Guild Wars 2

I love GW2. I love it even more when I play with my guildies. But playing with my guildies has become problematic, because we do not share the same HoT masteries. I’ve grinded to get nearly all masteries completed, but I also have guildies who just do not have the time to play enough to earn even close to that kind of XP. (To illustrate just how little time they have: one of them runs permanently with a birthday booster on. He has only three characters.) This results in them barely having Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms. One has more progress in the Itzel tree, another in the Gliding tree, a third in… well, you get the picture. This significantly limits our chances to enjoy the HoT maps together; several HP are just not reachable for at least one of us and map navigation on the new maps is cool if you have the masteries, but terribly confusing or even a drag if you do not. (Everyone remembers how problematic gliding could be in VB before they had Updrafts, right? Especially if you’re trying to play in a party. Or how bothersome it was to walk around a cliff instead of using Bouncing Mushrooms…)

We feel like we are forced apart. VB might be completed with limited masteries, but after having grinded forever on that map (because I didn’t have the XP to get the masteries to enjoy the other maps on my own; I mostly enjoy exploring), I don’t really want to play there anymore, but my guildies do not get very much further than that. In return, my guildies do not really feel like grinding on their own during the limited time they have to play the game, they’d prefer to play with the group.

I myself took a long break after Wintersday because I got tired from how long it took to get my HoT XP. LW3 helped me a lot to get more XP faster. (It’s also great how little XP it costs to master the new ways of movement compared to in HoT.) I’d love to show these new maps to my guildies, but I cannot until they have completed the story episodes. They all have the episodes unlocked, but as long as they have not played the story, they cannot join me there.

Currently we are limited to doing dungeons together, and as fun as they are, we feel sad for being split up and unable to enjoy HoT and LW3 together. I’m not sure what the solution is, but the problem is how complex navigation on the HoT maps is without the appropriate masteries, and to a lesser extend the limited access to the LW3 maps. If Tomes of Knowledge could be used to gain some HoT XP, this problem would be a lot smaller already, since most of my friends have played enough GW2 before HoT to have earned at least a 100 of them each.

If your guldies aren’t logging in for long enough to get three masteries that I got in a single day, there’s something wrong. Food stacks. Utilities stack. Guild bonus stacks. XP boosters stack. You could level the first masteries pretty kitten ed fast.

If people aren’t playing enough to do it, I’m not sure how much the game should change anyway.

I mean, it’s the same as if they were level 1. You could go back to an early area and play with them, in the same way you can play with them without using your own gliding and jumping mushroom, for the brief periods they’re even online.

In my opinion there’s no real issue here.

you’ll get a lot of feedback from people here. lots of it ugly, telling you that you can just join another guild to play with, if you can’t get current guild to play hot, they can just come back with the next xpac and hopefully that’ll get them on board, and also people who jus say hot maps and exp is easy and they just need to run around a bit and join maps that are completeing the meta.

but you won’t find friends here to sympathize about hot being grindy/difficult/etc. this just ins’t that kind of game

Hot was meant to be grindy to make people play it longer. The mastery system is just part of the grind. Lots of people disliked HOT especially the power creep that came with it. It isn’t going to change. The only options you have are to help them lvl, play in a different area, other mode, or a different game altogether.

I recommend trying the Living Story Season 3 maps. There are some storyline spoilers, but just mostly-mapping the zones can provide quite a few XP and Mastery Points (MPs). Bitterfrost and Lake Doric can be mostly explored without gliding (etc.)

The XP from those counts towards Heart of Thorns (HoT) masteries, and there are a lot more (percentage-wise) MPs available there than in HoT zones.

I prefer to play with guildies too so I can sympathize.

My suggestions would be to:

1. Make sure they are using buffs/boosts to maximize their exp gain (like the one from the Guild Hall).
2. Make sure they are focusing on the most important masteries to get around in HoT – basic flying skills, poison, bouncy mushrooms, advance flying skill. The rest are just bonus.
3. Have a Mesmer in the group to portal those that need it to get around. With a Mesmer, masteries become even less important.
4. The Dragon Stand meta is (and I assume still is) a great place to gain HoT exp to level masteries fast. Even if your guildies have not finished with the other HoT maps, just run through to Dragon Stand and do that with them for good exp and group fun and then return to the other maps at a later time.

