Guild Wars 2

I like HoT, so come at me bro.

I read so many posts on the forums lately about how a lot of people dislike HoT. There seems to be a lot of complaining but with little explanation, or constructive criticism, so it’s been difficult for me to understand where all the negativity is coming from. I almost wouldn’t believe that I was playing the same game, because I happen to really enjoy HoT. I am sure there are good arguments for improvement on certain things, but instead, I just wanted to post what I have been enjoying, and see what other people like so far.

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
I am playing my Guardian right now, but I haven’t unlocked all the new traits/abilities for Dragon Hunter, and I refuse to play it until I do so! It is taking me a long time to get enough points, but I know if I just made it my focus to acquire hero points, I’d have it in no time. I am most interested in trying Reaper or Scrapper.

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
I was very overwhelmed at first, and didn’t really know what I was doing. After a while, I just stopped questioning it and jumped into the events. I love how each map is bursting with activity, and it is fun to see how each mission contributes to the overall progression of the map. I enjoyed following Lord Faren in his underwear while trying to help the Nobles. I also think the new little adventure games are a blast! I waste so much time trying to get the highest score so I can walk away with a gold chest.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
I am really glad they changed the fractals. Doing 3 at once was time consuming, and it felt frustrating whenever we got a map I didn’t enjoy. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of time, it’s nice to be able to just play one map at a time.

What are you most looking forward to now?
I can’t wait for living story to pick up! I am so eager to see what will happen next, but I am also in no real rush. I still have so much to do with the masteries, specializations, and it might be nice to start gearing for Raids.

I can’t give as detailed reply as you’d like due to my ipad battery close to zeroing on me so I’m just going to say I Like HoT…

…except for what happened to guilds. I can’t see that was necessary.

( busy moving house so I might be back for more)

Altho I did enjoy the story, it was so short and left me feeling disappointed, that there isnt a hghlight for me. There were lots of things they brought up which hooked me, but when they led nowhere, I wasnt left with a positive feeling.

I love Tempest. It has totally reinvigorated my ele. My Reaper is also a new firm fav. Berserker I have and whilst fun, it doesnt add anything my other condi toons already do and better. Chronomancer is my next to try.

I love Verdant Brink due to the scale and variety. Auric has the best meta finale though.

Guild Halls have me excited, but our small guild cannot co e close with 5 or 6 to getting it. We will keep trying though, I want to focus on that. Im also thoroughly enjoying core Tyria, with masteries, collections, precursor mat farming, map rewards. The core game feels alive for me right now.

I too am keen to see where the story will lead, but it needs a lot of substance now. Far too much was missed out the expac story and it was waaaay too short by an enormous amount. Ive seem some exciting theorycrafting for what is next, but we need less mystery and more solid answers and reveals going forward for a bit. Im also excited fir any new maps and masteries they might add, or even possible revamps to zones like Southson – a great map which never hit its potential

That is my early morning ramble. Overall, im thoroughly enjoying the expac despite some niggles!.

There’s lots of improvements and bug fixes that need to be done but overall I am enjoying HoT (although it’s starting to get a little stale).

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
The golems "dying". Mr. Sparkles and Scruffy are the only moving losses in Heart of Thorns!

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
Reaper, Dragonhunter, Herald, Tempest and Chronomancer. Reaper is my favorite because Necro is my favorite. I’m working on Druid next.

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
The Blighting Towers in Dragon’s Stand. I always follow/lead the zerg and it’s exciting wading into a horde of 30+ Vet/Elite/Champ Mordrem just so you can kill one and run off into the next one. Trying to keep your character alive and keep the cycle going is fun for me.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
Just working on collections.

What are you most looking forward to now?
Finishing the specialization weapons I want.

1) What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story?
– I dont like the HoT story because it takes place on the HoT maps

2) What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
- full Reaper, which happens to be the only good thing I got for my 99 EUR spent on ultimate edition HoT (I dont have the time to level alts)

3) What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
- I hate all jungle maps, they are an exercise in frustration, made purposely annoying not hard

4) Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
– Fractals are fun, PvP can be fun, Dungeons can be fun again

5) What are you most looking forward to now?
– another game (probably Blade and Soul January next year )

Randulf.7614:

Guild Halls have me excited, but our small guild cannot co e close with 5 or 6 to getting it. We will keep trying though, I want to focus on that. Im also thoroughly enjoying core Tyria, with masteries, collections, precursor mat farming, map rewards. The core game feels alive for me right now.

I too am keen to see where the story will lead, but it needs a lot of substance now. Far too much was missed out the expac story and it was waaaay too short by an enormous amount. Ive seem some exciting theorycrafting for what is next, but we need less mystery and more solid answers and reveals going forward for a bit. Im also excited fir any new maps and masteries they might add, or even possible revamps to zones like Southson – a great map which never hit its potential

I am part of a small guild also. I missed our guild acquiring the guild hall, so I am not really sure whats involved in getting it, but I’d be glad to tag along if it requires more bodies, and I’m sure some of the other people in our guild would be happy to help.

I also hope we get some more answers. It didn’t really conclude much, other than the actual fight, so hopefully the living world will answer some questions.

Boysenberry.1869:

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
The Blighting Towers in Dragon’s Stand. I always follow/lead the zerg and it’s exciting wading into a horde of 30+ Vet/Elite/Champ Mordrem just so you can kill one and run off into the next one. Trying to keep your character alive and keep the cycle going is fun for me.

I haven’t really gotten onto that map yet, other than to finish the story. I’ve done most events on both Verdant Brink and Auric Basin, and am just starting to explore Tangled Depths which probably has me the most confused on whats going on lol but I’ll figure it out. I want to give it a chance before jumping into Dragon’s Stand.

I reverted back to my casual play.

I haven’t even come close to maxing masteries or anything, but I’ve never been a fan of level grinding… And masteries are level grinding, very very grindy level grind.

