Newbie question

[Dante]

Hello there, so i am completely new to GW2 i will start my first character later today and i have taken a quick look into most of the available classes and i have decided to go Necromancer-Reaper, my question is, is there a guide somewhere on how to start as a necromancer and later on convert to reaper that i can follow to make the leveling process easier or any tips please?

[DarkSlayer197]

Necromancer is a class you can start with but to access Reaper, you need to hit lvl80 and have access to Heart of Thorns. Reaper is an elite spec that requires Heart of Thorns to unlock and you need to be lvl80 to even equip elite specs.

Edit: to add each class has up to 3 elite specs. Necromancer has Reaper, Scourge, & Harbinger. To respec a class is always free and easy.

[Nibbie]

Necromancer is one of the 9 starting classes, you just pick it during character creation. Reaper though is an "Elite Specialization", an advanced class that you can equip on your necromancer, which also requires owning expansions; you won't be able to be a Reaper as F2P, if that's your situation. If you do own the correct expansion for that specialization (Heart of Thorns in this case), then all you need to do is get to max level (80), earn enough Hero Points by completing maps to unlock it, then equip it in your bottom Specialization slot. You can unlock Reaper through base game hero points, but getting enough hero points to max out Reaper will almost certainly require playing on expansion maps as well, since it costs a lot of hero points, and expansion maps give 10 hero points per challenge instead of 1.

As for levelling, the three main things you can do is complete the Character Adventure Guide, complete maps, and complete events. The Character Adventure Guide is a set of achievements meant to guide you and give you ideas on what to do while you level, and completing these achievements gives a lot of xp. Map completion involves exploring the entire map; visiting all the Points of Interest, viewing all the Vistas, and completing all the Renown Hearts and Hero Challenges. All of these give xp, and completing everything in a single map gives bonus rewards, like crafting materials, gear, and potentially Black Lion Keys to unlock special chests. Events are like spontaneous quests that pop up around the map, and give a relatively large chunk of xp for completion, so participating in them while you explore is often a good idea.

[HyperKnight]

To make leveling easier, you can gain XP in areas below your character level by getting auto level scaled so there is no need to rush, just roam until it gets too easy then move farther.

You can make and test a build by going into sPvP lobby and fighting golems and NPC heroes there, the build will be saved so later you'll only need to fill it with hero points.