The Living World, HOT and POF story/questlines...Do I NEED to do them??

Hey everyone!

I finished up my personal story last night and although its a new style of game play in an MMO for me, I did not exactly enjoy it :(. Felt more like a chore then something that I actually wanted to do, and thats not what I play games for! The end of chapter rewards are always a welcome sight, but this game seems to throw rewards at you left right and centre anyway :D.

So I have dabbled in Living world Season 2 and HOT quest line and its still so boring to me, I am not too worried about not knowing the story line. If I really want to know the story I am sure I can find a YouTube video explaining it for me. But do I need to finish up these storys to give me the edge in end game content (gear, mastery points etc)? I personally find exploring all the zones and getting waypoints etc much more fun and I enjoy the odd Fractal here and there, not done any PvP or WvW yet but there is time to try my hand at those ;).

Thanks for any advice!

In short, Nope. But it takes a bit of work to get into the maps.

After buying hot, you can just walk through all maps via silverwastes.After buying pof, you can walk through all maps after finishing the intro chapterafter buying a ls chapter, you can access the map by playing the intro to it

in all cases you can avoid the story step if you have a teleport to friend item and ask for someone else to party and wait for you at those maps.For all LS maps, you can buy a portal scroll for your alt characters.

The LS maps have each unique rewards specific to the map, so you may want to figure out which ones you are interested in getting access to. But, the LS4 first map, domain of Istan, has a pretty profitable gold farm, so that's one map you may want to acquire regardless.

Well story steps do give mastery points so it might be hard to finish all the mastery lines without em.

You don't have to finish them, but if you want the glider and mounts, you will need to do at least the first segment of the HoT and PoF stories. If you want the griffon, you will need to finish the PoF story. If you want the roller beetle, you will need to finish a significant portion of the Living World Season 4 Episode 3 story.

No, you don't have to do all the story material...but, if you want mastery points you will have to do the story content. If you want to craft a "legendary" weapon you'll not only have to go through all the story content once, you'll have to go through it multiple times...and you will likely have to repeat each step over and over and over again until you do it perfectly; I'm talking about doing each "challenge" 30, 40, 50 times, or more, before you can progress to the next step. So, if you found the basic story unpalatable in this regard, then you'll definitely want to avoid crafting "Gen 2" legendary weapons altogether because they will cause you nothing but pain and frustration, for very little in return.

@"GW Noob.6038" said:No, you don't have to do all the story material...but, if you want mastery points you will have to do the story content. If you want to craft a "legendary" weapon you'll not only have to go through all the story content once, you'll have to go through it multiple times...and you will likely have to repeat each step over and over and over again until you do it perfectly; I'm talking about doing each "challenge" 30, 40, 50 times, or more, before you can progress to the next step. So, if you found the basic story unpalatable in this regard, then you'll definitely want to avoid crafting "Gen 2" legendary weapons altogether because they will cause you nothing but pain and frustration, for very little in return.

This is inaccurate. I have a Gen2 legendary, and I have only completed all parts of the story on one character. I have also not completed all the achievements for most parts of the story, nor have I replayed most story steps. I'm not sure what you're struggling to manage that makes you think this is required.

@Taelac.7036 said:

@"GW Noob.6038" said:No, you don't have to do all the story material...but, if you want mastery points you will have to do the story content. If you want to craft a "legendary" weapon you'll not only have to go through all the story content once, you'll have to go through it multiple times...and you will likely have to repeat each step over and over and over again until you do it perfectly; I'm talking about doing each "challenge" 30, 40, 50 times, or more, before you can progress to the next step. So, if you found the basic story unpalatable in this regard, then you'll definitely want to avoid crafting "Gen 2" legendary weapons altogether because they will cause you nothing but pain and frustration, for very little in return.

I was working on the HOPE pistol...until I investigated everything that I would have to do in order to complete it. For one thing, amongst dozens of things, you must have all levels of Legendary masteries in order to progress and complete the project...for me, that means that I would need 11 more mastery points to do that; there are a few that can be gotten with some effort, like 'Triple Trouble', for example. But others require a huge amount of effort to acquire, or so I've been told...I will never know because I will never craft a "Gen 2" legendary weapon-skin. At any rate, the point is is that crafting a 'Gen 2' legendary weapon is going to involve a heck of a lot of effort for very little in return...and, if the OP finds the personal story to be work he will find crafting the Gen 2 legendary's to be like climbing a mountain (and being robbed at every point along the way), only to receive a weapon-skin at the end of it all.

@Skotlex.7580 said:In short, Nope. But it takes a bit of work to get into the maps.

After buying hot, you can just walk through all maps via silverwastes.After buying pof, you can walk through all maps after finishing the intro chapterafter buying a ls chapter, you can access the map by playing the intro to it

in all cases you can avoid the story step if you have a teleport to friend item and ask for someone else to party and wait for you at those maps.For all LS maps, you can buy a portal scroll for your alt characters.

