Guild Wars 2

Hello Guys
Need bit helps here. Have played this game for about a month, got a lvl 27 Ranger and L23 Warrior, but I found my heroes all have very low resistance against element attack, condition damage, like fire and ice. My over lvl 20 heroes often killed by some lower than lvl10 monsters if they do condition damages. When my heroes faced melee attack, they did well, my healthy didn’t go down quickly, so I believe my gear’s protection is alright. But even a lvl7 human bandit through a torch at me can easily make a huge drop of my healthy, if two of that I am done.

The only thing I found can improve protection is toughness, and I had added toughness stones on my armons as many as I can, but still very vulnerable to condition damage. Like in the Charr first map, battle on the wall, those ghost with swords cannot hurt my L23 warrior, but one ghost with a magic/element staff can drive me away for refuge.

What have I done wrong? How can I increase my condition damage resistance?

Thanks a lot.

I come bearing bad news, good news and advice. Bad news: There’s no condition damage resistance. You could, however, increase your vitality stat to get more HP.

Good news: Condition damage isn’t what’s hurting you so badly.

The mobs and attacks you describe have one thing in common: They have strong attacks that are relatively easily avoided. The most important thing a new player has to learn about combat in GW2 is dodging out of these. You’re not supposed to be able to just stand in some fire and take the damage.

Now, there are conditions you need to look out for, namely confusion. That damage can ramp up quickly. My advice is to get a condition removal skill, though I can’t tell you which those are off the top of my head.

I forgot to mention that your level is automatically reduced to a maximum level per area, which is why you shouldn’t feel safe around low level mobs.

With your Warrior take the heal skill Mending to remove three conditions.
With your ranger equip the Signet of Renewal for its passive condition remove effect.

You have five possibilities to survive conditions: 1. raise vitality, 2. use a condi remove skill/trait, 3. heal yourself for more than the condis do damage, 4. avoid condi attacks by dodging them or walking/running out of the shown AoE field, 5. kill the enemy before it’s able to apply its conditions.

If you didn’t already do it, go to the cook and jeweler crafting trainers and craft some jewels and food. Jewels like rings, ear rings and amulets are the most rare drops in Open PvE, the ones for karma which are of equal quality to crafted ones you will find only in much higher zones.

Regarding the Ranger: Due to the new skill system until you reach lvl 60 you won’t be able to share boons like regeneration with your pet – except you both fight side by side. For Open PvE I can recommend a Hyena, you can tame one in the Charr starter zone. Its F2 skill summons a second Hyena which is also able to knock down opponents. Use a sword and a torch and equip Healing Spring. Try to stay in melee range and near your pet to apply the regeneration effect to both of you. After reaching lvl 60 you can put one point into the minor trait Fortifying Bond in Nature Magic, then you also can heal your pet from a distance.
If you prefer a range weapon like the Longbow, use a spider. It has an AoE poison attack, you can push an enemy back into the poison field with the LB knock back skill.

For condition cleansing (bleeding, burning, confusion…) on ranger the best bet is the healing spring (heal skill), for warrior “shake it off”

But as tairneanach said, mostly you need to walk or dodge out of the burning ground or ghost-fire hail area

thanks for the advises, guys.
I am awareing of the my level goes down when fighting with lower lel mob. But I am wondering how could when fighting same level mobs, some time I only saw very small amount of health lost while against swords or axes, but some time mobs can got half of my health in one blow, most time by condition damage. Is that common?

The other thing nobody has mentioned: Condition damage is not reduced by Toughness or Armor.

Go for a mix of Toughness and Vitality (when you have a choice), but it’s not crucial at lower levels to have much of either. Dodging is important and having at least 1 skill to remove conditions will come in handy.

It’s because of your toughness runes. Toughness reduces direct damage (the white one). But it doesn’t affect condition damage like bleed, burning or poison. I’d recommend to swap some runes for vitality ones. As armor smith/leather worker you can craft a signet that works like a rune which increases your HP by 20 points / each item. In early levels this would help you a bit.

