Guild Wars 2

Dashingsteel.3410:

Here is the solution. Have the elite trait line cost the same as the regular trait lines. Have the elite utitlities cost the same as regular utilities. Have the traits and utilities on separate completion wheels just like the regular builds. Don’t throw in skins as part of the price of unlocking the specialization. Getting this specialization is not about character progression it is just getting another playstyle. The mastery system is actually the character progression and that is the system that should take a lot of time to achieve.

It is also about progression, why not? if they did what you suggested a lot of people who have unlocked it all on day one. dont feel that would be a good thing. Having stuff to look forward to while you play is good not bad.

pfanne.9783:

drkmgic.9583:

pfanne.9783:

Sorry, but I am always surprised by how happy people are to announce their own gullibility to the world.
You spend 885 pounds on something without doing research or waiting for reviews.
It’s not like it wasn’t known beforehand that you would need 400 points for the elite specialization.
You deserve being disappointed. Seriously. I hope this taught you something.

Oh and by the way. We don’t need 50 threads on the same topic. Just post in one of the other 49 threads.

It wasn’t. It was just announced a week 9 so before release. ????

That means he still had a whole week to cancel his preorder, or not preorder in the first place, or preorder like a day before release if he was okay with it. But noooooooooo, he had to preorder it. I mean he saved like 10 pounds on that free character slot that he gets for preordering. Totally worth the investment of 885 pounds. Couldn’t wait a week, because he just had to have it.
I mean who could have thought that anything could go wrong with that plan, because nothing ever went wrong on launches of games. Especially on launches off MMORPGs.

It still doesn’t change the fact that the hero points are obnoxious and senseless. Why are they not letting us play the new elite specialization and don’t tell me cuz of character advancement because there are plenty of other things to advance your character such as masteries. Also if you checked reddit they hinted that the new specialization wasn’t going to be grundy and then we get this and that question of how many hero points needed had been asked during the announcement of spirit shards. Don’t you think it’s shady that they waited till the last minute to announce that 400 point requiremen?

I don’t understand, why did you upgrade your PC for HoT? HoT has the same system requirements as the core game which is three plus years old and was capable of being run by a five year old computer at the time. It’s nonsensical.

It costs 60 to unlock it.

The 400 cost is to get ALL of it.

What’s the point of giving you all of it when you need something to progress with? It’s an MMORPG, you’re bound to grind and work towards your rewards.

don’t take the QQ posts serious or as a proof that the majority feels the same way as them. I personally LOVE this expac, it’s the best thing that has happened to GW2, so stop your whinig and start playing the game that’s what it’s for. Or don’t play it if that’s what you feel like.

To me complaining about the fact, that you have to play the game in order to progress is so hypocritical. When all we’ve asked for these years were end game progression, and character progression, and now that they are giving them to us, you complain. What’s the next thing gonna be, you start complaining about the golden city being to gold? or the jungle is too green, and that you need a guide to hold your hand

400 is fine but they shouldn’t be trapped behind the long-term mastery grind.

if we could just log in and do 40 hero points, thats cool, but instead you’ve got to grind every single mastery.

Pretty sure ANet didn’t force you to buy a new rig. If you act on something without knowing the full details, only you are to blame for any regrets to come.

Gotta agree that the maps are hard to navigate and you need to gain masteries to even enjoy the navigation. I paid for the expansion but I can’t even enjoy it yet because I have to grind hero points to get the gliding mastery!

Character progression is about improvement. Unlocking an elite doesn’t improve your character or it least it is not supposed to because of pvp balancing. That is why I say elites have nothing to do with character progression. The mastery system on the other hand actually gives you advantages once you achieve them over players who don’t have them.

Farzo.8410:

It costs 60 to unlock it.

The 400 cost is to get ALL of it.

What’s the point of giving you all of it when you need something to progress with? It’s an MMORPG, you’re bound to grind and work towards your rewards.

Essentialy your right your bound to grind towards rewards in MMO’s. BUT Gw2 has built its name against that. “we’ll leave the grinding to other MMOs” and If i wanted to grind and run a XP/ Gear treadmill Ill go back to play WOW.

