Guild Wars 2

There are a lot of people claiming major difficulty running the new AC. One of the major claims why this is too hard is because a level 35 in appropriate gear will not have the stats to survive.

Given you are level 35 there are a few things I think we can assume,

• you have access to your Elite skill
• you have access to each skill you may want to use
• you have spent 25 trait points
• you have level 30/35 armor/weapon(s)/accessories, with runes/gems in each piece

Given you are level 80 we can set the following conditions

• you have access to all skills
• you have spent all 70 trait points
• you have level 80 armor/weapon(s)/accessories
• you are using full exotic/ascended with superior runes
• you are not using magic find equipment
• you are not using a legendary (not required but it’s fair)

So with level scaling how much difference is there? I would suspect the net difference will be numerically small (5~10%) and have less effect on the outcome than the foreknowledge of the event, having picked the right skill(s) to be prepared, and investing in the best equipment available for the level.

80 Guardian (Traits: 20 / 0 / 20 / 20 / 10)

no weapons/equipment

• Power 312, Attack 312
• Precision 256, Critical 4%
• Toughness 312, Armor 312
• Vitality 312, Health 3415
• Condition Damage 0, Condition Duration 20%
• Boon Duration 10%, Healing Power 56
• Critical Damage 6%

with weapons / equipment

• Armor: 1211
• Scepter 895~1010, Shield 806~909
• Power 744, Precision 348, Toughness 830, Vitality 546, Crit Damage 3, Healing Power 25, Condition Damage 171

• Power 520, Attack 853
• Precision 353, Critical Chance 20%
• Toughness 544, Armor 942
• Vitality 464, Health 4,935
• Condition Damage 48, Condition Duration 20%
• Boon Duration 10%, Healing Power 63
• Critical Damage 6%
• Agony Resist 7

Taking some easy to measure ones,

Armor 312 (1116) vs Armor 942 (3218)
312/1116 = ~28%
942/3218 = ~29%
(942-312)/(3218-1116) = 630 / 2102 = ~30%

Agony Resist 25 > 7 = 28%

Assuming these two stats are representative of the scaling, then initial stats, and equipment bonus’ are reduced to 28~30% of their level 80 value when being dropped to 35.

Lv80 Exotic, Heavy Chest Armor

• Defense 363, 101/72/72
• Defense 109, 30/22/22 (stats dropped to 30% of full value)

Lv80 Rare, Heavy Chest Armor

• Defense 321, 89/64/64
• Defense 96, 27/19/19 (stats dropped to 30% of full value)

Lv35 Rare, Heavy Chest Armor

• Defense 117, 29/21/0

Superior Rune

• 6 runes of Divinity would attain 60 to each stat, for 6 stats, and 12% critical damage
• or 120 net stat gain, 4% critical damage
• 5/1 rune for stat gain would be 165/40, 25
• or 72 net stat gain

Minor Rune

• 10 / 6 = 16 × 3 pairs = 45 stats

Overall it seems to me that it takes Exotic armor at level 80 to be equivalent to a best equipped level 35 character. You will gain a slight edge from the third stat, and you can make a bit more headway from using Superior Sigil’s, and I mean common who invests in top of the line level 35 equipment the moment they level? And who invests in buying skill points early to have access to every skill. You’ll also have 450 (135 scaled) extra stat points, and access to a few more trait skills that you wouldn’t have at level 35. But all around I would say it’s a fairly even scale down from level 80 to level 35!

So I guess there isn’t much reason to say lower levels can’t come into the dungeon, at least any more than there is to say people without full exotic/ascended can’t go… Skill > gear and hell it turns out if you get to level 80 to do the same stuff you did before you need the best gear to do it without having more skill!

First off, it’s fallacious to presume that level 80’s are running around in full exotic/ascended with superior runes.

I have five 80’s; there isn’t time in the day to grind that much equipment or enough gold to buy that much equipment… and I’m a retired old fart, so I have more time in a day to waste on this stupid game than most people.

Second, quite frankly the scaling system is so borked up that my 80’s are MUCH more powerful in a level-appropriate zone than in a lower zone to which they’ve been scaled down and mobs in encounters have been scaled up. ANet hasn’t figured it out yet… they’re not even close IMHO.

As far as fallacious to presume that level 80’s are running Exotic/Ascended yeah it probably is for every players every character and alts. That being said the major complaint is that 80’s are better than 35’s (or lower leveled characters) in scaled content. This is what I would consider a “fair” comparison. yes, the weapons could be legendary… but the point is to show a best/well geared 80 is not THAT much numerically better than a 35 who is “equivalently well geared”.

I think without someone showing me more conclusive data, I’m going to say that there isn’t a huge increase when looking at scaled content. at MOST you’re looking at 45 trait points (135 scaled stat points at 35), and another 200~ stat points beyond that between exotic/ascended equipment.
As you increase the scaled level closer to 80 I suspect we’ll find that the rate of scaling (80 exotic ~= best gear for that level cap), but I’m not going to jump around the world to figure this out.

I don’t think in scaled content higher levels SHOULD be massively more powerful, what’s the point of scaling the content if they are? If I wanted to faceroll all the content I probably wouldn’t be playing a game that did any sort of scaling at all.