SkyFierce.2071:

thanks for the advises, guys.
I am awareing of the my level goes down when fighting with lower lel mob. But I am wondering how could when fighting same level mobs, some time I only saw very small amount of health lost while against swords or axes, but some time mobs can got half of my health in one blow, most time by condition damage. Is that common?

Some mobs with condition-damage simply are a little over the top. At the moment i remember especially Pirates since they now also spam torment, then there are sone Jellyfish in Snowden Drift .. 2 of them are even on a full exotic 80 no fun.

Imps can also be very annoying when you have suddenly 3-4 red circles under your feet in 1-2 seconds.

Also, as you are playing a warrior and a ranger, both classes have access to skills that “evade” attacks. Warrior
Great sword number 3 skill Whirlwind, which whirls you through any attacks and all attacks against you will be evaded
Great sword number 5 skill Rush can be used to run out of AOE’s.

Axe burst skill Eviscerate. This doesn’t count as an evade but it can be used to get you out of an incoming AOE

Sword number 2 skill Leap does the same as Eviscerate but has a longer range

Sword skill 5 (off hand) Riposte will block any attack. If you get attacked by ranged attacks the block does not cancel until the ranged attacks run out or the block duration runs out. if it is a melee attack, your warrior will block and counterattack

Hammer burst skill Earthshaker. Much the same as Leap and Eviscerate. Can be used to launch you out of AOEs. You can use this to knock down your enemies and interrupt their skills

Rifle skill 5 Rifle Butt will knock down your enemy and interrupt them. This attack cleaves so you can hit 3 enemies with it

Shield skill 4 Shield Bash stuns your enemies and interrupts their skills

Shield skill 5 Shield Stance will block all attacks for the duration of the stance

Rush, Leap and Eviscerate require targets to work properly, while Whirlwind and Earthshaker only require a direction. Only Whirlwind will prevent damage if you travel through an attack, the other will only work if you get out of the AOE before the attack lands. They will not evade any non-AOE attack.

Rangers
Greatsword skill 1 auto attack, the third attack in the sequence is an evade.
Greatsword skill 3 Swoop, is like leap and can be used to get out of AOE’s that are about to be cast. But like Leap will not prevent you being hit by non-AOE attacks
Greatsword skill 4 Counterattack will block any attack but if the AOE pulses it will only block the first one, any subsequent pulses will hit you. These include things like Necromancer Wells and Elementalist AOE attacks that do damage over time.
Greatsword skill 5 Hilt Bash will interrupt the target so if you use that when the enemy is casting the skill it will interrupt the skill.

Shortbow skill 3 Quick shot is an evade.
Shortbow skill 5 is an interrupt skill like Hilt Bash

Longbow skill 4 Point Blank shot will knock your enemy down and interrupt skills

Sword skill 2 Hornet Sting launches the ranger backwards and evades an attack
Sword skill 3 Serpent strike evades and attack and rolls you behind the enemy for a poisoned attack

Axe skill 4 (axe in off hand) Path of scars will knock down and pull and enemy towards you. This interrupts the enemy
Axe skill 5 (axe in off hand) Whirling Defense will block all ranged attacks against you. Will not work on melee or AOE attacks

Dagger skill 4 (dagger in off hand) rolls your ranger and evades an attack, then stabs the enemy.

Depending on which weapons you take, these skills including the 2 dodges will mitigate a lot of the damage from enemies either by blocking the damage, helping you evade it or interrupting enemies. GW2 is not about standing and fighting and trading damage until one side goes down. It’s about mobile combat and using your skills to prevent damage while dishing out enough damage in return to win your fight.

GW2 in PvE is all about not getting hit. You need to use everything in your kitten nal to evade, dodge, block, reflect, be invulnerable, etc. These are the keys to survive in GW2 PvE. Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power are only training wheels in PvE. A good numbers of players, once they are comfortable with their character use almost zero of these defensive stats.