My only complain about hero points, is how in PvE, they’re gated behidn 2 things; masteries and champion mob. Do only either, don’t both.

drkmgic.9583:

pfanne.9783:

drkmgic.9583:

pfanne.9783:

Sorry, but I am always surprised by how happy people are to announce their own gullibility to the world.
You spend 885 pounds on something without doing research or waiting for reviews.
It’s not like it wasn’t known beforehand that you would need 400 points for the elite specialization.
You deserve being disappointed. Seriously. I hope this taught you something.

Oh and by the way. We don’t need 50 threads on the same topic. Just post in one of the other 49 threads.

It wasn’t. It was just announced a week 9 so before release. ????

That means he still had a whole week to cancel his preorder, or not preorder in the first place, or preorder like a day before release if he was okay with it. But noooooooooo, he had to preorder it. I mean he saved like 10 pounds on that free character slot that he gets for preordering. Totally worth the investment of 885 pounds. Couldn’t wait a week, because he just had to have it.
I mean who could have thought that anything could go wrong with that plan, because nothing ever went wrong on launches of games. Especially on launches off MMORPGs.

It still doesn’t change the fact that the hero points are obnoxious and senseless. Why are they not letting us play the new elite specialization and don’t tell advancement because there are plenty of other things to to advance your character such as masteries. Also if you checked reddit they hinted that the new specialization wasn’t going to be grundy and then we get this and that question of how many hero points needed had been asked during the announcement of spirit shards. Don’t you think it’s shady that they waited till the last minute to announce that 400 point requiremen?

Have I ever argued about the validity of needing 400 hero points to unlock all of the specialization?
My only point is that I find it hard to find sympathy for some guy that goes on the forums and creates a new thread with his sob story of him being and dunce and investing 885 pounds into something he doesn’t have all the facts about, when he could just as easily have posted it in one of the other 50 threads about the topic of hero points and specializations. But his story is soooooo special that it needs its own thread where people all just have to regurgitate how shocked they all are about news from a few days ago.

Liewec.2896:

400 is fine but they shouldn’t be trapped behind the long-term mastery grind.

if we could just log in and do 40 hero points, thats cool, but instead you’ve got to grind every single mastery.

You only need to complete a handful of them. Gliding 1 definitely, Gliding 2 and Mushroom 1 should be the maximum you need. And once you’ve got it, it’s done.

400 hp is too much in my opinion.. I hate grinding for that but ok its not impossible.
the big problem I see is once I got my reaper, the next elote spec is gonna need again 400 hp! thats just bullsh…..

Anet if u want to keep that 400hp crap then once you unlocked one elite spec the others should be unlocked too bc I have seen the new map with my necro.. its not gonna be fun exploring everything 4 more times

Farzo.8410:

It’s an MMORPG, you’re bound to grind and work towards your rewards.

That’s exactly what people meant: Anet made false promises. They said GW2 is different from traditional MMORPGs, but in the end, it’s just another MMORPG.

I consider skins and stuff reward, traits and skills shouldn’t be something you “work” for at all.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Character progression is about improvement. Unlocking an elite doesn’t improve your character or it least it is not supposed to because of pvp balancing. That is why I say elites have nothing to do with character progression. The mastery system on the other hand actually gives you advantages once you achieve them over players who don’t have them.

sure, overall they might not be more powerful, its horizontal progression but when you start out you’re underpowered and you need to progress to unlock your full potential. Horizontal progression is progression none the less. I may not get overall more poweful but fully progressing my elite specialization will allow me to deal with situation in a way I could not before all the while still retaining the ability to deal with situations the old way. There is power in that and it makes sense that you have to work for it.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Character progression is about improvement. Unlocking an elite doesn’t improve your character or it least it is not supposed to because of pvp balancing. That is why I say elites have nothing to do with character progression. The mastery system on the other hand actually gives you advantages once you achieve them over players who don’t have them.

You improve your ability to diversify your character…

I wonder, is everyone assuming you need 100% of the elite specializaiton to play it? This isn’t the case. The moment you unlock the track it is available. Now that said, yes you don’t get the utility abilities or the traits this way, making it somewhat less useful in something like WvW, but you do get the weapon/special abilities and thus a portion of the play style.

I haven’t even done map completion yet I had enough to unlock 40% of the line when I started the game yesterday. I am happy to report that this is enough for me to play PvE without feeling kitten at all. I can still do story missions and take on events in this style.

Please keep in mind its not that you need 400 to even touch it, its just you need 400 to get everything related to it.

drkmgic.9583:

I can’t even enjoy the game right now cuz all I could thunk of is the sheer amount of hp I need to unlcok the whole spec. I honestly thought that 400 hp was for cosmetics stuff and the trait line won’t be a problem at all.

