Guild Wars 2

So… I recently came back to GW2 playing it for hundreds of hours a couple years ago.

Here’s my impression: it’s virtually impossible to level without the mindless grinding of mobs WITHOUT events/hearts attached to them.

The event focused progression makes sense when there’s tons of people on the maps. For people trickling in after the “gush” of new players/returning players the new zones are dead. So we are stuck with empty maps with no real effective way to level masteries.

I’ve spent the last 5 hours tonight trying to level one single mastery. I’ve gotten to about 20%. Every time I hang glide to an event I find there’s no other players and only npc’s getting killed. I tried relogging. I tried hoping zones hoping to get a populated zone. This is a serious flaw to the game. IGN noted in there review.

PLEASE FIX IT.

Let me introduce you to my friend you probably haven’t met yet… meet LFG… I think you two will become good friends!

The maps aren’t empty, you’re just not in a full instance of the zone because the mega server system is kicking you out.

Use the LFG to get to a full instance. Run every XP buff you can get your hand on. Problem solved. Without farming heavily I"m up to level 45 mastery, though admittedly I play a lot.

What I don’t do is farm.

its only a chore if you make it one

Elkan.5389:

Here’s my impression: it’s virtually impossible to level without the mindless grinding of mobs WITHOUT events/hearts attached to them.

Let’s re-phrase that: it is virtually impossible to level as fast as you would like without the mindless grinding of mobs WITHOUT events/hearts attached to them.
They were designed to take a while to get, it’s you’re desire to get everything now that is the issue since it was never designed to be gotten within a few days.

Elkan.5389:

I’ve spent the last 5 hours tonight trying to level one single mastery.

That’s not too bad I guess. What level of mastery?

Don’t grind XP, play the game for the same reason you would play normally and you will get the XP that way and it won’t feel like a grind.
That is what I did, I don’t have everything unlocked, but I don’t have to.

Levelling masteries is a chore if you make it.
I’ve leveled basically all of my jungle masteries by PLAYING, without caring, and it was FUN to unlock new abilities and go back where I previously couldn’t.

Of course sometimes I’ve wanted a mastery fast, and I’ve worked on it to unlock it (some occasional Spider farm or COF farm) but it was my choice to speed it up and thus I shouldn’t complain it was a chore, I wasn’t asked/supposed to.

EDIT the biggest mastery to unlock is a lvl 6 one and asks for 4kk+ exp. Pact6 (autoloot) for example. I wanted that one fast, and I went for a farm in COF, loaded up boosters (old exp booster, new exp booster, food/nour with exp, fireworks, killstreak): 2kexp per kill, pack of 12 every 10 secs max = 24k/10s = 2.4k/s.
Every minute is 144k
Every hours is 8.6kk
It’s not always possible to keep up this rate but AT LEAST you should expect 5kk/h.
So use boosters if you farm, 5h for a single mastery is nuts.

My 2 copperz.

MASTERIES ARE ACCOUNT BOUND
And not meant to be leveled like a character, nor to be farmed.
It’s like complaining you didn’t reach 300% Magic Find in one day…
Play the game, explore, gather, fight… They’ll level.

It depends which level of mastery you are on, but if you started (i.e. you need around 500k XP) and you were running around for 5h and got 20% you did something completely wrong. I usually farm 500k within 1h, and do one mastery of 2.5 – 3 mio in one evening. Just find people or a group, and people are usually taxiing to active maps. Start with Verdant Brink. The first time you kill one of the canopy bosses is really satisfying :-)

It can not be so hard… i saw a lots of people over 100 and there arepeople who unlocked over 120 mistery points already. (I DO NOT KNOW HOW bit there are!)

A guildie has well over 160, but I think they don’t have work or have a girlfriend (yeah, direct generalization detected).

I don’t even know where they all got those mastery points as I am running out and I am around 50.

My co-lead got the core masteries all done ( well, half way to final legendary mastery) just by 99% mapping his rev.

