Guild Wars 2

Can anyone recommend a video or link to a page that will help me get back into the game and new systems?

A lot has changed since I last played regularly before HoT. I’ve logged in occasionally and for the first time yesterday saw the new Lion’s Arch. I was quite overwhelmed. I don’t know anything about these hero points or what’s happened to my skills, etc.

What I’m looking for is a clear and simple starting guide for returning players to get oriented to HoT. What should I do? Where should I go? What are the main changes to my character I should know about. Stuff like that.

Don’t know how useful these will be but Bog Otter put out a series for returning players.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMgOinWh2Y7FbZyBhlqgHoPI2w8_76_1w

Not sure if they go into the new trait system or not.

Edit: Episode eight of the Boomerangs series covers the Trait 3.0 and Skills changes.

Also not sure when you left but the Trait system went through another revamp and took skills with them. This along with the “future” mastery point system caused skill points to split between hero points which are used for skills and trait unlocks and spirit shards which are Mystic Forge currency.

In Trait 3.0, trait lines are now “specializations”. You still have 5 but you can only have three “slotted” at any time (once the slot is unlocked). You spend hero points to unlock all the traits in the specialization in order. No skipping, no doubling down on minor traits. However it also means you will eventually get three Grand Master traits enabled on your character. You can also swap specialization lines and change which minor/major/grand trait in each line for zero cost while out of combat.

By level 80, you will have enough Hero Points to unlock all skills and all traits in all core profession specializations. Hero Points from challenges simply allow you to unlock skills and traits faster than if you didn’t do them.

Before, once you got to 80, every time you “leveled” again you got another skill point. No more. If you own HoT, XP after 80 is directed at Masteries and if you don’t own HoT, they don’t go anywhere. You get Spirit Shards mainly from doing three dailies and they do drop from boss events, fairly unnoticeably (hey, where did all these spirit shards come from?). Skill Point challenges are now Hero Point challenges.

Hope it helps a little.

Thanks for the answer! I think the update boomerang vids there are prior to HoTs, if I’m not mistaken.

But your written explanation is great and thanks for taking the time and consideration to write it up, Behellagh!