What to do at level 80? Not complaining, I'm liking game a lot!!

[Risenzealot]

So I'm just looking for suggestions on what to do once I hit 80. I play as an Engineer and have really been enjoying it. I'm level 76 now and figure I'll hit 80 sometime tonight after work. Now I know Guild Wars is different then many MMO's and that the journey and exploration isn't close to being over as hitting 80 isn't really the "end game".

So far I've just been following and trying to complete all of the adventure guides. I also make sure to completely finish every map once I get to one for the first time.For info, I do own all of the expansions and living world seasons. I made sure to purchase them all. I have zero problem grinding out these maps and not leveling (because heck, it's fun!) but I am wondering if I should side track that for anything specific once I do hit 80.

So far I've leveled Huntsman all the way up and I hope when I hit 80 I can craft a decent enough weapon to last me for awhile. I think it may be a good idea to level up some type of armor crafting too but I'm not sure.

My original plan was to simply hit 80 and then play through the game in chronological order. What got me second guessing that though was when I asked someone if I'd get my jade golem at 80 as an engineer. They told me no, that you get it from the last expansion.

After doing some research I then found out that I won't get the other mounts until I do specific quest lines either. I guess I'm kind of bummed because I really wanted to play the story completely through in order so that it would make sense. It seems though that if I do this I will be missing out on a lot of stuff until I actually get to these quest lines.

So with all of that said.Is there anything specific you all would recommend someone do once they hit 80 on their first character? Maybe a check list so to speak. If not, should I simply just continue to do nothing but story quests to unlock all the perks, and then go and finish all the maps?

Sorry for writing such a long post. I appreciate anyone and every ones advice or suggestions!

[Nico]

The first thing you should do is buying proper exotic lvl 80 weapons and armor from the trading post. That should be cheaper than craftign it by yourself. Unless you already have lvl 400 in the needed professions, then it's maybe somewhat similar expensive.
Ideally you also want to get ascended trinkets, but you can get them somewhat easy on some of the living world maps. Ascended rings are also easy to get in fractals. Speaking of fractals, they are also one of the end game content, so you can also check them out whenever you want. But you probably can't get to too high level yet, since for them you need agony resistance which only fits into ascended gear.

After getting your gear it surely is no bad idea to just chronically play through the story. But be aware of that season 1 is incomplete and also, the last point on the chronic, scarlets war, is just a video that summarizes season 1.

Btw, as you maybe already noticed, once you are lvl 80 (and I guess found at least one mastery point in tyria) all your EXP will go towards masteries that you can unlock. Some of them are also needed to progress in the story later on.

And about mounts ... you really don't need them. We all had to play through all of HoT and season 3 without havign access to any of them and we were also fine. And you even have the Raptor to make it easier. But if you really want some of them you could just jump to the PoF maps and do the required heart quests to get 3 more mounts. All other mounts require way more work, some of them even require the living world season 4.

It's also not like you must go through the story as quickly as possible. While doing the story you will have to go through all maps, and you ofc can freely explore those before continuing with the story ... also since you must do that since you need some EXP for masteries. But in general, from season 2 onwards the maps are in general way more interesting. Many have meta events and many hidden secrets and also tons of achievements for every single new map.

[Xeph The Tamagotchi]

Originally posted by Risenzealot:

So I'm just looking for suggestions on what to do once I hit 80. I play as an Engineer and have really been enjoying it. I'm level 76 now and figure I'll hit 80 sometime tonight after work. Now I know Guild Wars is different then many MMO's and that the journey and exploration isn't close to being over as hitting 80 isn't really the "end game".

So far I've just been following and trying to complete all of the adventure guides. I also make sure to completely finish every map once I get to one for the first time.For info, I do own all of the expansions and living world seasons. I made sure to purchase them all. I have zero problem grinding out these maps and not leveling (because heck, it's fun!) but I am wondering if I should side track that for anything specific once I do hit 80.

So far I've leveled Huntsman all the way up and I hope when I hit 80 I can craft a decent enough weapon to last me for awhile. I think it may be a good idea to level up some type of armor crafting too but I'm not sure.