The LS maps have each unique rewards specific to the map, so you may want to figure out which ones you are interested in getting access to. But, the LS4 first map, domain of Istan, has a pretty profitable gold farm, so that's one map you may want to acquire regardless.

Minor correction: the requirements to gain access to a Living World story map vary. Most of the maps allow teleport-to-friend, but not all. Most require completing parts of the story, but not all. Most of the time, the story requirement is one instance, sometimes just dialogue, but in some cases, there are several preliminary steps, not just one.

To simplify that (plus the rest of @Skotlex.7580's summary) into rules of thumb for those who want to avoid story as much as possible:

• For HoT, walk from Silverwastes to reach Verdant Brink, and from there, the other three HoT maps.
• For PoF, take a teleport-to-friend or exit from the desert guild hall (if you have access) and walk to the other maps.
• For Living World story maps, teleport-to-friend. If it works, great, if not, do enough of the story to gain access.
• Additionally for LW maps, buy a portal scroll for each map to allow your other characters access (there's also a one-time purchase of a 'book' to collect the scrolls from each season).

Exceptions: you can walk to Bitterfrost from Frostgorge. You can also walk from Divinity's Reach to Lake Doric, but I think you get an error if you haven't done story with that character.

@GW Noob.6038 said:

@Taelac.7036 said:

@GW Noob.6038 said:No, you don't have to do all the story material...but, if you want mastery points you will have to do the story content. If you want to craft a "legendary" weapon you'll not only have to go through all the story content once, you'll have to go through it multiple times...and you will likely have to repeat each step over and over and over again until you do it perfectly; I'm talking about doing each "challenge" 30, 40, 50 times, or more, before you can progress to the next step. So, if you found the basic story unpalatable in this regard, then you'll definitely want to avoid crafting "Gen 2" legendary weapons altogether because they will cause you nothing but pain and frustration, for very little in return.

Excluding mastery points earned in raids, there are 180 MPs available in the HoT and LS3 maps. Excluding mastery points to complete the raid mastery track, you need only 136 MPs to complete all the HoT and LS3 tracks, leaving 44 you don't have to do at all. You appear to have been given some bad information about how difficult that is to achieve and where you have to go to achieve them (the Triple Trouble mastery points are Core Tyria points, and not relevant to HoT or Gen2 legendaries, for example). I encourage you to do some more research into what is actually required and how to go about it, if only to avoid spreading incorrect information further. {ETA: Clearly I needed to double-check a few things, as well, and I apologize for the incorrect information I initially supplied.} Since this is only tangentially related to the OP's question, though, further discussion on collecting mastery points is probably better left to another thread.

Some things that may be of use to you:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery_point_unlocks#Heart_of_Thorns_mastery_points

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_Thorns_mastery_tracks

Edit due to brain fog that had me thinking the legendary crafting was part of the HoT tracks rather than the Central Tyria tracks:There are 82 MPs available in Central Tyria, with only 49 required to max out all 3 tracks, leaving 33 that don't have to be done at all. It is by no means something that requires dozens of attempts at single achievements.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery_point_unlocks#Central_Tyria_mastery_points

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Central_Tyria_mastery_tracks

@Taelac.7036 said:Excluding mastery points earned in raids, there are 180 MPs available in the HoT and LS3 maps. Excluding mastery points to complete the raid mastery track, you need only 136 MPs to complete all the HoT and LS3 tracks, leaving 44 you don't have to do at all. You appear to have been given some bad information about how difficult that is to achieve and where you have to go to achieve them (the Triple Trouble mastery points are Core Tyria points, and not relevant to HoT or Gen2 legendaries, for example). I encourage you to do some more research into what is actually required and how to go about it, if only to avoid spreading incorrect information further. Since this is only tangentially related to the OP's question, though, further discussion on collecting mastery points is probably better left to another thread.

You have to have the core-Tyria mastery 'Legendary Crafting' maxed out in order to complete a 'Gen 2' legendary weapon...this requires 19 core-Tyria mastery points to accomplish. So, no, they are not irrelevant - they are fundamental to the crafting process. Have you even ever crafted a legendary weapon before? It doesn't sound like you have...how else would you not know about that basic requirement?

@GW Noob.6038 said:

@Taelac.7036 said:Excluding mastery points earned in raids, there are 180 MPs available in the HoT and LS3 maps. Excluding mastery points to complete the raid mastery track, you need only 136 MPs to complete all the HoT and LS3 tracks, leaving 44 you don't have to do at all. You appear to have been given some bad information about how difficult that is to achieve and where you have to go to achieve them (the Triple Trouble mastery points are Core Tyria points, and not relevant to HoT or Gen2 legendaries, for example). I encourage you to do some more research into what is actually required and how to go about it, if only to avoid spreading incorrect information further. Since this is only tangentially related to the OP's question, though, further discussion on collecting mastery points is probably better left to another thread.

Three, actually, though you are correct that I was in error about which group of masteries the legendary crafting track was grouped with, it's been that long since I completed it, and I will edit above to correct that. My general point stands that completing it requires nothing like the herculean effort you suggest.