Guild Wars 2

Specifically, which parts of the character equation determine the comparative attributes of lower- and higher level characters?

I find this confusing, because on the one hand it appears higher-level characters are significantly stronger in WvW: I’ve done quite a bit of it on my level 25 ranger, and whenever I get into a few-vs-few fight, they always seem to do much more damage to me than I do to them. This could of course be because I’m still learning to play my class, but I doubt the differences would be that noticeable over that many fights.

On the other hand, when I went to the Mists I noticed that the stats on my character there were actually lower in many regards than when I went WvW. Only condition damage was significantly higher. This appears to be due to some amulet, since armor has no stats there, but it seemed there wasn’t any big difference in stats otherwise. Also, when swapping out low-level gear in WvW, my attributes are lowered by much more than is stated by the item. So gear seems upscaled, too.

So my question is this: other than missing utility skills and the like, are there actually any differences between lower- and higher level characters in WvW? If so, what makes these lower level characters weaker than the higher level ones? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

From the wiki

“In WvW, characters will have their effective level boosted to 80 but do not receive any new abilities or gear, and experience must still be gained to unlock them. Therefore, higher level characters will still be more powerful than lower level characters, despite both having the same effective level. Levels gained in WvW are kept and a player may level to the maximum 80 entirely within WvW.”

I believe that means your stats and skills are up-scaled to lv80 stats (abilities, health, etc) however your gear stays at the current level you are wearing – unlike sPvP where all gear is max gear. In a nutshell, while you can function in WvW, you are extremely squishy esp compared to a lv 80 in exotics and ascended gear.

airstu.2579:

I believe that means your stats and skills are up-scaled to lv80 stats (abilities, health, etc) however your gear stays at the current level you are wearing – unlike sPvP where all gear is max gear. In a nutshell, while you can function in WvW, you are extremely squishy esp compared to a lv 80 in exotics and ascended gear.

That’s what I thought, too, but it turns out to not really be the case. To use my level 26 ranger as an example: when I join WvW I get 1832 precision. I’m also wearing a Precise Seeker Mask that adds +5 precision. When I remove the mask, my precision drops to 1805. That’s -27 precision, much more than the 5 that’s actually on the mask. So gear does seem to scale, at least to an extent. My question: how big is the ‘to an extent’ thing, and indirectly, how much does leveling actually matter?

I don’t know the mechanics well enough to cover the math of scaling – I’m thinking the most important part to leveling is the ability to wear better gear, while the stats may scale, you are still going to be penalized by not having max gear. Except in extreme circumstances, you are generally not 1-shotting a lv 80 in max gear. Up-levels get exploded all the time.