I struggle to survive in both the story and open world - Living World Season 3

[Svampsi.8043]

Title.

About me: Lvl 80 Staff Power Daredevil Thief with full exotic gear, ascended trinket, ascended rings.

 

Returning player from 2012 that bought LW 3 and 4 and Icebrood Saga yesterday on sale. I just started my journey on LW S3 and although I haven't even completed my first chapter yet I have already died more times than I did my during my whole experience in Heart of Thorns.

 

Am I missing something basic or doing something fundamentally wrong? I get knocked down (but I get up again, they are never gonna keep me down) and then I basically die in two hits from basically anything. I have trouble even completing the first chapter of this season.

 

Help please!

[Svampsi.8043]

This is the current build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PahAYVlFwwYhsG2JW0XntaA-zxYYBlCG6omEhA5JEWhEREUbCURJI1AA-e

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

You're running mostly glass gear on a class with 10k of health, in fact this isn't too far off from being a metabuild. This is okay in group settings, but when playing alone you're going to get brushed off by enemies in just a few hits no matter what you do, because you just don't have the defense.

 

I would swap to Marauder instead of Berserker, this will also make it easier to crit-cap.  (You should always be crit-capped with Fury and traits and have 25 stacks of Might when solo). Don't rely on "health threshold" crit capping on Thief outside of group settings, as they don't have the self-healing after the trait nerf.

 

I also noticed there's no food listed, as Daredevil you should be using 30% or 40% endurance regeneration food, along with enough boon duration to have permanent Vigor so maybe throw some Diviner's in there too, as a quick glance reveals (no pun intended) you're quite a bit short on your Vigor uptime even when taking the Infiltration runes.

 

You're going hard into damage, but in some ways its the wrong kind of damage.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Fueki.4753]

If you are using Berserker gear, try switching to Marauder. Unless you are very good with its many evasive tools, Thief is too squishy for parts of season 3.

Even on my Warrior with about 19k HP, I quite dislike moving on the ground of maps like Bloodstone Fen or Bitterfrost Frontier. I can't even imagine playing a Guardian, Thief or Elementalist without Vitality gear on those maps.

[Warscythes.9307]

1 hour ago, Svampsi.8043 said:

This is the current build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PahAYVlFwwYhsG2JW0XntaA-zxYYBlCG6omEhA5JEWhEREUbCURJI1AA-e

I ran through most of LS with my raid stick daredevil just fine. I don't think swapping gear is necessary. Couple things I would replace.

 

Heal - Channeled vigor, it heals a butt load and restore endurance which means more dodges

Utility - Bandit's defense, you have no stunbreak and this one is also a block. Fantastic for OW.

Some sort of condi cleanse or another stunbreak, this one is up to you. I take roll for initiative, some people like signet of agility. The important thing for OW is to be self sufficient. This generally means at least 1 stun break and at least 1 condi cleanse. You can experiment here and find out

 

Elite - Venom I personally am eh on it, is great in a group setting for breakbars but just ok in open world. Personally I use daggerstorm as emergency oh kitten button.

 

Trait I just ran standard raid dps line, this meant deadly arts and take the dps ones instead of trickery but I don't think is matters that much here. You have the life steal trait in critical strikes and that's generally enough. If not, try acrobatics instead of trickery and if assassin's reward works out better for you.

 

I also like dual pistol instead of shortbow  but that's personal preference as well. 

[voltaicbore.8012]

This is pretty much what I use for mindless OW/story staff time. It is extremely low-effort, but is reliable.

Heal/sustain/cleanse: signet is surprisingly good for solo play. Most of the sustain comes through the combination of signet heal and the critical strike self-healing trait. As for bursts of healing, the signet's button-press heal is quite weak, but is available quite often should you need more than the steady stream of self heals. Dagger storm actually turns into an emergency full heal as well.

if you're getting swarmed and your staff skills aren't up to par, swapping to shortbow, backing out to kite with 3, and spamming 4 + bouncing autos generally locks down the crowd and heals you up nicely.

Cleanse tends to work out fine. The crit signet, Haste, and Dagger Storm all cleanse. And for the most part, you can sustain through a lot of damaging conditions just by spamming hits.

DPS: admittedly not the greatest, but it's not too hard to push this above 10K against a single target in story fights. That's way more than enough. I found going Marauder stats was overkill in terms of safety, and only slowed dps.

CC: not the best, not the worst. Shortened steal cd + daze helps, but a lot of my cc comes from shortbow 4 spam and getting the right stolen item. It can break bars, but not quite as well as venom + the palm strikes.

 

 

[Vilin.8056]

Berserker gear is fine, but you have to make best use of Invigorating Precision for survival:

1. Dire and Celestial gear lowers your survivability because they reduce your rate of healing from Invigorating Precision, swap berserker or marauder instead.

2. never camp staff - swap shortbow to double pistol, or dagger/pistol. Pistol 4 to break CC bar on boss before strike, pistol 3 for life leech at range, pistol 5 to blind enemy or for stealth combo.