I do metas from time to time. Usually Dragon Stand, but even that I’ve grown tired of because all I want is the leystone armour, but it comes down to entirely RNG, which is something I hate every developer doing, it ends up being a complete waste of my time. It’s the laziest cheapest way to stretch “content” and turns me right off, so I"ll probably just log in once and a while to kill a few things and log off.

Some people love the grind though obviously, and good on them.

Personally, I was until I set my sights on trying to get the Auric Greatsword for the skin collection.
1) Why is it only Mesmers get to choose this weapon during the reward phase at the end of a chapter
2) What is the deal with locking Auric Weapons behind “grind-gates” where as the Chak weapons can be purchased from the get go after acquiring the Mastery Perk.

There’s a Nuoch right under Tarir who sells Chak Weapons in AB and yet Chak presence is very small. But Auric Weapons? Hell no, you have to buy the stupid core recipes (ranging from 250-500 a core recipe) which require Ingots that cannot be traded. I’d be fine with that honestly if we could trade the Piles of Auric Dust but can we? NOPE! They’re bound on acquire to. So I have to grind repeatedly Tarir just to get into the chests downstairs (assuming I’m on a successful map) and hope I get lucky with Ingots. Or, do the same, and just farm the dust which on average I get maybe 7.

I need 300 Dust to craft, along with Auric Silver (which can be traded so bleh), in order to get 10 ingots. What the hell? Why are these so special when the stats are virtually the same of Chak weapons. These aren’t precursors for legendaries either so what gives?!

Consistency, I beg you. Put a vendor in Tarir who will sell the weapons. I’ll gladly farm up to 1000 Lumps to get a weapon over this crap.

/rant

I’ll admit, initially I was not very excited about Heart of Thorns. But I now realize that for the first few days I was “swimming against the current”, so to speak. I was trying to ignore or avoid everything that was going on around me and just do my own thing. And that was a very frustrating experience. Eventually, I learned to jump into whatever events were happening at the time and ride them through the zone – and then things suddenly became much more enjoyable. For example, rather than trying to go all Rambo and solo my way to each hero point all on my own, I would jump into events that were taking place near hero points. Inevitably, when the event completed a good portion of the folks doing the event would head over to any nearby hero points and knock them out together. Once I started to get a feel for each map and had the major waypoints unlocked, I found it much easier to strike out on my own and explore. There are still some places that are too difficult for me to solo, but I like that. The world feels dangerous (as it should).

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story?

(No spoilers below)

I just liked that my character was so actively involved, and finally regained his voice. I also liked how my character would engage in dialog with other characters while he was running around and sometimes even while fighting. I prefer that style a lot more than the static cut-scenes.

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?

I’ve unlocked berserker on my warrior, and am greatly enjoying the feel of this specialization. In PvE, I can keep berserk mode going almost continuously – and I feel like I’m shredding through anything that comes at me.

The next one I’ll try will either be Tempest or Dragon Hunter. They both look very fun.

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?

Auric Basin is my favorite map. I think it’s the easiest map to navigate, and the easiest to casually explore. And the Exalted are just super cool.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?

I’m currently working on unlocking all the precursor crafting masteries. Once I have them unlocked, I’m going to create a new character and try to work building a precursor into all the other world completion activities I do with him, so that acquiring a precursor feels a bit more like it’s part of his journey rather than something that’s done after the fact. Most of the material acquisition will be subsidized by my other characters, but I think I should be able to work all the achievement tasks into his adventures – which will hopefully make it feel more like an epic quest, rather than a checklist of random stuff to do. (We’ll see how that turns out.)

What are you most looking forward to now?

I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes, especially with what we were shown in the final cut-scene, and what new lands we’ll get to explore next. I’m also looking forward to exploring the jungle more thoroughly now that I’ve finished the story. I passed through many areas very quickly since I was initially focused on following the story. I know there’s many events and activities that I missed the first time through, and entire sections of some maps that I haven’t even uncovered yet. If the Living Story doesn’t pick up until January, I think I’ll still have plenty to keep me busy until then.

I’m hot for HoT.

My favourite part of the story was when I finished it. I found the unskippable endless dialogue boring in the extreme, and it’s the most offputting thing about ever repeating the story. Do they really have to talk to each other every time whilst I stand there waiting for my turn to ‘speak’?

I suppose they had to add all that in to make up for the lack of real time consuming action.

Favourite elite is chronomancer, have got them all.

My favourite event was finishing the maps so I don’t ever have to do it again.

I’m excited by the endless timed/gated/locked content and almost permanent contested waypoints over many of the maps. When you are opening the map with a different character this becomes tedious/annoying in the extreme.

I’m excited by all the time gating/mastery gating/account bound new stuff. Oh, and no longer being able to operate my little guild or make guild catapults as apparently that’s OK to remove most of my guild’s functionality and gate it behind a massive gold sink and grind.

I’m looking forward to a different game.

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
Rata Novus! I usually love everything asura-related, and exploring this ancient, ruined asuran city was just great.

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
So far I’ve fully unlocked druid, tempest, and chronomancer (3x). I’ve really fallen in love with the chrono (one of the reasons why I unlocked it on three characters already, the other being the fact that mesmer #2 and #3 were already at 210+ hero points and only needed four extra challenges each ), replacing the “standard” mesmer as my favourite class hands down.

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
I haven’t really been in Dragon’s Stand yet (except for my ranger passing by while playing the story), but I enjoy all three maps I’ve been to so far. I have one full exploration each of VB and AB, and am closing in on my first full TD exploration, with several other characters already on the way to full exploration, too.

