For Gawd sake, Please help.

[KaeKae.6270]

So I hit 80 yesterday on my Revenant; was a breeze blowing through the core game. Was excited crossing over to HoT content……and couldn’t seem to go more than 30secs without getting Massacred by something. I thought to myself “ok let’s do a gear change,” (had all Power, Precision, and Ferocity gear on) and went to the trading post and ended up buying all cheap Condi, Vitality, and Toughness gear, was blown away when I’m going up to mobs that massacred me, aggroing 5 more of his friends, and then “tormenting,” them down like nothing. 

Am I suppose to have a different set of gear for different game modes?

When I asked in game someone pointed me to Metabattle and I got on there and looked at their “open world,” builds and gear sets, and noticed NONE of them had vitality or toughness on them.

 

 

 

[DeanBB.4268]

You certainly want gear corresponding to your build (power, condi, support) and I'd say then it's a matter of knowing your personal skill level. Can you mitigate attacks with dodging and the chosen skills? If so, toughness and vitality have little value. Otherwise, some mix may be better.

And there certainly are condi builds with toughness and vitality, ie, Trailblazers.

[LSD.4673]

The core game you can play by rubbing your face on the keyboard.

In HoT (and before that, Silverwastes), they upped the difficulty, so that you can't go more than a few steps without something trying to actively kill you. The 3rd HoT map has swarms of creatures coming from basically thin air to take you to pound town.

Basically, HoT is meant to be hard.

 

You often will want different gear for different modes. For open world, once you get used to it, you'll likely want pure damage, but in the mean time, just go with what works. You don't need a particular build to do open world, because it's just a learning step you need to get over: once you figure out what works and what doesn't, you'll want to just kill things as fast as possible, and obviously having more hp and doing less damage doesn't help with that.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Most open world builds on metabattle feature more than one stat set so players are encouraged to do what works for them.  Usually condi builds recommend viper stats but will list trailblazer as a tankier alternative.  Especially "solo" builds will tend to use trailblazer and survival on a rev elite spec using this gear should be fairly easy once you know your class a bit better.

[Harfang.1507]

Welcome to Thorns through your Heart. The learning curve between core and HoT may be the highest one in the whole game. Have you been playing the Silverwastes? They may teach you about mordrem foes in a slightly less overwhelming way. If you do not care about story continuity, you may wish to try PoF instead. It can be deadly too, but not as bad as HoT.

Gear matters, but it is not everything. Just plain player (not character) experience matters more imho. I did HoT and LW Season 3 on a herald in marauder armor. It was a breeze, but to a large extent because I had already gone through HoT on at least three other characters.

[Tiamat.8254]

Just get revenant and put the spinning hammers on. You can probably do all the content blindfolded(like a revenant) if there was no risk of falling into the depths 😁

[Cyninja.2954]

8 hours ago, KaeKae.6270 said:

So I hit 80 yesterday on my Revenant; was a breeze blowing through the core game. Was excited crossing over to HoT content……and couldn’t seem to go more than 30secs without getting Massacred by something. I thought to myself “ok let’s do a gear change,” (had all Power, Precision, and Ferocity gear on) and went to the trading post and ended up buying all cheap Condi, Vitality, and Toughness gear, was blown away when I’m going up to mobs that massacred me, aggroing 5 more of his friends, and then “tormenting,” them down like nothing. 

Am I suppose to have a different set of gear for different game modes?

Let's put it this way:

You need specific gear for specific goals. If you need help with survival or being sturdier, then you need to either adapt your gear, your traits, your utilities or all of them.

 

Quote

When I asked in game someone pointed me to Metabattle and I got on there and looked at their “open world,” builds and gear sets, and noticed NONE of them had vitality or toughness on them.

 

 

 

 

As of this writing top rated open world condition builds on metabattle for revenant:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_Condi_Herald

- condi herald with builds for viper, celestial and trailblazer, 2 of which have vitality and toughness

 

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Renegade_-_Condi_Renegade

- condi renegade again with viper, celestial and trailblazer variants

 

You might have missed the alternative gear mentioned in the guides while skimming over them.

Edited August 3, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Goettel.4389]

The best way to do map completion in HoT (if that is your goal) is to join the many squads that run metas and HP's.

And ask for help on specific stuff you can't solo, you'll usually get some.

 

If you want to solo everything: good luck to ya ; - )

[Danikat.8537]

One of the things I like about GW2 is that there's no definitive right or wrong way to do different things, just lots of options. That's true of stats as well. While a lot of people still favour pure power (or power, precision and ferocity) over everything else there are no stats which are genuinely useless, just ones which are right or wrong for you and your build.

 

It is possible to use beserkers in HoT, but it means making good use of your active defences like dodging and kiting, and either avoiding or being able to overwhelm enemies which have a lot of armour but are vulnerable to conditions (since you won't have much condition damage to hit them with). Other builds will have similar trade-offs - for example someone using toughness or vitality will be more durable but if they're not as proficient at active defences will struggle with enemies that can deal a lot of damage very quickly.