I don’t enjoy playing right now not because of the kittened HP grind (I’m a warrior, and the Berserker is a kittening trash spec anyway), but because they made virtually all of my efforts in every other aspect of the game completely worthless. 1500 guild influence that I literally can’t spend anywhere in the game (the poorly designed guild initiative zone has zero vendors for influence, only for commendations), meaning I can’t get a bank stash upgrade without yet another massive kittening grind. The mastery system isn’t deep content, but twenty escort quests that you’re forced to repeat ad infinitum to level up your masteries, that you have to level up to even play the new content.

I’m blown away by how poorly planned this was. They made 95% of what all of the playerbase did pre-expansion worthless. If your character wasn’t essentially complete (500 crafting skills, a fully finished guild, ascended gear for multiple builds, etc.) then this was pretty much a massive “kitten you” from the development team.

All because they wanted to be kittening greedy and try to get more people to use the gem store.

Cactus Brawler.7415:

Requires 40 new hero challenges to complete, several of which require masteries that require as much EXP to unlock as leveling to 80 several times over.

Yeah, that is grind.

This guy gets it.

Some specs can used, but for example Druid basically needs full tree.

PrinceKhaled.5104:

Mortifer.2946:

I miss last 9 HoT hero points and my dragonhunter is full !

Here is your signature: “Proud and Loyal boyfriend of Denali Dius P.S. We are looking for ultra friendly active PVE guildfor the Heart of Thorns which would not mind us to represent my personal guild now and then(just for management purposes).”

First of all, PvE players, leave these topics alone!! You think that we (WvW and GvG) players don’t know what we are talking about. You are the ones who don’t.
Second, who the hell is Denali Dius?

Haha, OK, sorry I didn’t know you don’t like to play PVE at all
Denali Dius is my amazing girlfriend who happens to love not only me but also Guild Wars 2

Arkheart.1587:

I wonder, is everyone assuming you need 100% of the elite specializaiton to play it? This isn’t the case. The moment you unlock the track it is available. Now that said, yes you don’t get the utility abilities or the traits this way, making it somewhat less useful in something like WvW, but you do get the weapon/special abilities and thus a portion of the play style.

I haven’t even done map completion yet I had enough to unlock 40% of the line when I started the game yesterday. I am happy to report that this is enough for me to play PvE without feeling kitten at all. I can still do story missions and take on events in this style.

Please keep in mind its not that you need 400 to even touch it, its just you need 400 to get everything related to it.

You need all 400 if you want the unlock half the abilities.

Liewec.2896:

400 is fine but they shouldn’t be trapped behind the long-term mastery grind.

That is exactly my issue with it.

My concern is similar to many posts in this thread, but a little different:

What is going to happen to players who can’t make it to the Jungle this week or next, and the zones have slowed down? How will they find groups of 5-10 players to complete hero challenges? Will they just be kittened? I’m concerned that they will.

Right now, there are lots of players available who also need the content done, so finding a group is not too hard to do (providing everyone has the masteries they need to even access the hero points). But by next week, I’m sure that will change.

My experience across several MMO’s has been that players who have already completed content or unlocked what they need, often just can’t be bothered to go back and help others with that same content. I expect it will be the same with HoT. Those who were not able to play with the big wave of players at the beginning will be stuck with their old, pre-expansion specs, unable to access any of the new stuff.

Grinding group events and group-level challenges for for masteries is fine; it’s great, even. Grinding for basic skill progression? Not so much. Hero challenges should all be soloable, period.

Tbh even right now, majority of players are doing EotM for hero points. Its just fastest and most reliable.

Sonrangeri.7645:

Tbh even right now, majority of players are doing EotM for hero points. Its just fastest and most reliable.

That’s probably the smartest way to go about it. I hope ANet doesn’t shut it down once they realize what people are doing.

Dear Anet,.

