Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard that you can play in any zone and you’ll scale to it’s level and you can keep progressing or at least play there so I was wondering if I go to a level 50 or 80 zone while I’m, say, LV10 or so, can I still level there efficiently or would there be an experience penalty?

As a side note, do we still only attack with the first 5 skills we unlock in the early game or is there some progression to the attacks now?

Thank you.

You’ll still be level 10, and you will get reduced XP from kills. You’ll also draw aggro from a wider radius. Scaling only works one way (down) in most cases. General PvE is “most cases.” Some seasonal areas will scale you up to 80, as well as WvW. Going into zones much higher than your level isn’t worth it.

Aside from your first 5 skills, you have skills on every other weapon (different ones). As well as utilities and trait points to spend as you level. There’s progression up until level 80 (and as much progression past that as you want to master, I suppose).

Experience is proportional to your level. Doing an event with 2 people at different levels will result in both receiving different amounts of xp but the same in terms of as a percentage to the next level up.
I’m pretty sure this proportionality applies whilst taking low levels to high level areas although with a level gap as big as the one you mentioned, you would get killed in one hit by every NPC on the map.

There is no auto scale up, you can only be scaled down.

If you are several levels below your target, your attacks will become glancing blows and only deal half damage while your crit chance will be reduced significantly and the NPCs will crit you a lot.

Its pointless to level in areas with enemies more than 3 levels above you.

You get more exp when killing higher levels and when I started to play it also said “more loot” – but I won’t rez you if you’re in a level 80 area when being level 10 as it’s useless and I consider that trolling. I have been able to kill mobs 10 level above me and that alone was pretty hard, so try to be reasonable.

I took my lvl 40 thief to Silverwastes and could not tag mobs, keepts on glancing, so i could not get xp so probably not :x

Jana.6831:

You get more exp when killing higher levels and when I started to play it also said “more loot”

This was changed. :c

A few levels higher, idk, the XP may be slightly higher than what you gain from killing mobs your exact level. A significant level discrepancy these days = less XP, glancing blows, more aggro. No benefit.

I thought about giving the game another chance because of that impression I got but either way the never changing attacks that the weapons give you would probably keep me from having fun.

Thanks for the answers.

Elegy.2159:

Jana.6831:

You get more exp when killing higher levels and when I started to play it also said “more loot”

This was changed. :c

A few levels higher, idk, the XP may be slightly higher than what you gain from killing mobs your exact level. A significant level discrepancy these days = less XP, glancing blows, more aggro. No benefit.

Ok, good to know =)
I’m not really interested in exp so I didn’t care about it when leveling my last character. It was okay, actually. Like I said I could do 10 level above me although 8 was easier. Higher than 10 and I was insta dead.
But why did they change that? So people won’t call their 80’s friends to help them leveling?

Jana.6831:

But why did they change that? So people won’t call their 80’s friends to help them leveling?

I’m not sure. I suspect it may be to maintain population in lower level zones/tailor the NPE, but my suspicions are rarely correct.

Elegy.2159:

Jana.6831:

But why did they change that? So people won’t call their 80’s friends to help them leveling?

I’m not sure. I suspect it may be to maintain population in lower level zones/tailor the NPE, but my suspicions are rarely correct.

The only reason I can think of would be that some people might be discouraged when losing against a spider 5 levels above them. They aren’t me who spent 5 hours fighting against a bug in wow – I died about 50 times.
The megaservers should’ve solved the population problem.
And the low level areas were my favourites back in the day, when scaling still worked, when there was still nodes around and when no one complained that there were 80s doing events on that map ;)

Those were the days! Queensdale and Metrica Province were happening places. Still are, but not to the same degree.

You’re probably right. Getting pwned by a level 15 spider as a level 10 character is confusing to new players. xD

Killing mobs is the slowest way to lvl in this game. Killing a couple levels below you is way faster than a couple above and will yield much better exp.

EoTM for lazy karma train levelling, or do the pve maps and complete each map and move on, events give way more exp than killing mobs ever will.

Elegy.2159:

Jana.6831:

You get more exp when killing higher levels and when I started to play it also said “more loot”

This was changed. :c

A few levels higher, idk, the XP may be slightly higher than what you gain from killing mobs your exact level. A significant level discrepancy these days = less XP, glancing blows, more aggro. No benefit.