Just to add another spice to the cooking pot.

ProtoGunner.4953:

A guildie has well over 160, but I think they don’t have work or have a girlfriend (yeah, direct generalization detected).

I don’t even know where they all got those mastery points as I am running out and I am around 50.

Mastery rank/level 161 is the maximum, at least until they add new mastery tracks, so most likely raids will raise the cap. I do think you can have more than 161 mastery points already, you just can’t spend them yet, and thus your mastery rank/level won’t go up.

I am mastery 161, can confirm you can still accrue them after max. And, like everyone else said, it’s only a chore if you make it one. Don’t focus on it and it will just happen as you go.

Levelling masteries really is a chore. I play a lot and I still don’t have a single one completed (gliding is my furthest along at lvl 5 and halfway to lvl 6). I know, you get them by playing normally without having to grind, but tbh I just want all those abilities instantly, if I wanted to work for things I would level a new character. A good thing to do I think would be to allow tomes of knowledge to level masteries. Even if it was 100 tomes to get from nothing to lvl 6 in a mastery I would still do it. I have tons saved up and that would be a brilliant use for them.
You might think this would make people stop playing sooner if they had everything instantly, but I don’t think so. Of course I would never quit this game (I am pretty addicted to it, haha) so it definitely wouldn’t affect me, but for other people if they see leyline gliding locked behind 13 million xp or something like that amount, they might just not even bother with that, do all the new events once and then leave because I can guarantee that it is impossible to get all masteries maxed out without repeating a lot of content several time over. I am not saying give us everything instantly, just let us use tomes of knowledge for our masteries or even just reduce the xp needed slightly, it would really reduce the feeling of grinding I get from levelling them.

jedles.2908:

It can not be so hard… i saw a lots of people over 100 and there arepeople who unlocked over 120 mistery points already. (I DO NOT KNOW HOW bit there are!)

I’m on 118 currently.

Dragon’s Stand with a bunch of XP boosts nets me about 1.5mil XP each run. In DS downtime I’ve been completing world completion on my Revenant.

This is the most enjoyable way I’ve found to spend my time, so far. There’s no need to grind the same mobs over and over again, there’s no need to farm CoF path 1. The OP is just over-reacting.

You are not supposed to max level masteries ASAP, if u force urself it can be a chore, it all comes down to ur mindset and expectations. I applaud anet for making it possible to reach max masteries at ur own phase, hence why i spent 6 hrs in CoF to max tyra. while HoT it took a week with intense play, also with all exp gain effects.

I do hope some of the masteries carry over to future zones, as it does widen the gap between new and vet

Getting the low level ones is pretty quick, after that I haven’t been worrying about them, just let them build slowly.

The only masteries that are halfway necessary are the tier 1 masteries. Gliding, Jumping, Teleporting, with Tier 2 being fairly useful. Tier 1s finish in no time at all. Tier 2s don’t take much longer. After those are complete the rest are just bonuses and so the length of time it takes is irrelevant.

you´re not supposed to get all the masteries within the first week or two.

It´ll take an average player atleast a year to max them all.

ChrizZcE.5981:

you´re not supposed to get all the masteries within the first week or two.

It´ll take an average player atleast a year to max them all.

Wrong if that was the case they would of nerfed COF long ago

Valky.2574:

ChrizZcE.5981:

you´re not supposed to get all the masteries within the first week or two.

It´ll take an average player atleast a year to max them all.

Wrong if that was the case they would of nerfed COF long ago

I´m talking about the HoT masteries.

Dragon’s Stand event chain will get you almost one million experience total. From events and mob killing.

ProtoGunner.4953:

A guildie has well over 160, but I think they don’t have work or have a girlfriend (yeah, direct generalization detected).

I don’t even know where they all got those mastery points as I am running out and I am around 50.