My original plan was to simply hit 80 and then play through the game in chronological order. What got me second guessing that though was when I asked someone if I'd get my jade golem at 80 as an engineer. They told me no, that you get it from the last expansion.

After doing some research I then found out that I won't get the other mounts until I do specific quest lines either. I guess I'm kind of bummed because I really wanted to play the story completely through in order so that it would make sense. It seems though that if I do this I will be missing out on a lot of stuff until I actually get to these quest lines.

So with all of that said.Is there anything specific you all would recommend someone do once they hit 80 on their first character? Maybe a check list so to speak. If not, should I simply just continue to do nothing but story quests to unlock all the perks, and then go and finish all the maps?

Sorry for writing such a long post. I appreciate anyone and every ones advice or suggestions!

ok, i will do my best to help you on this. once 80 i recomend doing your personal story, its long but its quite good. then living story in order up to the expansion and so on.

Mechanist (golem engie) is an elite spec, you NEED the newest expansion to start to unlock it, the elites for engineer are as followed. heart of thorns= Scrapper (hammer user) Path of Fire= Holo Smith (sword user kinda light saber like) and End of Dragons= Mechanist (mace) i personally don't use mace with my mechanist i use rifle but yea.

[SeaDog]

If you do dungeons for a while you will earn dungeon currency that will allow you to get core exotic armor for free.

Should definitely do the stories. They will open up maps that are only available that way. Mounts kind of unlock while you do the stories as well. Not really unlock but the quests show up at the appropriate time when you need to do the maps in the expansions to complete the stories.

Gliding is a priority. Use your first mastery points in HoT to get to level 2 of your gliding track which will allow you to use thermal.

Once you get gliding you can finish out your hero points using the HP trains found in the group finder of HoT and PoF. Good commanders will make sure that you can get everywhere you need to with just gliding and a raptor.

Once you get your HP and unlock your elite specs you can get more free armor by doing events in HoT. The currency you want is airship parts. Use it to by bladed armor boxes that have stat selectable gear.

Of course, while you are doing any of this stuff you will be earning gold and getting raws that you can use to get most any gear you want either by crafting or just buying it off the TP.

Have fun.

[Septimus Prime]

Check these:

1) Everything To Do In Guild Wars 2 And Why!

https://youtu.be/iS54uJmPo3k

2) ALL CONTENT TYPES IN GUILD WARS 2 Showcased In 1 HOUR!

https://youtu.be/ahj8TagEGN0

3) What Should I Prioritize At Level 80? - A New Player Quick-Start Guide

https://youtu.be/cXGTxJAiEpA

[Tyrian Mollusk]

Originally posted by Risenzealot:

After doing some research I then found out that I won't get the other mounts until I do specific quest lines either. I guess I'm kind of bummed because I really wanted to play the story completely through in order so that it would make sense. It seems though that if I do this I will be missing out on a lot of stuff until I actually get to these quest lines.

So with all of that said.Is there anything specific you all would recommend someone do once they hit 80 on their first character? Maybe a check list so to speak. If not, should I simply just continue to do nothing but story quests to unlock all the perks, and then go and finish all the maps?

So, given your intended way of playing, I'd say there are some things you should short-circuit to do. You can do this without losing your story focus. First, don't worry about all the generic level 80 advice. What to do once leveled is a common question that people have a lot of pat answers too, but it's not really the question you asked, because you already have things you want to do and aren't just fishing for ideas.

I'd skip everything Heart of Thorns until you get to it properly. You won't get your glider, but you can't get much use out of it until then anyway, so if you are focused on story and want that all to have the most impact, definitely better to avoid looking at HoT at all. Be aware HoT story has several blocks where you need masteries to advance, so you can't just go through the story there as soon as you get there.

I would go ahead and get Path of Fire open properly, though, and play around there a while. You can switch your language and start the story to keep spoilers down, then come back later and do it properly. You don't need story progression to unlock the other basic mounts (not really sure how opening the expansion works now that you get a raptor while leveling), so you can explore the Path of Fire areas getting mastery points and XP to upgrade the raptor leap (which is good for keeping it speedy, too), then you can unlock the springer (upgrading its jump is also helpful), and then go for the skimmer. I'd probably stop there. The jackal isn't much use outside Path of Fire, so it can wait until you get there, and the griffon requires completing the entire Path of Fire story, so you just cannot get that one and also do story in order. Beetle and skyscale are locked in living season chapters, and you won't be able to get skyscale reasonably, but you can reasonably sequence break to work on the beetle if you want to play with the racing aspect. Not a big deal either way, there.

