Guild Wars 2

Hey so me and my husbear played through the story mode when the game first came out, really enjoyed it, but never really looked back till now… so that was what, 3 years ago or more?

Yea, I get there is a sharp relearning curve for MMO’s especially when your characrters are high level and you look at the new UI and Skill menus and all these items in your bags and dont have a clue of what they are for anymore… But thats one thing.

We got the HoT expansion and first thing we wanted to do was check out Living story season 2 before jumping into HoT. The first chapter was fun, and a little challenging, but not too bad. The second chapter in Dry Top was brutal, and we kept dying quickly till we went ahead and moved onto HoT stuff.

After the intro to HoT (where you get your teleport access to it), we are still finding ourselves getting ravaged by certain mobs, like pocket raptors, or these dog like plant things in one of the timed world events…

All of our gear is exotic (orange), but it is all from the vanilla game (excluding my daredevil staff). We never did raiding, we are really just casual players that enjoy the story and exploration of the PvE world.

So, what are we missing? I assume its gear. Did we miss out on Season 1 gear? Do we need raiding gear? (I really hope not). I guess I am just used to MMO expansions that slowly get you acclimated to the challenges, usually by the form of quest lines with the reward of so so armor that will at least let you survive the new area, where in this one, they throw you into the frying pan lol.

What the new expansion feels like is like its for the hardcore gamers rather than the causal ones, and thus we will need to grind/farm a really long time to get ascendant armor…. Or is there just something we are missing?? This isnt meant to be a critism, we really just want help so we can get on enjoying the new expansion with our old lvl 80 characters T_T

I don’t know what your gear is, but from running just core stats, you might want to swap out some of your trinkets for Valkyrie or Soldier gear, and run Berzerker/Assassins on the rest, to give you some survivability while you learn the new monsters. Personally, I run Marauder stats, but that’s a new combination). But otherwise – you need to learn your class and the monster mechanics.

You seem to be having trouble with Pocket Raptors and Mordrem Wolves. For both – don’t let them surround you. As a staff thief, I suggest having Invigorating Precision traited and the Signet of Malice to give you some sustain while fighting them – the more you hit with your staff, the more you heal back from the damage they deal. Still, you don’t want to let yourself get surrounded (Staff 5 can help if you do, though). Staff 2 is also a good lifesaver – while it doesn’t have a dodge, it does move you out of the way of many attack’s cleave radii, and inflicts the damage-reducing Weakness condition.

Actually HoT is a lot easier now than when it first came out. There were some chapters in LS2 that were very difficult and others that were very easy to solo.

If you are returning, be aware you need to respec your character as a big change preceding HoT was the specialization changes aka Traits 3.0. Understanding the synergies between traits and your skills, something I never cared about since Core Tyria content was relatively easy, is necessary to develop a good skill rotation. The fight at the end of LS2 Chapter 4 was death after death. Just recently with my now tuned build it was one death and cleared. I was shocked by the difference.

Thanks for responding, I agree that we will need to look into that as well so we can kill things faster. But our biggest issue is when something hits one of us twice, in a row, in about 3 seconds and we are already dying… And I dont mean the attacts that show a zone of effect before they hit us (those usually 1 shot us but I get the need to dodge out of the area).

I am curious about how much health and armor I should have. Right now as a theif I am at 14k health.

This has been answered a million times, but since the search feature doesn’t work I’ll repeat a few points. You can always try google for more posts from this forum.

The first major thing you need to do is pay attention to enemy mechanics. If you can name an enemy that is giving you particular trouble, I or someone else can tell you why you are dying to it and ideas on how to fix it. Or use wiki to look up the mechanics of that enemy.

The second major thing is you (probably) need to take a few key defensive utilities or traits in HoT. They expect you to be able to deal with conditions, stuns/knock downs, and lethal damage. There are many ways to deal with those, but the easiest is to simply take utilities or traits that …. you guessed it, clear condis, stun break, and provide damage resistance or invulnerabilities (which can easily be replaced by a well timed dodge when you get the hang of things again.)

Edit in response to your gear question: The general rule of thumb for PvE is to take the most possible damage. If you learn the encounters and your profession’s abilities, there is zero content you can’t complete in full glass gear. If that isn’t possible for you for whatever reason, you can add tankiness, but that will drag the encounters out and potentially make them harder.

Your gear definitely is not the problem. Exotic gear is more than enough for most types of content, ascended is an expensive shiny thing that provides a tiny stat increase for players who are going for maximum efficiency as an endgame goal.
In case you still want to go for ascended, best order would be trinkets, then weapons, then armor (considering how difficult to obtain they are and how much benefit you get).
Also you don’t need any fancy HoT stat combos, you will do just fine with core tyria ones. Of course some of the new stats will make you play more efficiently (higher condi duration for condi classes, higher boon duration for mesmer), but they definitely won’t have such impact to make the difference between game being playable and unplayable.

A major thing would obviously be skill. Being able to dodge on time has always been crucial in the game and even more so in HoT. Enemies in HoT were intended to be slightly harder than in core game, but again, the difference shouldn’t be completely gamebreaking.

Also, don’t forget to count experience. If you play for the first time, it is to be expected that you will get smashed. You’re not familiar with the enemies, don’t know what to look out for or what works best against them. As you play more, you eventually get to know how to counter particular mechanics and it won’t seem so hard anymore.

It will still happen sometimes that you die, HoT enemies hit quite hard, but if you give it some time, you will get accustomed to it and won’t die nearly as often. Get to know every enemy, learn their attacks, learn which tools your class has to counter them and try to get better timing with dodges. Nobody is good at first, but you’ll get there.

