Guild Wars 2

Hello, my name is Skweetis, and I am a Guild Wars 2 player.

Overall, I am pretty happy about the game, but here is a problem I am having.

1. I am level 80.
2. I don’t have MEGA AWESOME gear, but I have level 80 gear.
3. When I join someone to play the CM dungeon in newbie land.
4. I get killed rapidly.

I acknowledge that maybe there is some personal skill issue that I need to address, but at the same time, I worked pretty hard to get level 80, and I am still getting stomped. What assurance do I have that if I grind on gear stuff, I won’t get similarly stomped?

To shorten up my question: Or rather, to make a statement: If I spent huge hours getting the best gear, but I get level adjusted to low levels regardless, what’s the point of spending hours getting the best gear?

This really is a newb question. I am not trying to make a point rhetorically. I am just trying to figure out why I should continue to grind out advancement if my effort will be nullified by level adjustment.

Clarify!

1. CM is notorious for spike damage, such as the Cuthroats (12 stacks of bleeding) and Riflemen (Can take out more than half your health with one shot). So part of your problem is that they’re strong.
2. Depending on your gear, you could go up a significant amount to survive easier. For instance, you could be in green gear (Masterwork) and specced for a DPS, which means you’re basically a glass cannon. Exotics will boost your stats a bit, but it won’t mean you’ll be a god in the dungeon or anything. The stats you’re specced for also will determine how easy you survive (Zerker vs. Cleric, for instance).

Ok, I am with you.

True or false:

If I am a glass cannon, grinding for defensive gear makes some difference, but ultimately not much. Therefore, for glass cannons, the entire end game that involves grinding for defensive gear is largely useless.

If you’re a glass cannon, you wouldn’t want to grind for defensive gear anyway ;p. But if you did switch from pure damage to a more survivable set, then yes, that would be a major difference in terms of dying. I like to think of my two heavies, war and guard, who are complete opposites. War is pure attack, has about 3000 attack, and 50~% crit damage. However, he’s also got a lot of vitality (with gear and traits, he’s at around 24k health). He can dish out damage, but he goes down pretty quick (especially when I put on my zerker gear, he has even less chance of making it out alive). My guard on the other hand is pure cleric, has maybe 2400 attack, but armor is well over 3k, health isn’t too great but she makes up for it with a lot of healing. Survives a lot better, but doesn’t do much in terms of killing things. They have the same ‘tier’ of gear, but the stat boosts they give are completely different, changing the way they survive. My war kills things before it can be killed, and my guard just tanks all the damage away from others. (If you want to try glass cannon, my war uses Valkyrie, which is power/crit damage/vit)

Glasscannon is highly depending on keeping yourself alive. Cause you don’t have many options yourself, knowledge of the dungeon is important. I would advise to learn dungeons first with more defensive gear. It takes more time, but it is easier to find the safe spots and get to know all tricks.

Also, builds like that seems to concentrate on speedruns. So then the team would expect you to have this amount of knowledge.

Yes my main warrior I have a few armor sets for varying glass cannon and brick wall even when I run my toughness set and traits in CM I still get wrecked but outlast my entire team even with most of the mobs hitting me but that comes down to using blocks and endurepain or just timing my dodge rolls to avoid dmg that is the biggest key to surviving making use of your defensive skills because every weapon has at least one some just heal some reflect some block some evade even a glass can live for a long time if they avoid the right dmg at the right times

Skweetis.1590:

Hello, my name is Skweetis, and I am a Guild Wars 2 player.

Overall, I am pretty happy about the game, but here is a problem I am having.

1. I am level 80.
2. I don’t have MEGA AWESOME gear, but I have level 80 gear.
3. When I join someone to play the CM dungeon in newbie land.
4. I get killed rapidly.

I acknowledge that maybe there is some personal skill issue that I need to address, but at the same time, I worked pretty hard to get level 80, and I am still getting stomped. What assurance do I have that if I grind on gear stuff, I won’t get similarly stomped?

To shorten up my question: Or rather, to make a statement: If I spent huge hours getting the best gear, but I get level adjusted to low levels regardless, what’s the point of spending hours getting the best gear?

This really is a newb question. I am not trying to make a point rhetorically. I am just trying to figure out why I should continue to grind out advancement if my effort will be nullified by level adjustment.

Clarify!

Your effectiveness and survival in GW2 is dependent not upon gear or stats, but upon how you play.

What class and build are you? Regardless of what class you are, you should be doing the following:
-Move around constantly while attacking
-Dodge major attacks
-Don’t spam skills- use your skills actively to counter and control enemies.
-Bring skills and traits suited to the situation- in CM, if you’re a mesmer, you should roll Feedback. If you’re a guardian, you should bring Wall of Reflection, the spirit shield, and other anti-projectiles.
-Know your class and build.

It is much more important to avoid damage rather than to heal it.

I’ve ran a mesmer through AC exp and soloed several champions with only rare/yellow gear (all berserker, nonetheless), and survived just fine/better than the others. Prior to that, I did Arah/CoE/AC/CM exp and Fractals 10+ as an ele with rares/masterworks. The thing about top-tier gear is that it makes stuff easier (namely, you kill stuff faster and can take more hits if the cat hits the fan), but it won’t carry you like in other games. It ultimately boils down to how you play.

That being said, if you’re new to dungeons, I would recommend running AC story, and possibly some other stories (Arah, most likely) first. CM is one of the more unforgiving dungeons, in my opinion, since it comes with a lot of high-burst ranged mobs.

Finally, about running glass cannon- having some toughness does make a difference. When running Knight armor/zerker other stuff versus full zerker gear, you do get a hefty boost in survivability with a relatively minor damage drop. Full zerker gear is mainly viable in experienced static groups, and you want to compliment it with some defensive abilities (the aforementioned antiprojectiles, condition cures, etc). Going absolute full glass, where your traits/skills are entirely offensive, is even more risky- not only do you still have to keep on your toes, you’re dependent upon your party to defend you and if you’re caught alone, you’re screwed.

I would recommend starting with a balanced stat spread first- Knight’s armor, Berserker’s trinkets, and Valkyrie’s/Soldier’s weapons. As you get more comfortable and experienced, switch out pieces for offensive gear gradually until you hit a balance you’re comfortable with. Also, it may be worth looking over your traits and balancing them as well.

Sweet, thanks everybody! This has been super helpful!

What class are you playing? From here I could give tips on how to increase survivability without giving up too much damage/control. Without that info, generic ‘learn when to dodge’ and ‘reflect projectiles’ are the two most basic tips I can give you.

CM has one of the worst set of overpowered mobs of any dungeon ( I don’t consider arah op because those are appropriately scaled for that type/level/and area of content imo) so going in without that knowledge is half your problem. Blocks/blinds/evades/invulnerables/ and knowledge of how to exploit as much as possible are the best ways to clear that dungeon fast and safely. That being said, even if you normally spec glass cannon, it never hurts to keep an alt set of gear around for survivability if you find yourself in those situations. Because ti will happen sooner or later to everyone. Also, try to run harder dungeons like that with an experienced team who can alert you ahead of time to problem areas. Jumping into a speed clear team without prior knowledge is a bad idea because very few of them have the patience to explain the dungeon to you (even less have the actual knowledge of how the dungeon works, they only know how to follow the person in front of them)

The guy who designed the CM explorable basement should be fired.