Guild Wars 2

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

So, you’re saying I need a degree in game mechanics to be able to effectively ‘kill’ a low-level monster?

Well, ‘degrees in game mechanics" are fairely easy to aquire in GW2, but yes, that’s pretty much what it means. Mesmers aren’t exactly praised for the damage output, but if you understand how the class works, you can blow up everything in the open world without working up a sweat.
The leveling phase of the mesmer has never been a lot of fun, though. It’s manageable, but it’s not unusual to feel like a kitten by times because you don’t have access to a lot of damage multiplication effects before you’re all grown up.

You said you’re a mesmer. What weapons are you using?

Sword is your usual go-to 1h weapon for PvE power-based builds. It deals the most auto-attack damage and has a really handy #2 defensive blur skill which will let you evade for a few seconds whilst dealing damage. Offhand is your choice but I tend to go with Focus for movement speed. Pistol/Sword could work as well. Try them out and see what you like.

Greatsword is a good compliment to a power build because it gives you a ranged option. Don’t use the auto-attack from close-range because it will be painfully weak. It deals more damage the further away you are, at certain distance breakpoints.

If you’re using condition damage (not really recommended while leveling and without proper trait lines) Scepter and Staff are often your weapons of choice. You can still use sword for the defensive capability (or if you have a mixture of power/condi on your build). Torch is a decent offhand but you may choose to use Focus still for the speed buff from Temporal Curtain. Mesmers can really have trouble maintaining swiftness.

While leveling you’re probably not going to have optimized stats or runes and that’s fine. Try to make a choice based not just on the level of the equip but on the stats that it gives, too. When you’re given choices for equips from rewards, try to choose the stats (or rune) that fits with your trend.

Direct damage benefits from:
-Power (increased damage)
-Precision (crit rate)
-Ferocity (crit damage)

Condition damage benefits from:
-Condi damage (damage)
-Expertise (condi duration, not available until Lv80 + HoT I believe, except on very few items and its not listed as Expertise).

Defensive stats are good when learning content and slowly (or quickly sometimes) become less useful. They are:
-Toughness (Armor)
-Vitality (HP)
-Healing power (Healing)

And remember, if you’re killing at the same speed (roughly) as players you’re downscaled to (assuming similar optimization and ability), then its doing its job exactly how its supposed to.

Also.

The example you gave in your first post OP is as bad as it gets. The sons of Svanir are in lvl 40 zone, so it’s impossible for a lvl 13 character to be there. The Rev player you are talking about was surely lvl 80 with lvl 13 masteries.

There are Sons of Svanir as early as Wayfarer foothills. I want to say in the level 3-5 range. I’m guessing that OP was killing them in the northern portion of Wayfarer which should have 10-15ish mobs.

Glacial.9516:

You said you’re a mesmer. What weapons are you using?

Sword is your usual go-to 1h weapon for PvE power-based builds. It deals the most auto-attack damage and has a really handy #2 defensive blur skill which will let you evade for a few seconds whilst dealing damage. Offhand is your choice but I tend to go with Focus for movement speed. Pistol/Sword could work as well. Try them out and see what you like.

Greatsword is a good compliment to a power build because it gives you a ranged option. Don’t use the auto-attack from close-range because it will be painfully weak. It deals more damage the further away you are, at certain distance breakpoints.

If you’re using condition damage (not really recommended while leveling and without proper trait lines) Scepter and Staff are often your weapons of choice. You can still use sword for the defensive capability (or if you have a mixture of power/condi on your build). Torch is a decent offhand but you may choose to use Focus still for the speed buff from Temporal Curtain. Mesmers can really have trouble maintaining swiftness.

While leveling you’re probably not going to have optimized stats or runes and that’s fine. Try to make a choice based not just on the level of the equip but on the stats that it gives, too. When you’re given choices for equips from rewards, try to choose the stats (or rune) that fits with your trend.

