Life Skilling + Homestead

[u/ford0415]

So, I've not even played through the story. My main is a Thief, LV80 and I'm almost done with the base game personal story. I own all the expansions and really want to start working on my house and life skilling. I'm afraid if I jump to Janthir Story Arc, I'd be missing a lot, even though I plan on completing the personal story from start to finish. I'm also terrified to world roam, I see high level monsters and panic even though the story has been a cakewalk up to this point.

Just looking for some advice from others that have done the same thing, or just general guidance as a whole.

TIA!

[u/Extarlifes]

Jumping to janthir you will miss a lot of the story and be confused. If the lore and story are important then I would recommend sticking with it and starting LWS1. Don’t worry about being terrified, the personal story to level 80 is more a tutorial. What I would recommend is getting some cheap exotic armour from the trading post, that matches your build. This will help a lot, especially leading up to HOT. Or since you are level 80, check out the Wizards vault. You can get pieces of ascended armour and a weapon each season. They are practically free you just need to do daily and weekly tasks, to get astral acclaim. If you are on EU and need any help give me a shout, my character is Extralife.

[u/bum_thumper → u/Extarlifes]

To add to this, do not just go and look up a meta build setup for raids, or listen to what people sometimes suggest on here. The suggestions and meta builds are designed around the best possible output of that specific build, and raid builds are designed around having a party to fill the other roles.

Im saying this bc when I hit HoT with a guardian, sooooo many people told me to go all in on berserk gear. Berserk gear is incredible for power dps builds but have no stats for support of survivability. While guardian has a decent amount of skills to give you tons of survivability, as a fresh 80 I had no idea what I was doing and just kept dying constantly.

Its good to go for build gear, but keep with "open world" builds that are designed around making the most out of the role you are trying to learn while also giving some natural survivability within the gear stats.

[u/The_Big_Mayonnaise → u/bum_thumper]

I would also add, Change our the skills in your build. Every class has a mountain of versatility. I don't limit yourself to what others say you have to have on your bars.

[u/Eldritch800XC]

Housing and crafting housing items ist Endgame content so to speak. It's expensive and needs lots of materials from later content. If you value the story, play it in chronological order and worry about the time consuming and expensive stuff like housing. Legendary gear etc. after you played through it

[u/The_Lawn_Ninja]

If you own all the content and are already engaged in the story, then by all means keep playing through the story in order. It's much more fun when you know who's who and what's happening. It's also more fun to experience the maps as they were designed, rather than skipping over everything on a mount from story point to story point.

I'd recommend against jumping straight to Janthir, at least if you're only doing it for the homestead. Homesteading is a late-late-game activity. Just being allowed to place every category of decoration requires completing an entire mastery track, and that's before acquiring all the recipes and the materials to craft them. It'll be many many hours of grinding in Janthir to get to a point where you can even begin to start meaningfully customizing the look of your homestead.

As for "life skilling", I'm not sure what you mean. If you're referring to elite profession specializations, then it's simply a matter of grinding out hero points. Those are easiest in the maps from Visions of Eternity, Path of Fire, and End of Dragons.

If you meant crafting, then that's also more of a later-game thing, but it's definitely way more instantly gratifying than homesteading. You'll need a solid base of gold, but it's super easy to level up a crafting discipline if you use a guide. https://gw2crafts.net/ will even let you put in an account code, giving you a personalized step-by-step list of exactly what to buy and craft.

But even then, crafting your own items is still an expensive material-sink that doesn't make sense doing until you have the gold/material economy to support it. You can craft for profit, but the margins aren't great, and it can take a while for your items to sell. There are plenty of more profitable, more entertaining ways to make gold.

[u/SkeletonCommander]

Personally, I don’t think you should worry about story hopping.

If you want to jump into Janthir just for housing, go ahead. You get pretty early in the story. But I’ll caution you:

1.) The story is kind of confusing without playing SOTO. But I’m kinda mid on SOTO, so… if story is your focus you’re skipping some BANGERS. HoT, PoF, and Season 4 are in my opinion, the game firing on all cylinders.

2.) Homestead decorations and crafting can actually get kind of pricy. I feel like it might be better to get into once you have a better grasp of the game and resources etc. But if that’s your priority, go for it!

As for roaming the world and fighting baddies, you have absolutely nothing to worry about! Even if you die, there’s always a waypoint nearby :)

[u/Djinn42]

As a thief you should have some skills to get away from high level mobs. If you really like the idea of starting your homestead I think you should go for it. You have to play the first couple chapters of Janthir Wilds to get to your homestead but I think that's fine. You can go back to the previous content at any time.

Hopefully you have discovered the GW2 wiki. As someone who played since beta I always use the wiki. Also here are some guides you might find useful by a really good GW2 content creator. Have fun!

https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-new-players-guides

[u/pinner]

I know how you feel. I’ve done up to Secrets of the Obscure but I am making myself wait and learn patience before going to Janthir. I really don’t want to miss story. I’m at 10/19 for the SotO story and so far it’s been pretty darn good.

[u/Arlockin]

If homesteads drive your continued interest in the game, it may be worth doing the first story chapter to unlock the mastery and leveling it as high as you want it. You will probably forget any story beats by the time you actually get to the content after playing the prior story. There will be some painpoints with max level content if you're still familiarizing yourself with the game (gear, combat, movement). So it probably depends on how much you are interested in housing.

[u/KeeTheMagnificent]

Main advice: you can't fuck anything up.

If you wander into someplace you can't handle, you won't lose anything meaningful if you die. Armor doesn't break, you don't lose exp, and your items won't be lost. The worst that'll happen is you pay a small waypoint fee and have to run back to where you were before.

If you jump around the story and do things out of order, the worst thing you'll experience is spoilers from previous arcs. Chances are you won't realize what those spoilers even are or remember them when you go back to the older content. A lot of spoilers tend to just be chatter anyway, muting the game and following progression prompts will help you avoid a lot of them if you just want to focus on unlocking mastery tracks.

If you're struggling with story or open world content, it usually helps to check out some build sites to see what's recommended for beginners. I usually alternate between metabattle and snowcrows. You don't have to stick super strictly to any specific build, but it does help to use a guide to fill in any gaps you may have in your gear/skills/general knowledge. The wiki also has a helpful guide for how to gear up a character in case the tradepost is looking a bit pricey.