Guild Wars 2

Good morning everyone,

I bought the game at launch since the ideas behind it are awesomes but I just never could get into the whole leveling strategy. I made it to level 17 then fell lost and just left (for about 4 years).

Lately I’d really love to get to it since I’m looking for a new MMO after FF14 and always thought : Hey GW2 really seem nice, too bad I couldn’t get into leveling!

What I was doing back then (and now since I tried it once more yesterday and felt the same thing I did at launch) is find empty “heart” do the task until it’s full, then move on. Is there something I’m missing?

Thank you !

Lansin

Leveling is barely a part of this game, and it’s designed with that in mind. Doing anything will give you experience. Even just running around the world unfogging new areas will level you up, crafting will, WvW will, PvP will, events will, everything. I highly recommend not worrying about an optimal leveling path unless you find it totally unbearable.

It will take you maybe a couple dozen hours of doing random stuff to become level 80, and then you can decide what end game is fun for you, like fractals or WvW and so on.

The Hearts are essentially meant to point you to areas with Dynamic Events. The events are the meat-and-potatoes of GW2 content. Head out into an area, maybe around one of the hearts, and start following any events (orange-ish text and symbols on the map) you notice.

The Hearts are not the heart of the game. Events are. Hearts were added late in development because players didn’t know how to play the game without something telling them where to go next.

The game is a game of exploration and discovery. As originally designed you’re supposed to wander around. Do events. Talk to NPCs to discover lore and the story behind each map. Doing the maps Heart by Heart isn’t the best way to play. It’s only filler for the main part of the game.

I would argue even events aren’t really what the game is about. “The game is a game of exploration and discovery” sums it up better. The game is about anything you feel like doing at the moment.

Or you could sum up the game with “I want to go here — oh that looks neat I’ll go do that instead.” And both things will reward and level you.

First thank you all very much for the answer, really appreciate it.

I’m trying to understand what y’all mean by exploration? I’ve been trying to explore all around the map and came unto a level wall anywhere beside the starting zone, monsters were just too high to keep going.

Is it because I’ve missed something? I did a bit of pvp at launch too (Got to rank 6) and right now i’m not feeling in a rush to PVP so I want to level strictly doing PVE or crafting.

Thanks again

Lansin

If you completed the starter zone for your race, then zoom out the map and portal over to another race’s starter zone and carry on. You will have one portal for each available.

Until you get comfortable with the game, I recommend continuing to explore maps and discover all the “points” on each – hearts, vistas, etc. You can also get XP and rewards for mapping the cities, one for each race plus Lion’s Arch. There are portals in each town for free travel.

You should never hit a level wall if you are doing hearts and events as you progress round a map – they are the primary source of xp and will shoot you up the levels extremely quickly.

Hearts and events tell the “story” of each map and there are lots of other things packed away in a map as well. Each map has a recommended level range as well to guide you roughly where to go next without getting too overwhelmed and if you are higher than that range, you are down levelled to match the content to avoid being overpowered (something I wish more games would do).

Here is a list of zones by level which you may want to look at. There are four zones with enemies leveled 15 – 25 (I don’t know which race you are so I can’t say which one to aim for).

If you’d like to do some more exploration, as suggested above you could head to another starting zone. The game will automatically down-scale you to the zone if your level is too high, so the fights will be about the same difficulty, and you’ll get the same amount of experience.

I’ll suggest alot:

You could(/should) use some utility consumable and foods for the added 2×10% exp they give, thus shortening your levelling by quite some time. the quality doesn’t matter, you can use lvl 0 food/utility and it will STILL provide you with the full 10% buffs!

You should have received a lvl 30 or lvl 40 booster for your character allowing instant levelling to lvl 30/40 respectively. (character leveling scrolls)

You could use boosters if you havee some lying around, old XP boosters work nicely and on a 3 yr account you should have 4 24-hour (actual playtime) boosters giving +100% experience. ((birthday) boosters)

As far as buffs,

• some foods give 15% experience even , but tend to be more expensive,
• guilds could provide banners (5/10/15% experience depending on type), I used to check silverwastes if there was a CF map, cause ppl tend to drop a heroes banner at start of the run (top entrance for the staging area, no real danger for enemies) on alts…
• the list of buffs form gem store boosters is long: old laureate boosters, old XP boosters, newer celebration boosters, birthday boosters, new XP boosters or hero boosters and kill streak boosters( least convienient IMHO)….
• A lot of boosters tended to provide bonusses on kill only I do not regularly use them anymore so…. You should check on their options

XP is found EVERYWHERE!

• if you run around unlocking parts of the map you get XP. So yes, you can run around headless and still get lvl 80.
• if you unlock waypoints, points of interest, vista’s you get XP
• if you harvest/mine whatever you get xp, it is worthwhile brining along mining tools, even underleveled mining equipment will give XP, only the mats will come out destroyed
• if you do hearts you’ll get xp
• if you do events you’ll get xp
• if you completely map maps (towns or otherwise) you’ll get XP (and more)
• if you ressurect allies and players you’ll get xp
• if you do instanced content you’ll get xp… (even for story mode dungeons)
• if you play your personal story (lvl 10+), you’ll gain XP

Due to downlevelling you can stay in an area and still gain good xp even if your level is higher then the area…..

Oh and most(, though not all,) boost(er)s are stackable…
food +10%, utility +10%, birthday booster +100%, banner +10% = +130% of your XP

The longer an enemy has been alive in map tthe MORE bonus XP they’ll provide.
you have allies/players in map (green & unkillable), enemies (red), and there are yellow spawns, these yellow spawns are not aggressive, but you can fight them, The yellow spawns will generally have been in the map instances for quite some times so they tend to provide more bonus XP and therefore level gain/ time!! Kill ‘m all on sight, but check for veteran treemonsters and avoid those as they die slower due to thier huge toughness! you’ll fins a lot of underwater spawns in lower maps being yellow spawns, and some professions tend to be of more power underwater (but bring a decent underwater weapon)

So you could have (XP + bonus XP (up to 1.5 times the normal XP))*100%+130% boosters without real problems this tends to allow for extremely large XP gains in very short times, if your only focus is maxing the level….

When you level and log in more often you’ll get tomes of knowwledge for the dailylog in bonusses which provide 1 level each on consumption (or a spirit shard when above lvl 80).

Do not go to a high level area (read more then 7 levels above your own level) to kill enemies expecting huge amounts of XP… It will backfire hard!

Now for what to do….

Set your own goals:

• do you want a character? a couple? all classes? alt-o-holic?
• do you want to play casual, mainstream, fanatic, hardcore or 1337?
• do you want to play META or your own builds?
• do you want to play with a guild, make guild, play mostly solo or never alone?
• do you want to do PvE, WvW or PvP? or RP?
• do you want to do world bosses, events and exploration?
• do you want to play Story, personal, living story and small events?
• do you want to play meta maps?
• do you want to farm or grind? or do you want it to flow naturally?
• do you want to do instanced content? (dungeons, fractals, raids?)
• do you want to play PvP? structured? Or world vs world? Solo or with groups?
• do you want titles, full ascended, or a legendary?
• do you want certain other skins?

Think it through, make decisions, have fun while doing it, and if it’s not your thin find something else to acoomplish in this game you might like…., or if all fails maybe outside. But trust me, after 11k hours and 9 times map completion, I can say I STILL find new things and occasional new combo’s or synergies…

The Sandbox is reay to play in. some p[pl want to scult, some want to dig kitten, others want to build a fortrees, some like to make drawings. You just go and see what you like