Vayne.8563:

I mean, it’s the same as if they were level 1. You could go back to an early area and play with them, in the same way you can play with them without using your own gliding and jumping mushroom, for the brief periods they’re even online.

I agree with this.

It’s like hiking in real life – you don’t leave someone behind because they’re walking slower than you and then complain that the hill was too steep and broke your group up – you go at the pace of the slowest person so you all stay together. (And ideally plan your route in advance based on what everyone is capable of.)

If you were playing with someone who wasn’t level 80 yet you wouldn’t insist they have to come to a level 80 map and then complain that they can’t survive, would you?

So if you’re playing with someone who can’t use updrafts yet then you do things that don’t require updrafts, if they don’t have nuloch wallows then you go the long way around…and so on. Do the other stuff when they’re not online, or when you’re playing with one of the people who does have those masteries unlocked.

Then when your friends do unlock a new mastery you can show them all the cool things they can do with it.

An easy way to gain Heart of Maguuma XP is to do the dailies in the new zones. The chests award a lot of bonus xp. Other tips:

• Park unused toons at the flax farm in VB (you can walk there, almost safely, from the entry point into the zone or use Teleport-to-Friend). Even just whacking 8 veggies/day adds up.
• Hearts in the newest zones are repeatable. Many of them do not require any HoT masteries.
• The bitterfrost berry farm supplies a ton of xp, in addition to the coveted map currencies.

Slow & steady is a perfectly fine way to complete masteries. It’s why it took me about 6-7 months to get to the last tiers (let alone finish).

I get that some people have trouble with VB — I found it a jarring transition and, until I had several tiers of gliding, I spent very little time in any of the HoT maps; it was dull.

However, to say that it’s too hard or that ANet needs to make it easier is to miss the point. If all people needed to do was double-click their overstock of otherwise-useless tomes, the masteries would be all-but-meaningless. The idea is to give people some additional post-80 goals for leveling up, provide reasons for people to spend time in the maps. Those mechanics are defeated if it’s too easy.

Have them do some of the adventures daily (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Adventure). There is some very easy ones and by doing those and getting a gold award you get a free 100k xp per day per adventure.

Tendril Torchers, Salvage Pit, On Wings of Gold, The Ley-Line Run and Beetle Feast are very easy and allow for very simple gold rewards daily. Drone Race is also super easy but requires poison immunity to be able to be rushed through easily.

Otherwise join meta events like the golden city in AB when those are up. Or just do the quest chains on the new maps. Doing the Hero challenges grants a lot of exprience too and has the benefit of allowing you to unlock your elite specialisation as well.

As far as movement skills, if you stick to only VB you will get tired of the map. Most of the new maps don’t require a lot in term of movement requirements (gliding and jumping mushrooms is all that is needed actually) so there is absolutely no reason to not venture to the other maps and explore.

Playing the HoT story and the Living World Season 3 story provides with tons of experience as well.

Honstly, this seems to me a lot more like a “we don’t actually know how to make experience” as to there is none. HoT has been out for close to 2 years. If you haven’t been able to reach experience cap by now, that’s on you. If you joined later or have just started, don’t expect to finish masteries in 1 weekend of casual play. That was never the intended goal.

I would have to say keep with the lowest person in the group for what they can do. Take your time with it. If you want go ahead on an alt and learn things to help everyone else. Guild wars 2 is not going anywhere. Have fun with ur guild at their pace even if u go back to help them. That is what a guild of friends does for each other just make sure that if they are a bit slower on catching up they cannot be invited to somethings here and there.

