What's next?
As a Chronomancer main who’ve only played a single class since the game launched, and began considering alts a few weeks ago, I’d actually do the opposite: I’d level alts of a different armour class.
I’ve currently got a fully ascended (with weapons and trinkets) Chronomancer, Tempest, Reaper and Guardian – and currently working on a warrior. I find that if I am to craft a second or third set of ascended armour, I’d prefer it to be of a different armour class, partially due to certain collection achievements, but also because it’d mean I could stat-swap to fulfill a broader spectrum of professions.
Also, once I finished being completely ascended on my main, I could finally begin playing fashion wars. Before that point, I felt very guilty if I spent gold on gems or skins and dyes, since that’s gold I should have been using towards gearing. Now that I’m done, I play a lot to generate gold for aesthetics – something that becomes even more fun when you’ve got more alts to dote on.
So tl;dr:
1) Yes, alts are a great way to spend your time. Worst case scenario, you get bank alts.
2) Fashion wars!
- Sun Tzu, Art of War
In terms of level the only classes I don’t have to 80 are Rev and Engie. My mesmer is 4 levels from hitting 80 and will probably get those by the time I finish farming my bloodstones for my backpiece.
I enjoyed warrior play. Slightly less so with Berserker since to me it kind of just felt like Warrior+.
All those alts currently have exotic armor though I share my ascended amulet and thingies between them for the AR bonus when I want it. My Ele has a magi exotic set for general pve since I like being surprise support/healer. I think I have clerics on my druid.
I was tempted to see if I could just get ascended weapons in game though I’m not sure how to do that without levelling a crafting profession. Thanks for the reply advice, if anyone else has ideas please post too.
You gave me some good ideas.
Keep in mind that the only part of the game that really DEMANDS ascended gear is high level fractals, due to agony resistance.
You might need ascended to get on most of pug raids too.
On WvW ascended might give you a small edge over others if you are doing roaming or small scale fights, but on big zergs its not that much noticeable.
The PVE is changing to that condi dmg is the highest potential dmg on most classes for most end-game bosses (high level fractals and raids) so I recommend having a set of viper/sinister gear for your ele. And condi ele is easier to play than power, so it leaves you more room to learn particular encounter mechanics without loosing too much dps (try learning mechanics while keeping up a decent engi rotation, its hard).
Zerk is still a decent stat for open world (zerg farming or just daily stuff by yourself) or dungeons/low fotm. And it might be good for the next ESpecs (some think the push to condi is to provide more ground for power-heavy new ESpecs with next expac)
So…
Fotm is a great place to start, its good money and a good source of ascended and a way to get a legendary backpack (so you can stat-swap!). There are a lot of other farms in the game to get you gold and mats for more ascended gear and Ele is quite a good farmer for zergs like HoT metas or Orr or SW. Map rewards farming can be quite good too depending on the week.
Map completing in HoT can be fun or hell, depending on how you do it.
If you just want the reward for ESpec collections, I recommend DS, its very easy map to complete (if you have the all HoT masteries). If you have problems with it, contact me in game and I can give you a hand.