3. swap Shadow Refuge for Signet of Agility, swap Fist Flurry for Haste, swap Baslisk Venom for Dagger Storm. 

  - Signet of Agility increases healing from Invigorating Precision, passively increases your damage, and on activation cleanses condition and recharges dodge.

 - Haste break stun, grants boon, and cleanses condition with Trickster traitline.

 - Dagger Storm also doubles as heals and cleanse, when coupled with Trickster and Invigorating Precision traitline.

4. swap Bountiful Theft trait for Trickster.

5. you can use vitality food.

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[Chips.7968]

Others have covered it - but I'd say question every utility you have and justify them. 

The heal is sub-optimal, if you're relying on stealth the question is why... don't see any benefit for your build other than perhaps waiting on cooldowns? If it's for condi cleanse, quicker to use sigils and/or evades to cleanse.

That'd also go for your stealth utility. Why?

Extra power may look good, but it's not giving survivability other than "smash harder". For example, smoke field utility can be useful if you're finding yourself up against X targets with range spam; it blocks their projectiles while giving you time to finish off several. Or if they're all clumped together, gives you ability to cleave, vault, use a daze attack... etc. 

Fists of flurry - never use it. Must admit I sometimes use scorp wire - pull in ranged enemies to ensure I've got my enemies clumped together. There's a reason for that, as is fairly important if you're using heal on dmg traits.  Why? Because hitting 3 targets with vault / auto attack spam at once by clumping targets together (preferably with quickness from trait or sigil) is 3x more effective than one at a time on healing, while also reducing fight time by 66%. Vault onto multiple targets with crit dmg can give some tasty healing.

But really it's all context dependent upon what you're facing. It may be helpful if you're able to also put a short vid of fights you're having problems with. 

Btw thieves guild I don't know if their attacks contribute to healing, but at times they offer an excellent diversion. Then again, if they'll die in 1 or 2 hits and it's large AoE that'll still hit you too... maybe not. But without knowing what's being faced...

Edited October 21, 2022 by Chips.7968

[Animism.7530]

23 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I would swap to Marauder instead of Berserker, this will also make it easier to crit-cap.  (You should always be crit-capped with Fury and traits and have 25 stacks of Might when solo). Don't rely on "health threshold" crit capping on Thief outside of group settings, as they don't have the self-healing after the trait nerf.

 

I also noticed there's no food listed, as Daredevil you should be using 30% or 40% endurance regeneration food, along with enough boon duration to have permanent Vigor so maybe throw some Diviner's in there too, as a quick glance reveals (no pun intended) you're quite a bit short on your Vigor uptime even when taking the Infiltration runes.

 

You're going hard into damage, but in some ways its the wrong kind of damage.

Don't advise people to get tanky gear solely for the story and solo play. There are builds, skills and food they can use to make it far easier. 

FYI, might on crit food is far more valuable than any other for solo play. 

This is terrible advice. 

Use your blinds, swap to bits of range, kite around. You will be fine on any profession using a combination of these things. 

I do not recommend shortbow for anything but open world tagging or movement. The same goes for stealth slot skills. In fact - I wouldn't be using any of those slots. 

You're better off with something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAYhrlNwAZbsLGJWyTWtaA-zRIYhSBHuY0RZUbKURFoyqEYA-e

You can use P/P if you really want, or a different elite, and could swap the Shadowstep off. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Animism.7530

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:46 PM, Svampsi.8043 said:

Am I missing something basic or doing something fundamentally wrong? I get knocked down (but I get up again, they are never gonna keep me down) and then I basically die in two hits from basically anything. I have trouble even completing the first chapter of this season.

Upon starting LW3, you unlock a new Mastery Track called Ancient Magics. You will find it in the Masteries menue (H > Masteries, bottom icon of a rising sun). The first Mastery is called Counter Magic, which has to be unlocked ASAP. It only requires one Mastery Point and the exp fills up rather quickly. But especially if you returned to the game after a few years, it might be difficult to remember how the Mastery system works.

LW3 utilizes the special-action-key as a combat mechanic, which requires this mastery to be unlocked. When you fight bloodstone corrupted enemies, especially bosses, you will get a flashy temporary button above your normal skill bar. This button only appears for a short time and requires to be pressed asap. If you wait too long, you get 1-shoted with a flood of conditions.

If the mastery is not unlocked, you just get 1-shot and have no clue what hit you. I see this phenomenon often when fighting the Bloodcrazed Creatures in maps and come across players who do not own LW3. They do not get the prompt and are just hit by something very hard.

I recommend to put the special-action-key on a separate button, which is easy to access for you. You find it easily:
Options > Control Options (mouse icon) > Skills > "Special Action Key" (at the bottom of the list)

If this is not the problem, I would recommend to take a look at the tips above, regarding build-adjustments.