Its not about your build or your gear, its about the way you play. But its ok, its normal to not really know what to do at the beginning. With time you get used to dodge these big attack.

And if you want a character to be lazy with in PvE… Make a Guardian. Then you can stand in their face majority of the time.

Mandras.7638:

The other thing nobody has mentioned: Condition damage is not reduced by Toughness or Armor.

wow, didn’t know this, this explained my misery quite a bit.

Azrael.4960
did you do the GW2 wiki, you are a dictionary.

thanks guys, so in short it’s Vitality, not toughness, I should go for for better survival.
Thanks a lot

SkyFierce.2071:

thanks guys, so in short it’s Vitality, not toughness, I should go for for better survival.
Thanks a lot

No .. not really. Thougness is much better against direct damage, and also makes your healing in those case more effectiv.
In the open world when leveling most of the time you go better with toughness and use a condition removal skill now and then.

If you have some special enemies that spam massive conditions, just be very careful and don’t be afraid to run away from time to time if you have added too much

I had to go back to wiki to remember the skill names, but I’ve spent a very large number of hours playing warrior and ranger so know them pretty well.

In short, Beldin summed it up well. If you’re a warrior, you can use “Shake it off!” which is a party wide condition remover. You can also take the trait in the Strength line which cleanses you of immobilise, chilling, cripple and weakness when you use a healing skill. This combined with the healing skill Mending will remove an incredible 7 conditions in 1 cast, with a 25s cool down. In some situations, like the Aetherblade boss fight in fractals, this can be a life saver. The other thing for condition removal as a warrior is to equip a full set of Superior Runes of the Trooper. The 6th bonus in the set grants you the ability to remove conditions whenever you use shouts. You can combine this with the trait in the vitality line for warriors which reduces shout recharge by 20%. If you take a full utility bar of shouts, such as Shake It Off!, For Great Justice, and On My Mark! or Fear Me! you’ll have a very large number of cleanses available to you and your party. Combined with the buffs and debuffs makes you a very powerful support character. If you take Mending and the cleansing trait, it will take sustained condition damage to kill you.

If you go all the way into the grandmaster trait for vitality, you will have access to the trait that grants shouts the ability to heal you. There’s also another trait, I forget which line it is in might be Discipline, which will also cleanse you when you expend a bar of adrenalin, i.e a full burst will cleans you of 3 conditions.

This kind of build is very, very specific and in terms of cleanses is somewhat overdoing it. However, the other 5 bonuses from Trooper runes do grant vitality and toughness boost and so are very popular if you want improved survivability

As for Rangers, they have much more limited options. They too can use Superior Runes of the Soldier as they have a number of shouts, but they’re linked to pets so not so good for party help. Healing Spring is usually your main source of cleansing, but it is a water field so party members can use Blast finishers to combo a party wide heal. Rangers have a grandmaster trait in the Nature Magic line that makes Wilderness Survival skills cleanse you. Lightning reflexes has nice synergy with that as it now removes immobilise as part of its base ability.

There is also a signet, of the wild I think, that removes a condition every 10s as its passive ability. You can invest into the Power Grandmaster trait Signet of the Beastmaster that makes signet abilities affect you so Signet of Stone will make both you and your pet invulnerable to attacks for 6seconds. Bear in mind Signet of Stone only affects melee, ranged attacks and AOE attacks that directly damage you but not condition damage.

Other rune options are Runes of Melandru, which are incredibly expensive at the moment, about 13g per rune, because of their condition duration reduction and toughness boost. Very popular in WvW because of this.

As you progress towards 80, you’ll find that it makes sense to carry extra equipment on you. On my warrior, I have a set of berserker armour with scholar runes for dungeons, full soldiers armour with trooper runes which isn’t used much but would be handy in wvw, mixed knights and soldier armour with strength runes for fractals running. I also have him carry a variety of weapons depending on the enemies I expect to face.

