Guild Wars 2

Even though I bought Guild Wars 2 when it came out, I never really played it a lot. I have a few lower level characters, which I played before the skill system was revamped.

I recently bought Heart of Thorns and I didn’t even know a level 80 boost would come with it.

So now I am left with a bit of dilemma. I have love the Revenant so I started a new character. I am now level 14. I tested out the boost and saw that I would be getting all my hero points and a decent armour set.

But the question remains – I haven’t really experienced the game past level 20, am I just negating myself a load of content by boosting to 80? I am quite interested in the story, and I know that I get leveled down to do it. But will it be trivial in terms of gameplay difficulty? It is very easy as it is — I actually remembered it was harder when the game first came out, but it might just be me being overpowered with all the practice I didn’t get by not playing the game for a long time >.>

I don’t really see myself making a load of alts I want to level up, although it is a possibility, it’s probably not something in the near future.

On the other end, I would no longer be compelled to do things such as exploring and so on.

Thoughts?

I think it’s worthwhile to go through the game “properly” at least once. There is a lot of really cool stuff in the early zones, and the landscapes look amazing. If you care about the lore you should obviously do the story as well.

There is also a lot of value to exploring all the maps as you level, since it lets you get to world events, farm points, dungeons, guild events, etc without any difficulty.

I also think it helps you learn the class and the game as a whole in much more depth if you play it and try things slowly as they are introduced versus getting everything at once and being potentially overwhelmed. This also allows you to just level 80 boost a new character once you are already more familiar with the game mechanics and don’t want to go through the leveling process again.

All that being said, I do know people who absolutely hated leveling and the story pretty much from minute 1, so if it will improve your enjoyment of the game then go for it.

Well, unless ur bored of leveling, i think u should level your first character to 80 without the booster. Then level ur second character with the booster. Personally i enjoyed leveling my first character all the way to 80.

I suppose the thing about Guild Wars is that the leveling is actually quite fun. I think I’ll stick to the normal route as you said.

The 80 level booster will allow you to “try out” as many professions in SW so that if you only want one or 2 chars then you can figure it before spending the time to level and mapping and stuff.

Dinosaurs.8674:

I think it’s worthwhile to go through the game “properly” at least once. There is a lot of really cool stuff in the early zones, and the landscapes look amazing. If you care about the lore you should obviously do the story as well.

There is also a lot of value to exploring all the maps as you level, since it lets you get to world events, farm points, dungeons, guild events, etc without any difficulty.

I also think it helps you learn the class and the game as a whole in much more depth if you play it and try things slowly as they are introduced versus getting everything at once and being potentially overwhelmed. This also allows you to just level 80 boost a new character once you are already more familiar with the game mechanics and don’t want to go through the leveling process again.

All that being said, I do know people who absolutely hated leveling and the story pretty much from minute 1, so if it will improve your enjoyment of the game then go for it.

^^^What this guy said.

It depends on whether or not you enjoy leveling. If you don’t like it (personally I can’t stand leveling, none of my 10 80s made it to 80 without crafting, tomes, or some combination of the two) feel free to use the boost; you’ll have plenty of opportunities to learn how to play the character at 80. If you enjoy leveling, there’s no real reason to skip it and you can save the boost for when you’re on your 2nd character (or even later) and you’re tired of leveling

One bit of advice, if you do, as a new player, instalevel to 80, it might be a bit rude to start joining endgame group content until you spend some time learning your profession.

I too would level my first character without any boosts to get a feel for the game. I would then use the boost to try out the other professions to learn how much I liked them at max level. Try out all of the classes for a reasonable amount of play time, and plan out which ones you want to create and level next. Only after I learned which classes I like, and don’t, would I make final use of the booster.

Ashen.2907:

One bit of advice, if you do, as a new player, instalevel to 80, it might be a bit rude to start joining endgame group content until you spend some time learning your profession.

I haven’t played much Guild Wars 2, but I am an MMO veteran. I do not go near group instances without making sure I have reqs or know how to play, don’t worry. ;

Dinosaurs.8674:

I think it’s worthwhile to go through the game “properly” at least once. There is a lot of really cool stuff in the early zones, and the landscapes look amazing. If you care about the lore you should obviously do the story as well.

