What to Do First After Hitting Level 80 in Guild Wars 2
As an avid Guild Wars 2 player and content creator, the #1 question I get asked is: what should I focus on after reaching the max level cap?
Here‘s my comprehensive guide to the essential activities, gearing up, and progressing your character once you‘ve hit the coveted level 80 in GW2!
Finish Up Your Personal Story
Before anything else, wrap up your personal story! This epic narrative tailored to your race and choices guides you through Tyria while unlocking waypoints. Finishing it rewards an exotic weapon and armor with great stats for your build.
I‘d advise completing your personal story not just for the loot, but also to fully experience the hard work ArenaNet put into lore and quest writing. GW2 has, in my opinion, one of the most enthralling and personalized narratives in the MMO genre!
Acquire Your First Set of Exotic Gear
With level 80 comes access to exotic-tier gear, offering about 90% of an ascended set‘s stats at a far lower cost. Here are some quick ways to gear up in full exotics for under 50 gold:
- Karma Vendors – Temple armor for as low as 21k karma per piece
- Dungeons – Dungeon token vendors offer exotic weapons and armor
- Crafting – Craft a full set yourself for roughly 50g total
- Laurels – Accessories from laurel vendors in WvW camps
| Gear Slot | Sample Exotic Gear Source |
|---|---|
| Armor | AC Dungeon Token Vendor |
| Weapons | CoF Dungeon Token Vendor |
| Trinkets | Laurel Vendor |
Having a set of exotic berserker‘s or viper‘s gear will make a world of difference in survivability and damage!
Unlock Your Elite Specialization
Elite specializations completely change your profession‘s playstyle by offering new weapon types, skills, and trait lines.
As a level 80, you absolutely want to focus on unlocking your elite spec ASAP! Here‘s what‘s involved in fully unlocking it:
- Own Heart of Thorns and/or Path of Fire expansions
- Complete the lengthy elite spec collection
- Train the new weapon skills at a sparkfly npc
- Equip the unlocked elite trait line
Be prepared to put in around 10 hours completing collections like Daredevil‘s ascended trinkets and buying HoT map currency for masteries. But it is 100% worth the effort – unlocking my Mirage specialization made Mesmer go from a 6/10 to a 10/10!
| Elite Specialization | Expansion | New Weapon |
|---|---|---|
| Deadeye | Path of Fire | Rifle |
| Scourge | Path of Fire | Torch |
| Reaper | Heart of Thorns | Greatsword |
Play Through Living World and Expansions
Once you‘ve got that first set of exotics equipped, it‘s time to experience all the new stories and maps you‘ve unlocked!
Log in during Living World releases to play those episodic storylines. And buy the Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire expansions to journey through the jungle and desert, soak in the lore, and unlock incredibly fun movement abilities like gliders and mounts.
I cannot stress enough how much value you get out of the expansions! They offer new stat combos, challenging group content like raids, and amazing quality-of-lifechanges through masteries.
| Gliding | Mounts | Raids | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heart of Thorns | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Path of Fire | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Playing through each episode and expansion will likely take over 150+ hours, but it‘s an incredible journey well worth taking. You‘ll truly understand just how special GW2‘s worldbuilding is!
Gear Up in Ascended Equipment
Once your build and playstyle have stabilized, it makes sense to start working on getting ascended trinkets, weapons and armor.
This highest stat tier offers about a 5-10% numerical advantage over exotic. