Why am I dying so easily?

[Fallaner, the Writer Eternal]

So I've played the game a bit, have a character at level 80 and am finishing up the first living world season... and I am noticing something that is really, really reducing how much fun I am having with the game.

I die... a lot. Like, a whole lot. I followed a guide for gearing when I first had issues earlier in the 80 content, and while I can now *kill* easily enough, I feel like I'm made of tissue paper, as I constantly die and need to revive.

Am I doing something wrong? Should I change my gear? Is it just because I haven't fully unlocked the abilities of the elite spec I chose and am playing with (holosmith engineer)?

Not sure what info specifically to provide, but gear-wise I have almost all exotic berserker's gear from what I understand, which is what my googling in an attempt to fix previous issues told me to go with, with scholar runes for the armor.

[Frost]

Also a small note, don't forget to reinforce your armor at NPCs, it provides a nice boost for free, lasts a long time too.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reinforce_Armor

[Rhapsody]

Publicado originalmente por amarrminer:

wait a minute, you have to use special gear to learn the game? and at max level, no less?
that doesnt sound very user friendly. or logical.

It's just one option, and there are many further options under that, especially for engineer, like using rifle for ranged combat instead of sword, or swapping only trinkets for some defensive attributes. They could also drop that high skill ceiling elite spec entirely for time being, and continue as the ever flexible and adaptive core engineer with better defensive options, or train for scrapper or mechanist specs instead.

[( ◉Д◉) 彡]

Holosmith is on the more squishy side compare to Scrapper.
The sustain mostly come from managing your Heat to get passive heal from Heat Therapy trait.

I suggest switch to hammer Scrapper. Much more sustainable hence easier for you to get bonus from Scholar rune set. The DPS is quite good too.

[Jin-]

Berserker is perfect for small scale PvE. It's not meant for solo Open World or Story content unless you know how to iframe / use correct defense abilities. You are playing with unnecessary hard mode. Marauder/Dragon gear is close to the same dps yet has lot more room with the high health pool

Check:
Hardstuck or Guildjen pages for Open World builds.

Ps. your current gear isn't wasted. You can use it when you have learned the mechanics and how it all works :)

[Hefutoxin]

Berserkers is the correct set to learn on. You can add in some Vitality to increase survivability, but the focus should be on damage, not defense.

Level 80+ damage out paces the defense stats you can gain. You WILL need to learn enemy abilities and avoid them or you will die, regardless of how much healing and defense you stack on. Stacking defense at the expense of DPS will cause the fights to last longer, giving enemies more chances to hit you with their high damage attacks.

Build Guides are only for a basic understanding of a spec. You 100% should change the skills and traits to better match how you are playing and the areas you are playing in. I've played off and on since launch and none of my builds have ever completely matched any guide.

Engineer is a hard class. Holosmith is a hard spec ON a hard class. Your focus should not be on your equipment but on the skills you have access to.

Increasing your health and defense might carry you through Season 1, but you will get absolutely shredded afterwards unless you focus on learning how to avoid damage through dodging and skill usage.

[Loot]

Publicado originalmente por armyguy:

Publicado originalmente por Fallaner, Warrior of Light:

I do plan to unlock the whole spec, It's just I haven't gone into the expansion zones yet (though I likely will be soon, as I am on the battle for lion's arch story part) and running all over the map for like another 160 or whatever points, for one at a time, is... not... fun to me.

Looks like the zealots have misled yet another unknowing victim to his demise. Their analysis of casual and non-grindy has brought you to this point. Go back to core engi, use either valkyrie or soldier gear with scholar runes (I would have chosen eagle but whatever) and get your 250 mastery points to completely open holosmith. You can move back to beserker after you have mastered your rotations/class.

Despite what these sycophants say, you have to put the time in to earn the hero points or collect testimonies in wvw, either way it's a grind. There are hero point runs, mostly on weekends but I suspect during the week soon enough, as school is finishing for the year.

