Returning after 6 years - need some help

Hi there,I'm Kyoshi. I was a beta and early release player. Due to RL I quit playing. Recently I recovered my account and played few h to see how the game is doing. Have to say ... a lot has changed. Is there any friendly soul that will push me to right place to read about all this new stuff? Skills, Crafting ... Mounts? I do have lvl 80 warrior, tons of birthday presents and other crap I have no idea what to do with. I do have a feeling the main City has change a lot too.

Welcome back, Kyoshi.

I suggest you learn or relearn the game by starting out with either a warrior, ranger or necromancer. They're the most beginner professions. If you got your warrior to level 80 by playing the game instead of using level 80 boosters, then either play the game with the warrior or start over with either one of those two professions.

Hero points are earned by leveling up and discovering them. By the time you reach level 80, you should have enough hero points to unlock every core specialization and utility skill. Map completion results in you nearly unlocking at least one of the elite specializations.

Crafting is essential if you want to be consistent with stats on your profession. The best power gear is berserker with scholar runes and the best condition gear is viper with renegade runes, though condition gear is a bit more expensive to craft so I recommend rabid gear with nightmare runes for a budget condition gear. Use gw2crafts.net to help you with leveling crafting and use gw2efficiency.com to learn about where to farm certain materials like ore and wood, daily achievements, what's the cheapest ascended gear to craft etc. If you are interested about fractals and raids, I suggest you check snowcrows.com. It's a site dedicated to fractals and raids, it's very informative on what profession is good for what boss, what rotations you need to do with your profession, what gear to use and it's frequently updated.

Mounts are the feature only available to those who have the Path of Fire expansion. The first mount is the raptor which you can get by finishing the first mission of the Path of Fire story. It's the non upgraded raptor and you must be level 80 to enter the story. The rest of the mounts have to be unlocked by upgrading the raptor first. Some Path of Fire masteries can only be unlocked using certain mounts, so focus on the ones you can get with the raptor.

Back to crafting. Your profession doesn't need to have every single crafting discipline. You need 2 at most: one for crafting armor and one for crafting weapons. For example, warrior and other soldier professions like guardians and revenants use armorsmith for crafting heavy armor. That's an easy choice, but the more difficult choice comes to choosing a discipline for crafting weapons. Warrior benefits mostly from weapons like greatswords and axes, so weaponsmith if the perfect choice.

Thanks for the tips. There was no lvl 80 boster back then ( I guess :) so my lvl 80 is true lvl 80 ... though a lot has changed so starting a new alt is a good idea. I have a lot of Hero points to spent so it would be better to know what I'm doing :)

See you in game.

@"Kyoshi.3598" said:Hi there,I'm Kyoshi. I was a beta and early release player. Due to RL I quit playing. Recently I recovered my account and played few h to see how the game is doing. Have to say ... a lot has changed. Is there any friendly soul that will push me to right place to read about all this new stuff? Skills, Crafting ... Mounts? I do have lvl 80 warrior, tons of birthday presents and other crap I have no idea what to do with. I do have a feeling the main City has change a lot too.

Almost all of it is documented in the Wiki (see link at the top of the web page). And if by "main City" you mean either Divinity's Reach or Lion's Arch, then yes, both of them have changed. In the case of Lion's Arch, well, the whole place was flattened and rebuilt as part of the events of Living World Season One, while those same events ultimately produced the shiny pavilion thing you see in western Divinity's Reach instead of the building site.

On the other hand, crafting isn't new. Levels above 400 are new, as is "Scribe", but the fundamentals of crafting haven't changed.

@Kyoshi.3598 said:Thanks for the tips. There was no lvl 80 boster back then ( I guess :) so my lvl 80 is true lvl 80 ... though a lot has changed so starting a new alt is a good idea. I have a lot of Hero points to spent so it would be better to know what I'm doing :)

See you in game.

About those hero points: It is completely safe to spend them all now. Since your character is lvl 80 you have enough hero points to unlock every core specialisation and skill. Since unlocking everything else is required before you can start unlocking elite specialisations, there is no reason not to spend the points.

Lets keep it short:

Main Story

If you killed Zaithan and watched the last chapter, you can go to lions arch now and watch a "cutscene" explaining the events of Living World 1 featuring Scarlet.To move on the story, you need to "purchase" the Living Story Chapters in the Hero Panel, Story Tab.Living World Season 2 then moves to the Hearth of Thorns Expac, then to LW3, then to Path of Fire Expac, then to LW4, thats current.

Frankly speaking thats the best start, since following the rest of the story will give time to get used to the rest of the mechanics.

Some Changed Stuff

The whole skill point and Traits changed completely.For traits, now you select 3 "trait lines" and from then you can select1 choice of 3 minors, majors and grandmaster traits.

Skill points were removed and now changed to HERO POINTS. They work the SAME way, except that you no longer "farm" skill points by grinding past lvl 80.Hero points can only be unlocked on map events and leveling up from 1 to 80.Like in the past, grinding from 1 to 80 grant you enough poitns to get all your "core" lines maxed out. But you will need to accumulate 250 extra points for each specialization class trait line. (more on that below).

The whole skin system also changed, you no longer need to "sacrifice" gear to reeskin something else. Once you salvage an item or "right click and select Unlock Skin" the skin will be added to your "wardrobe" and you can change your skin freely as long you have points.