The goal is to help and play together make sure everyone knows it in the guild. That is if they want to most will not all but most

Flowersunshine.7385:

I love GW2. I love it even more when I play with my guildies. But playing with my guildies has become problematic, because we do not share the same HoT masteries. I’ve grinded to get nearly all masteries completed, but I also have guildies who just do not have the time to play enough to earn even close to that kind of XP. (To illustrate just how little time they have: one of them runs permanently with a birthday booster on. He has only three characters.) This results in them barely having Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms. One has more progress in the Itzel tree, another in the Gliding tree, a third in… well, you get the picture. This significantly limits our chances to enjoy the HoT maps together; several HP are just not reachable for at least one of us and map navigation on the new maps is cool if you have the masteries, but terribly confusing or even a drag if you do not. (Everyone remembers how problematic gliding could be in VB before they had Updrafts, right? Especially if you’re trying to play in a party. Or how bothersome it was to walk around a cliff instead of using Bouncing Mushrooms…)

With 3 characters parked at the VB flax farm you can get enough exp for Gliding, Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms in 2.5 month. That would just take around 5 minutes a day.

I myself took a long break after Wintersday because I got tired from how long it took to get my HoT XP. LW3 helped me a lot to get more XP faster. (It’s also great how little XP it costs to master the new ways of movement compared to in HoT.) I’d love to show these new maps to my guildies, but I cannot until they have completed the story episodes. They all have the episodes unlocked, but as long as they have not played the story, they cannot join me there.

If they have the episodes unlocked they can use a teleport to friend. Except Bitterfrost Frontier. For that they can just walk in through the portal.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but the problem is how complex navigation on the HoT maps is without the appropriate masteries, and to a lesser extend the limited access to the LW3 maps. If Tomes of Knowledge could be used to gain some HoT XP, this problem would be a lot smaller already, since most of my friends have played enough GW2 before HoT to have earned at least a 100 of them each.

At least 90% of both the Jaka Itzel and Pale Reavers event chain can be done with nothing more than walking. The Itzel hunting events also repeat very frequently.

Completely either chain is a minimum of over 100,000 exp.

Sorry but if you are being effective with your time u can pretty much get all masteries really fast. Just hope into the new LW maps and do the dailies, that alone is a mastery unlocked.

The other thing u can do to get around masteries (something people do for HP runs) have a mesmer in your group using portals.

Last thing: Mushrooms, updrafts, gliding are the most crucial AND THE FIRST MASTERIES in your tracks. Not unlocking them means someone cant read english.

1. Adventures. They will get you a lot of exp per day.

2. Hero Points where you fight some mob to get HP credit. These will also net you a lot of exp per day.

3. Doing Events.

4. Look for mastery points (help you guildies get to these)

5. Episode map dailies

As said in the above comment. Work first on gliding and updraft, then mushroom 1. These are the most important to get to help start you to finishing maps and getting even more exp. down the road.

Well, if the LW3 maps are in fact accessible without having played the story, that definitely changes things. I interpreted what the wiki called ‘unlocked’ meaning ‘played’, probably because I couldn’t get into Bitterfrost Frontier myself until I entered it as part of the story. If TP to friend does allow people to get into LW3 (while having the episode and HoT, but not having played any LW3 yet), then we can do those maps together.

The thing is, when you don’t have much time, taking the long way around isn’t great. The Golem HP on AB can’t be reached with just Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms, for example. (At least not according to the wiki.) I’ve been trying to find ways to put in effort on my side to find the right way to play together, but the frustration is already there with my guildies. Since I just enjoy messing around, I gather XP slowly, but for those who do not have time to mess around, the lack of progress at the end of the evening is frustrating. I’m not saying they expect to get a new mastery every three hours, but seeing the bar go from start to maybe a fifth in can be terribly frustrating if you know you the next time you play will be two weeks from now for the same amount of time, especially if you also want to things that don’t give you HoT XP.

However, some more of these tips are very useful. Like I said, I do it all slowly, so I don’t really noticed where the real XP is to be had that is fun to get too. I know about the HP, but moving around slowly on the map does make those less attractive, since they aren’t in very easy to reach places. If you don’t have the closest WP, it can take forever. The adventures are a good tip though (they tend to be close to WPs, and we should put some effort into getting those, like on any other map), so thanks all who suggested that!

I think it would be nice if gliding masteries took less XP. It’s not needed for crafting legendaries, but it does make HoT so much more enjoyable. It’s ironic: the grindiness is meant to make people play the maps more, but it’s only driving some people away. Now that I have finished most masteries (especially gliding), I enjoy my time on the HoT maps much more, so I’m more likely to be in AB, TD or DS. Constantly running into something you can’t do is not fun, IMO. Getting to ‘FINALLY’ use that leyline that I already knew was there for forever was far less exciting than discovering leylines for the first time in LW3 when I already knew I could use them.

