Guild Wars 2

So, I stopped playing at the beginning of June. I bought the expansion before I go, because I didn’t quit for good, just took a break, to play a MOBA game, because I was very disappointed with the state of PvP in this game.

Yesterday I tried to come back to GW2 and I got lost. Since when is this game so complicated? I never had problems to understand anything in the game before. Now started to think that playing MOBA has made me more stupid.

Anyway, here is my main problem:
There are specializations. Okay. I tried to master 2 of my characters, and turned out I don’t have enough Hero Points to do this. Both my characters – Guardian and Elementalist, are level 80 and have full map completion, so I have no idea how to get more Hero Points.

If I understand right, these Hero Points are the old Skill Points. Then I don’t wonder why I don’t have enough, I spent a lot of them for Philosopher Stones or something like this, to make full Ascended gear and weapons for my characters.

But also I remember before, when you level up even above 80, you got 1 skill point for every level. As a PvP player I have some stacks of Tomes of Knowledge, so I tried to use them to get more Hero points. It’s not working. I don’t level up at all, there is some yellow zero where my level should be.

I’m really confused what to do to get specialization, any help will be appreciated.

You should find your spendable Hero Points in the Hero tab named Specializations. Any additional Hero Points needed can be earned in the new Heart of Thorns maps (10 points for each Hero Challenge), or in WvW via the Heroics Notary.

You can read more about Hero Points in the Wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_point

Welcome return and good luck.

Before you’re able to unlock Elite Specializations, you need to max out all your skill trees/traits and base class specializations.

Then once you’ve unlocked it, you’ll need to gather as many Hero Points (1 in core/base game) – (10 Hero Points in expansion maps). In order to unlock the first specialization trait, you’ll need ~30 hero points, from then on it’ll be somewhere between 10 and 20ish. Totaling to 250 hero points to unlock the entire specialization.

And masteries can only be unlocked by exp points from doing events/hearts/story. Tomes won’t help with any of it. After level 80, tomes will only give you Spirit Shards.

GW2 has become very complicated since HoT. It will take some time until you know what goes where.

If you came back for the PvP you don’t need to unlock anything with hero points. When you enter the mists all traits and skills are available. The unlocking business is just for PvE / WvW.

You can whisper me in game if you need help with specific stuff – always glad to help you

That being said, I would not PvP at this point because the issues that have been pre-HoT have not decreased, there is just a meta shift :P

@ Inculpatus cedo – thank you, this makes sense. But there was another problem, I also couldn’t find these new maps. I was just too embarrassed to make this confession.

@ mXz – yes I got this, I just had 190-200 Hero Points for character and couldn’t figure out how to get more.

@ saturn – so you telling me it’s not that I have become more stupid? Thank you!

@ Sarrow – no, I’m not coming back for PvP. A quick glance at the PvP forums shows me things are even worse than when I stopped playing. I’ll play PvE here.

@ Brandooooon <3
You still here? Of course I’ll whisper you if I see you online, thank you!

“MOBA” – Multiplayer Online Battle Arena

What competitive game isn’t multiplayer, online, and takes on some sort of battle? The first three words apply to nearly every single online game that pits players against each other (obviously). The fourth word, arena, doesn’t even describe the DotA/LoL/HoN-genre. Using that word implies an all-hostile area that dismisses the territorial control and lane-pushing among its many facets of gameplay.

Aight so, you took a break before the elite specialization patch (23 june).

What happend: we basically got a rework on how you unlock traits and skills and how you build you toon (no more trait lines, hello specializations). We can now “specialize” in 3 areas (the previous traitlines) and unlock up to the grandmaster for all of them, the limitation is that we can only use 1 adept, 1 master 1 grandmaster trait out of three for each line.

The Hero Points (previously skill points): if you had any consumable purchased with skill points, those are still there; Hero Point count is based on level + skill challenges you have done around the world and the excess became a new currency, the shards.
Those shards took over skill points as currency to buy mystic forge specific items, so you should have a fair amount of that.

Elite specialization: you need 250 hero point to fully unlock that (and must be ofc lv 80 + all other base specialization unlocked). Core Tyria gives 200-210 (can’t remember the right number) so you should have almost everything right from start. The other points can be get in the new maps (west of silverwastes): there each hero challenge grants 10 hero points so with just 5 you should be good.

Masteries: is the yellow number that is where your level was. There are 2 types: Core Tyria and Heart of Thorns. You’ll level one “area” depending of where you currently are.
How it works: select a track, get exp that will full the track and at the end (if you have enough points) use Mastery Points to unlock it. In core tyria you should already have a good amount of mastery points (look in the achievements panel to see where to get more, is the red “seed”, hot specific ones are the green “seed”), for HoT Mastery Points you should play new story and new maps.

If you have more specific questions please ask here or mail me in game

Cheers!

EDIT: typos

Oh I see. Thank you for the detailed answer, Gaaroth!