Returning player - how to get hero points (solo)?

So I did get the alternate classes on HoT, stopped for some time and recently purchased PoF.I saw there are new "alternate classes" (what's the correct term) and they need Hero Points too.

Any idea on how to get those solo? Most of the guild members are either offline for a long while or representing another guild.Newbie places seems empty too.

Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that. I take a second to say in map chat I need help with a hero point, usually 2-3 people respond which is enough for 99% of the hero points in the game. It helps if you have some sort of tag and it helps if you link waypoint with some instructions on how to get to the hero point, but if you build it, they will come. It works.

Most of the PoF ones are easily soloable. At worst you might have to try twice because it does something unexpected.

HoT is actually easier in that regard because it has a lot more spares(you need to do 25 but HoT has 40) and many are just communes.

Their official name is elite specialisations.

And like Vayne said you don't need to get them solo. One of the nice things about GW2 is that anyone can play together with anyone in PvE, so you don't need to form a party before starting to find people to help.

Firstly I recommend focusing on PoF hero challenges first because they're generally easier than the HoT ones so you may be able to solo some/all of them (depending on your build and how good you are at using it). But if you do need help you can either wait at the hero point for someone to come along and join in (you'll all receive credit as long as you do some damage), ask in map chat for someone to come and help you or look in the LFG tool for someone running an HP train and join that - they'll lead you around all the points, either in that map or in all the maps, and you'll be doing them with a group which makes it easier.

Make sure you have a couple mastery levels in Gliding and Bouncing Mushrooms, find a HP Train in HoT. The leader should tell you what you need as a minimum to follow.Here's the Wiki breakdown of how many HPs are in the the Core and expansions.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_point

You can also get them through WvW as 'proof of heroics'. Nice thing is the currency you get is account bound so you can do WvW on any character, and only use what you need.

Not quite as efficient as following a HP train (or the easy PoF ones).

@"Vayne.8563" said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

Really, zero reason? Personally I find the PoF ones more fun solo since the fights are usually too easy in a group - that seems like a reason to do them solo to me. And you certainly don't need the "right class" or the "right build" for them. The HoT ones are a different story, but by the sounds of it the OP has a decent amount of those already.

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@"Vayne.8563" said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

When I say zero reason, I was replying to the OP. In context it means there's no reason to do them if you're having trouble with them. It's part of the conversation. That's the danger of taking stuff out of context.

I'm having problems soloing hero points because my guild isn't online. Well there's no reason you have to. Doesn't mean that no one wants to solo them. It means in the circumstance to which I'm responding, for the OP, who's obviously not looking to solo them for challenge, this is a good response.

I do agree some people like soloing even difficult HPs, including hard ones in HoT.

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

Sorry, I was tired and for some reason took "zero reason" way more literally than it was intended. I originally interpreted your post as a criticism of people doing things solo - rereading it I really don't know why...

I do think your reply only applies to HoT hero points though. The PoF ones are substantially easier. It's not clear whether the OP has tried the PoF ones, or is asking the question based entirely on their experience of HoT.

I would ague that you do need the right build. Or maybe just an actual build rather than whatever you throw together. When I levelled my weaver with Tomes and set off in a mix of masterwork, rare and exotic level 50-80 gear from level rewards to get the PoF hero challenges I found it impossible to solo many of them. Then I had the idea of using the weaver skills as soon as I unlocked them so I could practice with them, which helped me decide on the build I wanted for the character but made completing hero challenges harder because now I had to factor in unfamiliar skills.

It's not like soloing dungeons where only certain professions can do it and they need a very specific set of skills and traits to complete it. But it's also not so easy that any character, with any combination of stats and skills can do it.

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

This isn't true for most people. There are quite a few hero points in POF that people have trouble soloing, not always because of the hero points themselves, but because of the creatures that surround them. Even the djinn in Crystal Oasis, the first PoF zone is notorious. Lions, hydras, eels all surround the place. I've seen many people wipe on that challenge.

Good players can solo all sorts of HPs. Average players will have trouble with a number of POF hero points.

By the same token, there are only three hero points out of the 11 in VB that an average person can't solo. There's a vet at the bottom of the first one. Many are simply communes. The hardest in VB is bat guano, followed by the frogs, and then the golems. The other 8 can be soloed.

HoT does have a couple of the hardest hero points in the game, but I always get my 25 hero points in HoT and I do it faster than I do in the desert...even solo.

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

Interesting, I definitely don't think of myself as above average but I don't remember having trouble with PoF hero points, so I guess I'm underestimating my ability relative to other peoples'. Or maybe I've just been lucky enough not to aggro too many of the surrounding creatures. I'd obviously forgotten how many commune points there are in HoT as well...

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

I run a guild of casuals. It's amazing how many people don't really know how to break a bar, or how to kite even. The core game basically teaches people to press 1 and win, at least through most of it. There's no break bar tutorial. People who come to forums or visit reddit are the top maybe 15-20% of the game. You'd be stunned at how many people I help who have condi weapons and power builds or vice versa. Or they're wearing PTV gear because they want to be tanky and not die. They think a bit of toughness won't hurt, when often it does hurt. If nothing else it tends to draw more aggro to you, often enough.