Careful about generalizations. Someone could easily take a week off of work in anticipation of the expansion. They may have spent less time getting to that mastery than many people have been playing as well. You claim to average 500K per hour. It’s very possible to average 1-1.5M an hour in DS without much effort. You can get upwards to 2M if the map is strictly farming.

I’ve seen a fellow guildmate tell another that he must have no life when I can vouch that he actually plays much less than her.

I am currently lvl 96 and i approve of this chore..most fun Ive had since DoA UrsanWay.

I agree with the OP.

I don’t know how the servers work but it’s a chore on my server. To continue my story line I need yet another mastery. Every time I finish one I get another mastery needed to continue. What a let down. I’ve done 4 masteries for mission 12 and now its asking for a 5th b4 I can continue. I just want to get back to the story line where I was having a lot of fun, Now it’s grind and wait ,over and over again.

Gaaroth.2567:

Levelling masteries is a chore if you make it.
I’ve leveled basically all of my jungle masteries by PLAYING, without caring, and it was FUN to unlock new abilities and go back where I previously couldn’t.

Of course sometimes I’ve wanted a mastery fast, and I’ve worked on it to unlock it (some occasional Spider farm or COF farm) but it was my choice to speed it up and thus I shouldn’t complain it was a chore, I wasn’t asked/supposed to.

EDIT the biggest mastery to unlock is a lvl 6 one and asks for 4kk+ exp. Pact6 (autoloot) for example. I wanted that one fast, and I went for a farm in COF, loaded up boosters (old exp booster, new exp booster, food/nour with exp, fireworks, killstreak): 2kexp per kill, pack of 12 every 10 secs max = 24k/10s = 2.4k/s.
Every minute is 144k
Every hours is 8.6kk
It’s not always possible to keep up this rate but AT LEAST you should expect 5kk/h.
So use boosters if you farm, 5h for a single mastery is nuts.

My 2 copperz.

can you share more info on this spider farming location?

Goatjugsoup.8637:

its only a chore if you make it one

its a chore.

Methal.9045:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

its only a chore if you make it one

its a chore.

Not to those who take their sweet time.
It’s not a chore, I enjoy it.

Leveling Masteries is done the same way leveling was before.

As before, you could always take the grind approach: Dungeon repetitions, (apparently quite popular with those mastery lvl 100+ people) Edge of the Mists, Killstreak boosters, etc.

If you want to do something fast, grind is the way to do it. But the Masteries weren’t made to be “mastered” in a day. :P

Getting the basic masteries you need to progress in HoT only takes a little while, and the rest of the masteries are just nice conveniences. If you want them fast, grind away. But if you just play the game to have fun and do whatever you feel like each day, you’ll find your leveling still isn’t that slow.

I agree the vanila part of Mastery is too much of a Chore because of very inactive events around the world, as well as low exp.

I think this is the reason why they didn’t nerf the XP in COF.

For HoT, it really is not so bad because usually the events happened in a long chain, with lots and lots of mobs to kill. I basically get half of my exp bar after roaming around the map doing some Meta Event chains.

Methal.9045:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

its only a chore if you make it one

its a chore.

Not for me. I play events,play adventure ,explore the area. Hero point here and there .poof ! mastery ready to train :]~. That’s not look so chore to me.

Raziel.4216:

Methal.9045:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

its only a chore if you make it one

its a chore.

Not to those who take their sweet time.
It’s not a chore, I enjoy it.

Me too, I’m not in a rush to finish them. I take them as a long term goal rather than something I have to get out of the way right now.

17 days. HoT was released 17 days ago.
You expected to have all the masteries after 17 days?
Somebody has some seriously unrealistic expectations.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Let me introduce you to my friend you probably haven’t met yet… meet LFG… I think you two will become good friends!

Funny Story: I taxied into a DS map yesterday that then completely filled up and BOOM, the mushroom volunteer thing came up. People became confused and hit the button and cleared the map out.

Are they using the mushroom thingy to control map populations and prevent crashes?