I'm generally able to find HP runs in the LFG with little issue. Now, if I could get some decent gear... c:

[Insanity Pilgrim]

I highly suggest celestial gear. Very forgiving and can be used by pretty much everything. Sure some builds would much prefer something else...but its hard to go wrong with Celestial.

[ah_puch]

Publicado originalmente por armyguy:

Looks like the zealots have misled yet another unknowing victim to his demise. Their analysis of casual and non-grindy has brought you to this point.

That's unfortunate. I thought they were trying so hard to gain new players? Giving false advice on gear and rotations won't make any new player enjoy the game or stay. Ironically, those are also the same people who are toxic to new players in strikes, further alienating and bleeding players.

[Tyrian Mollusk]

As another note, be aware that LS1 was very recently added to the game. It's sensibilities for balance and what to expect are not what reflects the first content people go to after personal story, like back when it originally happened, but content added after all the rest of this stuff for characters geared to the teeth.

Case in point, a couple of the starting area boss fights were also somewhat recently retooled to better fit the dev's current idea of the game, and they are now tedious slogs my partner and I just walk on by rather than hop in on like we used to always do if we happened by during pre-events.

It's weird, but doing the content in story order isn't the best experience.

[Blurey]

I did recently LS1 and immediately noticed the difficulty spike. Not sure how they tuned it, but it is significantly harder.

[ah_puch]

Publicado originalmente por Blurey:

I did recently LS1 and immediately noticed the difficulty spike. Not sure how they tuned it, but it is significantly harder.

That's odd since the power creep is a lot stronger now. Not sure about the "difficulty spike" unless you are a new player with weak gear and rotation.

[shimsham29]

Zerker prefix is tough for the majority of new players who still need to "learn" the game so to speak. As for finishing out that elite spec, as stated, you want to go to the expansions and get the points there since they give 10 per. These are, after all, expansion specs so they were designed for people to level them up in the expansions at 10 points per, not in the core map.

There's usually at least one hero point train every week/weekend in the lfg section. Just join one of those. You may want to first unlock the expansion area because if not, you'd have to use a teleport to a friend to get into the new area.

I saw someone mention scrapper for engineer and I can recommend scrapper as a fun build that doesn't really have survival issues.

[LSD]

Publicado originalmente por Blurey:

I did recently LS1 and immediately noticed the difficulty spike. Not sure how they tuned it, but it is significantly harder.

Cos a third of it is meant to be done in a squad. Battle for LA and the Tower of Nightmares are the main offenders. I wonder if there's more than a handful of people each day doing those...

[Jin-]

Publicado originalmente por Hefutoxin:

Berserkers is the correct set to learn on. You can add in some Vitality to increase survivability, but the focus should be on damage, not defense.

No it's not. It's main purpose is to keep maximum dps up while the team support keeps you alive. Marauder offers slightly less dmg and gives lot more room to maneuver for solo players.

[Hefutoxin]

Publicado originalmente por Jin-:

Publicado originalmente por Hefutoxin:

Berserkers is the correct set to learn on. You can add in some Vitality to increase survivability, but the focus should be on damage, not defense.

No it's not. It's main purpose is to keep maximum dps up while the team support keeps you alive. Marauder offers slightly less dmg and gives lot more room to maneuver for solo players.

This isn't WoW.

Marauder on Guardian wouldn't even reach the BASE health of a Warrior. Does this mean Guardian is bad for solo players?

Defensive stats, flat out, cannot keep you alive in GW2. You can take some extra health as a buffer to prevent some one shots, especially on the low health classes, but it's not anywhere near as helpful as people pretend it is.

In the base game, you can facetank things. Extra defense stats will carry you. As soon as you step into ANY expansion, you will die. Enemies have major damage spikes that some extra health won't save you from. The longer it takes for you to kill those enemies, the more times they can hit you with those spikes as well as giving time for other enemies to join in.

The faster you lose the idea that defensive stats will save you, the easier the game becomes.