[Gibson.4036]

A lot of good info above.

My only character I’ve played through the entire story, core through EOD, is power Daredevil. As someone said above, blinds are key. Metabattle’s OW Daredevil instructs you to abuse Weakening Charge, staff two, but I’d suggest instead, abuse Dust Strike, staff 4. You can keep a group of enemies perma-blinded with it. If you only use it when their blindness ends, you won’t run out of initiative.

Pistol/pistol as your alternate weapon set gives you the ability to get some space if things get hairy. Head shot, pistol 4, does great breakbar damage.

[Ruisenior.6342]

Dont listen to those who recommend those glassy builds for solo open world or you will camp respawn. 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

1 minute ago, Ruisenior.6342 said:

Dont listen to those who recommend those glassy builds for solo open world or you will camp respawn. 

Unfortunately many experienced players can't understand what works for them doesn't neccessarily work for a new player, and will make suggestions that only lead to frustration and even quitting the game.

[Ruisenior.6342]

10 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Unfortunately many experienced players can't understand what works for them doesn't neccessarily work for a new player, and will make suggestions that only lead to frustration and even quitting the game.

   Experienced or not a berserker build for an open world solo daredevil is a bad choice, specially since they nerfed invigorating precision (it was a bad choice also pre nerf). I will only put zerker on a riffle deadeye. 

  

On 10/20/2022 at 3:46 PM, Svampsi.8043 said:

Title

  If you aim to solo hard content alone and you want to keep going with your daredevil, i would recomend you to look for a celestial set. This is a good example of a proper solo build

 

[Animism.7530]

2 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Unfortunately many experienced players can't understand what works for them doesn't neccessarily work for a new player, and will make suggestions that only lead to frustration and even quitting the game.

 

You're asking people to further cripple themselves for a tiny bit of vitality where, in the situation the OP is describing would be unlikely to help them survive one more hit... 

The alternative is to take advice and learn how to use your skills, like blinds and being able to kite... 

Trying to suggest you can't play the entire game; living world and open world, with glass armour is complete nonsense. 
I have never used Marauder gear and I never will. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Animism.7530

[Gibson.4036]

Just to throw in the middle of this Zerk vs Marauder debate, know that you don’t have to do all one or the other. I started off with marauder armor and zerker weapons and trinkets, which worked great while I got used to playing the spec.

[Fueki.4753]

6 hours ago, Animism.7530 said:

I have never used Marauder gear and I never will. 

Some people enjoy Marauder more than Berserker, some aren't. But that doesn't mean that the latter group should downplay Marauder suggestions. The OP might just become one of us Marauder enjoyers.

Not everyone has quick enough reaction times to use active defences to deal with everything thrown at them, so that extra Vitality will help those players to live longer and enjoy the game more.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Animism.7530]

5 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Some people enjoy Marauder more than Berserker, some aren't. But that doesn't mean that the latter group should downplay Marauder suggestions. The OP might just become one of us Marauder enjoyers.

Not everyone has quick enough reaction times to use active defences to deal with everything thrown at them, so that extra Vitality will help those players to live longer and enjoy the game more.

Nothing to do with reaction times. You will spend more time trying to kill some mobs and Veterans with Marauder gear and if the player is having the difficulty described by the OP, they are better off bursting their DPS with blinds up and getting them down quicker. 
 

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

On 10/20/2022 at 5:21 PM, Fueki.4753 said:

If you are using Berserker gear, try switching to Marauder. Unless you are very good with its many evasive tools, Thief is too squishy for parts of season 3.

Even on my Warrior with about 19k HP, I quite dislike moving on the ground of maps like Bloodstone Fen or Bitterfrost Frontier. I can't even imagine playing a Guardian, Thief or Elementalist without Vitality gear on those maps.

I actually did quite well with Tempest and Marauder gear in S3.

I always recommend Marauder for openworld&story. The extra health is such a nice insurance.

[Harfang.1507]

On 10/20/2022 at 9:46 AM, Svampsi.8043 said:

Returning player from 2012 that bought LW 3 and 4 and Icebrood Saga yesterday on sale. I just started my journey on LW S3 and although I haven't even completed my first chapter yet I have already died more times than I did my during my whole experience in Heart of Thorns.

I cannot help you with your build, but at least I can sympathise. I returned to the game 4½ years ago, did S2 and HoT for the first time. OK, some bits proved challenging. Then I did S3 on my warrior. I had the same experience as you. And back then, getting defeated in a story instance broke your armor. This is the only time I ever used repair cannisters before their recent change in functionality.

A big issue I found in early S3 is mob density and aggro radius. The White Mantle are just insane in that regard. Episode 1 was the worst at least. OK, the final fight in Episode 4 is on my short list of worst fights in the whole game.

Don't give up. You will get through. Things will ease up and seasons 4 and 5 are more enjoyable in terms of difficulty and give better rewards as well.

[Svarty.8019]

The combat's crap.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Svarty.8019