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How to prepare for Level 80+ content


Zagg.8713

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I am sifting through a lot of community discussion that says the difficulty of the game jumps significantly from core game leveling content to 80+ content. But i'm having a hard time finding guidelines to get your chatterer ready for seasons or the expacs. How do recommend a player with no experience playing the 80+ content prepare for such situations? Is this a case where I will need to grind gold and or materials for making exotic gear before beginning this content? Or is there core game 80 content that should be played first before jumping into the seasons and expacs. Any help would be great appreciated. Thanks

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Basically, just have proper gear and build, and learn what CC is and how to break blue bars.

If you have 5 different stat combinations mixed on your gear, one power, other condi and third healing, don't expect to be doing great.But 80+ content - if you're talking about story, map metas and open world - doesn't really get that much more difficult. You can get away with a lot of unoptimised builds - i know because i run one of those "fun unoptimised" builds and i have no problem.

The only endgame content that requires anything is Raids and CM Fractals. If you want to do those, find a raid guild and religiously follow what they tell you to run, what skills, what gear, how and when - otherwise they're going to kick you out - and if you want to run CM fractals, you first need to complete a 100 of them and craft yourself full ascended and enough Agony Resistance to even attempt. By that time, you'll have enough experience in easier fractals that you'll know what to expect. But also don't expect to run your own builds because people will kick you out of their parties. In raids and CM fractals it's "meta build or gtfo", so there's that...

For open world, just have a build that does decent damage so that you don't have to spend 5 minutes fighting every trash mob you come across and you'll be fine.Everything else you can learn as you go. People in open world are very helpful and will explain stuff if you ask.

So get some lvl 80 exotic equipment, runes and sigils that match your build and just dive into it. It's not THAT harder.

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I'd just build a decent set of gear off the Trading Post at level 80, then start in on expansion content. PoF is said to be more mild than HoT, so if you're worried about difficulty, you can start there. One benefit to stepping into PoF right off the bat is that you'll unlock your first mount (this is automatically done in the story), the Raptor. This will double your movement speed, and with upgrades you can pull off some pretty sweet jumps (NapoleonDynamite.gif).

The beginning of HoT will unlock your Glider, but personally I find the area (Verdant Brink) in which you do so to be a bit...perplexing? for someone unfamiliar. It is a very popular area, though, so if you have any questions or need help with a particular HP etc there's almost certainly people in the map that are happy to help.

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A full set of exotic equipment with matching stats would be useful, and it doesn't need to cost much. If you open the Trading Post. select armour or weapons and click the cog icon next to the search bar you get a bunch of extra options, most importantly you can search by stat combination. That lets you see all the items with the stats you want, which gives you much cheaper options than if you search by the stat combination name. Doing it that way it's possible to get a full set of level 80 exotics with beserker's stats (one of the most popular combinations) for just over 5g in total.

You can also craft it, buy it with karma from the temples in Orr (only a few stat combinations are available that way though) or with badges of honour in WvW or dungeon tokens, or a combination of methods if you don't have enough of one currency.

But what's more important than the level and rarity of your equipment is having the right stats for your character. What those are depends on what you're playing but for example if you've chosen skills which don't cause many/any damanging conditions then Condition Damage is useless for you and Power would be very useful because that boosts direct damage. It would be better to have rare quality equipment with useful stats than exotics with stats you're not going to benefit from.

Even more important than that is understanding the game mechanics - how your skills work and how to use them effectively, how to dodge and kite when necessary, how to use crowd control skills to break enemy definance bars, how to find your way around the maps and work out what to do and so on. A lot of that you'll likely have learned anyway by levelling it up and as long as you're willing to take it slow at first and pay attention the expansions and other level 80 zones are good places to practice.

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Gold:

  • first time I got to level 80, I bought full set of exotic gear with "butter" and "iron".
  • check your bank, sell crafting materials. Some sell for good money
  • always sell on TP or salvage for mats(for sell or use).
  • at this time Mystic Coins(you get them as login reward) sell for a lot. 2 gold for 1 MC?
  • Mystic Coins are for Legendary gear. Thats a loooong grind. Sell a couple of MC and get yourself a nice exotic gear

Food:

  • eat, drink
  • proper diet is very important for an adventurer
  • for start, get some food that gives health over time

Gear/build:

  • start with something simple
  • gear must match build. Power vs Condi
  • don't look for Raid, Fractal builds. Look for "open world", "survivable"
  • Marauder better then Berserker, Trailblazer better then Viper. This is for Open World.
  • high DPS good, but if you are dead, you do zero DPS. So some extra defense(HP and/or Toughness) helps.

Combat:

  • move, dodge
  • do not "face tank"
  • break bars!. You see "blue bar", nuke it

Mounts:

  • get now!
  • unlock atleast Raptor
  • Haha 1
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I like vitality over toughness for survivability - champs and such tend to focus the person with the highest toughness. I did the first story mission of HoT (the one in Verdant Brink, not the prologues in Silverwastes) on a druid with mismatched rare and exotic armor and weapons with unmatched runes and sigils (it was my alt account and I thought I had already fixed his armor, at least both rare axes were berserkers... :) ). So, story instance is doable with whatever - it does take longer, though.