Above Exotic, there is now the "ascended" class of equipment. Equal to Asc there is the Legendary gear.Difference is that Legendary gear you can freely choose its attributes outside of battle. Meanwhile Asc gear you can change stats through some recipe.

Lions Arch changed completely. Divinity's Reach got some changes in the map, the "big hole" was removed.

Guilds can now have Guild Halls.

Dungeons are now unpopular.

Kitten load of changes to balance and weapons. Get used to it slowly.

WvW now has level progression. Tons of new NPCs to sell stuff. Also added Traps and some other itens.There are a new Borderland map. Meanwhile the original map got changed (lake removed). The Orb at the top of the map no longer exists. I recommend reading some Guide to WvW if thats your stuff.

Some Word Bosses got their events revamped. More were added to the game.

Crafting now goes to lvl 500 on the majority of the arts. 400~500 is mostly to craft Ascended gear. Read more in the wiki.Many quality of life changes to crafting as well.... like being able to see the chain of recipes and access the bank trough the crafting tables.

PvP and WvW now have "Reward tracks" and other stuff. You can pretty much level up from 1 to 80 on these modes.

Besides "Soul Bound" itens, there is now "Account Bound" stuff that you can switch between characters using the bank.

Added and New Stuff

The "Mastery" system was added to the game, unlocked by reaching lvl 80. Once you are on lvl 80 you can select a "mastery" to grind exp for.Once you grind enough exp to fill the bar, you can use "mastery points" to unlock the new mastery. Unlock those on map events and doing achievements.

Breakbar. Champions and bosses have a gray bar below their name, this is the Breakbar. You can "reduce it" by using CC skills on the boss. If it gets to zero, the boss gets stunned for extra damage as well as other mechanics.

Fractals. Work like mini dungeons. There are around 20+ dungeons with levels that goes from 1 to 100. Too much to explain here, recommend you check the wiki.Raids: hardcore dungeon content.

Specializations: basically extra class promotions for your current classes. Each expansion add one specializations to the current classes.Example "Warrior" can now become "Berserker" or "Spellbreaker". To change specialization you need to unlock it with Hero Points, then you change the last line of trait's for the one with the name of the specialization to use it. You an only use one specialization at a time. Read more in the wiki.

"Gliding" is now possible, its part of the hearth of Thorns exclusive Mastery lines.Mounts are now available for players with Path of Fire. Also work like Masterys but you need to "purchase" the mounts from NPCs on the new PoF maps(As long you unlock it, you can "Glide" and use "mounts" anywhere in the world). System to prevent gliding and mounts on some jumping puzzles where added to the game.

Kitten loads of new atribute combinations. Berserk is still the top Power damage spec tough.

Now all your money and currency's are added to your wallet. Click your gold to see it.In the wallet is stored all your dungeons tokens as well as many other currency's from others maps.

Besides "skins", players can now purchase "Outfits" in the gem store. They work independently from the wardrobe and are single piece itens. You don't waste charges to change then, however.

Right of your skills bar, there a blank square and a arrow set. The first one is the Mount which you need to unlock to use. The second let you store up to 4 "novelty itens" for quick access. Those were also throwed to a special tab on her panel, but first you need to "send then" there by right clicking the original item.

You can now "craft" precursors for legendary weapons. Sometimes not worth tough.

....

The list could go on, but that should give a quick idea. Overall the game is the same tough.

Thank You both. Got something more BASIC. As I've starter New alt I have problem getting to some points on the map. I'm unable to jump there. ? Was there any trick to that?

@Kyoshi.3598 said:Thank You both. Got something more BASIC. As I've starter New alt I have problem getting to some points on the map. I'm unable to jump there. ? Was there any trick to that?

They added the new player experience I think hero points unlock at level 11 or 13

@Kyoshi.3598 said:Thank You both. Got something more BASIC. As I've starter New alt I have problem getting to some points on the map. I'm unable to jump there. ? Was there any trick to that?

Depends. Where are you having problems with?

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:

Depends. Where are you having problems with?

In one place with an arrow ... pointing down. So I was trying to jump, when I should be searching for a cave. One of this moments ;D

@Kyoshi.3598 said:

@"Steve The Cynic.3217" said:

Depends. Where are you having problems with?

No, I meant "in which place" was it? Which map? Sometimes the story-star is on a different level to where you are (it's underground and you're on the surface, or vice versa) and you must find the way in or out of the cave / building /etc.

Plains of Ashford , as I sai the point was loceted in a cave. :) So yes - exactly whay you said. Thanks.

Got another one - I started to do some world bosses to get my lvl 80 guard back in action. What bosses are worth doing gear wise? Or all of them are just random trash for salvage. My Guard has some orange parts, rest is green/blue.

If you want to gear your characters then I would focus on getting gold and then buying a full set of Exotic Gear (orange) from the Trading Post. A few days of just Daily Achievements will get you enough to buy a set (2 gold per day from dailies). And you can gain additional gold playing whatever content you enjoy as well such as World Bosses if you want to run them.

Going deeper in $$ earnings. Most of materials are selling right away. Is it the same for crafted stuff? If I had some... I dunno... Crafted bags? Just curious how this works nów.

I adivice to use "deposite materials" in right corner of your inventory in case you want to craft something in the future. This store up to 250 of all materials in your bank. Once something is not getting stored then bank is full and i would sell it.

Is there lvl 500 in Jewelcrafting ??

@Kyoshi.3598 said:Is there lvl 500 in Jewelcrafting ??

No and not chief either