Elkan.5389:

So… I recently came back to GW2 playing it for hundreds of hours a couple years ago.

Here’s my impression: it’s virtually impossible to level without the mindless grinding of mobs WITHOUT events/hearts attached to them.

The event focused progression makes sense when there’s tons of people on the maps. For people trickling in after the “gush” of new players/returning players the new zones are dead. So we are stuck with empty maps with no real effective way to level masteries.

I’ve spent the last 5 hours tonight trying to level one single mastery. I’ve gotten to about 20%. Every time I hang glide to an event I find there’s no other players and only npc’s getting killed. I tried relogging. I tried hoping zones hoping to get a populated zone. This is a serious flaw to the game. IGN noted in there review.

PLEASE FIX IT.

Trying to get Proofs of Heroics in WvW is even more painful than this.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

My co-lead got the core masteries all done ( well, half way to final legendary mastery) just by 99% mapping his rev.

Just to add another spice to the cooking pot.

The funny thing about this is if you already had map completion you got screwed because the last 6 months there wasn’t any kind of XP reward for a level 80. On top of that these same people can’t get map completion rewards because Anet refuses respond to the bug.

Raziel.4216:

Methal.9045:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

its only a chore if you make it one

its a chore.

Not to those who take their sweet time.
It’s not a chore, I enjoy it.

It’s a chore.

CureForLiving.5360:

Elkan.5389:

Here’s my impression: it’s virtually impossible to level without the mindless grinding of mobs WITHOUT events/hearts attached to them.

Let’s re-phrase that: it is virtually impossible to level as fast as you would like without the mindless grinding of mobs WITHOUT events/hearts attached to them.
They were designed to take a while to get, it’s you’re desire to get everything now that is the issue since it was never designed to be gotten within a few days.

Elkan.5389:

I’ve spent the last 5 hours tonight trying to level one single mastery.

That’s not too bad I guess. What level of mastery?

Funny, that’s not what they advertised. They said that masteries were going to make Legendaries more easily obtainable.

rchu.8945:

Gaaroth.2567:

Levelling masteries is a chore if you make it.
I’ve leveled basically all of my jungle masteries by PLAYING, without caring, and it was FUN to unlock new abilities and go back where I previously couldn’t.

Of course sometimes I’ve wanted a mastery fast, and I’ve worked on it to unlock it (some occasional Spider farm or COF farm) but it was my choice to speed it up and thus I shouldn’t complain it was a chore, I wasn’t asked/supposed to.

EDIT the biggest mastery to unlock is a lvl 6 one and asks for 4kk+ exp. Pact6 (autoloot) for example. I wanted that one fast, and I went for a farm in COF, loaded up boosters (old exp booster, new exp booster, food/nour with exp, fireworks, killstreak): 2kexp per kill, pack of 12 every 10 secs max = 24k/10s = 2.4k/s.
Every minute is 144k
Every hours is 8.6kk
It’s not always possible to keep up this rate but AT LEAST you should expect 5kk/h.
So use boosters if you farm, 5h for a single mastery is nuts.

My 2 copperz.

can you share more info on this spider farming location?

I broke down today and tried the fabled spider farm.

OH MY GOD IT IS BEAUTIFUL

I got half of my poison mastery done in an hour.

it’s near one of the jaka itzel pact encampments,you need bounceshrooms to reach it.

I mean, sure, people will say “but metroidvaniaaaaaaa >:(”,but the thing is: I don’t care about metroidvania when it’s behind grind, when I have to find the ice beams or space jump, sure, but “grind 8M exp for ley line gliding” isn’t fun

I suppose soon those spiders will no longer drop XP?

Celtic Lady.3729:

I suppose soon those spiders will no longer drop XP?

They’ll likely just reduce the numbers and increase the spawn timer.

Using LFG is sound advice. LFG is your friend. Guilds are also your friend.

