Guild Wars 2

So anyway, I’m close to level 50 now, and decided it might be time to try out teaming up with other people. Dungeons was a first choice, but I noticed there are other things to join too, like personal story. That quickly gave me a few questions I’d like answered before trying them out in the game and making a complete fool of myself.

1. Let’s start with dungeons. I noticed a lot of the descriptions mention “zerg”, but what does that mean? If I were to make an educated guess, it reminds of me the zerglings in StarCraft, as in a whole lot of weak monsters swarming over the map and enemy base. Am I correct in assuming “zerg” means a speed run?

2. There was a german player who went story mode, and said everyone is welcome. Fair enough, I like that. But if I join his/her group, how do I find the dungeon? Can I port to that player, or even join the dungeon instantly from where I am? Or do I have to go to the dungeon entrance manually?

3. I’ve seen a thread here about players swapping their characters in dungeons. Is this really possible? And how would I do it? Of course, this is something I would never do without permission, but I can see how it can be useful when playing a low-level character and getting stuck. Swapping it out with a high-level character to help out the others could be nice – unless the high-level character are downscaled?

4. Finally, how important are levels in dungeons? If I go to a level 30 dungeon with a level 80 character, can I solo it?

1. It probably said zerk which means berserker gear and traits.

2. As long as he is inside when you enter the map the dungeon is on you get an option to join that instance.

3. People will run there 80s and when the boss is almost dead swap to a low lvl toon for the xp.

4. Dungeons down level you just like open world so going is with am 80 is easier but you won’t one shot everything

1. Lol at “zerg”. A lot of players don’t know the difference between “zerg” and “zerk”. Zerg is what you described, bunch of people in same place facerolling everything in their way, while “zerk” is short for berserker, which is combination of offensive stats on gear (power/precision/ferocity).

2. If you’re in his party (group) you can see him on the map, if you’re in the same server.
You can also see dungeons on map (they have special icons that look like some cave entrance). I think it might also say in LFG tools where each dungeon is but not sure about that atm, as I’m not in the game. You have to be in the same map as dungeon is to enter a dungeon. So for example, if you want to enter Twilight Arbor dungeon, you need to be anywhere in Caledon Forest map.

3. Yes, you can swap and it’s not wrong. It’s just polite that you inform your party of that before starting dungeon, ask them if they feel ok by you switching at the end.
You can paly as level 80 in dungeon and then switch to your low level at the end to get experience.

4. Lvl 80 have best gear and all traits and skills unlocked so they are most effective in every dungeon. Yes, you can solo dungeons, except a few where you need few people to activate console or somethign like that, which can’t be done solo.

Adding my two copper

1. Players will often refer to metabattle (or mb) as the source of how a zerk player so gear up. The sites currently in a limbo as they’re updating their data to be compatible with the 6/23 patch.

2. Each of the eight dungeons reside in specific maps. So, as long as you go to that map (doesn’t matter if your team is outside about to enter or already in the dungeon) you will get a prompt to effectively be ‘ported’ inside the dungeon with the rest of the team.

3. It’s common courtesy to ask if you can swap but most groups won’t have a problem if the team is doing fairly well with the dungeon. The experience for clearing the content occurs right after the final boss is slain so players will do nearly all the content on their primary account and then wait til almost the last moment and swap so their lower level toon gets the xp credit (which is about 7/10 of a level).

4a. In PvE, maps and instances will have a level cap so if you walk in with a character with a higher level than that of the cap the game will ‘downscale’ your equipment and skills to better match the zone that you are in. There are also caps of how high of a stat you can have as well as the quality/rarity of your weapon. In other words you can walk into a level 40 zone with a Legendary quality weapon, but it will have no higher weapon potential than that or a Rare weapon.

4b. At level 80 though you have a couple advantage than someone of ‘appropriate level’

-Hero Points: Unless you do a lot of grinding of Hero challenges a higher level toon will generally have more of these spare to train more skills and traits
-Specialization: Even though a player is scaled they still retain the number of specs they can slot as well as all abilities unlocked through their specialization choices.
-Stats: Despite the scaling a properly geared level 80 toon will still have higher stats, on average, than low leveled toons.

Thanks, guys. And yes, I meant zerk, not zerg. Sorry, I’m new to this. Still not entirely sure what zerk even means, but nevermind that. I’ll just join non-zerk group. Never been much of an elitist anyway.

As simplesimon noted, “zerk” is the slang term for “berserker.” That’s a set of three stats that aims at pure dps without any defense. For quite a while now there have been quite a few people who feel that the only way to do combat in GW2 is to dps the foe into the ground faster than it dps’s you, and rely on well-timed dodges to avoid damage. They feel that if you aren’t in the most dps-y gear, you’re going to slow them down in their mad rush through the dungeon. (And they might be right, you might cost them a few seconds or even minutes).

So a “zerk only” PuG is asking for people aimed at the most efficient content clearing possible and isn’t interested in taking time to hear the dialogues, view the cut scenes, or spend any more time than minimally necessary per boss.

You can make your own LFG, by the way. Make sure to put it in the right place, eg don’t ask for AC Path 3 in the Open World Content, go to the AC Dungeon part. Type in “new to dungeon, would like help” or whatever describes your needs for the run. It may fill up quite quickly, which is why you see the more finicky listings all the time — they haven’t found anyone to join them, sometimes in the amount of time it takes a more casual group to run the whole path they will still be sitting there waiting for someone to help them get through faster The friendlier runs fill up so fast they vanish before you see them.

@Battlecat

Also some tips for using the LFG and running with random people (aka PUGS).

1.If you don’t know. ASK. Always. Period.

2.Try to do some research before going into the dungeons. Watch some walkthroughs/guides. It will make things a lot easier for everybody.

3.If the first time in a dungeon, ASK at the very start if its ok to watch the cut scenes. (see 1.)

4. Don’t join groups you are not qualified for. (aka, zerk only, 80 exp, 645K AP, etc.)

5. Starting your own LFG stating that you are new, with your own requirements, is always a good idea.

Good luck!!