Diffecult combat

Why does this game almost always fells like I fighting with a wood sword and no armor no matter the level and the opponets have all the latest weapons and armor?

When levelling up your opponents grow stronger, and though you get stronger as well, it tends to feel like the combat is getting more challenging. As you unlock more skills and the opponents get stronger, it's important to consider which skills are most effective. If you return to a low-level area, it should be easy to feel the difference.

What level are you, and what weapons/armor do you have?

Level has very little to do with how strong your character is in this game, especially since a lot of areas (especially the open world and story) will scale you down to the level of the area. You'll still have all your skills and traits when that happens but your stats (attributes) will be reduced, so you can't simply kill everything by being a higher level than they are.

What's more important is making sure you have weapons and armour which are at or close to your level and the best quality you can reasonably get as that will give you higher stats. You don't need to buy all new stuff every time you level up but if you're level 60 and still using level 20 equipment you're really going to struggle. You also need to try and choose equipment with stats which will be useful for you. Here's a very brief summary of what each one does:

• Power - increases direct damage
• Toughness - increases armour
• Vitality - increases health
• Precision - increases your chance of getting a critital hit for bonus damage
• Ferocity - increases the damage your critial hits do
• Condition damage - increases the damage your conditions (like bleeding or poison) do
• Expertise - makes conditions you apply to opponents last longer
• Concentration - makes boons you cast last longer
• Healing power - makes your healing skills more effective

So if you're using weapons which cause a lot of conditions you want condition damage and expertise, and maybe power too (since all attacks do some direct damage), and if you're not using a lot of conditions then you definitely want power. Some toughness or vitality can be helpful to make it easier to survive, but if you have too much then you're losing a lot from the damage stats and it will take forever to kill anything. Precision and Ferocity usually need to go together (unless you're using traits which trigger on critial hits - then it might be worth having precision on it's own.)

That's another thing, make sure you've got traits selected, and that you're using ones which are relevant to you. For example a lot of them only work with certain weapons or types of skills so unless you're using that they won't do anything.

You can find build guides in the profession sections of this forum, or on various fan sites. Or if you tell us what profession you're playing and what level your character is we can help you choose something.

@retiredair.3876 said:Why does this game almost always fells like I fighting with a wood sword and no armor no matter the level and the opponets have all the latest weapons and armor?

• Get better equipment
• Use a more efficient build
• Learn the fight mechanics

Currently, players are overpowered for PvE content (it's called Power Creep).If you feel like you're hitting mobs with a stick instead of a sword:Check your armor stats — if you want to do damage, you need power, precision AND ferocity. Raw power isn't enough. It's only "base". If you want to do damage, you need critial strikes (precision), and it's good to increase critical strike damage (ferocity), which base damage is 150% of "normal" hit, and can be boosted to over 220%.Check your build — you can't just do good damage with no build, because there are damage and stats boosters. There is also synergy between traits, skills, boons, conditions and even weapons.Check your weapon — weapons are not equal. They have specific role, destination, so there are weapons focused on: power damage, condition damage, support, control, defense.Look and the Guardian. Guardians can use:Greatsword — heavy power damage.Scepter — ranged power damage.Sword — mobility, defensive (block projectiles, blinds).Mace — defensive (protection, block).Hammer — defensive (protection) and heavy control (knockdown).Focus — defensive (block) and ofensive.Torch — condition damage.Shield — defensive weapon.Longbow — long-ranged power damage.Axe — condition damage.Staff — boon support.Use skills — Yes, use your weapon skills, not only base attack.

The level up process is pretty chill in Gw2 tbh.

If you're having trouble then you might be taking on too much for your current level/equipment.It's really easy for new players to get wrecked by things that are only a handful of levels above you.

Level itself isn't all that important to your stas, what is important is your gear and the stats that provides.Gear is limited by level though but thankfully there are so many ways to level up in Gw2 you can avoid combat entirely for a good chunk of it if you so wish.