Flowersunshine.7385:

Well, if the LW3 maps are in fact accessible without having played the story, that definitely changes things. I interpreted what the wiki called ‘unlocked’ meaning ‘played’, probably because I couldn’t get into Bitterfrost Frontier myself until I entered it as part of the story. If TP to friend does allow people to get into LW3 (while having the episode and HoT, but not having played any LW3 yet), then we can do those maps together.

The thing is, when you don’t have much time, taking the long way around isn’t great. The Golem HP on AB can’t be reached with just Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms, for example. (At least not according to the wiki.) I’ve been trying to find ways to put in effort on my side to find the right way to play together, but the frustration is already there with my guildies. Since I just enjoy messing around, I gather XP slowly, but for those who do not have time to mess around, the lack of progress at the end of the evening is frustrating. I’m not saying they expect to get a new mastery every three hours, but seeing the bar go from start to maybe a fifth in can be terribly frustrating if you know you the next time you play will be two weeks from now for the same amount of time, especially if you also want to things that don’t give you HoT XP.

However, some more of these tips are very useful. Like I said, I do it all slowly, so I don’t really noticed where the real XP is to be had that is fun to get too. I know about the HP, but moving around slowly on the map does make those less attractive, since they aren’t in very easy to reach places. If you don’t have the closest WP, it can take forever. The adventures are a good tip though (they tend to be close to WPs, and we should put some effort into getting those, like on any other map), so thanks all who suggested that!

I think it would be nice if gliding masteries took less XP. It’s not needed for crafting legendaries, but it does make HoT so much more enjoyable. It’s ironic: the grindiness is meant to make people play the maps more, but it’s only driving some people away. Now that I have finished most masteries (especially gliding), I enjoy my time on the HoT maps much more, so I’m more likely to be in AB, TD or DS. Constantly running into something you can’t do is not fun, IMO. Getting to ‘FINALLY’ use that leyline that I already knew was there for forever was far less exciting than discovering leylines for the first time in LW3 when I already knew I could use them.

Take the skill point as an example. Anyone can reach it as long as a mesmer ports them up. I’ve done it a number of times. It shouldn’t be that hard to find a mesmer that would help.

Tyrian Mystical Tours [PORT] Runs an HP/MP train in AB/VB/TD event on Sunday afternoon (We started it for guild members, but any are welcome). If it helps, contact me in game for details and times. Keep in mind if interest is too low on a given Sunday we may wait until the following weekend. I have run 5 characters of my own thru it and they each mastered their class in one run

It also helps alot with map completion, etc. We ask you to let us know if you have lean tech as well as adv gliding or not. We ask this so we know if we need to have ports ready to get you to a far away perch Also, please be ready to listen to the commander and do your best to keep, up, wouldn’t want you left behind lol

EU players we have periodic trains for your time zones as well! We are on a US Megaserver if it matters.

Flowersunshine.7385:

Well, if the LW3 maps are in fact accessible without having played the story, that definitely changes things. I interpreted what the wiki called ‘unlocked’ meaning ‘played’, probably because I couldn’t get into Bitterfrost Frontier myself until I entered it as part of the story. If TP to friend does allow people to get into LW3 (while having the episode and HoT, but not having played any LW3 yet), then we can do those maps together.

Unlocked is the same as owning it.

The thing is, when you don’t have much time, taking the long way around isn’t great. The Golem HP on AB can’t be reached with just Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms, for example. (At least not according to the wiki.) I’ve been trying to find ways to put in effort on my side to find the right way to play together, but the frustration is already there with my guildies. Since I just enjoy messing around, I gather XP slowly, but for those who do not have time to mess around, the lack of progress at the end of the evening is frustrating. I’m not saying they expect to get a new mastery every three hours, but seeing the bar go from start to maybe a fifth in can be terribly frustrating if you know you the next time you play will be two weeks from now for the same amount of time, especially if you also want to things that don’t give you HoT XP.

