Just hit 80. Questions about what to do next

[Wandering Minstrel.7645]

Greetings,

 

My wife and I are NOT in a guild and just enjoy our own company as a duo. We have both HoT and PoF and just finished playing through the core game and are now 80. Honestly, we aren't lore types and just skip through the story looking for more tangible content. We never got past the 2nd or 3rd episode in our personal stories. Are we missing anything tangible by foregoing the personal story?

 

We're wondering what's optimal to do next. We used our level-80 boost on alts to get raptors and got gliding mastery and used both to get through the main story. Now we're wondering where to pick up from here. Should we start in the HoT maps or PoF maps? Should we take up crafting and work on making our Ascended gear? We're not going to raid, but eventually will want to do Fractals.

 

I like crafting in other MMOs but my wife doesn't and I haven't taken it up here because I assume that with the game's maturity, the market is probably already saturated with everything so the only reason we'll do it is to make our Ascended. Am I wrong about this, is crafting independently viable?

 

Do HoT and PoF stories some with new maps? Is that a reason to do the story lines? Or can we just do map completion there like we did core map completion?

 

Hella fun game from 1-80, and looking forward to the next part of our journey, including picking our Elites and Masteries. But we're kind of confused at all the options. Thanks for any help and suggestions!

[Hoodie.1045]

> @"Wandering Minstrel.7645" said:

> Greetings,

>

> My wife and I are NOT in a guild and just enjoy our own company as a duo. We have both HoT and PoF and just finished playing through the core game and are now 80. Honestly, we aren't lore types and just skip through the story looking for more tangible content. We never got past the 2nd or 3rd episode in our personal stories. Are we missing anything tangible by foregoing the personal story?

 

No, you don't. Unless you're doing any Living World content or the HoT and PoF campaign, you might be confused with what's going on with the story.

 

> We're wondering what's optimal to do next. We used our level-80 boost on alts to get raptors and got gliding mastery and used both to get through the main story. Now we're wondering where to pick up from here. Should we start in the HoT maps or PoF maps? Should we take up crafting and work on making our Ascended gear? We're not going to raid, but eventually will want to do Fractals.

 

It's better in HoT because it's a continuation from the personal story and the first episode from Living World. Save PoF for later, skip any Living World episodes if you're not interested in them.

 

> I like crafting in other MMOs but my wife doesn't and I haven't taken it up here because I assume that with the game's maturity, the market is probably already saturated with everything so the only reason we'll do it is to make our Ascended. Am I wrong about this, is crafting independently viable?

 

Crafting is definitely needed if you want to make ascended gear. Sure, there are other ways of getting ascended gear, but seeing as you both are mainly PvE players, you should definitely craft the gear. I recommend you check the wiki on the professions that you are playing and see which crafting discipline you need for your profession.

 

Most professions have 2 main crafting disciplines and 2 secondary crafting disciplines. For example, warriors have armorsmith and weaponsmith as their main crafting disciplines while the secondaries are jeweler and chef. Everyone should have those 2 same secondary crafting disciplines because they are useful for every profession, especially when it comes to raids and WvW.

 

> Do HoT and PoF stories some with new maps? Is that a reason to do the story lines? Or can we just do map completion there like we did core map completion?

 

You can skip the story if you want when it comes to map completion.

 

> Hella fun game from 1-80, and looking forward to the next part of our journey, including picking our Elites and Masteries. But we're kind of confused at all the options. Thanks for any help and suggestions!

 

When it comes to the elites, it does sound a bit overwhelming, but I'll try my best to give you a very brief description on all of them:

 

1. Engineer: Scrapper (tank), Holosmith (glass cannon)

 

2. Elementalist: Tempest (support), Weaver (damage with some evasion)

 

3. Warrior: Berserker (condition warrior), Spellbreaker (CC warrior)

 

4. Thief: Daredevil (mobility thief with lots of survivability), Deadeye (long ranged sniper)

 

5. Guardian: Dragonhunter (long ranged archer), Firebrand (condition support)

 

6. Ranger: Druid (support), Soulbeast (DPS)

 

7. Mesmer: Chronomancer (DPS), Mirage (condition)

 

8. Necromancer: Reaper (melee DPS), Scourge (conditions)

 

9. Revenant: Herald (tanky support), Renegade (ranged DPS)

[CptAurellian.9537]

With regard to the stories of HoT and PoF, they aren't very special. If you already didn't warm for the first chapters of your personal story, you won't miss them too much. Doing them yields some rewards, but those aren't very notable either unless you are a completionist and want to do certain collections.