Run around and collected points of interest, vista's and waypoints and you'll soon be levling up fine without needing to fight.Get yourself a ranged weapon and stay out of direct combat, can't take damage if the enemy can't catch you right :)Playing ranged support is also a good way to get involved with events, get rewarded for them all the while having very low risk of dying.

In addition, try to use every advantage you can. Take on two opponents instead of five; or use the terrain against your enemies (e.g. line of sight blockers against ranged attacks). If your stats are a glass cannon build and you're sort of squishy, check your traits and utility skills for the class you're playing. Use what you can there. E.g. Apply blind and/or weaken to enemies if available to increase your surviveability without adding toughness or vitality through equipment stats.

Fight dirty. Use crowd control. Slow, stun, root etc. Whatever your class can do, try it out, see what you can add to help you survive.

Also, make sure to check on your equipment from time to time. If pieces are damaged, you're okay, but if any are broken, you don't get the stat values from those pieces. Speak to a repair NPC or use an Anvil to get your gear durability back up.

After all equipped pieces of armor are damaged, items will randomly become broken when defeated. Broken armor provides no attribute or defense bonuses, but upgrade components continue to provide their normal effects. Wiki article on Repairs

Also ask for help. Everyone is friendly in gw2.

Its not so much the combat for me its how the game smashes you constantly so cheaply and the artificial slow down that makes the whole game feel like glue..

@Dante.1508 said:Its not so much the combat for me its how the game smashes you constantly so cheaply and the artificial slow down that makes the whole game feel like glue..

Are we talking open world or story missions (as you complained about the latter in another thread)? I agree that less constantly forced combat in open world content can be beneficial to the fun of exploring maps, but I disagree with making story missions no challenge whatsoever.

@Dante.1508 said:Its not so much the combat for me its how the game smashes you constantly so cheaply and the artificial slow down that makes the whole game feel like glue..

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Dante.1508 said:Its not so much the combat for me its how the game smashes you constantly so cheaply and the artificial slow down that makes the whole game feel like glue..

A thing has been making the rounds about how the difference between skilled and unskilled players performance is 10 fold. With the exception of HOT, very few areas of Open world and story are above trivial in difficulty. What most casual players don't realize is how important a cohesive build is to the game..... or that the bar for it is insanely low. Its not enough to "just pick" skills and traits on face value; you have to think about covering needs and looking for force multipliers.

Also..... you don't tank and spank past level 15. Dodges are universal for a reason, and only get more important as you move up the content blocks. For some people it took years to wrap their minds around it... but once you start to understand that the classes designs are made around PvP sensibilities, everything else starts to fall in place. Its also at this point that PvE's weaknesses become obvious, since the AI offers no challenge, and the majority of mobs are easily defeated by spike damage.

So if the game is "cheaply smashing" you, its pretty much guaranteed you're either not avoiding attacks, or your build has no damage. Both of those are easy enough to remedy.

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Dante.1508 said:Its not so much the combat for me its how the game smashes you constantly so cheaply and the artificial slow down that makes the whole game feel like glue..

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Dante.1508 said:Its not so much the combat for me its how the game smashes you constantly so cheaply and the artificial slow down that makes the whole game feel like glue..

And whats trivial for some is hard for others.

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Dante.1508 said:Its not so much the combat for me its how the game smashes you constantly so cheaply and the artificial slow down that makes the whole game feel like glue..

Most definitely living story.. but some bosses and gameplay are designed to just put you down instantly... it feels cheap because it is..

@"Dante.1508" said:

Yes builds help but classes vary wildly.. certain classes can destroy most content solo but a few are really really bad.. weak and need a very good ping and hand eye coordination to pull off, i get that..

This is blatantly false. Some classes are harder to get a grip on, but every single one of them has access to a build concept that mixes self sustain, for minimal damage loss, that works perfectly in open world. The only class that has an arguably timing focused style is Thief.... and Daredevil can circumvent that in a big way.

