New Player Need Advice

[ProcheL Dreyfus.5327]

I started the game and I have a playing time of 70 hours. I have the first 2 expansion packs. I reached level 80, made another character 80 level with the booster, I completed some maps, finished the personal story. I bought exotic items for the character. I don't know what to do now. I completed a few dungeons in fractal of the mists, but now it has become very difficult. Are mounts easy to unlock, should I try for them or is there something I need to do before? Can you give some advice on what I should do?

[bq pd.2148]

while there are many things you could do based on preference lets start with what you are already seeking:

16 minutes ago, ProcheL Dreyfus.5327 said:

Are mounts easy to unlock, should I try for them or is there something I need to do before? Can you give some advice on what I should do?

Path of Fire expansion has the masteries for the Mounts. if you do not care about playing the story in order, you could skip ahead to it and you will naturally unlock a variety of mounts while playing the story and exploring the desert maps.

Heart of Thorns has the gliding masteries which also help alot in getting around if you want to play the story in order.

whenever you are on a core tyria map i would advice to train towards the mastery for autoloot if you dont have that already - legendary crafting is kind of a trap mastery.

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, ProcheL Dreyfus.5327 said:

I started the game and I have a playing time of 70 hours. I have the first 2 expansion packs. I reached level 80, made another character 80 level with the booster, I completed some maps, finished the personal story. I bought exotic items for the character. I don't know what to do now. I completed a few dungeons in fractal of the mists, but now it has become very difficult. Are mounts easy to unlock, should I try for them or is there something I need to do before? Can you give some advice on what I should do?

When you say it has become very difficult are you talking about fractals or open world/story content playing by yourself?

Fractals are the one area of the game where there is somewhat of a vertical progression.  If you've only done a few (presumably) tier 1 fractals, you won't have seen much of this yet.  But in order to progress further up the fractal levels you'll need to begin acquiring ascended gear.  Note that this won't actually increase your power level significantly (about 5% stat gain over exotic), but it will allow you to slot agony resistance which counters the agony mechanic that builds as you move up in fractal level.

If you're talking open world, you've probably started on expansion content and noticed the big jump up in difficulty over the core game.  There is definitely a bit of a learning curve for new players here, but there are some things you can do to make life easier.  First, identify a good open world build that suits your needs.  If you find yourself struggling to survive while also running up against enemies that seem like they take far too long to kill for how much damage they deal in return, chances are you need a better build.  This will likely involve unlocking an elite spec for your class by completing hero point challenges in the expansion.

If you share with us which class you're using, we can make some suggestions on good open world builds for new players.

[ProcheL Dreyfus.5327]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

When you say it has become very difficult are you talking about fractals or open world/story content playing by yourself?

Fractals are the one area of the game where there is somewhat of a vertical progression.  If you've only done a few (presumably) tier 1 fractals, you won't have seen much of this yet.  But in order to progress further up the fractal levels you'll need to begin acquiring ascended gear.  Note that this won't actually increase your power level significantly (about 5% stat gain over exotic), but it will allow you to slot agony resistance which counters the agony mechanic that builds as you move up in fractal level.

If you're talking open world, you've probably started on expansion content and noticed the big jump up in difficulty over the core game.  There is definitely a bit of a learning curve for new players here, but there are some things you can do to make life easier.  First, identify a good open world build that suits your needs.  If you find yourself struggling to survive while also running up against enemies that seem like they take far too long to kill for how much damage they deal in return, chances are you need a better build.  This will likely involve unlocking an elite spec for your class by completing hero point challenges in the expansion.

If you share with us which class you're using, we can make some suggestions on good open world builds for new players.

I must have reached certain tier1 level 15 for fractals. It got pretty tough in terms of damage and durability. It started to be the same in the open world, I have exotic items, but I started to have a lot of trouble with damage and durability. I have ranger and necromancer as characters. I prefer ranger.

 

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by ProcheL Dreyfus.5327

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, ProcheL Dreyfus.5327 said:

I must have reached certain tier1 level 15 for fractals. It got pretty tough in terms of damage and durability. It started to be the same in the open world, I have exotic items, but I started to have a lot of trouble with damage and durability. I have ranger and necromancer as characters. I prefer ranger.

 

 

If you want more durable builds look up Lord Hizen on YouTube.  That should help.

[ProcheL Dreyfus.5327]

13 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If you want more durable builds look up Lord Hizen on YouTube.  That should help.

thanks

 

[Kovac.4372]

I would advise to remember to earn Mastery points, as those are harder to accumulate than experience. Especially with core Tyria I find myself too often stuck on max XP but with not Mastery points to unlock the next tier, so my earned XP literally goes to waste.

You get a lot from story achievements.

[Dayra.7405]

48 minutes ago, Kovac.4372 said:

Mastery points to unlock the next tier, so my earned XP literally goes to waste.

Your Xp goes to (hidden) spirit shards not to waste.

[starlinvf.1358]

Is this like scene in Make Love, not Warcraft where the boys are like.... 

 

 

Don't live your life in a game with blinders now.  So much of this game easily takes you down all kinds of rabbit holes.  All you have to do is be willing to take in the world, and curiosity will show you so many options, it'll drive you insane.   Go do a collection.  Go do that other collection.   Notice you got achievement points for doing a jumping puzzle? How many more are there?  Go dive off of all the tallest places in Tyria... theres an achievement for that too.  Go do World Vs World.   Go to the Four winds Festival, and yell at players during the race like their on coming traffic.  Theres literal tons of story missions you're not even close to being done with.  Or just for the throat and start making legendary weapons as a hobby. 

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

Heart of Thorns is a huge leap in difficulty from the core game (open world PvE).  Everything in the jungle wants to kill you, including those cute little pocket raptors...that have been heavily nerfed since HoT came out.  HoT is really based around groups of people doing events to progress the map forward towards the map meta event(s). 

Path of Fire is actually easier, from a solo point of view, than HoT.  But that doesn't mean it is face-roll easy, either.  And those canids are...abominations that follow you FOREVER.  Good news is that you get your first mount - the raptor - for completing the first real story instance in the Desert (technically there is a short story instance in Lion's Arch, but that is just talking to Kiel).

So there are a few things to check when you are new and start having issues:

1. Do you have a good build for what you're trying to do?  Metabattle and YT videos can help with that.
2. Does your armor match your build, and are you using the right stats?  Exotic armor is fine, I have spent most of my time in this game in Exotic and went all the way through HoT, Season 2, PoF, and Season 3 with Exotics.  Ascended is better, but not required (except fractals, blah, blah, blah).
3. Do you have a full set of 6 matching Superior Runes on your armor and Superior Sigils on your weapons?  They make a huge difference.
4. Are you running with exotic trinkets (rings, amulet, earrings/accessories, and back item)?  Those are a huge part of stats.
5. If you picked up any stat-selectable equipment, have you actually selected the stats on them?  There is warning in the UI about this, but, it still happens to the best of us from time to time.
6. LEARN YOUR CC SKILLS!  HoT and, to a (slightly) lesser extent, PoF require CC skills to break defiance bars (blue/cyan bar that shows up under the boss's HP bar).  When I run around HoT maps on my warrior (main), I normally have between 4 and 5 CC's between my weapons and my utility skills.  If you need help or want to learn about CC's in GW2, just type /wiki CC in chat in game and it will take you to the wiki article on Crowd Control skills.  It's got a ton of great info on CC skills. 

Good luck!  And don't lose heart, many of us have been at this game for years and still get our butts handed to us from time to time.  🙂