I mostly solo myself as well, and it’s just a sad fact that after the zerg rush, you really need to travel with at least one other person to make it work smoothly. Depending on the profession, you may even want more.

Whether it was accidental or intentional, finding new ways to provide progression, new ways to design maps, etc., without changing the way at least some people play was optimistic.

If you need more people, hit me up if nobody else. If I’m on, we can do it together.

It’s a chore when the story is gated behind it, but pass that, it’s not too bad.

Also having a few Alts helps since you get exp from exploration and hero points challenge.

It’s a chore to level if your short term goals are locked behind Mastery. Like me for instance, I’m trying to get my Scrapper ascended collection hammer (I don’t have an ascended weapon) which requires higher levels in HoT Mastery lines.

But I understand that it is meant to be account wide, and the reality is I am doing this for ALL my characters at the same time. Most of the progress I have made on my Scrapper collection is also progress for my Revenant and Mesmer and Ranger etc.

The best way I found was to do the DS meta from the start and use the group finder to get into an organized map. You’re still looking at ~4 hours per level that way but you’re also getting a ton of loot and you can switch up which lanes you do, and I go do other stuff for fun like finishing my map exploration or PvPing on my Reaper because that’s stupid fun.

You have this wonderful new class called Revenant – which has not yet mapped Tyria.
From mapping Tyria to 100% I have pretty much completed all the Tyria masterys exp requirements (okay – I’m a slow mapper: took me about 70hrs).
Was running food/potions (potion of scarlet slaying =+%15 buff on kills, haloween food +%15 on kills).
If you have a haloween gobbler – use this also for a boost (kill streak / mf / exp bonus).
Fireworks also help giving a good stackable bonus to XP.

Then add a few Arah temples/SW farms and bingo – 100% Tyria masterys.

The Hot ones – bit more complex: just hit Dragon stand after doing a few of the other meta event chains and story mode and you’ll be well on the way to getting everything nicely moving along.

If you have a habit of farming gold or items. Farm those instead. And you’ll get exp at the same time anyway.

The trick is farm other things at the same times. For example you might need some item for the new legendary or if you want to finish some weapon collection, farm those instead.

I’ve literally just been straight playing the new HoT maps and have gotten to rank 45. I would do different parts of the meta when it’s up and do different outposts when the meta ends. And I still have tons of stuff to do; new outposts to try, new places to explore, different parts of the meta events to do, new adventures to challenge, and achievements to achieve. I’m having a blast all the while too.

Sure the masteries are one of my goals, but they aren’t my primary concern. My primary concern is just enjoying the game, and boy am I enjoying it.

It’s only a chore if you make it a chore. It’s only a grind if you make it a grind.
Why would you want to blaze through all of them as fast as you can anyway? So you can sit there with no goal? Is that fun?

Are Masteries time consuming, Yes, by intent. MMO progression systems take time by design. That’s the nature of MMO’s.

Are they tedious? Are they a chore?

Chore:

1. a routine task, especially a household one.
2. an unpleasant but necessary task.

• Gathering Mastery experience is certainly routine.
• Masteries are necessary only if you want to do something that a Mastery unlocks. In other words, you’re choosing to do it.
• Gaining experience is unpleasant only if you’re doing things that you don’t want to do. Why do that? Why not gain the XP at a pace you enjoy?

If Masteries are a chore, examine the choices you’re making. It’s you that is creating that experience.

Very much a chore and a gateway one at that. Several areas to include jumping puzzles, achievements, hero points, and mastery points requires mastery abilities to access them.

As someone once said, it’s an attempt to disguise the lack of content. I didn’t believe that before. But, if there wasn’t these speed-bumps, most of us could’ve completed the main storyline in less than a day. The extreme casual in a week. I’m extremely casual, and even I’m already killing Mordy. Still have to map out Dragon Stand though, but I know Living Story updates disguised as an expansion when I see them.

I like the content, limited as it is, but let’s not kid ourselves.