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Just boosted to 80. Now what?


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Hello,

Recently did the boost to 80. However I noticed there is a lot I don't know about the game and was wondering if it's useful to go back and finish the original story line and map before I go to HoT or PoF. I have been dabbling around in the expansions now for a few days and got the raptor and Springer mounts and learning what I can. Definately a fun experience...but it does feel like something is missing.

Would it be a complete waste of time to do all the hearts and stuff in the old map? Or just starting working on dungeons and fractals and/or PoF/Hot?

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GW2 endgame has a bit of a "choose your own adventure" feel to it owing to the fact that it's less linear than "treadmill" MMOs. You just have to pick something to try and go for it!

PvP? WvW? Raids? Fractals? Open world? Story? Achievements? Skins? What do you think you want to put time toward?

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@alphastarpilot.9567 said:

However I noticed there is a lot I don't know about the game and was wondering if it's useful to go back and finish the original story line

[ snip]

Would it be a complete waste of time to do all the hearts and stuff in the old map?

There's a list of practical benefits to doing it, especially if you eventually plan to do some high level crafting. But if I'm reading your post right: it'll give you a basis for getting into your Commander and the story and characters that surround them.

Be warned- While Rytlock does appear in the core game the rest of the pals you're currently with in the desert with all get introduced in content that is no longer playable. If you want to get to know Dragon's Watch naturally you will have a mild gap if you start with Season 2 but you can very quickly catch up. That gap gets a bit deeper in HoT and as you can tell by PoF it's like starting a TV show in season 4.

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Practical reasons for doing old maps, eventually at least

  1. Exploration is a big part of the game in general and full zone exploration grants achievement rewards. They are minor but do include things like transmutation charges and black lion keys (keys, unlike chests, are rare)
  2. Waypoints. GW2 unlike many other games has daily achievement activities, world bosses, guild missions, and other things that take place in the core "low level" zones. You'll need those waypoints unlocked to easily get to where the action is.
  3. Core Mastery points and core mastery xp
  4. "Free" Crafting materials. The core zone heart npc's turn into karma vendors and often sell useful things for karma points which are things you eventually end up with a ton of by just playing basically making this stuff practically freebies
  5. Dry Top and Silverwastes are end-game zones and the meta events in Silverwastes are very active (Silverwastes is where you first went with to try out the level 80 boost).That's all I can think of for now. It's not something you have to drop everything and do right away but I feel like exploring as much of the world is very useful in the long run.

In my opinion, the story writing, especially the core zone personal story, is OK at best but generally uninteresting and has no real twists or turns that impact what you need to do at any point in the game. Frankly I'm just here to kill and loot and I don't care about "why" because as far as every NPC is concerned I'm the good guy, their Champion, their Commander, and I can do no wrong and my choices have no relevance to what happens next so I may as well engage in murder, mayhem and robbery on a massive scale because that's the most profitable thing to do. Honestly, that's like most other games of this type. It is worth doing at least once and can make the game more interesting in the long run.

As far as being level 80 and new to the game and not really being sure what to do... Personally, I would start on the Path of Fire expansion. Path of Fire is fairly straight forward as far as content goes. Finish PoF and get all the PoF mounts, including the griffon. Then do the Living World 4 content. Get the Skyscale mount (which will require you to go all over the world). Then do Heart of Thorns. Then do Living World 3 dlc and Living World 5 (Icebrood saga) dlc. Then do any remaining core zones and living world 2. Your mounts, and other mastery abilities, are account wide and your next character at level 1 will be able to mount up and zip through plenty of stuff.

Getting the mounts, especially the skyscale mount, is a game changer for Heart of Thorns. The HoT zones are a great source of end-game activities and end-game relevant crafting mats, and useful masteries (gliding is great because you can do it in combat). But Verdant Brink and Tangle Depths maps, while popular with many old timers, are extremely frustrating for new players. They are zone wide jumping puzzles and mazes and I found them to be intolerable until I got the PoF bunny mount. Having the Skyscale mount removes all the irritations of those maps and you can focus on player vs enemies instead of player vs environment (I like killing enemies).

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Another thing to keep in mind.

When you complete a golden heart on the map by doing quest tasks in the area - it unlocks an NPC with the heart over their head. You can talk to this NPC and they will sell you special items - trinkets, armor, weapons, miscellaneous stuff... You purchase this stuff with Karma - represented by a purple triangle. You accumulate Karma by completing heart quests and completing the events that spawn around the maps.

When you are a first-time player, it is sometimes worth doing these heart quests in order to unlock the NPCs - not because the equipment is any good for your character. It may or may not be - depending on character level. But because once you purchase a piece of armor, you can unlock the ARMOR SKIN for that armor. That goes onto your account, and now that piece of armor's look will be available to ANY of your characters. All you have to do is spend a transmutation charge, and you can make any piece of armor look like that armor skin you unlocked.

Usually, different heart NPCs around the same map will be offering pieces of the same armor set.

Alternatively, buy-to-play players can get all these armor skins off the Auction House by blowing a lot of money. But you probably don't have a lot of money. So grinding heart vendors naturally is probably still an efficient way to unlock armor skins for later for you.

I wouldn't waste your transmutation charges though until you've acquired a set of level 80 armor you actually want to keep. You'll want to keep your character looking fly, after all.

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