I want to preface my the following statements with my gratitude for working so kitten HoT. In a lot of ways the PvE in this Xpac is far better than that of the original. I have played this game for almost 4 years and I have almost 5k hours of play recorded; however, I have never done a single map comp, or even finished story mode on any of my 6 characters. My game-mode is pvp and wvw. For a long time I have felt like this side of the community gets the short end of the stick on many facets of the game. For instance, one of my major complaints was how I felt punished for being a pvp/wvw player. I could never have a legendary because I didn’t do map comp. Well without breaking bank so to speak. This feeling of punishment has bled into the new Xpac. While you have done a marvelous job making PvE something I want to do, I feel that my 5k hours, maxed pvp rank, and 1800 wvw rank should qualify me for opening an elite specialization. I, like many others, have tons of extra wvw points and spirit shards. The following are my suggestions if you are indeed listening to your player base, which I think you are. : )

1) Let us use our left over wvw rank pts to unlock elite specializations.
2) Award elite specialization progression based on AP points.
3) Add class specific boosters that can be purchased with laurels to enhance the progression of elite specialization.
4) Make elite specialization an account bound achievement, which will provide access to the elite specialization for the normal cost of a specialization when leveling up a new character.
5) Try to consider those people who have spent hours enjoying your game, although it may be different from how you want them to enjoy it, and as is the tradition of time-gating, reward your strong player base who have been here for the long haul.

Anet, again thank you for your hard work and creating an Xpac where the PvE is truly fun! I am looking forward to exploring this new content at my own pace, and with much hope that you will revise the elite specialization mechanics, as it does seem to be an important topic to us (the player base). XD

Spiral Architect.6540:

Sonrangeri.7645:

Tbh even right now, majority of players are doing EotM for hero points. Its just fastest and most reliable.

That’s probably the smartest way to go about it. I hope ANet doesn’t shut it down once they realize what people are doing.

When they do, I hope they actually fix the enemy scaling on PvE hero challenges, as it shouldn’t be spawning champions on solo players, and if that’s not bug, then they’re simply way too overtuned. Most simple fix would be either have a gliding/bouncing etc. gating, or mobs guarding the hero challenge. That mob shouldn’t be static difficulty, but scale from players around.

I think the system is fine, it is just the difficulty of having to fight champions that is the problem. Yes it is really hard to find a lot of these hero points, but we aren’t used to truly vertical maps! If the champions were hard to solo but possible I think there’d be less of a problem. Instead they just squish solo players making it nearly impossible to go out to get your elite specialization so you can play as the specialization you want.

For those people who are making up their own little fictions about this thread rather than read what’s been written, or who were commenting on threads that have been merged into this one:

Nobody is asking for anything on a plate

If eSpecs were unlocked with regular exp, there would be no issue.

People do not want to take incomplete characters into a zone that is harder than other 80 zones in the game. Which is why the partial unlock which then requires HoT zones to complete is unwelcome. The same is almost certainly true of WvW players, although at least there they can acquire the HPs through “levelling” albeit at a glacially slow pace.

At the moment I’m enjoying myself, taking a character I don’t want to eSpec into the jungle to explore and open up the masteries so that, in the event that ANet don’t make the requirements for eSpecs more reasonable, I can at least get the soloable hero challenges on other characters without any content blocks.

There have been a great many suggestions for resolving this issue, just read back and you’ll find a bunch of them. So before you tell us to “kitten off” or accuse us of being unreasonable, maybe actually read a few of the posts first eh? As in, read the words that have been written rather than what you think has been written.

Frankly I find the level of hostility from some members of the community disappointing, and entirely unwarranted.

I’m loving the expansion so far, but the lack of scaling for Hero Challenges is a real buzzkill.

Day 2 and I’m already having trouble finding people to help with Hero Challenges, which is not surprising since there is absolutely zero incentive for anyone to do them more than once.

Please make the Hero Challenge system sensible and sustainable, and please fix it soon, because it’s only get worse if you don’t.

The maps are a lot more fun once you’ve unlocked mushroom jumping, gliding and updrafting. I’m about 38% complete on my Chronomancer (who started with about 100 points) after about 10 hours of play. That might be slow compared to others, whose mileage may vary.

Having said that, the mastery requirements to unlock everything including story progression means that players are zerging mobs with stacked XP boosters and ignoring events to unlock these as quickly as possible (not all of them of course, but there are player trains that just run around bashing mobs).

Caligatra.6197:

I think the system is fine, it is just the difficulty of having to fight champions that is the problem. Yes it is really hard to find a lot of these hero points, but we aren’t used to truly vertical maps! If the champions were hard to solo but possible I think there’d be less of a problem. Instead they just squish solo players making it nearly impossible to go out to get your elite specialization so you can play as the specialization you want.