If you arent within 3-4 levels, you are wasting your time with the fight. The reason the xp seems higher can be for the same reason neutral enemies give massive amounts- the longer they exist, the more xp they give (the “exploration bonus” or w/e).

if you go 7 ot 8 levels compared to self and any mob that sees you will come running to slaughter you…. Also your armor and weapons will not do much, being 10 levels underleveled will mean even wet noodles will pawn you like there’s no tomorrow…. even with full tank setups…,

You might avoid some but eventually you’ll run into something and you will notice it’s safer to poke a stick into an africanized beehive then it is to move too far ahead.

-Note: if you do ever poke a stick in an africanized beehive you do so at own risk, serious health issues are sure to occur.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

if you go 7 ot 8 levels compared to self and any mob that sees you will come running to slaughter you…. Also your armor and weapons will not do much, being 10 levels underleveled will mean even wet noodles will pawn you like there’s no tomorrow…. even with full tank setups…,

You might avoid some but eventually you’ll run into something and you will notice it’s safer to poke a stick into an africanized beehive then it is to move too far ahead.

-Note: if you do ever poke a stick in an africanized beehive you do so at own risk, serious health issues are sure to occur.

No, it worked, they didn’t really come to slaughter me, I noticed nothing unusual. I have been an underleveled zerker thief and I love the challenge, that’s why I did it. Like I said, I have no idea if I gained more exp but it was a lot of fun.

I wouldn’t fight foes +5 lvls above you. That’s cap before you just making game frustrating.

1-20, maybe +2lvls
20-60, maybe +3lvls
60-80, maybe +5lvls

depends on how well you gear up at certain lvls. Using power/power&precision/power&precision&ferocity gearing will make it more practical to kill foes higher lvl then you and certain classes/weapon skills will help.

Bloodlust sigil and flame or air sigils go a long way. As does stacking minor +power runes.

warriors with axe or gs
thieves with dagger or sword
ele with dagger
necro with dagger
ranger with any weapon
guardians with a symbol weapon
mesmer with gs or sword
engi with ? no idea sorry

+power signets scale very well as do +precision signets to lesser degree. Warriors and Thieves can pack both.

It’s funny, because I’m leveling a thief as well. How far above your level did you go? I’m interested to see exactly where this level-gap nerf takes place.

Mine’s level 35 right now, so I headed to Bloodtide Coast to check it out. The first mobs I encountered there were level 45 drakes – so I smacked them around. Took me forever to kill even one, and I drew a whole horde of them from quite some distance. All my blows were glancing, and interestingly, my conditions didn’t even tick. They weren’t even applied, until I disengaged. Weird, huh?

First picture shows the aggro range. If I take one step forward, they aggro. Seems far to me, to draw aggro from a drake. Second picture is the mass bleed tick after I used SR and ran, since I was hurt. ;__;

Elegy.2159:

It’s funny, because I’m leveling a thief as well. :D How far above your level did you go? I’m interested to see exactly where this level-gap nerf takes place.

Mine’s level 35 right now, so I headed to Bloodtide Coast to check it out. The first mobs I encountered there were level 45 drakes – so I smacked them around. Took me forever to kill even one, and I drew a whole horde of them from quite some distance. All my blows were glancing, and interestingly, my conditions didn’t even tick. They weren’t even applied, until I disengaged. Weird, huh?

First picture shows the aggro range. If I take one step forward, they aggro. Seems far to me, to draw aggro from a drake. Second picture is the mass bleed tick after I used SR and ran, since I was hurt. ;__;

I think 15 level above me was the highest I encountered when I tried to find some mobs ~10 level above me. I did it like this: Getting to 35 and I think I also got my first trait there, crafting all yellow gear, got to a 45+ zone and killed as many mobs as possble with a level as high as possible. When that got boring I used tomes to level 50, crafted all yellow gear again, a level 60+ zone until I was bored, tomes, yellow gear, high level zone… Like I said, I didn’t notice anything unusual, I was usually downed after I allowed them to hit me twice and it took me a while, but other than that it was like running around on an 80 – et least to me. I will repeat that eventually but not at the moment as for now 3 thieves are enough ;) But the next time I will have a closer look.