Thank you everyone for all of your input. I feel that each post was very insightful and helpful, but extra thanks to Tarasicodissa… I think those stats you mentioned, as well as the tips with the staff are going to be key for me. Thanks again everyone!

Most frustrating thing about HoT for me is “simply” navigating the maps. It’s a friggin maze, they should call this game Puzzle Wars. Mobs hurt at the very start, but adapted quickly and I don’t worry about them any more. Helps to get some experience with them.

You do not need ascended armor in Hot open world. You can get by with rare (yellow) gear, but exotics is the best option and they have the same stats as they did when you left, nothing changed there. In the end ascended is what you guys should work towards, but for now you are ok with exotics.

From what i could read out one of you are a daredevil. And thiefs are squishy and requires more of you in HoT. If you played it for a while you will manage fine and know how to deal with mobs without issues, but if this is new to you and mobs overwhelming you, you really need to figure your skills out. You need to dodge, and dodge and dodge, and daze/stun/block well anything that control the mobs. If you don’t control them, they control you. So both of you check your skills and make sure to use them properly. If you are two do the team work, and work together

As for raptors, yes they are overwhelming at the start. But they have very low hp and if you use aoe they will die fast. If you can slow, daze, stun or anything else before you take them on and then aoe them, even better.

Also remember if you getting overwhelmed you don’t have to stay and fight. Make sure you have a stun breaker and just jump off the cliffs and fly away. It really is this simple.

So practice will teach you the mobs and what they do that you can prevent, work as a team and make sure to use your skills in a good order. For example if you slowed the mobs, makes sure your husband damage the mobs and vice versa. And remember you have heals and depending on class you also have some or more buffs to share that helps out. Some classes have cleanses and stunbreaker and protection that is for more then just the player. Use it all and you will learn

Hi!

You mentioned daredevil, so I assume you have the elite spec fully unlocked. That’s a great start! Here’s a suggestion for an open world build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhFmCOOBkmiFqiaLHHsqbu63+yvrnCgDA-ThRBABUq+zDXBAzUCinuBAeIAXt/o8jUARsMC-e

Use the staff to handle pocket raptors (and most everything else as a thief in open world!). Start by vaulting into the middle of the pack. The raptors will react a moment later, but pay attention to the timing. Once you get the hang of that brief pause before they strike, you can anticipate and evade most or all of the damage. Vault in, dodge out, vault in again and most of the raptors should be dead. Finish off any stragglers that weren’t in range of the killing blow.

If you mistime the initial evade, you’ll take heavy damage, but just dodge out, pop your heal and vault back in. Pocket raptors have very little health and each one you kill is less damage you take in return.

The mordrem wolves move quickly and hit hard. But vault/dodge spam tends to work well just as it does for most other targets. However, you can also facetank them if you like. Staff 4 is an area blind, staff 2 applies weakness, pistol 5 is a pulsing area blind plus smoke field. Combine any of these skills with heals on offense from invigorating precision and you should be able to stand there and beat the wolves down before they can kill you (but why not use your endless dodging as a daredevil to avoid most of the damage anyway?).

Feel free to contact me in game if you’d like some help getting the hang of it. Daredevil is my favorite class and messing around in open world HoT is one of my favorite activities!

I had some trouble dying to some of this stuff too, then did a respec on the build to better handle AOE encounters. The raptors like to surround, then run out, then all run at you at the same time. I deal with it by hitting an AOE blind (first attack missed) followed by an AOE ground damage, then dodge. This puts them all to one side of you, while standing in your AOE. Then just start damaging the mobs with other AOE weapon/spell abilities as needed, while standing at the edge of your ground AOE. The pocket raptors will die before you do.

Thanks guys, all of this is really helpful! Thanks for the daredevil tips as well. Any tips for my bf’s elementalist? I know, we are both squishy classes lol!

As for me, I was looking at the runes. 3 runes stood out to me:
Rune of the warrior: +25 Vitality +35 Power +50 Vitality +65 Power +100 Vitality -20% recharge on weapon swap.

Rune of the necrodancer: +25 Condition Damage +35 Vitality +50 Condition Damage +65 Vitality +100 Condition Damage +20% fear duration.

And Rune of the daredevil: +25 Power +35 Toughness +50 Power +65 Toughness +100 Power Next attack is guaranteed a crit after completing a dodge roll in combat.

Weapon swap and fear duration do nothing for me, but that next crit seems kinda cool but not AMAZING. So, is it best to stick with one type, or mix and match? And Daredevil has no added vitality, just toughness… I am assuming vitality is more important?

Both eles and thieves (and pretty much every PvE build except ranger) typically use superior rune of the scholar.

PvE is all about damage. It’s mathematically safer to kill faster. Like I mentioned, you can mess around with defensive gear if you simply can’t get glass gear to work but 1) you’ll probably outgrow your defensive gear quickly and need to spend money on new glass gear. And 2) defensive gear is potentially more dangerous than glass gear if it takes longer to kill. That’s especially apparent when you’re fighting large sums of enemies that you need to get rid of quickly (defending a Pact Camp in Verdant Brink for a random example.) If you have 2 enemies, killing 1 quickly is going to be much safer than slowly tanking down 2.

Also defensive utilities or skills are about 10000% more effective (roughly) than defensive gear.

If you want specific PvE builds as a guide, check out metabattle.com. If you want to make your own from scratch, just keep in mind a dead enemy can’t hurt you, which is especially important for naturally glass professions like ele and thief. Ya you can make a tanky thief, but… why are you playing thief in that case.