Guild Wars 2

Okay, this doesn’t really have anything to do with any class in particular but I could use clarification by anyone who wants to help.

Topics I find confusing:

What does Toughness even do? How does this help damage mitigation on top of defense on your gear? What is the equation for eHP in this game with its damage mitigation stats not including utility.

Importance of investing in healing stats or increase heals by X stats on gear, or in traits? I figure this one is pretty important considering the game was built around teamwork in many areas. Is that correct?

Do I really have to bother dodging with any mobs other than Champions who have one shot mechanics? Am I expected to memorize, or pay attention to, various mob animations to somehow tell me how to avoid the one shot blows? Is there a constant similar attack animation or indicator for when a one shot blow will occur compared to blows or casts that are not one shot? How are they distinguished?

What is the stat priority for a damage dealing class? Is it main stats then condition stats?

I think I will leave it with that for now, unless this post was made in the wrong location or not acceptable. I think though that this might help show some of my ignorance of this combat system and whether its important to invest in jack of all trades stats and utility due to there being no trinity… I seriously am pretty confused by this games system.

1) Toughness adds to defence from items. So yeah it increases you eHP against direct damage, but won’t protect against conditions.

2) Personally, I don’t feel that healing power is worth it. It gives very little returns. Though I may be wrong about this.

3) Dodging is important, but also is kiting. If your enemy will waste time trying to move closer to you he won’t have time to actually hit you.
One-shot hits from champions\bosses always have some pattern and are predictable. So you should try to dodge them every time.

4) Currently Power+Precision+Crit damage are the best stats for DPS. You can add some survivability to your liking.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toughness
and yeah, NPCs utilize a “tell” or wind up animation for certain attacks. Fairly constant across practically all games. Especially with more challenging NPCs.
Wiki can explain a lot. It is virtually the manual for the game with details that might be readily apparent while playing. /wink

Thanks to both you guys I also had no idea there was no way to avoid condition damage, so I guess its important to have something to always help you remove them from you.

Don’t trust the wiki whatsoever.

You can always hit up the Heart of the Mists to test anything you like.

The game doesn’t do a great job explaining things very well so alot of it is trial and error/testing.

Toughness is your standard % dmg reduction it stacks with whatever armor you have to give you your full armor stat.

Healing Power isn’t really that great as MOST heals in the game scale very very poorly with it, it’s generally a gimmicky stat that’s only really used in certain specific builds with skills that do scale decently with it. Regen boon scales decently well with it. Don’t bother with it til you’re more experienced with the game.

Dodging isn’t super important early on, well neither is it TOO important while leveling up in general unless you get into a tough fight which is rare. In combat it’s usually used for mobility where as the actual iFrame isn’t used as much. Most mobs have quick auto attacks unfortunately and some have telegraphed skills while others don’t have very well telegraphed skills.

Ettin/Mosshearts are a great example of mobs done right in this regard, slow powerful well telegraphed attacks. Mosshearts for example you’ll want to learn to dodge.

Condition Dmg ignored all % dmg reductions and can only be removed or have duration reduced by some rare effects. Power increases your base direct dmg on abilities by a % (about 11% per 100 power at lvl 80, with your base power being 100% base dmg).

Precision is just crit % and you’re base crit dmg modifier is 150%, each 1% crit dmg stat adds to that. Precision without power is kind of crap unless you’re focusing on things that proc from crits, sometimes condition builds.

Condition Dmg is just straight up more dmg for dmging conditions (Bleed/Poison/Burn/Confusion). Keep in mind not ALL tooltips in the game are completely accurate. Each condition also scales differently.

You’ll want to focus on either condition or power depending on your weapon or build, but doing both also works, again depending on your weapon, etc. While leveling just avoid Crit Dmg % and Healing Power as they’re both pretty crappy at low levels.

While leveling you can just focus 100% on pure dmg as it’s quite an easy part of the game, Dungeons and stuff you defiantely won’t want to do that unless you already know what you’re doing.

Oh and don’t get confused by your Weapon Dmg stat, it adds your weapon’s average dmg with power which doesn’t make sense since power is multiplicative.

khefka.2804:

Definitely keep the wiki handy, that’s pretty much where I learned what all my traits I can choose actually do since the tooltips are fairly lacking in specifics.

Basic pve/map exploration you are probably not going to have to be very active or careful with how you are playing depending on what class you are and how you stack stats. Be careful though as this can make you a bit lazy and certain content (dungeons/champions/etc) you will need to recognize hits are coming to dodge/mitigate the damage.

I don’t know why but I really have a tough time telling the major blows from the smaller ones. Maybe I am too worried about CD’s and not well enough organized with my approach yet though.

Toughness = armor. It’s effectively a one to one between toughness, and armor gained from tougness. The actual split is because some traits/food buffs go off of toughness, but not armor.

endless.1376:

What is the equation for eHP in this game with its damage mitigation stats not including utility.

Base Damage = Average Weapon Strength * Power * Skill Ratio
Raw Damage = Base Damage / Armor
Armor = Defense + Toughness
eHP = Armor x Health = (Defense + Toughness) x (10 x Vitality)
So, as you can clearly see, you should have 10 times a much Armor as you have Health to not waste stat points.

Conditions do True Damage.