Golem can be reached with just lean techniques. I’ve had leyline gliding for ages but I never use it to get there because that leyline is so unreliable. There is a branch you can glide to for recharging endurance and to get up slightly higher. I think it is covered in the dulfy guide.

As for the rest … don’t go tripping over pebbles on the road because you are too busy trying to stare over the horizon.

However, some more of these tips are very useful. Like I said, I do it all slowly, so I don’t really noticed where the real XP is to be had that is fun to get too. I know about the HP, but moving around slowly on the map does make those less attractive, since they aren’t in very easy to reach places. If you don’t have the closest WP, it can take forever. The adventures are a good tip though (they tend to be close to WPs, and we should put some effort into getting those, like on any other map), so thanks all who suggested that!

Adventures are very much a hit or miss if you look around the forum/reddit threads. They are great if the person happens to like them but pushing them onto people who do not like it will probably end very poorly. Some also have mastery requirements, either implicit or explicit. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Guide-Adventures-Silver-Gold-and-beyond/first has both written and video guide on all of them.

I think it would be nice if gliding masteries took less XP. It’s not needed for crafting legendaries, but it does make HoT so much more enjoyable. It’s ironic: the grindiness is meant to make people play the maps more, but it’s only driving some people away. Now that I have finished most masteries (especially gliding), I enjoy my time on the HoT maps much more, so I’m more likely to be in AB, TD or DS. Constantly running into something you can’t do is not fun, IMO. Getting to ‘FINALLY’ use that leyline that I already knew was there for forever was far less exciting than discovering leylines for the first time in LW3 when I already knew I could use them.

Leyline gliding is also unexciting because much like the other higher tier masteries they are borderline worthless. That is also another not to be overly concerned about getting all the masteries. Many of the high tier masteries are not very useful things. In the case of Exalted Lore it’s not even worth going further than 2.

Silvatar.5379:

I prefer to play with guildies too so I can sympathize.

My suggestions would be to:
2. Make sure they are focusing on the most important masteries to get around in HoT – basic flying skills, poison, bouncy mushrooms, advance flying skill. The rest are just bonus.

Nuhoch wallows is a very useful mastery for navigating HoT maps as well.

Not to downplay your concerns, but if your friends can’t play the game for long enough to burn their birthday boosters or earn 3 mastery points worth of experience, how do you intend to play with them? They obviously barely play the game at all.

I agree that earning 186 mastery points to max them all out is a bit of a grind. However, few of the available masteries are strictly necessary simply to play and enjoy the game. If you’re a completionist who simply enjoys completing objectives, then there is no call to complain about grind – you’re doing what you enjoy doing! If you couldn’t care less about completing every objective and simply want to enjoy the game, then the mastery system is far less of a grind.

I really have no sympathy to spare for MMO players who want everything right now but can’t bother to log in for more than an hour every couple of weeks. The game should not be designed around such players.

OP, mmo’s aren’t for your friends, this is prolly the easiest mmo on the market and they can’t get mastery points in this game. You should move on to another game with them or let them quit.

If anet makes this game any easier me and my guildies would quit out of protest we aren’t fans of getting things while we do nothing but facroll on our keyboards.

Every now and then I play GW2 with my daughters. The older one mostly only plays WvW and rarely if ever ventures into PvE, and only has a mastery level of 2 (gliding and pact mentor). The younger one prefers spending her time with jumping puzzles almost exclusively, and has so far made it to a mastery level of 3 (mushrooms in addition to the ones above). My own account has been sitting at a mastery level of 186 since the release of the last living story episode.

Still whenever one or both of them feel like pve, we have a great time in HoT and ls3 maps as well as story episodes. Most places in the maps are accessible without more masteries, and story instances usually are fine, too (unless you insist on doing all achievements right from the start). Sometimes I take one of my mesmers along, but usually there’s more than enough for us to do. If there’s a point they can’t do we’ll just continue on to the next.

If you want to play with your guildies, do so. You can play all HoT maps and enjoy yourself without more than the basic masteries. Sure with full masteries there’s even more to do, but as long as you’re willing to explore places you’ll find that most things can be enjoyable even without them. Just give it a try.