerk” requirement. But its pointless if they die withing 2 secs of every boss encounter, various reasons like dont know when to dodge and dont know the boss mechanics. In total more or less the problem is their limited experience with GW2 pve. I seriously think new players should start with something little more forgiving and learn the mechanics of the game before moving on to zerk, because dead dps is no dps. Like maybe ele can do Knights with zerk traits or a new warrior can do Ep for a utility slot. Something along those lines. I dont know if there are resources for sub-meta builds currently out there, if not maybe we can work on one. And by sub meta I mean mostly meta but with little survive ability added to them.

Suggesting defensive gear is always bit problematical because it’s a lot of gold wasted if you don’t need it. Also I have always been wondering how much it actually helps. With a bad group and bad skills you get rolled no matter your gear. With a good group you can run naked and die every fight but still get through easily.

Of course defensive utilities or even traits should be used whenever needed because those can be always changed.

New players surely could use the safety blanket that more vit/toughness/hp provides. However, I think the mentality of “toss them in the deep end” fits in GW2. If you’re super tanky you’re gonna see a small dip in health on an attack that you should have dodged. It’s only the supremely devastating attacks that will be very noticeable. So, if you go to tanky you’ll simply be shielding yourself from having the opportunity to really learn what you need to avoid.

That combined with what Wethospu says about the price (30g on gear, 20-25 on trinkets, another 10-20 on weapons and then there’s still sigils/runes) I think there are better ways of making a newbie build.

For say thief, 56030 with infused precision is a HUGE increase in survivability. I’m sure there are even more tweaks possible but I honestly don’t play mine any more defensive than that

Guard you can go with a 33044 build and be super supportive with perma protection (boosting everyone up 33%) and having plenty of condi cleansing. There’s a HUGE increase in sustain for not only the guard but the entire group with that build (tweak it to 35042 and you can eek out more damage at the loss of condi cleanse and a little self sustain).

I’m sure there are some solid trait setups like that for every profession. Heck on Engi I wanted to make Operative Belka nice and easy like it is on my thief, I ended up going with a bomb heal/backpack regen build and even swapped in a magi shield with life sigil in it which I got my stacks at the begining on the spiders before going in. Simply spammed bombs and every once in a while triggered my healing turret and blasted it with BoB/shield4 leaving my turret to continue to give me regen. I was quite happy with how well that worked.

That guide you have on www.gw2dungeons.net for new players is amazing source; if players wanting to get better spent a few minutes of their playtime on this guide, they would see more of a improvement that simply putting on armor.

This of course is almost like homework ; its more the
" play to win " playstyle so its interesting to say the lesst

Wethospu.6437:

With a bad group and bad skills you get rolled no matter your gear. With a good group you can run naked and die every fight but still get through easily.

Of course defensive utilities or even traits should be used whenever needed because those can be always changed.

-__- !!
Then stop getting carried by Balthasar M.

If you tend to die a ton it’s better to find your defense in utilities or traits. In many of the low level dungeons zerker gear is very powerful.

Wethospu.6437:

With a good group you can run naked and die every fight but still get through easily.

Give me your skills please even my guild is called naked party I would very much like to pull that :P

Jokes apart, I understand the problem with gear but I feel like by the time they are ready to move to full zerk meta builds it would not be as big a issue. I guess I am thinking specifically for eles since changing traits can cause a massive change to gameplay. Plus would you rather not have a knight’s ele who lives and keeps up the might/fury compared to a zerk ele who does neither because he dodge rolls in water x_x

Idk why im even hating I used to doge roll in water all the time and loved it too, those were the days..

Jerus.4350:

I’m sure there are some solid trait setups like that for every profession.

Exactly my thoughts, except for ele I cant really think anything for that, well anything that would really save them. But those trait setups need to be better known.

GoD Obelisk.3057:

Jerus.4350:

I’m sure there are some solid trait setups like that for every profession.

Exactly my thoughts, except for ele I cant really think anything for that, well anything that would really save them. But those trait setups need to be better known.

Outside of going full PVT nothing will really save them from much. My buddies and I use to use Valkyrie but it wasn’t long till I was convinced that didn’t really make enough of a difference to really be worth it, better to just dive head first into zerk and learn to actively defend yourself.

Of course as I understand it a rare set of armor will be fine in most dungeons to start so that could always be a cheap starting option and move to exotic zerk once you learn the mechanics. Really though the biggest thing you could do is join NOOB or one of the guilds open to training people (ARES ) and have someone teach you and explain the fights so you can more easily learn what to do.

For Ele it’d probably be easier to start and level a Warrior just to learn mechanics then convert back to Ele once you master. Easier than even a PVT ele that is.

Jerus.4350:

Outside of going full PVT nothing will really save them from much.

But that’s the point. Save from some, not all and still understand that hits are hard and need to dodge just not insta die.

I think if you’re having trouble with full zerker gear/meta try taking a bit more defensive traits (eg. vigor for eles in arcana/ same for guard etc). The gear really won’t make too much of a difference? I don’t know.

GoD Obelisk.3057:

Jerus.4350:

Outside of going full PVT nothing will really save them from much.

But that’s the point. Save from some, not all and still understand that hits are hard and need to dodge just not insta die.

It doesn’t save you from being miserable. I bet most of the fight your attention only narrows down to “not get too much hit” instead of “watching the tell and react appropriately with the skills ready in my kitten nal”. Your fight will be long as you hit like a wet noodles and once your allies drop, you instantly think to yourself "Let’s wipe, becauseI’m just a squishy no damage ele.

Iris Ng.9845:

GoD Obelisk.3057:

Jerus.4350:

Outside of going full PVT nothing will really save them from much.

But that’s the point. Save from some, not all and still understand that hits are hard and need to dodge just not insta die.

It doesn’t save you from being miserable. I bet most of the fight your attention only narrows down to “not get too much hit” instead of “watching the tell and react appropriately with the skills ready in my kitten nal”. Your fight will be long as you hit like a wet noodles and once your allies drop, you instantly think to yourself "Let’s wipe, becauseI’m just a squishy no damage ele.

Idk when i was learning ele and the game(was my first class) i did go PPT and i did not think the way you say but that could just be me. It was always how can i live longer next time, gotta dodge that attack. And damage on knights on ele is not a wet noodle afaik.