The vertical maps really make exploration a lot more enjoyable for me, since there’s something new to explore, another connection or shortcut, or a stunning view, with pretty much every character I play through the areas. You don’t just walk everywhere, you have to combine gliding, jumping, updrafts and more to really find your way around, and there’s different ways to get to pretty much any place on these maps.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
I’m really enjoying fractals a lot more since the change. Due to the maps being fixed to the levels and the ability to play as many or as few fractals as you feel like, I can much easier fit them into my busy real life schedule, and it’s often faster to find friends to play with, too (at least in my casual guild with a lot of older people with more or less limited play time).

I’m also enjoying the different collections and achievements that came with the expansion. For example, I really enjoyed doing the first collection for the Leaf of Kudzu, not because I want to build the precursor, but simply because I enjoyed traveling around Tyria (and the mists), collecting pretty flowers. I’ve actually put all those flowers onto an alt and intend to keep them for my personal enjoyment .

What are you most looking forward to now?
Everything .

No, really, there’s nothing specific I’m looking forward to. I tend to play this game in a “let’s see what will happen today” kind of way, with only a very rough idea of what I want to play, and going with whatever fun turns up. Last weekend for example, I set out to harvest 25 nodes of soft wood (to craft a spiritwood plank), and ended up with all kinds of goodies towards collections (I stumbled upon the Draitor event in Kessex purely by accident ), achievements (jumped into an empty AB map a guildie was commenting on to get the last challenge win I was missing), lots of map boni and different map currencies, map exploration, a good chunk of pact tyria and HoT mastery experience just from playing, and more.

Looking through the achievements, collections, wardrobe, and characters, there’s a lot more days like that ahead of me, and I’m really looking forward to it .

Ronin.7381:

I need 300 Dust to craft, along with Auric Silver (which can be traded so bleh), in order to get 10 ingots.

If you go raid the chests under Tarir, you’ll find not only Auric Dust, but also Slivers and even full ingots in there. I think I’ve got a good handful from only five successful Tarir events already. I seem to average at least one from the five huge chests alone.

Rasimir.6239:

Ronin.7381:

I need 300 Dust to craft, along with Auric Silver (which can be traded so bleh), in order to get 10 ingots.

If you go raid the chests under Tarir, you’ll find not only Auric Dust, but also Slivers and even full ingots in there. I think I’ve got a good handful from only five successful Tarir events already. I seem to average at least one from the five huge chests alone.

You can buy Slivers on the TP which is what I did so that wasn’t a problem. As for the ingots, yes they do have a chance to be looted in chests but it’s a crap shoot, luck needs to be on your side and I’m a pessimist when it comes to “luck”.

Some people get all the luck and others get screwed over, that’s the nature of RNG for you.

Never the less, been doing that and it really does barrel down to getting into a good full map that knows what they’re doing. Because if you fail, no-chests.

hardy.7469:

I reverted back to my casual play.

I haven’t even come close to maxing masteries or anything, but I’ve never been a fan of level grinding… And masteries are level grinding, very very grindy level grind.

Yeah, I suppose they are. I’ve seen people with Mastery Level 159. I admire their focus, but I’d get bored too quickly grinding that out! I think that part of the problem, for me anyway, is that I am approaching it the wrong way. A lot of people think of Masteries as end-game content, which to an extent, it is. You need to be lvl 80 in order to progress them, but it is so easy to get to lvl 80 and not time consuming at all. I think the idea is that you can naturally progress masteries just by doing other things and playing the game. I like Maximus Delion approach to it:

Maximus Delion.8719:

I’ll admit, initially I was not very excited about Heart of Thorns. But I now realize that for the first few days I was “swimming against the current”, so to speak. I was trying to ignore or avoid everything that was going on around me and just do my own thing. And that was a very frustrating experience. Eventually, I learned to jump into whatever events were happening at the time and ride them through the zone – and then things suddenly became much more enjoyable. For example, rather than trying to go all Rambo and solo my way to each hero point all on my own, I would jump into events that were taking place near hero points. Inevitably, when the event completed a good portion of the folks doing the event would head over to any nearby hero points and knock them out together. Once I started to get a feel for each map and had the major waypoints unlocked, I found it much easier to strike out on my own and explore. There are still some places that are too difficult for me to solo, but I like that. The world feels dangerous (as it should).

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?

I’m currently working on unlocking all the precursor crafting masteries. Once I have them unlocked, I’m going to create a new character and try to work building a precursor into all the other world completion activities I do with him, so that acquiring a precursor feels a bit more like it’s part of his journey rather than something that’s done after the fact. Most of the material acquisition will be subsidized by my other characters, but I think I should be able to work all the achievement tasks into his adventures – which will hopefully make it feel more like an epic quest, rather than a checklist of random stuff to do. (We’ll see how that turns out.)

What are you most looking forward to now?

I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes, especially with what we were shown in the final cut-scene, and what new lands we’ll get to explore next. I’m also looking forward to exploring the jungle more thoroughly now that I’ve finished the story. I passed through many areas very quickly since I was initially focused on following the story. I know there’s many events and activities that I missed the first time through, and entire sections of some maps that I haven’t even uncovered yet. If the Living Story doesn’t pick up until January, I think I’ll still have plenty to keep me busy until then.

This is how I think I will play. I think it is great that in HoT you can focus on something specifically, or play more broadly. You can work exclusively on Masteries, or crafting, or advancing your Guild, or exploring. My problem is I was overwhelmed by all the things that I felt like I had to do, and I was impatient to get all of them done at once. I want to do Raids, but I should get better gear. I want to acquire a legendary, but there is so much required to craft it. I want to get map completion, but I need more masteries. I have been level 80, and I’ve had all of the content from the base game available and open for so long, that it is almost like I forgot what playing an MMO was like. I’ve forgotten what it is like to have all kinds of new things to do.

I would love to “complete” all of these things eventually, but I like your approach of just playing the game and enjoying the journey. You are right, a lot of these goals will be accomplished along the way.

Rasimir.6239:

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
Rata Novus! I usually love everything asura-related, and exploring this ancient, ruined asuran city was just great.

