Story order and Expansion Unlocks

[Shooth.6817]

So, my main mesmer is level 60 at the time of writing. I also have a level 26 thief on the side.I want to unlock the specializations, but I also want to do the story in order so I don't spoil anything for myself.When I looked it up it seems the order is like this:

• Personal story
• Living World Season 1 Summary
• Living World Season 2
• Heart of Thorns story
• Living World Season 3
• Path of Fire story
• Living World Season 4
• The Icebrood Saga

I understand that I would need to purchase living world separately and I'm fine with that.I am very interested in thief's daredevil spec and mesmser's mirage spec. From what I read, daredevil comes from HoT and Mirage comes from PoF.

If I want to follow the story, would it be more appropriate for me to play thief first all the way till I finish HoT and then come back to my mesmer when I get to PoF?or should I just focus on one character (the mesmer) all the way through season 2, HoT, season 3 and PoF before switching back to my thief?Lastly, I've been pretty much playing solo up till now - would I need a party to do all these? or can it all be done solo?

[Linken.6345]

It dont matter aslong as you get enough hero points to unlock a elite spec you can unlock mirage or thief daredevil while playing core even, if you wish.

All you have to do is be 80 and get the 250 hero points from some were (core, hot, pof).

Play what ever you feel like and all stories are possible solo.Last mission in hot got a challenge mode that I would advice you get a group of 5 for.

[Seera.5916]

Class wise, play whatever you want.

Whether or not you can solo the story missions will depend on your skill level and the demands of the story step. But all are designed to be doable solo.

[Veprovina.4876]

You can do all the story solo. Even if you die, there's always a checkpoint which often just respawns you in the middle of the fight exactly where you left off. So it doesn't matter, you can just throw yourself at the problem until it resolves itself. :smile:

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@"Shooth.6817" said:So, my main mesmer is level 60 at the time of writing. I also have a level 26 thief on the side.I want to unlock the specializations, but I also want to do the story in order so I don't spoil anything for myself.When I looked it up it seems the order is like this:

• Personal story
• Living World Season 1 Summary
• Living World Season 2
• Heart of Thorns story
• Living World Season 3
• Path of Fire story
• Living World Season 4
• The Icebrood Saga

I understand that I would need to purchase living world separately and I'm fine with that.I am very interested in thief's daredevil spec and mesmser's mirage spec. From what I read, daredevil comes from HoT and Mirage comes from PoF.

If I want to follow the story, would it be more appropriate for me to play thief first all the way till I finish HoT and then come back to my mesmer when I get to PoF?or should I just focus on one character (the mesmer) all the way through season 2, HoT, season 3 and PoF before switching back to my thief?Lastly, I've been pretty much playing solo up till now - would I need a party to do all these? or can it all be done so

Do some map completion as that way you get mats, gear that can be salvaged to be sold or store (in Material Storage). Do sell it in Black Lion Trade Company (short: BLTC or BLTP) as you can also sell most things to NPC, but to very low price compared to what you can get on BLTP.

Not everything low level item can be sold or even salvaged, but it useful to know your options and also remember that items on BLTP will have a tax and a fee added, so don't put price too high. On left side if you accept that price it will be sold directly or you can list it if you pick a price that is higher then on left side (the price you see on right side is listed prices) as seller. If instead you want to buy something then it is reversed and you accept the price on left side or put up an buy order on right side. In any case always make sure you have the right quantity (you put in a number or use a slider). When you do a buy order you will need to have enough Gold to put up it on list (same if are a seller as you will need to pay tax and fee). In case you regret or will cancel something change to history view, list item after date, price etc to find what you want to change and then you can get your item back minus a fee or your Gold if you put up a buy order. At NPC vendors your can regret to sell items if it turns out it is a mistake, but only as long you don't change map (change tab with circle symbol).

Core map (Tyria) will give you Hero Challenges that will give Hero Points from which is needed to unlock your characters skills and traits. This will take some time to do and during that time you also have your Personal Story that progress into that point you are going to meet your first dragon. Unlocking POI and Waypoints (WP) is important as you will later want to be able to get close to events or be able jump on maps where are a group people doing something. Some WP can become blocked when there is battle going on and force you to another WP. Map completion is on character level meaning with two character (Daredevil and Mirage) you will have to do it two at least two times, if you don't want to buy WP unlocks from Gem Store or have friends that can party up and use an item to "Teleport to friend". Read more here about your options related to get around from here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Waypoint - don't forget that PvP Lobby and WvW Panel offer free options to get fast to major cities and other services.

