Guild Wars 2

Two big pro tips:
Firstly get the “take half fall damage” trait, it’s a life saver.
Second, if you’re going to use melee then learn to circle strafe monsters; this reduces the damage you take immensely as monsters tend to commit to an attack and will wiff if you’re constantly moving, even on their “small” attacks.

Leveling does get less fun later on, in part I think because you get your most effective / useful stuff early on, and the rest are niche stuff that are impractical solo or only work with niche traits, or are just inferior to various skills you already have and some are just plain bad, like the Res signet.

I leveled with Greatsword and Staff when solo, and Scepter & focus / Staff when running with the Events zerg, and mace & shield / scepter & focus with cleansing shouts for Dungeons.
I think a Condition damage build could actually be extremely effective due to
1) the sword’s final chain does three hits at once which counts towards Virtue procs
2) Burning scales the best of any damaging condition
3) You have a lot of sources of damage from traits, skills, and torch skills; most of which have short cooldowns with traits.

The 30 point trait “Right Hand Strength” doesn’t seem to work, or at least while in the Mists with the trait swapping between a 2h sword or 1h Mace, my listed crit chance stays the same.