My ranger doesn’t have extra sets of armour yet, but does have extra weapons.

Experiment a lot, it’s lots of fun

There is food available that reduces condition duration (and hence, ultimately damage)by up to 40%. Check the wiki for options!

Pure Heart.1456:

There is food available that reduces condition duration (and hence, ultimately damage)by up to 40%. Check the wiki for options!

That would be the lemongrass poultry food. It’s pretty much the meta food in wvw at the moment, coupled with Superior runes of melandru you get a -65% duration to conditions, which can be enhanced by traiting against certain conditions.

Azrael.4960:

Pure Heart.1456:

There is food available that reduces condition duration (and hence, ultimately damage)by up to 40%. Check the wiki for options!

That would be the lemongrass poultry food. It’s pretty much the meta food in wvw at the moment, coupled with Superior runes of melandru you get a -65% duration to conditions, which can be enhanced by traiting against certain conditions.

Bah, wish I knew about this the other day. My guildie and I were hunting around for something like this but gave up. I’ll have to get my cooking up.

zenleto.6179:

Azrael.4960:

Pure Heart.1456:

There is food available that reduces condition duration (and hence, ultimately damage)by up to 40%. Check the wiki for options!

That would be the lemongrass poultry food. It’s pretty much the meta food in wvw at the moment, coupled with Superior runes of melandru you get a -65% duration to conditions, which can be enhanced by traiting against certain conditions.

Bah, wish I knew about this the other day. My guildie and I were hunting around for something like this but gave up. I’ll have to get my cooking up.

A word of warning, Melandru runes are VERY expensive atm. I sold one for 13g not long ago.

Azrael.4960:

zenleto.6179:

Azrael.4960:

Pure Heart.1456:

There is food available that reduces condition duration (and hence, ultimately damage)by up to 40%. Check the wiki for options!

That would be the lemongrass poultry food. It’s pretty much the meta food in wvw at the moment, coupled with Superior runes of melandru you get a -65% duration to conditions, which can be enhanced by traiting against certain conditions.

Bah, wish I knew about this the other day. My guildie and I were hunting around for something like this but gave up. I’ll have to get my cooking up.

A word of warning, Melandru runes are VERY expensive atm. I sold one for 13g not long ago.

I noticed that. I have a set of the runes put away and when I saw what price they were recently I decided to be very careful on who I give them to.

Azrael.4960:

Pure Heart.1456:

There is food available that reduces condition duration (and hence, ultimately damage)by up to 40%. Check the wiki for options!

That would be the lemongrass poultry food. It’s pretty much the meta food in wvw at the moment, coupled with Superior runes of melandru you get a -65% duration to conditions, which can be enhanced by traiting against certain conditions.

Ahhh .. now i know why i can make so good money with farming lemongrass

Beldin.5498:

Azrael.4960:

Pure Heart.1456:

There is food available that reduces condition duration (and hence, ultimately damage)by up to 40%. Check the wiki for options!

That would be the lemongrass poultry food. It’s pretty much the meta food in wvw at the moment, coupled with Superior runes of melandru you get a -65% duration to conditions, which can be enhanced by traiting against certain conditions.

Ahhh .. now i know why i can make so good money with farming lemongrass

Almost all comms in high tier wvw will drop lemongrass poultry feasts. Tier 1 wvwers probably siphon it up like a sponge does water

Also, make sure your armor and weapons are close to or the same level you are. You get leveled down in lower level areas, but so does your equipment. That can make a huge difference in surviving and damage dealt.

OP, it truly is better to learn to be snappy on dodges and condition removal. don’t rely on toughness/vitality.

Per above, OP should consider Toughness/Vitality as your last resort protection from taking a big hit. AVOIDING damage thru every possible method is primary defense with Toughness & Vitality being your secondary method (when the primary method fails for whatever reason).