Direct damage benefits from:
-Power (increased damage)
-Precision (crit rate)
-Ferocity (crit damage)

Condition damage benefits from:
-Condi damage (damage)
-Expertise (condi duration, not available until Lv80 + HoT I believe, except on very few items and its not listed as Expertise).

Defensive stats are good when learning content and slowly (or quickly sometimes) become less useful. They are:
-Toughness (Armor)
-Vitality (HP)
-Healing power (Healing)

And remember, if you’re killing at the same speed (roughly) as players you’re downscaled to (assuming similar optimization and ability), then its doing its job exactly how its supposed to.

Also.

The example you gave in your first post OP is as bad as it gets. The sons of Svanir are in lvl 40 zone, so it’s impossible for a lvl 13 character to be there. The Rev player you are talking about was surely lvl 80 with lvl 13 masteries.

There are Sons of Svanir as early as Wayfarer foothills. I want to say in the level 3-5 range. I’m guessing that OP was killing them in the northern portion of Wayfarer which should have 10-15ish mobs.

This is a good post. I already knew much of it, but it’s good to have a re-read.

Thanks

I would actually preffer a fully geared lvl 80 doing less damage on a level 10 map then lvl 10 player.

Reason being the lvl 80 already has full aceess to all his traits and potentially runesets giving him that much more power and options already.

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

So, you’re saying I need a degree in game mechanics to be able to effectively ‘kill’ a low-level monster?

No, and by your own admission you’re still perfectly capable of killing these mobs. You just want to kill them faster than someone who’s lower level than you, and you totally can! Whenever I mess around in lower-level areas, I certainly notice myself killing mobs faster than level-appropriate players. Not so fast that the mobs evaporate, sure, but still a bit faster. You aren’t seeing that for some reason, however, which means there’s something wrong with how you’re doing it.

I’m not trying to insult you, and if you’re a relativelly new player, you shouldn’t take it as an insult that you aren’t amazing at the game yet. This is just the only conclusion that can be drawn from what you’ve said. Either that, or you misunderstood that that Revenant was actually Mastery level 13, which means he’s actually a level 80 character with some masteries under his belt.

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

Seera.5916:

I like downscaling. It means that even though I now tome my characters to level 80 for the moment since otherwise, I’m wasting experience that could be put towards masteries since I can’t tome for those, that I’m not giving up the possibility of a challenge.

That I’ll still have to make sure I don’t aggro too many enemies at once. That I still have a chance of dying if I make a mistake.

There’s a difference between not wearing meta gear because you’re ignorant of game mechanics and not wearing meta gear because you don’t like the meta, but know of it and why it’s meta. And by meta I mean the meta for level 50’s in level 13 areas.

Based on your posts here, I think you fall more on the side of ignorance. And I mean the true definition of ignorance. As in you aren’t aware, not that you are stupid.

You don’t seem to realize how your gear and traits work together. I’m fairly ignorant on that regard myself, but I realize that if my gear is pointed toward conditions but my traits are pointed toward direct damage, that I’m going to find it harder than someone who has condition traits and gear or someone with direct damage traits and gear.

Then what level and rarity is your gear? Mixture of levels? At level? At the last personal story chapter level you did? What about the level 13?

Without knowing more information about at least your character, if not the level 13 character, then it’s hard to say where the blame lies. It could be with the game, but it could just as easily be with you.

And too many truly bad players claim that they are a good player for anyone to really believe a self assessment of how well you play if you claim you’re a good player, unfortunately.

So, you’re saying I need a degree in game mechanics to be able to effectively ‘kill’ a low-level monster?

Gimmeabreak

So first, you couldn’t outkill a level 6 revenant. Now you can’t kill anything. Which is it?

And you don’t need a PhD degree in it. But a high school one will let you know the gist of why you’re not doing as well as you think you should be.

Actually first he said a level 13 rev. Then he said a level 6. So there’s that.