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
So far I’ve fully unlocked druid, tempest, and chronomancer (3x). I’ve really fallen in love with the chrono (one of the reasons why I unlocked it on three characters already, the other being the fact that mesmer #2 and #3 were already at 210+ hero points and only needed four extra challenges each ), replacing the “standard” mesmer as my favourite class hands down.

What are you most looking forward to now?
Everything .

No, really, there’s nothing specific I’m looking forward to. I tend to play this game in a “let’s see what will happen today” kind of way, with only a very rough idea of what I want to play, and going with whatever fun turns up. Last weekend for example, I set out to harvest 25 nodes of soft wood (to craft a spiritwood plank), and ended up with all kinds of goodies towards collections (I stumbled upon the Draitor event in Kessex purely by accident ), achievements (jumped into an empty AB map a guildie was commenting on to get the last challenge win I was missing), lots of map boni and different map currencies, map exploration, a good chunk of pact tyria and HoT mastery experience just from playing, and more.

Looking through the achievements, collections, wardrobe, and characters, there’s a lot more days like that ahead of me, and I’m really looking forward to it .

Ronin.7381:

I need 300 Dust to craft, along with Auric Silver (which can be traded so bleh), in order to get 10 ingots.

If you go raid the chests under Tarir, you’ll find not only Auric Dust, but also Slivers and even full ingots in there. I think I’ve got a good handful from only five successful Tarir events already. I seem to average at least one from the five huge chests alone.

I am ashamed to admit I haven’t made an Asura yet. Once I’ve played a bit more through HoT, I will probably make an Asuran Elementalist, because I don’t have either one of those yet.

And it is kind of funny, but I am having a lot more fun by not setting a specific goal that I work on every day. Instead of rushing out and trying to craft one of the new legendaries (and potentially getting burnt out), I’ve just been playing the game and that seems to indirectly be leading me to those goals anyway. I’ve been enjoying it a lot more knowing that mindset.

I need to do that event in Tarir more often! I didn’t realize it was that profitable.

Me me me! I am enjoying it! Just finished the story last night, was taking my time to advance with the lore, metas and some masteries!

1) What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story?
– The end!

2) What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
- Tempest, unlocked elite already and use it everywhere, specially WvW which I will start playing more often now that I finished story line
3) What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
- Second map is so beautiful, I like the big armor things

4) Are there any other areas you are excited by?
- Waiting for hall to be at full fledge to enjoy all the WvW perks

5) What are you most looking forward to now?
– I am not a PvP fan but I need to try outpost, in the short future Ill be hitting WvW and try to specialize on it… tempest support has proven to be very effective in small group fights, yeah tested different builds and am having so much fun

HoT story: I don’t know, I still need to finish it. But I don’t care at the same time because : The "revelation" at the end of Rata Novus part was ridiculous, it just killed it for me

Spec: I unlocked scrapper, dragonhunter and druid. Have a lot of fun with scrapper and DH.

Favorite HoT map and event : I rarely play in HoT, I find myself running Orr and doing temples or Teq a lot more when I need to pve. HoT maps meta are too long, fial too much for me to even want to waste my playtime there.

WvW, Fractals etc…: WvW is my favorite mode. HoT killed it. I was so excited to play the new spec but the new borderlands are dead. I do fractals from time to time, got a lot of ascended rings but nothing else. I like it better now, because it’s shorter. I don’t care about raids, or pvp.

What’s next?: I’m waiting for Anet to fix wvw. I don’t have high hopes tho.

All in all, I only enjoy the new specs from HoT. Gliding could be amazing if it was added to the new wvw borderlands. I don’t find HoT areas difficult, it’s just the same pve thing with more HP, which is boring. Core Tyria still gives the best rewards for the time invested.

I do not like mastery points locked behind adventures which are insulting and idiotic. I have issues with raid timers forcing zerk gear on people even though they released such nice new gear stats. Other than those two things I love HoT. The maps are fun and engaging, the events also fun. The new class specializations are way cool and all my Baby’sura are very happy with their new skills. Overall I give HoT 7/10. Fix raid timers, remove mastery from silly mario style adventures and it goes to 10/10.

1) What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story?

I enjoyed VB mostly.

2) What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?

Druid, Chrono, and Dragon Hunter. I like the Chrono the best, but my ranger is my Main with all of the PvE accomplishments. I don’t really use the Druid spec for general PvE content (HoT or otherwise – I did druid up on my one and only Raid attempt with a pug, and will druid again in Raids in the future)

3) What is your favorite event or map in HoT?

Favorite event & map is DS, hands down. It’s fun, it’s a whole map effort with high enough success rate and XP to make it feel like you’re accomplishing something and the final fight makes it feel like you’re on the epic quest you’re supposed to be on.

4) Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?

Haven’t done any of the new PvP mode since beta, or the Fractals. Guild Halls are huge and imposing. Raids look interesting. I enjoy the masteries themselves but not the amount of grind to level them up.

5) What are you most looking forward to now?

Taking a break from trying too long and hard to get the TD meta done (which I did, eventually!)

Going to be returning to WvW soon and checking out new PvP mode and Raids again at some point.

I am enjoying HoT very much, love the Reaper and Dragon Hunter (but the Druid needs work). I have done lots of Dragon Stand, Auric Basin, and Verdant Brink runs and metas. I have yet to complete the Tangled Depths meta but I did manage map complete there which was a challenge. I like all the new collections and I am working on a number of weapons including precursers, but I hate having mastery points and collection items behind ridiculously hard adventures. Mini games should be OPTIONAL. I hate the stress of timers, the game should be fun not stressful.

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
I haven’t done much story and have little interest. I can say, who da faq are these people and why is my character Turbo McBossyPants? Wasn’t here for LS1 or LS2, none of it makes sense to me.

