Guild Wars 2

Topic. That’s literally the only thing that keeps me from coming back to GW2 these days. I seriously dislike having my decked-out 80s having lower stats that lowbies in all greens.

It’s not broken.

All the complaints about this got me curious so I play-tested a couple full ascended characters in low & mid level zones… and I don’t see why people are objecting. So it takes maybe an extra hit or three to kill stuff than it did pre-patch? That’s fine, pre-patch was silly with how much damage a down-leveled 80 could do. Seems to be working like it should be.

As for the exact numbers, I don’t care who has slightly more as long as it plays well, and it does. Besides, lowbies don’t have a full trait/skill load-out, so giving them an edge in stats is fair.

Nothing really to fix imho.
Shame it’s keeping you away.
~TG

The edge from stats as far as I know comes from one or both of two things… ie. the scaling has been adjusted to account for the existence of ascended gear and/or toned so that low level gear that has less overall stat selection (ie. 1 or 2 stats vs 3 different stats) has the same budget of stat points as downscaled 80 gets from their equipment. Meaning a lowbie that has only one stat (say power) has thus more power from that piece than downscaled 80 that is sporting say zerkers or soldiers gear.

I haven’t done the math myself but these are the kind of reasons that have been shared by people for this change here and elsewhere. Either way it is not a bug, but an intended change.

You still have a major edge as down scaled player, full trait and skill selection, more variety in stats as mentioned and above all else Superior Runes and Sigils. By the way I find it confusing that you not having statistical superiority towards lowbies would bother anoyone so much that they would loose enjoyment of the game over something trivial like that.

The whole point of downscaling is to make content in lower level areas relevant to everyone in such a way that it isn’t completely broken by your statistical advantage. In other words one could say, the very reason downscaling exists is so that level 80 players do not have that statistical superiority you long for when the content is tuned for lower stats.

Stats are only a portion of a character’s effectiveness. Your trait/skill build, something a low level toon will not be able to match, matters a great deal as well.

I honestly don’t understand why someone would want to take an 80 into a low level zone without downscaling. It would be like arm wrestling a two year old. Sure youre going to win, but why bother?

Before the change, I was able to go into the bandit den north of Bar Curtis Ranch (in Queensdale) and kill every bandit within about 10 seconds (give or take a few seconds, depending on various factors). Now, I’m able to go into that same den and . . . kill every bandit within about 10 seconds (give or take a few seconds, depending on various factors).

So yeah, I’m not seeing much of a change.

I recently went back to level 3 areas, and I still felt fairly overpowered, maybe less than before in which case it is a good thing. Nothing to fix there.

On one hand, I sort of enjoyed being able to kill everything with ridiculous ease, but only when soloing. It was when I was partied up with another low level char it was a major annoyance. I had to stand there while they fought and do nothing, at least until the mob was almost dead, then hit it once and kill it. If I was doing events alongside low levels, I could overwhelm the mobs and they wouldn’t get credit. It made for an extremely boring time playing alongside low level chars. I was always having to hold back.

Fully geared and traited level 80s are still strong, maybe not as much but they don’t need to be overpowered in the low level areas.

We can all argue all day until blue in the face regarding the validity of the change, and it is perhaps subjective (you think it’s fun to play nerfed characters, I think it’s a slap in the face to reduce the time and effort I spent gearing up mine to the level below greened-out lowbies, and we both feel equally correct).

What does matter though is that the change was unannounced and unexplained; it is a replay, to a T, of the previous introduction of super-downscaling, which was eventually patched out. If ANET had come out and said “we feel that geared-up 80s are too powerful when downscaled, therefore we’re going to completely neuter them and if you don’t like it take a hike”, it would have been bad but overall acceptable. Major nerfs happen every day in every MMO, after all. But the fact that it was just jammed in with no explanation or reason is what upsets me the most.

I think the forgot to take in account the 30% increase in gear stats when you get downscaled.

Frostgorge is the new Queensdale now when you have to do daily events there.
Really .. the mobs there last night often died before i could tag them .. the same
way what people always complained about what the problem with mentoring
supposedly was.
While the day before mobs in Plains of Ashford lived much longer.