 

The important part (and often the tricky part) is figuring out what works best for you. Balancing the skills you like to use and how you like to play with what you need. If you find using condi, toughness and vitality works then that's great, but as you get used to the higher difficulty areas you might find you actually want to swap some of that out for more damage (which if you're using skills which rely on causing conditions to do damage will mean boosting condition damage and duration rather than power, precision and ferocity, but again it depends on your skills).

[Teratus.2859]

HoT was a lot harder when it first came out and has been nerfed down a bit in difficulty since then.

This particular expansion was designed to provide that hard end game content that a lot of players wanted when Gw2 didn't have any expansions.

Back then Gw2 had a seriously dominant meta of stack on everything with a glass canon build lol
HoT imo was designed to punish that kind of playstyle.. and it's quite effective at it even today post nerfs.

Ironically many complained about it being "too hard" then which was really funny to me.
"Give me hard content!!"
"Ahh it's too hard and my build don't work nerf it!!"
XD

What I find works best in HoT is builds that incorporate survivability stats like toughness and vitality into them, as well as sustain mechanics.
Also ranged play as well is very effective there.

I never have any issues with HoT when I run ranged focused builds, or tanks and sustain focused builds there.
But glass canon melee builds still regularly struggle in the content.

Edited August 3, 2021 by Teratus.2859

[Dante.1763]

13 minutes ago, Teratus.2859 said:

HoT was a lot harder when it first came out and has been nerfed down a bit in difficulty since then.

This particular expansion was designed to provide that hard end game content that a lot of players wanted when Gw2 didn't have any expansions.

Back then Gw2 had a seriously dominant meta of stack on everything with a glass canon build lol
HoT imo was designed to punish that kind of playstyle.. and it's quite effective at it even today post nerfs.

Ironically many complained about it being "too hard" then which was really funny to me.
"Give me hard content!!"
"Ahh it's too hard and my build don't work nerf it!!"
XD

What I find works best in HoT is builds that incorporate survivability stats like toughness and vitality into them, as well as sustain mechanics.
Also ranged play as well is very effective there.

I never have any issues with HoT when I run ranged focused builds, or tanks and sustain focused builds there.
But glass canon melee builds still regularly struggle in the content.

The folks wanting harder content, werent the majority, obviously. If it was they wouldnt have nerfed it. None of my glass cannons struggle out there, they drop enemies to fast.

 

Regardless OP, HOT enemies are different and it takes time to learn them. Once they are learned youll be able to deal with them regardless of equipment is doing. Positioning and making sure you dont get swarmed over is another thing to look out for.

[codedbykush.2019]

11 hours ago, KaeKae.6270 said:

So I hit 80 yesterday on my Revenant; was a breeze blowing through the core game. Was excited crossing over to HoT content……and couldn’t seem to go more than 30secs without getting Massacred by something. I thought to myself “ok let’s do a gear change,” (had all Power, Precision, and Ferocity gear on) and went to the trading post and ended up buying all cheap Condi, Vitality, and Toughness gear, was blown away when I’m going up to mobs that massacred me, aggroing 5 more of his friends, and then “tormenting,” them down like nothing. 

Am I suppose to have a different set of gear for different game modes?

When I asked in game someone pointed me to Metabattle and I got on there and looked at their “open world,” builds and gear sets, and noticed NONE of them had vitality or toughness on them.

 

Revenant is the most versatile and strongest class to clear through content with minimum need for specific gear.

 

However, having a good build can make or break your solo gameplay into HoT maps, e.g. I ran with Soldier gear with Jalis and Shiro specs. The survivability of Jalis combine with Soldier gear helped me clear the HoT story missions with ease.

 

However, you are not expected to solo hero points. Those are definitely for group play and look for commanders running HP trains on LFG.

 

Once you're able to unlock renegade spec, you can solo almost anything.

 

[DoomNexus.5324]

Revenant has a rather high skill floor. It's a really strong and versatile class with good build variety but you need to know what you are doing with Rev, otherwise it's garbage. An integral part of it is managing energy and legend swaps. Swapping legends counts as a weapon swap btw so some sigils that trigger on weapon swap might come in handy here.
Easy legend choices for PvE are Glint and Jalis as they offer good utility, sustain and (AoE) damage. For Condi or hybrid builds Mallyx is probably the best choice.
In case you want to focus on a power build take a look at this PvP build, it is also very good however I'd swap out Shiro with whatever fits your needs atm.
Renegade - Shortbow Shiro - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds

The previously suggested Renegade - Condi Renegade - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds is also recommendable, maybe even try and mix the two together.
Like I said in the beginning, Rev has a pretty good build variety and is pretty strong for whatever playstyle you want, you just need to understand what everything does and why something is good.

Regarding stat choice: They introduced a bunch of new stat combos with 4 stats instead of 3. There's for example the Marauder stat with a bit less power compared to Berserker but added Vitality. Unfortunately gear with 4-stat-combos are not tradeable.
I've mostly played with a mixed set of Marauder and Berserker to have slightly more HP without giving up on too much damage.
For hybrid I think nothing beats Viper.