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
Reaper and scrapper. Reaper clearly. I can solo everything a lot easier on a necro that has a done of stuns and blinds and great damage because I can run in full zerker gear. I think I might try my mesmer or guardian next, but not overly hopeful with the new zones being a bit rowdy to run around solo in. But I might roll a viper or sinister set on my necro long before I try another character. Assuming we get better access to quartz and charged quartz crystals since the market has gone insane.

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
The one in the first map with the 3 champions that then turn into a legendary champion. At first I was very, we got these 3 jokers, these guys are cake. Just gotta be careful, me and this ellie got this. And more people turned up and then the big guy came out and the only reason I didn’t fall off the map like 16 times is reaper 3(stability) and 2(whirl charge). Took me a bit to get the strategy down, so I could spank his bum while he wasn’t looking at me with my greatsword. But I got it. We’re good, love necro… life siphon and shroud gives me a lot of second chances in fights.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
Not really no. Loot pick up will be nice, but doesn’t work in WvW so that sucks. I don’t run with a guild so the halls are meh, but I hate how WvW guilds lost all their buffs. I miss my plus five supply. I don’t care about raiding. I would like to try fractals, but only if rewards are fixed. I do want to try, and this is a very light try, to work on Nevermore. Even though I don’t really use staff anymore. So I’d like to unlock it and then just very slowly poke away at it.

What are you most looking forward to now?
Nothing. Wondering if the rumors about WvW changes are true, and then where I’ll go from there. Maybe finding a group to run with, but given the fact I tend to disappear for weeks or months in video games when I take “breaks” makes me a really unreliable guildy.

I’ve spent virtually all of my time in HoT as a Herald, which I adore.

Some will find this strange, but my favorite map is Tangled Depths. It can be rather perplexing at times, but I really like how each of the areas is like its own little mini zone. VB has so much going on I have barely scratched the surface of it. Tarir meta event is fun and rewarding.

I don’t care for the story all that much, to be honest. I find it kind of superficial, with a number of events that occur for no other reason than because certain things needed to happen. I also found very little in the way of skins etc that I have any remote interest in.

Hoping to make some progress in the raid tonight. I am very much interested in getting started on legendary armor. Hoping that fractal rewards will become more enticing as well.

I’m enjoying HoT quite a bit. Just unlocked Leyline Gliding, but haven’t gotten a chance to use it yet.

I think VB is my favorite zone, because I enjoy defending outpost at night. Those are my kind of events. I enjoyed the story, but the last mission is far too buggy for my taste, and I dislike the whole “penalty box” concept, which I find unnecessarily punishing. Some of the adventures are hard to do in Australia due to unusually high ping as well.

But that said, I’m still enjoying the hell out of the zones. I’ve been working on a legendary collection (Kudzu) which I’m enjoying. Love the last tier of the Pact Commander mastery so I don’t have to spam F to pick up stuff…wish it worked in WvW.

Enjoying the Guild Hall, we’re just about up to getting Tavern too, just waiting on aetherium.

Ive really enjoyed all zones, have gone through them on 6 characters. The events are fun enough, and the difficulty of the metas is a nice change of pace compared to central tyria.

Class elites specs have been a nice addition to my builds, and while I was hesitant on some, after playing with them more they’ve grown on me pretty quickly.

Overall, story content was a little lacking (in length) though content itself was fine. But remember, Anet has been expanding a lot on story via Living Story, so this is just the beginning I hope.

Guild hall has been solid, definitely made our guilds more personal, more important to each of us. But the way some things were implemented… Our guild had no issues due to our numbers, but we can all see how badly this was designed for smaller guilds.

There are little gripes here and there, particularly with balancing and bug fixes, but overall, I’ve enjoyed it.

EDIT: I also like how a lot, if not all, events and meta tie into the personal stories themselves.

I’m in love with Auric Basin theme, events, map and stuff. im going to get the minis and craft weapons.

Have not played in weeks but enjoyed what I did.
Note: I stopped playing once Fallout 4 came out. Will return once I get a bit further in that game.

I like HOT but can also understand many of the complaints. But since this is a positive thread, will only focus on the good.

1. What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)

The beginning parts in VB. Really felt the aftermath of the Pact’s demise. Well done by Arenanet in creating the right atmosphere. I also played the beginning on my Sylvari Alt and like how differently that character was treated.

2. What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?

Post-launch have only tried Daredevil. I love it. I really did not like my Thief alt but this spec has given it new life. She reminds me of a Shaolin monk in a martial arts film. For the first time since creating the Thief, I am really enjoying it. And that is all due to the elite spec.

3. What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
I have spent the most time in VB so I would say Verdant Brink.

4. Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?

WvW – have not tried the new map yet. am looking forward to it once i return. also, have a few more masteries i want to get -like ley line or the exalted ones.

5. What are you most looking forward to now?
Doing the events in TD and DS. I also want to finish the east and north sides of AB Tarir defense. Once I have completed most of the Magumma open world on my main, then I will focus on finishing out my elite spec on my Sylvari Thief. I may also do the personal story on her again just to continue seeing the different treatment of Sylvari player characters.

I’m enjoying it, though there are several bugs.

I enjoy HoT, despite the problems.
Overall I do like the verticality with the maps, even if they are a bit frustrating at points.
I’m going to try out the Dragonhunter eventually, but now I’m just content with getting all my other lvl 80s to the jungle at this point.

Mastery-wise I love gliding and the shrooms.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
I don’t enjoy PvP nor do I care about WvW (making me wonder if ANet cares about it either). I’ve done mostly low level Fractals so most of the changes haven’t affected me, except the AR change.

My guild loves the new hall and the raids that we’re arranging.

As for what to expect next? I want the story to continue, because this really feels like it was part of Season 3 and didn’t conclude to a result I’m happy with at the moment.