You do NOT need to do any End of Dragons story to use an elite spec from its expansion. You just need the hero points to spend on the spec, and you can get a lot of those in Path of Fire while you are doing your mounts. End of Dragons also has a lot of easy hero points, but I'm not sure you can just go there without starting the EoD story, which has a lengthy sequence of talk and battle that's full of pretty unignorable spoilers before you are even allowed to touch the new maps. You might be able to go there without doing story by joining a guild with an EoD guild hall, and using its Cantha exit to enter the zone. If so, that will easily take care of the hero points you need for an elite spec. You don't need all the hero points to play an elite spec, so if you are excited for the mechanist, go ahead and open it as soon as you get 40. It will get stronger as you get more points for traits, but be aware progress will be unreasonably slow getting them in the base game instead of the expansions.

Another option is to bring a friend over and have them play the story openings while you don't watch. You only need the beginnings once on your account, and can restart them easily later when you get to them.

Basically, walking around in PoF and EoD are not particularly spoilery, but HoT definitely is. PoF and EoD both are good for hero points to unlock elite specs, and getting some PoF masteries unlocked makes the mounts better and avoids/reduces story blocks later.

I would prioritize moving through the story up to HoT above doing map completion (because HoT is a bid deal and you have a lot to do there before you can progress the story through to the end anyway, due to mastery locks, but also because doing that will explain the Silverwastes during LS2, which is a fun place to make gold), but on the other hand, you can't finish living season 1 until the last episode is out in November or December, so that's a pretty big block for someone with a story focus. Maybe getting mounts and hero points will help stall that out some, or you can deal with skipping LS1 like basically everyone else has had to put up with the past many years while it wasn't in the game. You'll have to decide how you weigh that.

[Shrek 2 On DVD]

Once you hit 80, a lot of the game is all about account goals.

End game in GW2 is literally everything and your account.

What that means is in your achievement tab, you have a general sense of what to work towards but you have to set those goals yourself.

Raids aren't a gear grind so if you like raids, you're doing them cuz you want to and to get better. There's titles, Skins and other stuff. Titles are simple, complete the set achievement goals. Skins, you have to kill that boss and open the ability to get it from a vendor OR rng drop.

Fractals are an account based level system, the only thing gating you is ascended gear and Agony resistance. So if you have another character and it's lvl 80, then you can do fractals up to the level you have unlocked BUT you're going to need agony resistance for that.

There's farms for anything you can think of, Money, Loot, Achievement, XP.

I do suggest playing the expansions in order, some of it can be confusing to be thrown in and then having to figure out are we fighting a dragon? a god? or both? The story on most of the living season maps isn't that long at most 3-5 hours. The living season maps are a preparation for the next map to help your account move along and to play a bit of "catch up." Some maps will have a farm for an ascended amulet, ring, backpiece, accessories, or skins.

Fractals are their own things, so there's no real overall story just a minor Lore dump.
Raids are directly connected to story BUT not really a part of the story. Only in 1 instance is it correlating to the story and that's for BloodStone Fen. It just explains why the zone is all wacky.

Overall it can feel easy to be overwhelmed by 10 years of content. Just take it as it comes and do it all however you feel is correct, You don't even have to take my advice on anything i've said.

Main thing is Set a goal for yourself and the road of content towards that goal will set itself up for you.

1 Tip: You can wiki anything in the game. in chat type /wiki a space and the item or thing. If you want a timer for when something is up for example /wiki event timers

/wiki Event timers
/wiki meteorlogicus
/wiki asura
/wiki raids

You can find a use for that stupid item in your inventory by typing /wiki and linking it in chat with Shift+left click.

Lastly, enjoy.