There are three alliances or Orders that you pick between (Vigil - soldier, Whisper - spy/information and Priory - knowledge, academic) each with its own backstory and relationship. You also will have some minor support races that will do some services to gain their trust and support to fight your first Dragon with. Who and why you pick as race or Order is not that important (there is some achievement to make people try different combination and your own race have some impact on how some NPCs will react or comment later in game without making any major change for future game play).

Anyway I will suggest to finish up Personal Story as game will default every time you finish LW or expansion story back to PS, until you finish this as for Story Journal and map guide (green dot - green text below minimap). Use ESC - key and look in Option for how you want your minimap to show guiding symbol for Story or events (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Options). When doing map completion I often disable Story guiding as this instead will show closest POI, Vista and WP. Turn your character in that direction, open main map and look how to get where you will see lightly lit up symbol for where minimap is guiding you. Just be aware that you might have to go around obstacles like buildings, mountains or even find right elevation (level of map from underground up to the sky level). There are small arrows pointing up or down in those cases, but it is still something one have to keep mind and without mounts it can be harder to get there as you need to do jumping puzzle like exploration to get to some places. With Gliding you can sometimes get to those places and later you will have more tolls like Springer (replaces some need for Glidings Updraft). If there is a problem to get around try to look up on YT how to get there or GW2 wiki.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personal_story#Act_2:_The_Orders

Combining this PS and map completion will gradually open up all WP you need and make it easier going from each city (which is related to which race you picked as the first city to start from - use those portal Asuara gates from city to city and you now have easier to open up rest of map).

Just a warning as for most Story is in an Instanced world which means you will have borders to watch out to not get kicked out of that Instance. Some places it can be really narrow before you get a warning or in worse case just get kicked. Look at map how close you will to the greyed out part of map. When you work for achievement from story, it is possible to replay the same story again after first time playing through it. The pointers for where to go will change colour from green to a dark pink colour and will work as to split up some story parts, so you don't have to start it all over from the beginning after first play through. This depends on story and is not a general rule, so you have to look at map as finish more and more story and where to replay it.

This link to explain how this works:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Story_Journal

I am not sure you can unlock Mastery Points on character that isn't level 80, so at least focus on one character first to get to level 80 and then use Tome of Knowledge that you gain to level up next character. You need to be on that character that you want to increase in level as above level 80 character instead will get a currency that can be used for Mystic Force crafting (explained in link).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tome_of_Knowledge

Here is the level rewards as your progress: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Level_rewardsThere is an achievement for new player (or for player which start with a new character), which you only can do when you level up step by step to level 80.

My advice is you don't rush into Daredevil or Mirage, but learn the basics of Thief and Mesmer as you will still need to use their skills and traits when you play as Mirage or Daredevil which will replace one trait line out of three to get access to these Elites and a new set of Weapon skills (depending on weapon that you can only equip while this trait is active), Utility skill, Healing and Elite skill. Daredevil can use Staff when this trait is active and Mirage can only use Axe. This is important to know as some skills and all weapon skills will be disabled (but weapon still equipped), if you change these Elite trait line. Make sure that under water skill also will work when you happens to be under water (look at Hero Panel and the build section where you can change tab for UW).

To sum it up:Learn the core feature of your characters skills and trait lines before start on going for Elite specs. When you play most story parts you will gradually learn more and more how to use things. Some story are easier to to with at least another person as it can be tricky to do everything as controlling mobs, avoid getting stunned or the main target for a boss. This isn't a big problem in general for the first LW and up to HoT, but after that there are some section that can harder to do solo.