I’m enjoying it. There are some bugs, but the upside for me far outweights the downside. It has a lot of longer term goals for people who like that sort of thing and the content is much harder than core tyria, which is refreshing.

Doing HoT maps is way enjoyable than SW itself.

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)

I have no favorite part. Except that I could kill someone (or something) at the end, because I wanted to do that since the end of my personal story.

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?

I have fully unlocked all specializations but have the most fun in the HoT maps with my new Reaper and my new Ranger (yes, not Druid).

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?

I like VB because I can climb up and fly/glide (gliding mastery fully unlocked) above the clouds over the complete map.

And I like TD 2nd most because of its originality and its “tangled-ness”

From the Events I liked the Itzel-event-chain in VB the most when I did it the first time.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?

I was excited for Guild Halls. But after we got it, it just seems to be a massive gold/material sink for developing the Guild Hall further, but with little benefit.

What are you most looking forward to now?
Some bug fixes and changes for the mastery progression where mastery points are not locked behind Gold/Silver of the HoT-Minigames/Adventures. But I have no idea, if this will ever happen. Until then I try to not care about mastery progression anymore.

kuritsutian.2987:

What are you most looking forward to now?
– I am not a PvP fan but I need to try outpost, in the short future Ill be hitting WvW and try to specialize on it… tempest support has proven to be very effective in small group fights, yeah tested different builds and am having so much fun

I never really got into WvW, but now is as good a time as any. My friend said that the remade maps are gorgeous and fun to explore, but that they might be too big. Anet seems to acknowledge it needs some additional tweaking though, so hopefully they’ll make the maps a bit tighter.

Nausicca.6038:

Spec: I unlocked scrapper, dragonhunter and druid. Have a lot of fun with scrapper and DH.

All in all, I only enjoy the new specs from HoT. Gliding could be amazing if it was added to the new wvw borderlands.

I am disappointed because I really want to see what a good hammer scrapper looks like. My friends all run kits still, even with the scrapper spec. Any good build ideas for DH?

And I hope they add gliding! Every time I go back to the original Tyria, I keep double-tapping my spacebar thinking I’ll glide away

Scandi.5693:

I do not like mastery points locked behind adventures which are insulting and idiotic. I have issues with raid timers forcing zerk gear on people even though they released such nice new gear stats. Other than those two things I love HoT. The maps are fun and engaging, the events also fun. The new class specializations are way cool and all my Baby’sura are very happy with their new skills. Overall I give HoT 7/10. Fix raid timers, remove mastery from silly mario style adventures and it goes to 10/10.

Are you talking about the adventure games that require you to have gliding mastery, or jumping mushrooms? I was kind of disappointed when I went to do one and realized I couldn’t even complete it because I didn’t have the necessary masteries. But I still find them fun, and it didn’t take that long to get a few of the required masteries.

Lysander Freeman.4186:

3) What is your favorite event or map in HoT?

Favorite event & map is DS, hands down. It’s fun, it’s a whole map effort with high enough success rate and XP to make it feel like you’re accomplishing something and the final fight makes it feel like you’re on the epic quest you’re supposed to be on.

You are the second or third person on this thread to say they like DS. I haven’t done it yet, but after this post I think I’ll have to check it out!

Coyote.7031:

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
I haven’t done much story and have little interest. I can say, who da faq are these people and why is my character Turbo McBossyPants? Wasn’t here for LS1 or LS2, none of it makes sense to me.

Yeah, unfortunately you’d have to backtrack with the story. I played both LS1 and LS2. Hopefully you will try and play LS3 when it starts up. It can be a lot of fun. But I definitely noticed that my character was waaaay more bossy than usual.

IntheCoconut.3497:

Nausicca.6038:

Spec: I unlocked scrapper, dragonhunter and druid. Have a lot of fun with scrapper and DH.

All in all, I only enjoy the new specs from HoT. Gliding could be amazing if it was added to the new wvw borderlands.

I am disappointed because I really want to see what a good hammer scrapper looks like. My friends all run kits still, even with the scrapper spec. Any good build ideas for DH?

And I hope they add gliding! Every time I go back to the original Tyria, I keep double-tapping my spacebar thinking I’ll glide away

I’m using kits as well. Tool kit and elixir gun in WvW, with rocket boots or elixir B if no zerg. Since the only active map in NA T4 is EB, I use a tanky setup ( mix of celestial and cavalier), so I can poke zergs and escape quite easily.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUB9dhtbBmcBEqilJjieuz79Oc7SmwS8ZKgAA-TFCBABKqDwRlgkq+jXKPA4BAYmSsi2fghLAApA0TkF-w

If you’re looking for a kitless scrapper build, Ultratown is using a nice one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSujOZoNGGY

For DH ( wvw), I’m using a classic medi burst build with a GS/bow and trav runes, very close to Zodin’s one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8wUeVrjUUQ
You can use it in pve, it works very well with traps.

I hope it helps

Now that the bugs for Nevermore have been fixed and the Aussie ping issue seems resolved, I imagine I will be enjoying it again shortly. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been pretty down on HoT.

I love gw1 and gw2 though gw1 more. I enjoy HoT and thought they did many things right.

I like that masteries provide an alternate form of leveling progression so that challenging content doesn’t become irrevelant an expansion or 2 later thus titles, unique skins, and achievements don’t become easy to get later or even soloable like in wow.

I like the multi-tiered maps. Its an interesting concept and a nice change.

I really liked the story.

I really liked the mordremoth fight.

I like the new elite specs a lot for the most part. Reaper, chronomancer and berserker is fun. Daredevil while less flashy fits my playstyle nicely even without the staff.

The revenant is just awesome.

That being said I’m also up for constructive criticism and have a few posts myself.