I appreciate your perspective, and I would add that the gating of the Hero Points behind the mastery grind is equally frustrating. I wish they were decoupled. By coupling them, they’ve effectively prevented us from experiencing fresh content with the new gameplay options. Not only that, but PvPers and WvWers are doubly screwed.

Heres the problem with both specializations, and masteries.

They start off non functional, in an endgame place.

they should quickly give you basic traversal abilities to get you through the beginning areas. Also they should have designed the areas to not beat you in the head with where you cant go in the beginning. Metroid/vania games dont start you off looking at upgrades you cant get to, its hidden areas that you often only realize how to get to them after you obtain new skill 7.

as for specs, they should start you out, or give you one functional spec pretty quickly. You can then unlock extra stuff as you play, without feeling underpowered.

So, basically unlock 1minor 1 major 1 gm of your choice. 1 utility. Then let people pick.
I know people complained in the past of not having goals, and feeling like they have everything they needed to early, but back then you didnt have masteries and content gated based on that.

they also needed way more cosmetics. Those should have been some of the main goals. Get Jungle style armor, get the weapons designed by the hidden forge master, get the armor designed by cutest fashion frog.

problem with gating specs, is you are basically weakening yourself. When you start a new char you are as strong as you can be, or when your level cap goes up. for specs you are weaker, its not really horizontal progression at that point, its linear the whole way, until you are close to the end.

And people who have invested in this game, who are most of the adopters, are not really vertical progression minded

400 hero points is a lot of points to get when you completed world exploration years ago and had been using the points for crafting since then. I’m not sure how this idea got through QA testing but the pacing is just awful.

Why so many? On top of that exp gain from dungeons and other things seem to be so much lower now =’(

Don’t you only need 60HP to start using the new weapons etc? and its 400 to unlock everything, and challenges in the jungle if you 10 each?

I don’t understand why they thought it was a great idea to already lock these HP challenges behind masteries and then make the challenges champion mobs. I mean come on. This is frustrating enough when all I want to do is play the new content with my elite spec. I can understand adding longevity to the game, but making players mad in the process is not the way to go about it. Masteries is the end game progression, not the elite spec. I didn’t buy this expansion so I can grind new content with a spec I’ve been using since release.

Elite cost should be lowered to the same costs of all the other traits. Hero points should be used for cosmetic items so as to not force people to do them so they can play their profession a new way which they should have been able to do since the start of the expansion. People will grind for cosmetics, but making people grind for gameplay is stupid.

I think that 400 HP is not horrible. Horrible is obtaining this hp. I accept that they meaby dont want to make elite specialization in few hours, but for “after work chill players” is really long run. Meaby make few daily hp obtain. Dont change mind to make it all in couple hours, but dont make massive thousands hours grind.

Only need to rank up about 150 more ranks in WvWvW …. this system

I have decided to quit till they make this game fun again. I sure was looking forward to playing the daredevil in the new content.

Rupture.7683:

Dear Anet,.

I want to preface my the following statements with my gratitude for working so kitten HoT. In a lot of ways the PvE in this Xpac is far better than that of the original. I have played this game for almost 4 years and I have almost 5k hours of play recorded; however, I have never done a single map comp, or even finished story mode on any of my 6 characters. My game-mode is pvp and wvw. For a long time I have felt like this side of the community gets the short end of the stick on many facets of the game. For instance, one of my major complaints was how I felt punished for being a pvp/wvw player. I could never have a legendary because I didn’t do map comp. Well without breaking bank so to speak. This feeling of punishment has bled into the new Xpac. While you have done a marvelous job making PvE something I want to do, I feel that my 5k hours, maxed pvp rank, and 1800 wvw rank should qualify me for opening an elite specialization. I, like many others, have tons of extra wvw points and spirit shards. The following are my suggestions if you are indeed listening to your player base, which I think you are. : )

1) Let us use our left over wvw rank pts to unlock elite specializations.
2) Award elite specialization progression based on AP points.
3) Add class specific boosters that can be purchased with laurels to enhance the progression of elite specialization.
4) Make elite specialization an account bound achievement, which will provide access to the elite specialization for the normal cost of a specialization when leveling up a new character.
5) Try to consider those people who have spent hours enjoying your game, although it may be different from how you want them to enjoy it, and as is the tradition of time-gating, reward your strong player base who have been here for the long haul.

Anet, again thank you for your hard work and creating an Xpac where the PvE is truly fun! I am looking forward to exploring this new content at my own pace, and with much hope that you will revise the elite specialization mechanics, as it does seem to be an important topic to us (the player base). XD

This post is me, most of my guild and most of the people I know who play. Do some of the suggestions to fix your cluster kitten of a grindfest

binidj.5734:

For those people who are making up their own little fictions about this thread rather than read what’s been written, or who were commenting on threads that have been merged into this one:

Nobody is asking for anything on a plate

If eSpecs were unlocked with regular exp, there would be no issue.

People do not want to take incomplete characters into a zone that is harder than other 80 zones in the game. Which is why the partial unlock which then requires HoT zones to complete is unwelcome. The same is almost certainly true of WvW players, although at least there they can acquire the HPs through “levelling” albeit at a glacially slow pace.

At the moment I’m enjoying myself, taking a character I don’t want to eSpec into the jungle to explore and open up the masteries so that, in the event that ANet don’t make the requirements for eSpecs more reasonable, I can at least get the soloable hero challenges on other characters without any content blocks.

There have been a great many suggestions for resolving this issue, just read back and you’ll find a bunch of them. So before you tell us to “kitten off” or accuse us of being unreasonable, maybe actually read a few of the posts first eh? As in, read the words that have been written rather than what you think has been written.

Frankly I find the level of hostility from some members of the community disappointing, and entirely unwarranted.

There are at this point 2 very different views on the time it should take for elite unlocks, and players in both sets who are taking the time to post are pretty passionate about it right now. At this point the majority just wants to play their elites through the Hot content, not after they complete it. The minority wants it to take a looooonnnng time and is afraid if anet decreases elite aquire time they’ll just give up and give us everything right now.

Like a lot of people have posted, I too am really disappointed that the elite specs are so hard to get to.

It’s been mentioned previously in this thread, but I think a fair compromise with the devs would be to keep the total cost at 400 HP, but split the skill and trait tracks apart. This would not only bring the elite specs inline with the existing character unlock mechanics, but also make it a bit easier for us to get to GM traits and still have plenty of content to go through for the skills.

(Edited for poor grammar)

Goroth.6153:

I am reading the forum at work cause i cant play there and I must say I am disappointed. This is to all whiners, crybaby, spoiled kids etc…just fak off. Play the game or dont. So much negativity here in forum becouse u dont have everything now? Seriously? This is not even contructive critisizm what I read. Just crying. Go play wow or cod or whenever they can jump when you say so. And rest of you see you in game.

Never go to internet forums for positivity. Especially game forums. You will be disappointed every time. The ratio of positive to negative is always distinctly in favor of the negative, without fail, for the simple reason that discontent persists while happiness runs out of things to say.

Ugh, this is so unpleasant. I just want to get my elite spec so that I can play the game. Having to do all these chores to get it first is not fun.

Heart of Thorns:
- If you want elite spec = grind
- If you want masteries = grind
- If you want to do story = grind
- If you want heropoints you need 20 ppl to kill champion
- Did I mention grind?

So where’s the fun gone? Doing things 100 times in a row is not fun.

Brownies.2901:

400 hero points is a lot of points to get when you completed world exploration years ago and had been using the points for crafting since then. I’m not sure how this idea got through QA testing but the pacing is just awful.

Why so many? On top of that exp gain from dungeons and other things seem to be so much lower now =’(

its not a lot of point, its just 40 challenges in the new area… though to be fair there is the issue that some of those challenges require you to unlock certain masteries before you can reach them… that however needs only be done once since its account wide.

Ragnarox.9601:

Heart of Thorns:
- If you want elite spec = grind
- If you want masteries = grind
- If you want to do story = grind
- If you want heropoints you need 20 ppl to kill champion
- Did I mention grind?

So where’s the fun gone? Doing things 100 times in a row is not fun.

or you know…. you could say

- if you want elite spec = earn Hero points
- if you want masteries = do any content that awards XP
- if you want to do story = unlock masteries
- if you want hero points = do challenges
- why do people keep calling this grind? I mean if arenanet did like you’re suggesting and remove all that you’re calling grind which would be events, adventures, challenges, raids, and anything else in the jungle that gives XP / Hero points… Exactly what will you be using your Elite specialization for?