Guild Wars 2

As soon as I reach lvl 80 on my current character I’ll buy Heart of Thorns. My goal is to unlock my elite spec ASAP, so that I can enjoy the lvl 80 zone with the new spec.

I believe the best way to do this is by exploring the expansion zones first, so that I can reach the elite quicker by doing those 10-points hero challenges, right? Then, I’d head to other lvl 80 zones after that.

I read somewhere the way to enter Heart of Maguuma is going through the Silverwastes, so I have a few questions regarding this:

1) This means I’ll have to explore the Silverwastes before reaching the expansion zones?

2) I just want to freely explore Heart of Maguuma on my own. Is there a way to reach it without activating my story? I just don’t want to follow a story there.

3) Are there other ways to directly reach the expansion zones without passing through the Silverwastes?

You can go through the Guild Halls. Or, you can use the story; only need to do the prologue.

You can also immediately enter the HoT maps once you have purchased HoT via the free Level 80 Boost (using one of the above methods), should you so desire.

Good luck.

1) Just follow the story to get there. You indeed have to cross SW – not sure what you mean by exploring. You simply walk through it and voilà.

2) You can explore HoT on your own, but keep in mind a few things:

- A few places won’t be accessible before you learn a specific mastery (some you will learn in no time like basic gliding and bouncing shrooms, some that will take much longer).

- Some places are hard to reach without a specific mastery (you can get there, but it takes much longer) like Nuhoc Wallows. That’s pretty much the whole TD map.

- HoT isn’t exploration friendly. There are tons of mobs, and they strike really hard. You can’t simply run through a pack without dodging and expect to survive as you do in Central Tyria.

3) What’s your issue with SW? No, there isn’t. You have to play your story to reach HoT, and the story goes through SW.

EDIT – Inculpatus: are you sure you can use the GH if you haven’t unlocked HoT?

I wouldn’t worry to much about getting to HoT. I’ve run just about all of my twinks there (about 10-11) for completion of the different class masteries.

Do what Inculpatus cedo and Sir Mad said, follow the story. It will take you about 20 minutes to get to Verdant Brink if you leave from DR and do the story mission.

That being said, finishing the HoT story can be done as fast as 1.5 hours since a lot of the cutscenes and story progression during instanced missions can be skipped. I would still recommend you finish the story 1-2 times normally though since there are minor branching paths. Following the story normally should take you about 6-10 hours depending on how well you do in the missions. Full exotic is recommended, but I’ve finished the story in a mix of masterwork-rare (even the final fight).

Wiki is your friend. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_Maguuma

From the above linked page:
The Heart of Thorns expansion is required to access this region. Activate the Heart of Thorns story in your Story Journal in the hero panel, then go to the Silverwastes and talk to the scout at the green star near Red Rock Bastion. Alternatively, enter your guild hall via the guild panel and walk through the exit portal.

Do the first part of the story that starts in SW. It’ll be like 1.5 story instances. This way you’ll have the mastery system unlocked.

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

But you have to do the first step of the story to activate your “mastery” tracks, unless this has changed. Note, you only have to do this once, then it is unlocked on all of your level 80 characters.

I don’t believe initially unlocking Verdant Brink has changed, in that you have to do the prologue of the story to get your first character there. Once you get there and get basic gliding though, yes, VB can be accessed on other characters without having to do the first part of the story again unless you chose to.

Another way to get there, and as far as I know still works on fresh alt characters on a account that has unlocked VB is by using “Teleport To Friend” (if you have them). So, say you access the area on your main character, but decide after unlocking some basic masteries you want to bring anther toon that you tomed up in to build more experience, and this guy is all the way over in Wayfarer with 1% map completion. Just party with a friend or guildie that also has HOT and is nice enough to get a toon to one of the new maps and teleport on over.

Otherwise, as long as you have gliding, jump shrooms and updrafts (and know the shortcuts), you can get a level 4-5 mastery to Dragon Stand, I did it on an alt account, but I wouldn’t recommend it for first time HOT explorers.