I dislike how short the story is. There was a lot of cool ideas they could have done. An example how about doing more with the nightmare court? Even a temporary alliance to bring the dragon down and/or a betrayal would have been cool. It would have been nice if our “choices” in the personal story went further as far as how our story progressed instead of just choosing what 1 instance we will fight this time. Something more like in the original game where we chose what we most fear and that effects the next 3 or so stories we do. It would have been cool to see the new destinies edge characters evolve more. Their story was really good at times, but say if Braham actually became a dragonhunter instead of just alluding to it. (crosses fingers for raids or next living world)

I don’t like how they got rid of the gold rewards from dungeons. Their excuse of “we are doubling gold rewards from raids and we don’t want to ruin the economy” is completely ridiculous. Seeing how as most people can’t/don’t do raids and even those who want to can’t even beat the 1st boss there is no reason for this at all. I sincerely believe they could even make the raid bosses drop more gold (like 10g+) and it wouldn’t hurt the economy at all since hardly anyone would be effected and there are so many new gold sinks (legendary weapons, legendary armor, legendary backpacks, ascended armor (almost a requirement for raids), new runes/sigils etc.

I don’t like how many maps are now empty and there are extremely hard events that I simply can’t do now. And how map exploration is also tied in to many of these events thus also becoming impossible at the moment anyways.

I don’t like how some ridiculously hard to get achievements/collections only grant 1 mastery and/or barely any achievement points. Example: ascended armor. Older example legendary weapons, think the ap should be much higher considering the work/investment. I strongly believe there should be more masteries or the ones out should grant more points. Not really sure why people can’t just max their masteries in all categories in a reasonable amount of time/investment/gold and not have some extra leeway. This way people can enjoy it more and at the same time not minimize those who enjoy getting all mastery points. They can still get all the points and have bragging rights kind of like how the gw1/gw2 hall of monuments worked at 30/50 points. 30 was enough to enjoy all the rewards but those who wanted more could do it just for bragging rights.

I don’t like how most people can’t even get into raid groups without ascended armor/weapons. Or how most groups can’t pug raids. Don’t get me wrong I love challenges. I love high level fractals, the new ta path, getting dungeonmaster before nerfs and path sellers. I don’t want it to be auto wins for pugs. It’s just I was told for YEARS I didn’t need ascended armor except for fractals (which i collected my rings/amulets, etc. and instead went for 5 legendary weapons… and now can’t get into pugs b/c I don’t have ascended armor. I get this is a playerbase mentality and guilds help relieve some of this but the points are still valid and this whole “get a guild” argument doesn’t really fly with me b/c I am in several guilds. “get a better guild” doesn’t really work either except as trolling b/c the guilds who can already do it probably already have a core group.

I don’t like the huge amount of cool new items in the gemstore and hardly any new weapons/armor in game in comparison. I do support the gemstore, a lot actually. But instead of just a couple of new armor sets and lots of new outfits I think there should be 20+ new armor sets in game much like the dungeon sets, nevermind new karma sets, wvw sets, pvp sets, etc. Instead of just leyline, bladed, etc lol. Why can’t we have 50-100+ new sets like the original gw2 core game did and then add some cool gemstore outfits too. Another example gw1 factions had quite a few sets both normal versions and elite ones and that was their first expansion too (and also a lot bigger than HoT too)

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
My first completed elite was Daredevil, which I enjoyed a lot. It makes my Dagger/Dagger thief that much more knifey. I also made a Berserker, Scrapper, Dragonhunter and Herald, but I haven’t finished any of them. I have no interest in Druid, Reaper, Tempest, nor Chronomancer. Even though it isn’t finished, Herald is still my favorite. Revenant is ok, but Herald is best.

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
Lord Faren, of course Lord Faren. He’s absurd and delightful. I’m just happy that I made a noble, because if I hadn’t had the opportunity to adventure with him, I might not care about him nearly as much.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
One thing I did like is that Guild Halls allowed me to get all of my characters into HoT without doing the prequel to the story. Other than that, nothing.

What are you most looking forward to now?
I’m looking forward to LW3, but I am kind of looking forward to whatever the next expansion is. I want to see how they’ll use these features they spent so much time on moving forward.

Just got HoT today. I am having a great time so far.

Will reply to all of the questions ones I have completed the personal story and checked out all of the maps.

I am also loving Heart of Thorns. Tried all the specializations and find the Chronomancer and Scrapper to be my favorites.

What is your favorite event?
All of Dragonstand – every little bit of it.

Are there are other areas you are excited for?
The guild hall system is a huge home run.

What are you most looking forward to now?
Like many others, I’m looking forward to Living World Season 3. There is just a lot of potential now.
(second place would be new guild missions and fractal maps – wonderful new system in place; can’t wait to see what they do with it).

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
– Helping having the option to skip it or do it in Open-World. The story telling from Anet got better, but it’s still in the pits.

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
- All of them
- Berserker – hands down rescued my warrior and rifle from complete uselessness
- out of things to try

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
- I hate the Heart of Thorns events. Outright hate them. They were really fun at first, but they take up too much of the maps. All of them impact the entire map in some way, yet not in such a way as Silverwastes. Silverwastes was brilliant till it got nerfed. You know what you were doing. Verdant Brink as an event unto itself is possibly the best because you’re actively trying to work toward having security after the Pact Fleet’s destruction. Mouth of Mordrimoth was simply amazing, but the map design and the battles get old quick. Silverwastes you were wandering around with an objective toward five bases at once. The nerf made it just another static event grind. Yeah, in fact, let’s just not talk about events. They failed here.

What are you most looking forward to now?
Scribing.
All I want is a max level scriber and Guild Hall.

I like the greatsword I will get when complete the map. That is the only reason I still go to those maps

I enjoy HoT, but its an Expansion that still needs in many spots ALOT of finetuning.