When i say smashing us cheaply its most definitely bosses and stuff that pop up out of no where designed to just kill you instantly. Many living world bosses drop so many AoE the only way you don't go down is luck.. pure and simple luck.. That personally voids all skill when a room completely drops red circles and unless you've done it multiple times or you are with a group you are dead, thats not fun, that not skill its just tedium..Most living story bosses are just dead run back in style game play, which is bad game play.

Its called Pattern recognition.... Nearly all fights you need to learn at least some mechanics. Even in the case of some mobs. But none of the world bosses have situations where they don't telegraph in advance. Most have patterns that can be tracked like clock work. Even in the SB fight you're citing, simply walking forward at combat speed is more then enough to clear the AOE circle before the hit lands. The Aatxe roaming the fight are much bigger threats because of their knock backs, closely followed by shadow mobs clustering up for multiple hits on you.

If you think that fight is bad, the bounties in POF are a nightmare for even experienced players. But with the exception of 2 Djinn fights (because they are extremely mobile), all are manageable by paying attention to play field. Even in the "seizure inducing effect spams" environment, simply knowing what to look for allows you avoid the majority of threats before they kill you. And if you don't know.... simply observing the fight from a distance, gives you the freedom to sort through all the telegraphs.

To this day I still see people standing in the blue ice during a Claw of Jormag fight, despite it causing a huge amount of damage as it stacks up on them. In fact.... death rates at World Boss fights used to be a lot higher, simply because everyone stood around trying to DPS their way to victory. After the revised Teq fight, and exposure to HOT, people became so paranoid of damage, they ended up developing reflexes whenever their HP drops. At this point, the only builds that can't take hits at all are the glassiest of Raid builds..... which if you're running in open world, shouldn't surprise you at all if you're dying.

@starlinvf.1358 said:The only class that has an arguably timing focused style is Thief.... and Daredevil can circumvent that in a big way.

Timing? Playing a deadeye that kill mobs with 1 skill and regens ~30% hp every time with perma quickness just goes:ping unload ping unload ping unload ping unload ping unload (now you may need a 3s breather before you can repeat) lol

@retiredair.3876 said:Why does this game almost always fells like I fighting with a wood sword and no armor no matter the level and the opponets have all the latest weapons and armor?

Good practice to start:

• pick an enemy, any enemy will do for a start
• have the enemy engage you
• now try to not get hit for as long as possible. Use range, dodge, blocks, evades, movement skills, blinds, etc. which your class at disposal

See how long you can keep this up. Once you are dead, respawn and go again. Once you have a feel comfortable with how long you survived, pick a harder enemy. Eventually add in damage abilities.

Rinse and repeat.

The most common mistake new players make is: assume you are supposed to face tank every damage coming their way. This games combat system is designed around active damage mitigation (though there are tankier builds/classes for open world. See metabattle or woodenpotatoes latest videos on builds).

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@"Dante.1508" said:

Yes builds help but classes vary wildly.. certain classes can destroy most content solo but a few are really really bad.. weak and need a very good ping and hand eye coordination to pull off, i get that..

When i say smashing us cheaply its most definitely bosses and stuff that pop up out of no where designed to just kill you instantly. Many living world bosses drop so many AoE the only way you don't go down is luck.. pure and simple luck.. That personally voids all skill when a room completely drops red circles and unless you've done it multiple times or you are with a group you are dead, thats not fun, that not skill its just tedium..Most living story bosses are just dead run back in style game play, which is bad game play.

Try doing them with a 300+ ping time daily and tell me how easy it is when you must gauge in advance a .6th of a second to survive, i know it sucks being Aussie but toning some of this down would make the experience far more friendly and enjoyable..

Thats why many are standing in things, its because we can't see it.. And teq is horrible the water effect hide the circles of death.