[Teratus.2859]

4 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

The folks wanting harder content, werent the majority, obviously. If it was they wouldnt have nerfed it. None of my glass cannons struggle out there, they drop enemies to fast.

 

Regardless OP, HOT enemies are different and it takes time to learn them. Once they are learned youll be able to deal with them regardless of equipment is doing. Positioning and making sure you dont get swarmed over is another thing to look out for.

There's been a lot of powercreep as well.
Melee glass canon builds can survive easily enough now if you know what your doing.
But it did used to be much harder for those kinds of builds.

But for newer players going from core to HoT that difficulty jump still gets them, especially if they've only been playing melee glass canon though the core game.
Tbh it kinda teaches some bad habits, like not needing/learning how to dodge properly and as you said positioning effectively etc
HoT will punish that, but I blame this fault more on the core game's outdated content and lacking endgame difficulty more than anything.
Main reason why I'm pro updating the later content in the core game and LW2 content to balance it out more with HoT 🙂 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

There is a lot of damage that gets tossed around in HoT. If you see something on the ground, don't stand on it. This includes large orange AoE indicators and the glowing red line AoEs from the snipers. There is also just a large amount of mobs to deal with as you mentioned.

 

Bring AoE cleave. Try condi with Runes of Tormenting. Don't stop moving. If you are good about not standing in the bad things you should survive more easily.

[firedragon.8953]

Honestly, just keep trying.

As others have said, the jump in difficulty from Core to HoT is the largest in the game. You actually have to pay attention to what enemies are doing. Learn their telegraphs, and in some cases just try to avoid some all together (here's looking at you smokescale and rolling devil), and be careful of groupings of certain mobs (especially if there are pocket raptors around). 

I don't know enough about Rev to give you specific build help, but I think mostly HoT difficulty is the active combat learning curve and knowing what it is EXACTLY your skills do and synergize with your gear and traits.

[anduriell.6280]

Ahhh and to think anet dumbed down HoT during the betas, It was so much better with the harder orginal difficulty where mobs not only tried to pound you at every step but they also actively avoided your attacks. 

 

I hope EoD has some areas with the Beta HoT difficulty. Those are max level expansions and PloF has already shown us easy maps does not have replayability either. 

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

Champions and bosses and such also tend to focus the player with the higher toughness.  So, you might be tankier with high toughness, but you're also more likely to be the focus of mobs.

 

Difficulty scale:  core Tyria is easier than PoF is easier than HoT. 

 

Strongly recommend hopping on a hero point train to unlock your elite specs.  I have both a Herald and a Renegade - both power builds.  Of the two, I honestly think I enjoy playing my Renegade more - I run full exotic marauder's armor with ascended diviner's trinkets and weapons and still hit 100% alacrity uptime with Orders from Above.  Makes an outstanding DPS/support hybrid build that is able to stay alive in PvE without any problems.  You can still die if you get caught flat footed, but it is fun to play.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

I never realized this about PvE until some players were talking in LA chat; but, it seems that for open world most people just ignore every part of the gear system.  What I mean is, these players didn't even know what runes and sigils are and had been through most of the open world content--and now OP just following metabattle without looking up what stats do.  

 

I'd just say read the wiki more than mettabattle as it will serve you better.  

[Dawdler.8521]

18 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I never realized this about PvE until some players were talking in LA chat; but, it seems that for open world most people just ignore every part of the gear system.  What I mean is, these players didn't even know what runes and sigils are and had been through most of the open world content--and now OP just following metabattle without looking up what stats do.  

 

I'd just say read the wiki more than mettabattle as it will serve you better.  

What, you dont notice, lol? Now with the LS events I sometimes see players attacking a mob and is slowly wearing it down so half asleep and not really paying attention I think "I'll have to help that guy, look like a tough enemy" and then I proceed to hit 30% of its hp per autoattack.

[Captain Nathan Goossen.7293]

xD i can tell you the differnce betwin full exotic berskerer and masterwork same stats is huge. i atm dont got money for a exotic set(working on it as we speak) but daum you feel the differnce from old account to this

[Lucio.4190]

I used to play a Mirage with Axe/Pistol for a while and that was a lot of fun. Recently switched to Power Chrono with Greatsword and 2 Swords, which is not as fun as the Mirage but it gets the job done.

HoT was tough and I kind of had problem surviving more than 10 seconds until I rebuilt my character. It made a small difference and allowed me to actually start killing some mordrem and be a little useful in the metas. My guess is that everyone goes through that phase and recognise your situation. But this community is awesome and very helpful. Without the patience and help from everyone, I would probably still be struggling with some of the events and fractals. ❤

 

Over time I learned to experiment, I read small pieces of information at a time about Condition or Power builds, how they are related to Expertise and Precision and the effects from other attributes.

 

I now have two builds that I switch between. The choice of weapons and how I like to play (range, melee or combo) decides the build and then also the skills and specializations.