One dev said recently, and this blew me away, that a good player does 500% more damage than an average player. 500%! That's just nuts.

@Vayne.8563 said:

One dev said recently, and this blew me away, that a good player does 500% more damage than an average player. 500%! That's just nuts.

I remember that! I think this is actually a non-trivial design problem for the game. The huge disparity between an average player and a really good player means that it's really impossible to balance any one piece of content for both groups - it's why we get both people both incapable of getting through the story and others considering it a snoozefest too boring to suffer through.

I don't have any answers as to how to bring these two extremes a bit closer to each other, but I think it could be worth it...

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

One dev said recently, and this blew me away, that a good player does 500% more damage than an average player. 500%! That's just nuts.

Well that's the point of the game. In other games, skill is based on stats, more or less directly. You're not required to dodge in most MMOs, certainly the older ones. In a skill based game, where your stats aren't constantly increasing, the skill increase is your progression. I can see that I've gotten better playing over time and can do things now I couldn't before. This is the first year, for example, I was able to beat Liadri. Part of that is power creep but a lot of that is just getting better at the game.

Taking that away, in my opinion, wouldn't be good for the game. It gives us something to work towards. However, it does mean there are people who are going to find many things hard that just aren't that hard.

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

One dev said recently, and this blew me away, that a good player does 500% more damage than an average player. 500%! That's just nuts.

I don't mean take it away, I mean just reduce the disparity a bit. I'd think if the dps of a top-tier player is, say, 3 times that of an average one, that would still be enough difference to drive progression? Meanwhile, it might create fewer design situations leading to frustration for either end of the player spectrum than the current difference of 6 times the dps?

However, I'm no game developer, I have no idea how realistic such a tweak is or what its other design costs would be. It would be interesting to see what the difference is in different games, both "classic" MMOs and more action oriented games.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

One dev said recently, and this blew me away, that a good player does 500% more damage than an average player. 500%! That's just nuts.

Part of the difference is in traditional MMOs you can't move and cast, and you often have a global cooldown, not just a cooldown after the skills you used. I used to play Guild Wars 1 with 1 hand while eating, even in relatively hard PvE content. I had heroes. I didn't have to do much and I'd often have to wait to cast the next skill. Guild Wars 2 is more twitch, more active in both positioning and in using the right skills at the right time.

In my opinion the game needs more ways to get better that casuals can avail themselves of. There's no break bar tutorial. People often have no idea of what a break bar is or how to break it. There's no combo tutorial either. There's not really even a food tutorial, or a utility tutorial. There's nothing that really even tells you the difference between condi and power builds in game. It's all about finding out this stuff outside of game, and a lot of people never look.

I think I'd rather see the average skill brought up by adding tutorials to close the gap.

@Vayne.8563 said:

I think I'd rather see the average skill brought up by adding tutorials to close the gap.

Fine by me. As I said, I want the gap reduced, doesn't really matter to me how. Nothing I said previously required it be a numbers game. I fully agree the game is sorely lacking in explaining quite a few things.

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

It's nuts but I'm somehow not surprised. Did they define what "good player" means? Are we talking players who consistently approach the highest possible DPS, or players in some top percentile, or something else? If it's supposed to be a game of skill then as I see it, it's probably a good thing, but I wonder how much of it is influenced by player skill and how much is influenced by other factors, like full ascended versus exotic/rare gear, choosing offensive versus defensive stats, having consistent attribute combinations versus a mix, well-chosen food versus random food versus no food, etc. (I could mention build choice, but I'd count that at least partly player skill - although obviously you can look them up.)

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Well, if you insist on getting them solo, get good. Seriously. That's the answer. Have the right class with the right build. That said, there's zero reason to do hero points solo and I've never had to do that.

Well you won't get 500% more by having ascended over exotics of the same stats, for sure. So it has to be a combination of factors, including build, gear, food, rotation, but also stacking boons and breaking bars.

I mean I'm not a fantastic player myself, I'm probably above average but by no means pro. I probably fall in the middle of the two extremes. I also play a lot of professions and I'm sure I do better on my mesmer and ranger than I do on my elementalist and necro. I just know them better.

But just stacking stuff like might and fury, with both boons and food (or condi damage) is going to give you far more damage than if you don't stack it. I've played with guys who stack might and buff each other and guys who don't. The difference is significant.

Part of that also comes from whether they are running a solo build or a raid/team build. For example, when I'm running around solo on my power berserker, I'm running headbutt and bulls charge for the CCs on my skill bar, then healing signet, banner of discipline, and signet of stamina. With mace/shield, I end up with 5 CCs, with inspiring battle standard traited, my banner is constantly kicking out regen, and the signet grants a complete condi cleanse in a moment of panic. Running like that with glass berserker exotic armor, I can solo most of the game. But if I was to switch things up to run as part of a team, I wouldn't need to run 5 CCs, I could run a banner of strength or signet of fury, either of which would increase MY DPS, but I'd have to rely on others to help me break the defiance bar. It's about trade offs. I'm not the best player in the game, but I'd argue that I'm at least above average.