HoT and LWS 3 is harder than PoF. Season 4 and Ice Brood Saga kinda sit around PoF, maybe some of it between HoT and PoF, some of it less difficult than PoF. The thing is that mobs hit harder than they do in core, in my opinion. They also utilize some of the skills against you that you really don't see happen in core - like the never to be sufficiently cussed White Mantle mesmers in Lake Doric. Learn your CC's, your evade skills, and your dodges. You'll see a veteran in Verdant Brink hit as hard or harder as a champion in one of the core maps. Finally, HoT is built around group events. You CAN solo some events, but, they are designed to be done by groups, even if that group is just a few guild mates.

BTW, I think I only have two or three characters with ascended armor and weapons across 14 toons on two accounts, and even then an alternate set of weapons is probably exotics. So don't feel like you have to have ascended stuff, exotic is more than enough for expansions. Having said that, if you have Season 3, invest your time and efforts getting full ascended trinkets on all your toons, that is generally more meaningful than ascended armor.

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It's been mentioned already about stability, but a stun break can do just as good a job. One stun break, especially for a melee class, will get you out of most jams. If not, you can get stun locked in SilverWastes if you're not careful.

The major difference that I found after level 80 is that you actually have to try. You can't simply spam skills and walk into groups of mobs. You need to have a few simple combos, and use your dodges. It's pretty easy to get to level 80 without much effort.

Jay

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@Pacificterror.7805 said:I'd just build a decent set of gear off the Trading Post at level 80, then start in on expansion content. PoF is said to be more mild than HoT, so if you're worried about difficulty, you can start there. One benefit to stepping into PoF right off the bat is that you'll unlock your first mount (this is automatically done in the story), the Raptor. This will double your movement speed, and with upgrades you can pull off some pretty sweet jumps (NapoleonDynamite.gif).

The beginning of HoT will unlock your Glider, but personally I find the area (Verdant Brink) in which you do so to be a bit...perplexing? for someone unfamiliar. It is a very popular area, though, so if you have any questions or need help with a particular HP etc there's almost certainly people in the map that are happy to help.

Coming form just getting my glider there...zone is a nightmare, and 10 mastery points just for updraft. Man then all the other masteries. Starting to get a little overwhelmed myself. Mobs hit like a truck out there as well.

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@Turmuhnal.6589 said:Coming form just getting my glider there...zone is a nightmare, and 10 mastery points just for updraft. Man then all the other masteries. Starting to get a little overwhelmed myself. Mobs hit like a truck out there as well.

Ha yep. I kind of regret not starting in on PoF first (I don't consider myself a skilled player by any means) as Verdant Brink definitely took awhile to get used to and the mobs can be very unforgiving. Gliding is awesome though once you have it.

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@Pacificterror.7805 said:

@Turmuhnal.6589 said:Coming form just getting my glider there...zone is a nightmare, and 10 mastery points just for updraft. Man then all the other masteries. Starting to get a little overwhelmed myself. Mobs hit like a truck out there as well.

Ha yep. I kind of regret not starting in on PoF first (I don't consider myself a skilled player by any means) as Verdant Brink definitely took awhile to get used to and the mobs can be very unforgiving. Gliding is awesome though once you have it.

Yeah, HoT really started the introduction of mobs that hit like a truck. I've seen veterans in HoT hit harder than a champ in core. Learning your evade skills and your CC skills - and when to use them - will really make your life easier. When I run my warrior main around in HoT, I keep 5 CC's handy. I can generally take down almost any defiance bar solo, at least the first time. Add in an evade, a block, 2 dodges, and a stun break and I don't die very often any more.

HoT also added a LOT of verticality to the maps, so, learning you way around can take some time, but, once you get used to it, it isn't too bad. Tangled Depths is the most twisty and confusing of the maps in HoT, so expect to get lost there a lot.

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First, gear your character with full exotics. I don't recommend Berserker's for new players, they should never start with meta builds because if they keep dying they'll get frustrated and leave the game. Instead try a mix of Assassin's and Soldier's (or Berserker+Soldier for better damage if your class has artificial means to increase its critical hit rate, beyond just the Fury boon).

If you like condition builds you can also do something like Carrion/Rabid.

You'll want to start learning the game with about 20k health and 2.5k armor. In time you'll want to drop this to about 15k health and 2.5k armor, and then eventually down to 2.2k armor. Any less and you risk being one-shot.

Its easier to learn with a class like Warrior or Necro, which start with high base defenses, and later more fragile like Ele or Thief.

Marauder's is also a very good newbie-friendly set, since it has good survivability and damage, but its harder to get.

Always use runes, sigils and food that share similar stats and have good synergy. If you can't afford to always use the lv80 food, then just use the lv60-75 food instead, but make sure you always have it equipped.

Second, run dungeons. Do all story dungeons, then do all the explorables. You should be able to comfortably handle story mode on all dungeons with just one other player, and on some classes you should even be able to solo them, given enough time.

The difficulty of Arah explorable with a full party is about the same that you'll face in the expansions.

Fractals are also good for training. T1-T2 fractals for 2-3 players, T3-T4 for 4-5 players is about the right challenge, I think.

Third, remember that you can have two full sets of equipment and three full builds. This means you can play a single character in two completely different ways and with multiple sets of tweaks accessible by a single keypress.

As I said earlier, don't use meta builds. You need to learn the game before you can use a proper build, or you'll just play it badly. Instead, take an existing build and then tweak it until it works for you, and fits your playing style. Then go from there.

Switch to meta or near-meta builds only once you have the skill to play them in the future.

And most importantly, try not to listen too much to advice from long-term players. Its good advice but people are not one-size-fits-all, and its going to take you time to figure out what your goals are. What you want out of the game.

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