[Burgers_And_Beer]

honestly just play the story in order. you wont be overwhelmed and wanna keep playing especially later on when new mechanics are constantly introduced.

dont worry about mounts until path of fire - mounts in this game have very unique movement abilities which were mainly designed to move around the areas in path of fire.

[Tenshi]

If you want mounts now, you have to skip to Path of Fire to unlock it. You can start unlocking elite specialisations right after you unlock everything else. Otherwise, playing through the story will eventually lead you to almost everything. Don't forget to try fractals t1 so you can start making some cash on the side.

[Tyrian Mollusk]

Originally posted by Harald 3 March:

dont worry about mounts until path of fire - mounts in this game have very unique movement abilities which were mainly designed to move around the areas in path of fire.

Mounts are fantastic to have in Heart of Thorns, necessary for End of Dragons (which expects you to have at least a couple of them enough that they give you basic versions if you don't have PoF), and very nice to have everywhere else.

[Zimf]

I would always recommend playing through the entire story from the start. though id say skip LW1 for now as they have not finished bringing it back into the game just yet. In order it would be LW2 - HoT - LW3 - PoF - LW4 - IBS - EoD.

another reason i would recommend this is the "Return to" achievements which you can find under side stories in your achievement tab. you can basically do them side by side with the story (living world ones) and after you have done them all you get a nice bag, precursor weapon and a legendary amulet. These achievements also shower you with map currencies which will help you gear up and makes getting the skyskale mount (LW4) almost trivial.

The biggest thing you need to decide is whether you want to unlock your preferred elite spec first before starting this journey. If you are on EU realms you can hit me up and i will gladly help you :D

[Saber]

If you want to get mechanist . Without spoiling yourself its not impossible . You do get more then enough hero points from core maps to unlock it . And if you want to do it faster any of the expansion zones give 10 each hero point on the map .

Same kind of goes for mounts . You should already have raptor unlocked now .
Springer , Skimmer and jackal are also from hearts The only bit you might be missing is trade contracts .Those you can get from events or meta events on the maps . THe first one in the desert region "Casino Blitz
" does not have much in terms of story progression or spoilers and it should give you bunch of trade contracts .

With some help you should get the spec and the mounts in ~2-3h tops also for some locations mesmer friend would help out a lot .

Also considering you might need help leave your acc name example : pancakesrulle.8745

It helps if you tell people if you are on NA or EU . That way you can get help from the same megaserver .

[El Naso]

I tried to keep it short but I couldn't. Here we go:

- Buy a full exotic set of armor and weapons with Berserker's* stats off the TP.**
- Buy a set of 6 Superior Runes of the Scholar, or buy Strength runes dirt cheap and slowly work towards scholar.
- Do dailies for easy gold.
- Sell materials in your material storage, you'll need gold more than materials at first.
- Join a guild and take part in their activities. Can't stress enough how important this is.
- Continue the story to unlock more maps.
- When in HoT, join a Hero Point train.
- When the next festival hits, make sure to participate, fun guaranteed!

* Important note on Berserker's equipment: Berserker's is a prefix some (but not all! eg: Nika's, Devona's, Zhed's) equipment has. What the community means by "berserker's" is gear with power, precision and ferocity, in that order and with power as the highest stat. When browsing the TP for equipment, search by stats, filter by armor class/weapon type, rarity and level and order by price to find the cheapest option aviable.

** If you want a cheaper alternative, you can buy a set of Rubicon armor for karma from Jonez in the Cathedral of Silence, in Cursed Shore. Though the full set costs 252,000 karma, it costs zero gold! Still gonna need runes tho.

[Livy]

Would say that 70-79 exotic gear is fairly decent to buy to get going at max level until you get BIS gear. Once you get crafting to max you can start craftign ascended armor pieces for 30-40g per piece.

[Risenzealot]

Thank you all for the awesome replies! It's a LOT to think about and take in lol. Looks like I have a lot of gaming time/life left for me in this game :)

[Nico]

Originally posted by Risenzealot:

Thank you all for the awesome replies! It's a LOT to think about and take in lol. Looks like I have a lot of gaming time/life left for me in this game :)

Well, many players say that the game only really starts once you reach lvl 80, so yeah, you surely still have lots of stuff left to do.