There is also a lot of value to exploring all the maps as you level, since it lets you get to world events, farm points, dungeons, guild events, etc without any difficulty.

I also think it helps you learn the class and the game as a whole in much more depth if you play it and try things slowly as they are introduced versus getting everything at once and being potentially overwhelmed. This also allows you to just level 80 boost a new character once you are already more familiar with the game mechanics and don’t want to go through the leveling process again.

All that being said, I do know people who absolutely hated leveling and the story pretty much from minute 1, so if it will improve your enjoyment of the game then go for it.

That was exactly what I was wondering. When I tried the boost I saw all these skills and thought I’m not even sure how they synergise, I’m sure I could learn regardless, but I don’t even know how the system works.

The story is definitely something I don’t want to skip. Plus I know the voice over of the Norn women! Although you can do the story at 80 I suppose.

Yeah I think the boost will be for another character, although it is now in my Revenant’s inventory, unused. I suppose I will be getting a way to have it in another character?

I have a lv 80 toon and a few mid to low lv alts, and after thinking about it for a few min I decided to just consume the boost on my main.

First, I don’t like much the idea of getting all skills and specs unlocked at once, I prefer to try and experiment with them as I level (less confusing that way, also with boost I would just end up copying some coockie cutter build).

Second, leveling up normally is not hard at all, even if I don’t play much on my alts, and this way you get to unlock waypoints and explore maps (doing whole world exploration at lv 80 would feel boring to me, because it would seem like wasting time instead of doing the more profitable endgame-maps and events).

Also, if I ever should get bored and want to speed level an alt, there are always all those tomes of knowledge I’m accumulating from login rewards.

On a first play through I would never even consider the boost, but I’m the type of player who just love to explore all the game world and story the first time I play it.

Remember that you also lose out on level up rewards (but not sure if there is actually something good in there, pretty sure you get the best stuff from personal story rewards, and you can always do the story at lv 80).

In conclusion, if you’re anything like me, I suggest to level normally and then use the boost on a new toon, or if you don’t mind leveling that too just use it on the lv 80 for the stuff and the shared inventory slot.

Xariann.5071:

I suppose I will be getting a way to have it in another character?

Yes, the boost comes in a shared inventory slot, so it will be there for every character you create until you use it, and you get to keep the slot after.

No you will miss out on a lot, mechanics content, loot drops etc, learning the maps..

Yes you should use it asap! It’s hard to find a good perma-downed player these days that’s bound to let you thoroughly test your revival builds & skills!

i would use it personally. I dont understand those who say youll miss out on a lot of stuff. You can still go through the maps scaled down but youll have access to all the basic traits so youll get a better feel for the class and how you want to play it. The XP you earn wont go into leveling in the traditional sense but rather will help with getting a head start on your masteries. That for me would be the biggest reason to use the booster.

There’s nothing saying you can go through the maps as you would if you leveled the traditional/slow way. I dont believe you learn a class any better by going slow and being restricted on what builds/skills you have access to. Id rather have it all up front to learn with so Im not constantly changing game play based on what i have access to.

Using the booster only changes where the XP goes. Youre not missing out on loot. Youre not missing out on exploring. Youre not missing out on the story. Thats all still there for you to experience. Also the leveling rewards are not great. Theres nothing youll get that you will still use at lvl80. All of it will be thrown out (you cant salvage/sell it).

The personal story and low level zones are fun, but playing without full traits or skills is not, I’d suggest using the boost then playing through the content and explore everything anyway.

Shinzan.2908:

The personal story and low level zones are fun, but playing without full traits or skills is not, I’d suggest using the boost then playing through the content and explore everything anyway.

I agree with this. Some professions don’t really start to shine until you have all your traits unlocked. So if you plan to boost and then play the core game that should be fine. But I wouldn’t recommend boosting and then heading straight to the HoT zones since that will likely be very frustrating. I leveled 1-80 without boosting and found out that I needed to make some changes to my build and gear when I got to HoT. The build and playstyle that worked just fine for me in the core game didn’t work so well in HoT. It really helped that I had leveled previously without boosting and experimented with different builds previously so that I could adjust easier to HoT.