If you use Guild Hall, sucks to be you if you have Lost Precipice, and you didn’t unlock Glider first!

MissSinfully.2478:

If you use Guild Hall, sucks to be you if you have Lost Precipice, and you didn’t unlock Glider first!

The WP at the beginning of the zone is immediately unlocked when you enter.

MissSinfully.2478:

If you use Guild Hall, sucks to be you if you have Lost Precipice, and you didn’t unlock Glider first!

This is true! Hopefully, one of the Guilds one belongs to has Gilded Hollow. Personally, I think Auric Basin is an easier map, anyway. But, that’s just me.

If you go through Lost Precipace, there’s a side exit in that tunnel also. So, once you exit LP, instead of going straight in the tunnel to a certain free fall of death without gliding, take a turn to the right? iirc as you enter the tunnel, drops you off near where the Mushroom spawns.

HazyDaisy.4107:

If you go through Lost Precipace, there’s a side exit in that tunnel also. So, once you exit LP, instead of going straight in the tunnel to a certain free fall of death without gliding, take a turn to the right? iirc as you enter the tunnel, drops you off near where the Mushroom spawns.

Pretty sure you still have to glide across the chasm. (Instead of the multi-glide/updraft path when using the straight ahead portal.)

But, maybe not; I don’t think I’ve ever tried just dropping off the cliff.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

The portal is blocked until you do the story. I took someone thru the story this weekend and it kind of glitched so we had to redo it. Even though she had got the waypoints on Verdant Brink she still couldn’t use the portal to VB until she finished the story.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

The portal is blocked until you do the story. I took someone thru the story this weekend and it kind of glitched so we had to redo it. Even though she had got the waypoints on Verdant Brink she still couldn’t use the portal to VB until she finished the story.

And I guess a portal to a friend is blocked also then.

Ayrilana.1396:

MissSinfully.2478:

If you use Guild Hall, sucks to be you if you have Lost Precipice, and you didn’t unlock Glider first!

The WP at the beginning of the zone is immediately unlocked when you enter.

That is true for core maps and maybe they changed HoT to match in the April patch but that wasn’t the case the last time I ran into this. In my case I did have bouncing mushrooms but when I exited gilded hallow octovine was up so I had no way of getting out. A friend ran into a similar issue as a result of using a Teleport to Friend in TD.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

The portal is blocked until you do the story. I took someone thru the story this weekend and it kind of glitched so we had to redo it. Even though she had got the waypoints on Verdant Brink she still couldn’t use the portal to VB until she finished the story.

That should be “until at least one character on the account has done the prologue”.

Khisanth.2948:

Ayrilana.1396:

MissSinfully.2478:

If you use Guild Hall, sucks to be you if you have Lost Precipice, and you didn’t unlock Glider first!

The WP at the beginning of the zone is immediately unlocked when you enter.

That is true for core maps and maybe they changed HoT to match in the April patch but that wasn’t the case the last time I ran into this. In my case I did have bouncing mushrooms but when I exited gilded hallow octovine was up so I had no way of getting out. A friend ran into a similar issue as a result of using a Teleport to Friend in TD.

I was referring to VB as the person I had quoted was talking about that map. I’ve never been in a guild that has Gilded Hallow so I can’t really comment about it.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Tekoneiric.6817:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

The portal is blocked until you do the story. I took someone thru the story this weekend and it kind of glitched so we had to redo it. Even though she had got the waypoints on Verdant Brink she still couldn’t use the portal to VB until she finished the story.

And I guess a portal to a friend is blocked also then.

I used the ‘portal to a fried’ several times to port new Lv80 chars to WP next to the flax spot in Verdant Brink.
Works fine.

Nagiil.1230:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Tekoneiric.6817:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

The portal is blocked until you do the story. I took someone thru the story this weekend and it kind of glitched so we had to redo it. Even though she had got the waypoints on Verdant Brink she still couldn’t use the portal to VB until she finished the story.

And I guess a portal to a friend is blocked also then.

I used the ‘portal to a fried’ several times to port new Lv80 chars to WP next to the flax spot in Verdant Brink.
Works fine.

