Guild Wars 2

So here’s the conundrum I’m currently having… I had to take a few months off from playing; came back and realized that the majority of my guild is also in a down cycle of participation. I thoroughly enjoyed running small-roaming/point defending WvW, fractals and some dungeon paths with this group on my 2 80s (Engineer and Guardian). But without that core group, lolling around debating whether I would enjoy a PUG or not as they call out has lost some of the lustre of current endgame PvE-ing.

That is why I’m feeling tugged back into my old alt-aholic ways and debating about whether I should become more proficient in multiple professions or drilling deep into my main(s).

For those out there with any take on the virtues and vices of alt-rotating for multiple profession proficiency or drilling into 2 professions, I’d love to hear your take. For the record, I do thoroughly enjoy both alts and tinkering with endgame build-outs and experiences… unfortunately there are only so many gaming hours in the day. ;-)

Sounds like a personal problem, and you should go with what you think is fun. I’ll tell you I personally am a Altoholic, have all 80’s, but you’ll find yourself floating to certain characters just based on who you play with. So, I would suggest finding a guild you like/is active (which sounds like a problem as you described it), and when you play with them, you’ll see if they have a solid coverage of professions. If not, then you can go alt, so as to be a player with options. If they’ve got some ‘staples’, then I’d suggest just mastering your two 80’s.
Another approach is just playing around with your 80’s, seeing if you still like their playstyle. A pro of altoholic is variety, so I never get bored of playing. If I’ve been playing a lot of warrior/guard lately (which I have), then I hop on my necro/mesmer (who are still working on the story).

Nope nope nope. Do yourself a favor and do not work on Alt’s. Focus on your 80, get ascended gear, make a fortune, craft a legendary, get map completion. If you start an alt you will be sorry.

I struggle with this all the time. I wish I had never tasted the forbidden fruit of leveling an alt. Society will punish you if you do.

I leveled a mesmer and a guardian to 80 at about the same time and stressed a lot about getting them both exotics and runes. Eventually, I just made myself stop fretting and put them in rares. I’ll get them exotics when I finish my legendary, and only then- right now, despite not being maxed out, they’re doing just fine.

I’d suggest avoiding alts if you’re the sort to stress about doing everything at once and min-maxing everything once you hit 80. It’s a matter of knowing how to prioritize. I’ll also second Mystic and recommend getting well-grounded in your main class before playing alts.

Do it! You can always go back … or can you? Mhhhh ….

Kidding aside, not much to lose other than time, if you find you absolutely don’t like the class you could still park it at a JP or a harvesting node (or area) or even just a place of power to convert the quartz crystal. with additional bagspace for those rarely used things.

Not everything is about being top tier. But, if you are just looking for that, then yes, don’t go altoholic (although all my guys are now exotic equipped, working on trinkets for ascended but that’s not going to happen in a day no matter how I play)

title should be “fun vs miniscule attribute bonuses”

The altoholic route makes gearing up with BIS items somewhat tedious (now that ANet is using time gating).

However, it also adds a ton of variety to the game that you don’t get otherwise. You also have many opportunities for side-stepping farming restrictions, which offsets some of the issues with gearing up.

I wouldn’t focus on many alts, just 1 or 2 mains unless you have a lot of spare time on your hands. Most everything in this game that is worth something is character bound, so it is better to perfect a character at a time rather than attempting all at once. This is not to say you shouldn’t have any alts, they are great to mess around with when one is bored.

Do whatever you want. I have:

• 80 Mesmer with 100% map completion I only use when my other characters lack WPs; generally bored of this one.
• 80 Engineer for general mucking about (farming, fun). In time I will get more WPs and use this in place of the Mesmer.
• 80 Guardian for Dungeons (fully geared-up).
• 75 Thief, just because. No long-term plans as to what I will do with this one.
• 31 Ranger that I doubt I will ever use again
• 11 Necro I will level after the Thief, just because.

Previously deleted a 70 Ranger and kitten Elementalist because they sucked hard (no idea why I made another Ranger).

Been playing since pre-order early start and still not seen a Legendary precursor, and honestly think most of them look awful anyway :P Ascendant Weapons seem pointless outside extra Infusion Slots (not much improvement over Exotic), so I could not care less about them either.

If it feels fun for you, do it… if it doesn’t, don’t…. as simple as that.

I’m personally doing both, I have 4 alts at 80 (debating whether starting an ele or a necro for a 5th), and I enjoy playing them all, while at the same time working on gearing them up one at a time.

My guardian, for example, gets first dibs on everything new, since he was the first character I created and first one to 80, already has full ascended accesories and slooooowly working on leveling weaponcrafting so he can get his ascended weapons eventually (I see it as a long term goal), the rest of the alts get geared in the order I created them (so, for example, if I have enough laurels for a ring, but my mesmer already has both ascended rings, then the warrior, third in line, gets one). That way I have one character geared up as much as I can, while still having several alts I enjoy playing… and TBH, the difference between exotic and ascended isn’t big enough to consider non ascended geared characters useless (heck, I’d say isn’t big enough to be noticeable most of the times).