Favourite Personal Story Part
Bitter Harvest and in general that our Character now can actually speak again with voice, and acts now also alot more tougher, like a combat and battle experienced Commander who actually gives tactical commands like a strategian, while getting also called back as Commander and not something unfitting like “Boss”, overcoming by him/herself while taking on the challenge, that is Mordremoth, which is a much stronger enemy than Zhaitan before. However, personally I find the storytelling in many aspects still very underwhelming and way too predictable.
But what I absolutely adored in the Story Tellign this tiem is the significant much better and visually alot more appealing design of the rendered sequences that are really of high superb artistical quality and which is something that I would wish for, if the whole game would just everywhere provide the consistency of showign these kind of high quality sequences everywhere in the game, not just only Season 2 to HoT.

Favourite Event
Defending Tarir, absolutely the best Meta event from all of them, doesn’t take too long to do it like DS, which takes roughly 2 hours to complete!!, while defending Tarir is done in 15 Minutes or significantly lesser if you have a good map.
Its not also such a total unforgiving design mess like the Jungle King Meta of TD is is from all Meta Events from Hot absolutely the one, which needs direly the most reworks to make it a good Meta Event on equal Level of Tarir’s Defense and DS’s Mordremoth’s 2h Mouth Battle/Tower Raid.
Its also the first Map, that made be feel under the new Mentor tag Feature like being a competent leader that alot of people follow, which is a nice feeling just to say what makes one happy, when you see like 100+ people hearing on your word in chat and all cheer at the end in joy when the defense was successful and storm happily to their loot chests under Tarir and their missing last HP’s, because when I organize this map, it will so far in 99% of all my leads a success, just only once it was so far a very bare fail, because I gave like 2-3 seconds too early the signal for the last burst, before South was ready..but this can happen absolutely everyone and South had then sadly not enough DPS for those 2-3 seconds to kill off right in time their side too, before the four sides regenerated back to 25% heath.

What Specialization have you tried so far?
So far mainly only Daredevil and Chronomancer. Have played through the Story so far mostly only with two of my Characters. The other Specs are all also unlocked, but haven’t played them yet much as I focused myself only on my Main Character and for Story Reasons on my Sylvari Character to get to see the Story Differences from playing the Story as a Non-Sylvari and as a Sylvari Character, but sadly the differences aren’t very much. They are sadly only very subtle. Had expected significantly more and bigger differences in the Story telling if you play it as a Sylvari… so this was another thing that disappointed me a bit.

Are the any Areas you are exited about?
I’m excited about Anets futurous plans on Masteries and especially Elite Specializations, knowing that the last one is something that got added with HoT due to my personal engagement and constant Sub Class Suggestions in the CDI about Horizontal Progression, I naturally want to see now, where and how far they take now this basic concept and what kind of Elite Specializations we will see more in the future and what they will add all for nice new mechanics, skills, new weapon categories and all of that to the game, that will make GW2 more interesting and fun to play.
I’m still waiting hopfully in the day I can either play my Thief as a Torch wielding Saboteur, or instead as a Longbow wielding very silent and stealthy Infiltrator that snipes foes with super deadly neurotoxic arrows, bringing all the wisdom about neurotoxic venoms from the Itzel and their bow and jungle stealth skills into the mixture. Or becoming a with Gauntlets equipped Ascendic, which is a pure master of Martial Arts and turning Initiative into Chi/Chakra to rival in a different way the Daredevil with supernatural body performance to perform crushing counterattacks that will make your enemies think twice about it when the best time it is to try to atatck you to not have to eat a devastating counterattack from you right into the face, which is able if needed to charge all this body’s chi/chakra also to perform mighty ranged energy attacks
Possibilities here are endless and this was just a small taste of what the Thief could offer, theres 8 other classes where anet can show us how they want to expand our class progression horizontally to make the game more interesting…
If – and thats just my theory – the game receives 1 additional Elite Specialization per Add On – and each Elder Dragon from this point on means 1 Expansion, then the future will hold for us at least 4 more Expansions, until we will have defeated all Elder Dragons, this 4 more Elite Specializations for all Classes, lettign this idea of mine that started as roughly 36 Sub Classes end up as a whopping 45 Elite Specializations!!! (9*5) which is just awesome just to think about and very exiting for me as I’m a Class Crafter, always love to pasisonately think and discuss about possible new Classes and their possible names that are for immersion very important, especially with such a big amount in theory<3

And I’d naturally love to see, what kind of Masteries we will learn in the future, how we can let our Character progress further with that new Systemand that Anet hopefully will make more of those things also part of Central Tyria/WvW like especially Gliding.
Masteries shouldnt be only somethign, that works only in very specific areas, they should work also in more other areas of the game, because only then it can feel like actually a Character Progression.. if you can use too many thigns always only in specific maps, then it feels of being more only like map specific “Upgrades”, than beign actually a real Character Progression that should be mostly always be part of you, regardless if you are now in Central Tyria or not where and whenever possible and Glidign for examole is absolutely something, what can be made to work also completely in Central tyria and WvW too. Sure, that means more effort, but it would make the whole game be sooo much more fun for everyone.

What am I looking forward now
That Anet makes in HoT some absolutely neccessary Tweaks and that Anet finally brings the Balance Changes that bring the game and its constant horrible Power Creep since June 23rd back to sanity, so that PvP and WvW especially become again playable without that yo get instantly killed by every single fart that was a super high bursting condition spike that gives absolutely no player with even godlike reflexes enough time at all to REACT… cause the whole condition system is out of control, because of the game still beign in certain key balance sections still in a balance state of 2012, where all this power creep didn’t exist

And I’m looking for many more tweaks to the Hot Content, but listing all the stuff up I’m looking forward to in the future I had in my head to write here, is just too much for the body length limit of 15000 letters, so ill make the cut here xD….

and just end it brief with:
I want to see, how this game will develop further. I played it now for 3 years and I’m willing to play it alot longer to see, how the gems story turns out and if we ever get to see our Characters explorign in GW2 other continents also again like Elona and especially Cantha.