You can find https://www.ayinmaiden.com/ (look for GW2 section) have done a lot of work to explain mechanics and I have used her video on Yourtube both to figure out where to go and how to finish Story parts. There are other YT that have done video guides so you can just search on Google or YT to find out which one that explains things best. Remember that some older videos might not be the same as for how it works today as there have been nerfs to skills and some have even changed over time. There might have been bugs that have been fixed and exploits that might not work anymore and with Mounts and Mastery that today exist some things might be possible that where not possible at that time. Jumping Puzzle can suddenly make your Mount or even Gliding become disabled if you get to close etc. On the other side when you learn how Skyscale work (fully upgraded with Mount Mastery to control mount with skills while in mounted mode) you can jump off your Mount in air (Bond of Faith) and summon Griffon or use Gliding to get to a JP or Vista, even JP that will disable Mount when you get too close (but still have access to Gliding). So all in all there are ways to get around things. If you have trouble with Story then you can use map chat channel (/m) and ask for help.

Most of Story in this game will also gradually introduce you to new map and mechanics including how to use Mastery you have learned. Some Mastery will give passive damage reductions (in HoT map there are area which you can not interact with without taking too much damage from poison - and this is not the one you can use condition removal against) which reduce damage on certain maps, other add new skill like Counter Magic (make sure to have this key bound to something you can use fast when needed on keyboard or mouse) and other introduce new way to do things. There are Mastery you get from just doing Story once and then more Mastery if you can finish certain achievements (often you will need to repeat same Story at least one more time, in some cases it is mutually exclusive goals like you have to pick to do it in one way and then in the opposite way to get that achievement). That is why following a guide might help to avoid getting frustrated and give up.

Good luck!

[mercury ranique.2170]

It depends a lot on how much you want to be spoiled. If you have the appropiate xpac there is a backdoor to get there without doing anything of the story. You do experience the maps though.

To get the elite specialisations you need tons of hero points. You need to do the hero points in those maps.To get there through the backdoor there are two methods.1: a guild with a hall in HoT for HoT or in PoF for PoF. Make sure you find the exit portal in the hall and you are in a map in the xpac.2: Travel to a friendYou can often use herotrains (group of players who advertise as such in the LFG tool) to get those heropoints relativly easy. Many can be done solo however.

However, besides the elite specialisations you likely also want basic gliding and atleast one mount. To do so you need to start the stories before hand.I would recommend1: main story till level 802: PoF first story for mount3: HoT first storysteps untill glider unlock4: get the heropoints for the elite specialisations5: Finish main story except the last instance6: do all story instances for the dungeons (people tend to skip this and they offer a lot of extra story to the main story line)7: finish the main story8: LW s1 recap9: LW s210: HoT11: LWs312: PoF13: LWs414: IcebroodSaga15 EoD??

[Pirogen.9561]

@"Shooth.6817" said:So, my main mesmer is level 60 at the time of writing. ...... mesmser's mirage spec. From what I read, daredevil comes from HoT and Mirage comes from PoF.

If I want to follow the story, would it be more appropriate for me to play thief first all the way till I finish HoT and then come back to my mesmer when I get to PoF?or should I just focus on one character (the mesmer) all the way through season 2, HoT, season 3 and PoF before switching back to my thief?Lastly, I've been pretty much playing solo up till now - would I need a party to do all these? or can it all be done solo?

Mirage? I like this one:

Hard to die, does good damage, not that many buttons to push. Not super easy, but more on the beginers friendly build that can even solo kill scary group oriented monsters. Note: exotic gear is more then enough.

What I'd do(and did):

• get your Mesmer to 80
• while doing that, explore many core maps. You can fill like half of Mirage there
• start PoF to get Raptor mount. You need to do only 1st combat mission
• maybe do, maybe don't: run around PoF map(or two) to fill the rest of Mirage.
• go back and do story in "correct" order

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can also earn Hero Points in WvW. If you'd rather earn the Elite Specializations before the Stories or the expansion maps.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Proof_of_Heroicshttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Testimony_of_Heroics

Welcome to Tyria, and good luck!

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Actually ig you want to have some fun, I'd argue against getting mounts before PoF (or at least before S3). HoT feels much bigger and filled with content when on foot. Iunlocked the glider around S2, as ideally you don't get spoiled of what happens next, since it's pretty self-explanatory in the story.

Also there is WvW. Gathering proof of heroics can get you Hero points from HoT and PoF (and Core) without the need to visit those maps and/or get spoiled on them before doing their story. Proof of heroics can be spent in the heroic notaries vendor and rn I'm gathering them for the EoD specs. Of course you need to play WvW a bit. Get some camps, some sentries, accumulate pips and get the Proof.