Guild Wars 2

Hey there!
I’m new, and I just started a Norn Guardian and finished killing isomir (or whatever his name is) and I did one heart.
Now I have the option to do more “hearts”, or continue to the second part of my main storyline.
What should I do first? I’m used to WoW, so I’m scared that completing the 16 (or so) hearts in the starting area of Norns will outlevel me and render my main storyline quests useless.
How should I be questing?

Thanks!

All areas are scaled, so don’t worry about that. But you might outgrow the potential rewards (armour) of the storyline. Still check them out for the look though.
The xp reward is nice though for personal story. I would say don’t worry about it and just venture and do what you feel like doing.

I’d suggest doing your story quests until the point where they become to hard for your current level (this can be anywhere between +2 to +8 levels higher than you depending how well you do or what the quest involves as some don’t involve any actual fighting based on your stats)

Once they become too hard to do you’ll have received not only some decent xp but also some decent equipment that will make hearts and events a fair bit easier.

Though theres absolutely nothing stopping you from doing things however you want as said things scale you throughout the entire game, you won’t out level things entirely .

I’m an explorer so I simply tried to uncover each and every area. Join in events when I come across them. I think I hit 80 before I was done with all the Level 30-35 areas.

The beauty of GW2 is that they designed it so that you can do whatever you want, in nearly whatever order you want, and gain decent exp while doing it.

To agree with the others here, you really shouldn’t worry too much. Doing your story at the appropriate level will make the rewards more useful, but it’s not a big deal if you get a bit of gear that you’ve out-levelled and just don’t use it.

As Rouven said, zones and personal story instances will scale your level down to the suggested level if you’re higher, the idea being that things will still be somewhat challenging even if you’ve long outpaced them. I’d say you should be able to do any of your options at any time and get something out of it. It’s worth noting that loot is at least partially scaled to your level too, so my level 80 characters can still occasionally get great drops in a starter area!

I’d actually recommend running back to town and exploring a few major cities. You actually get a lot of XP getting Vistas, waypoints, and POIs (more than killing mobs actually). You then have a few levels so you can do a few story quests back to back. Being a couple levels hgher also allows you to unlock weapon skills faster so combat is not as boring.

As for how you should do quests, do them however you like. There’s no content that has a prerequisite quest, aside from a few gates that no one uses because there are waypoints anyway. I know some guildies who levelled characters to 80 without doing any story quests except the tutorial.

I second Curuniel’s note about the loot scaling. Equipment drops scale to your character level, although I did get a few level 27 drops while guildies were having fun getting my level 3 killed in a level 30 area. (Easily broke even on the repair cost hehe)

Unlocking weapon skills faster? It only takes a half a dozen to a dozen kills to unlock all the skills on any weapon. It was something I did early on, get one of each type of weapon my profession could use and whacked things until I unlocked all the weapon skills.

Trait points however are most certainly level tied.

Most certainly the first things you should do before anything else is unlock all the weapons skills for all your guardian weapons, including underwater weapons. I have a norn guardian also, and did this in the norn starter map, Wayfare Foothills.

Once this is done, then proceed with doing hearts, skill points, other map exploration, and mix in your personal story, As others have mentioned, don’t worry about being over-leveled.

Behellagh.1468:

I’m an explorer so I simply tried to uncover each and every area. Join in events when I come across them. I think I hit 80 before I was done with all the Level 30-35 areas.

Lol same thing happens to me every time I make a new character. Nevermind I’ve explored everything a dozen times before on other characters already….gotta do it again…OCD flaring up…must…GAH!

I’m a new player too, but I am very experienced in questing. I just did the hearts for my level, then did the story for my level then did whatever I felt like until I was the proper level for the next heart. I like to be 0-2 levels above the story, since I know that story quests tend to be a bit more challenging than regular world heart quests. The game allows you to really do whatever it is you feel like doing in whatever order you feel like, without worrying about levels.

That tip about the unlocking weapon skills is really a gem. I should definitely do that…