 

Concerning crafting, I think you are right with your assumption that the market is already saturated, so you shouldn't expect to make profits from leveling a crafting discipline. The problem is that many lower-level materials are also used for crafting ascended or legendary gear, which is in competition to leveling a crafting profession and makes the stuff relatively expensive, while the output is close to worthless. Besides crafting ascended gear, the weapon-centered professions have an additional benefit in crafting consumables that are useful for fractals and other challenging content, while the armor-centered ones allow you to craft certain useful runes and bags. For those, crafting is often cheaper than buying. Just beware of jeweler, that profession is useless.

[Fluffball.8307]

If you're the type that is open to it, give WvW and PvP a try to. I would personally find playing only PvE pretty dull, but I know some people are into that.

 

Working as a duo you'd have some obvious advantages in those formats.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

One small point not mentioned above. The Living World / Living Story seasons are bridging stories. LW Season 2 bridges from a series of one-off(1) post-Zhaitan events to the beginning of HoT, and Season 3 bridges from the end of HoT to the beginning of PoF. If you want to follow the stories, and you skip the LW seasons, the beginnings of both HoT and PoF will make less than no sense. There are enough clues inside the narrative to dissipate most of the mystery about *what* you're doing, but it will still make no sense as to *why* you're doing it.

 

(1) Really, really one-off. Nobody can play those events any more, not even players who were playing back then. They saw the error of their ways and stopped doing it for LW Season 2.

[Zin Dau.1749]

Determine the elite spec that you want to dedicate to. Unlocking a spec will grant you an exotic weapon unique to that spec; it will also unlock a collection that rewards an ascended weapon of the same type. PoF specialization collections are much easier to fulfill than HoT (frankly the latter are not worth the trouble or costs). Fully training all the spec's traits and skills will give you an armor piece.

 

Therefore, if you have chosen a PoF spec, you can fulfill much of their weapon collection while completing the story. PoF story also unlocks a collection for ascended back item; half the collection is completed by simply finishing the story. Stories will reward a lot of mastery points, besides providing a backstory and most of the map completion for their respective regions. Follow the story closely, and you should have ample MP to unlock all the mounts smoothly.

 

In conclusion, doing the PoF story will provide a smooth progress in terms of elite spec training, unlocking mounts, and some ascended gear. Parts of the story take place in the open world. You can take this time to do the events, HP, and MPs along the way.

 

[Biff.5312]

Most of your options are to expand social activity - get into fractals/raiding/wvw etc. Gearing up to ascended is definitely a good idea, as is at least one map completion. Honestly at lvl 80 your options are so wide open there's really no obvious course to take. Myself, I joined a guild for the first time and focused on crafting.

[Chyanne Waters.8719]

YOU HIT 80 YOU WON THE GAME HAHA

 

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I cringe every time if the identification is 'my wife and I' or 'my husband and I'. Why is this so important? You are an individual and don't have to identify through your partner - especially if you are anonymous on a forum. If someone - even your partner - doesn't like crafting then just do your own and she does something else.

 

If you really don't care about story, do PoF story first since you get more useful pets there. HoT masteries becore rather useless when not on HoT maps and even there it's rather limited. Only gliding is important for the rest. Also you have some core masteries (ironically, getting with HoT) which you can only level when in core maps.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> I cringe every time if the identification is 'my wife and I' or 'my husband and I'. Why is this so important?

 

Because they want to play together, as a shared activity.

 

I mean, it is reasonable that they do some things separately, but there is nothing wrong with wanting to play a social game with a specific person. :)

[Shootsfoot.9276]

> @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> I cringe every time if the identification is 'my wife and I' or 'my husband and I'. Why is this so important? You are an individual and don't have to identify through your partner - especially if you are anonymous on a forum. If someone - even your partner - doesn't like crafting then just do your own and she does something else.

>

> If you really don't care about story, do PoF story first since you get more useful pets there. HoT masteries becore rather useless when not on HoT maps and even there it's rather limited. Only gliding is important for the rest. Also you have some core masteries (ironically, getting with HoT) which you can only level when in core maps.

 

I cringe every time somebody uses the overused word "cringe."