How does Journey to the North buff handle level differences (damage taken and delt)?

I don't know where else to post this, but I think this is a huge question that I haven't seen answered yet...


As I understand it, damage inflicted and received is affected by the difference in level between monsters and the player.
For example, a lvl 20 monster hits a lvl 20 player for 100% damage, while a lvl 24 monster hits a lvl 20 player for over 100% damage (don't know the exact equation) because of the difference in level.

So how does this work with the new Journey to the North buff, which allows lvl 10-19 players into Eye of the North?

Even though the lvl 10-19 players get their HP and armor buffed to lvl 20 status by Journey to the North buff, their actual level is still 10-19. Does that mean monsters will hit them for more damage then they do lvl 20 characters (because the level difference is larger)? Or does the game simply treat their level as 20 when calculating damage?

This is a HUGE question that needs to be answered, because lvl 20 hp and armor means nothing if those players are getting nailed for huge amounts of damage because of their lower actual level.

At lvl 20 and at 12 attribute points all characters do 100% damage to AL 60, regardless of the opposing character's level. Higher level characters will do 100% damage to higher level armor, for example for all armor effected spells the formula is 3 * level, so a lvl 30 will do 100% damage to 90 AL, or a little under 170% damage to an AL 60. For weapons the AL at which you do 100% damage is dependent on both Level and Attribute rank and gets a bit more complicated, but your own level will not matter.

To summarize: Enemies will not do more damage to you because you are a lower level, but you will do less damage to them because you are lower level.

There is the rather poorly tested fact that higher levels seem to get more criticals vs lower levels, but I don't think anyone has ran extensive tests to see if this applies to monsters. It may also work instead that the critical rate scales the same where any lvl 20 gets normal critical rate on any AL 60, but afaik this hasn't been tested

wait, so you're saying that a lvl 28 monster will hit a lvl 20 player and a lvl 10 player for the exact same amount of damage?

If both have the same amount of armor, yes. The only mitigating factor in that example would be that runes on armor probably aren't counted while under the blessing, but I haven't tested this. You may also get hit by criticals more often as mentioned above, but to find out if thats true would probably require a large amount of testing. From what I have seen your own critical rate isn't lowered by attacking a higher level enemy (otherwise sins would be in so much pain) so it's my belief that the critical rate isn't a straight level comparison.

Interesting, I seem to remember differences in level affecting damage received, which is why lvl 28's and bosses hit for so much.
I just saw this on wiki about bosses:
In the Factions and Nightfall Campaign, damage from bosses is doubled. [...] The double damage is not including for the level difference of the boss, which will also increase the base damage of the boss's attacks and increase the damage due to the level ratio (armor is considered lower vs high level enemies).

Meh, maybe I'm just interpreting that wrong.


As for damage you deal to monsters though, I'm certain that is affected by level.
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Damage_Rating_progression
According to wiki, a lvl 10 player with 12 points in their weapon (via the blessing) will do 77% of the stated damage for that weapon. They won't do 100% of the stated damage until they reach lvl 20.

So does that mean that all while lvl 10-19 players will have max hp, armor, and attributes via the blessing, their damage output will still be gimped because their real level is under 20?


Edit: ok, I re-read your first post and I think I understand
Thanks for the help. It's been so long since I've been lvl 1-19 I forget how things work under lvl 20.

Its a common misconception that your level affects damage recieved, but If you are in to a bit of reading go to http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Damage_calculation
As that damage rating progression chart shows, a lvl 20 will hit an AL 60 for full damage, while a lvl 10 will hit an AL 41 for full damage (r12 is assumed for all calculations as the base value, the ratio of damage that lvl 20 and 10 characters deal is the same) This of course only applies to damage that isn't armor ignoring, for example all + damage from attack skills is armor ignoring and always 100% effective. The biggest difference you will see is in the caster damage, casters scale far more sharply then physical damage dealers. So casters should probably stick to armor ignoring damage (empathy, SS, ect) or conditions/debuffs/protection. This is also why High level elementalists and ritualists (especially bosses) can wipe armor 60 characters with a single spell while physical attackers usually give you at least 2 or 3 hits before this happens.

Bosses outside of prophecies and the FoW/UW do have a 2x damage modifier, which affects armor ignoring damage as well as armor affected damage. Add this in with the bonus damage they get from being a higher level and that's why bosses can be scary. Also realize that many monsters don't always need to obey the same rules we do, presumably anet can change their damage to anything they want.

I think that quote from wiki in parentheses about armor being considered lower vs high level enemies is the best way to think about it, but the part about 'level ratio' and 'level difference' (absolute level matters, not the difference) are wrong.

On the other hand, the buff distinctly says "You are treated as a lvl 20 character" so it is possible that you are literally treated as a lvl 20 character when dealing damage, but I wouldn't count on it. There are instances in guild wars where the skill description has to be treated literally, for example Vow of Silence distinctly says "Can't be targeted by spells" meaning party wide spells that don't require you to be directly targeted work fine.