Did you have the story unlocked on your account already? That was the question here. If the portal will work if the story has not yet been done at least once on the account.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

You don’t need to do the story to get to the Heart of Thorns areas. There is a portal in the southwest corner of the Silverwastes that connects to Verdant Brink – just walk through like any other zone.

The portal is blocked until you do the story. I took someone thru the story this weekend and it kind of glitched so we had to redo it. Even though she had got the waypoints on Verdant Brink she still couldn’t use the portal to VB until she finished the story.

That should be “until at least one character on the account has done the prologue”. [/quote]

No, I had two other characters that had gone thru the story but my newest character had the vapor portal block until I took then completed the last step in the story with the character.

Khisanth.2948:

In my case I did have bouncing mushrooms but when I exited gilded hallow octovine was up so I had no way of getting out.

It happened to me too, but I found out that the guild explorer just outside the guild hall in Auric Basin will give you the option of smuggling you out through a cave (ie teleporting you outside of Tarir).

You don’t even need story. Either use the GH to go there or just walk the way through Silverwastes (far Southwestern corner of the map) and enter the portal there. No story needed, not even prologue – many don’t know this.

ProtoGunner.4953:

You don’t even need story. Either use the GH to go there or just walk the way through Silverwastes (far Southwestern corner of the map) and enter the portal there. No story needed, not even prologue – many don’t know this.

That doesn’t work.

Ayrilana.1396:

ProtoGunner.4953:

You don’t even need story. Either use the GH to go there or just walk the way through Silverwastes (far Southwestern corner of the map) and enter the portal there. No story needed, not even prologue – many don’t know this.

That doesn’t work.

It worked for me just now, on a character that hasn’t even finished the main PS, let alone done any HoT story.

You really will need to do the story once on one alt. Not the whole story, just the very first chapter section that starts in SW at the red fort south entrance. That leads you into a mission in Verdant Brink and when you are done you are at the east entry wp of VB.

The reason to do it is that is how you unlock masteries. You’re not going to get much exploring done without at least gliding. The story entry gives you one mastery point, unlocks the system, and lets you xp up the first tier of gliding fairly quickly so that you can thereafter get around the map. Do that once on one alt and all your alts will then be able to glide at any level both in HoT and core.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Ayrilana.1396:

ProtoGunner.4953:

You don’t even need story. Either use the GH to go there or just walk the way through Silverwastes (far Southwestern corner of the map) and enter the portal there. No story needed, not even prologue – many don’t know this.

That doesn’t work.

It worked for me just now, on a character that hasn’t even finished the main PS, let alone done any HoT story.

If that is indeed the case, it still doesn’t apply to the OP. Still good to know if I plan to run any other characters through the HoT maps.

Ayrilana.1396:

RoseofGilead.8907:

Ayrilana.1396:

ProtoGunner.4953:

You don’t even need story. Either use the GH to go there or just walk the way through Silverwastes (far Southwestern corner of the map) and enter the portal there. No story needed, not even prologue – many don’t know this.

That doesn’t work.

It worked for me just now, on a character that hasn’t even finished the main PS, let alone done any HoT story.

If that is indeed the case, it still doesn’t apply to the OP.

Yeah, true. In the case of the OP, they’ll have to at the very least do the Prologue, I believe. Plus, as others said, it’s good to do that so you unlock the Masteries anyway.

You can teleport to a friend.
I did it, before I did the Prologue.
Surprised me at the time.
Granted, I had nothing unlocked, so it was kind of pointless, after the fact.
But the xp was good.

Ayrilana.1396:

ProtoGunner.4953:

You don’t even need story. Either use the GH to go there or just walk the way through Silverwastes (far Southwestern corner of the map) and enter the portal there. No story needed, not even prologue – many don’t know this.

That doesn’t work.

Maybe the account has to have unlocked Masteries, or acquired at least whatever the lowest amount of MPs are. I see, from the screenshot, there are no MP on that account. Maybe that is the difference. /shrug