Guild Wars 2

New to the game (besides leveling to 80)
Elementalist
No mastery except basic gliding

Is this place as frustrating on other classes for a new player? Before I can even begin to know to dodge you’re dead…difficult to learn monster mechanics and when you do I feel like I don’t have enough ways to avoid the damage before the mob is dead…I am in zerker gear now and I could go buy all new gear but I’m not sure it’s worth it. This place literally makes me want to quit because playing Mario where you die when you get touched one time is no fun. It’s difficult to join groups (if there are any) because I cannot keep up when they are bouncing on mushrooms and other masteries I don’t have.

Would I be better off starting a different character to get the masteries? I saw another class face tank a champion at mastery level 6… I know about 20 people will reply saying they run full zerker and everything is super easy but I would appreciate any pointers/references that could help me not suck so bad or be less frustrated instead.

I feel like I’ve hit a brick wall where I either can’t get to any of the remaining hero points because of mastery or I simply die too quickly trying to make it there.

P.S. I hate shadow leapers more than raptors

Try the new map? It might be a bit easier for you. Or, if you don’t want to do that, spend time in Dry Top and The Silverwastes. Those maps were intermediate steps leading up to the Maguuma Wastes.

Remember, most of us leveled many characters/Professions before we ever got to Maguuma Wastes, much less the Heart of Maguuma. You could try leveling another Profession, something like Ranger or Necromancer; those are a bit easier to stay alive with, what with pets/minions, and all.

Welcome to Tyria, and good luck.

The main reason I was trying to do heart of thorns at this point was to train out tempest…I guess I could do map completion instead…at this point it may be better than dying.

I’ve been to silverwastes—is the entrance to dry top there?

No, Dry Top is entered from Tangle Root, the SW corner of Brisban.

If you’re on a US server, hit me up in game. I can help you get your elite spec unlocked.

Well, you can get a lot of Hero Points in Core Tyria for Tempest.

And, Mastery Points in Draconis Mons; not sure if you have the other new maps unlocked, but there are plenty of Mastery Points there, as well. The new maps aren’t quite so mob-intensive as Heart of Maguuma.

3 remarks…

1 Elementalist is the most squishy characterproffesion and will greatly benefit from tempest elite specialisation in HoT
2 Gliding will allow much safer travels
3 HoT is more difficult then Vanilla GW2. but I got 186 in the end and I unlocked all elite specialisations on all 22 lvl 80’s , BUT I need to admit the more masteries they easier it gets, and you’ll know what to expect in what area’s as well

I used to really hate the pocket raptors the most. And now I do not find ’m annoying anymore… just a nice set of XP boosts…

As for easyness of play, you could go a bit more bunker and get either some thoughness or just a build that’s bunker (thinks along the line water/earth/arcane or condi like earth/fire/arcane, later on swap arcane for tempest)

Yes, the maps in HoT are considerably tougher with entirely new critters that you have to learn how to survive encounters with them. It’s actually, believe it or not, much easier now than when the expansion first shipped.

Zerker gear does make you more of a glass cannon than just being an ele which I think has the lowest HP of any profession. It’s also not an easy class to master.

Is your issue getting mastery points or XP on those maps? There are guides out there to get you to mastery points using only level 1 gliding. Then unlock bouncing mushrooms which lets you get more to unlock level 2 gliding.

Also Hero Points are more of a team effort on HoT maps than on the Core Tyria ones, because they are worth 10. Again, not as bad as launch.

When I was a starting Elementalist way back when the game launched, I tried doing zerk builds and it was frustrating. So what I did was tweeked my build and swapped out more of my zerk gear for extra vitality, namely Valkerie gear. I noticed that there are means to force critical hits such as Arcane skills auto-critting, Arcane Power giving the next attacks the chance to crit, sigil of Intelligence giving you 3 auto-crits upon attunement swap…I created a new playstyle for myself that relied on conscious control over when I crit to get optimal damage at that period plus I had a good deal more HP to react to incoming attacks.

Even though I have ascended zerk gear for my Ele and sometimes use it, I use my Valk setup more because I just find its dynamic more fun.

Either that or look into a healing hybrid set-up. As you unlock Tempest, you get some interesting healing abilities. Combo those skills with healing power, improve your toughness or vitality to take advantage of said healing and focus the last of your build toward dealing damage (either through power or condition).

Lastly, there’s no right way to play, it’s up to you to find what works for you and perfect its execution. Any build can pretty much get you by in open world but you have to know how to use it.

zaekeon.5128:

Is this place as frustrating on other classes for a new player?

A glass elementalist is probably the most challenging to play through HoT. With the lowest defense and only 11k health, many of the enemies can kill you within 3 seconds and some within a single attack.

On the opposite end, a necromancer can almost faceroll through it.

As other have said, definitely try swapping in more survival stat gear. That really made a difference for me in the start. It is a big difficulty jump up from vanilla gw2, but you’ll learn to love it once you get the hang of some of the new monster mechanics.

Don’t worry. You only need to unlock basic gliding, bounce mushrooms, and updrafts for the vast majority of jungle navigation. That’s only 4 mastery points and associated experience. You will want to unlock a lot more than that, of course. But at least you won’t get left behind every time the group uses a mushroom or updraft.

Ele is pretty notorious for being squishy, although with a more defensive set like marauder they can be remarkably survivable. Since you’re new to the jungle, you could almost certainly benefit from some extra vitality to take the edge off and give you more time to recover from the hits you’re inevitably going to eat until you learn jungle combat.

As a former Ele who died all the time in HoT maps, try this build
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJUgJ2fJYhJwhJWaAM3J7m9zOsC6AhQhCQA4DC-TxRGABA8gAGS5HI7PQmeCDOhAAq+jUKBJFQgTtA-e
Once you feel safer change Eye of the Storm for Glyph of Storm

100% uptime of Regeneration, 40% Protection, Vigor, Fury, Swiftness
Stack might by using Fire #4, Water #2, Earth #4

You can contact me ingame anytime you want for further help.

Unless you know the terrain, you cant really run from place to place in HoT. I learned it the hard way too, but i kept on and now i enjoy those fights way more then anything in the Vanilla game. I play a condi ranger in full viper gear so im pretty much a glass canon but i manage to survive.

Dodge, kyte, kill stuff and ALWAYS keep an eye on where you are standing.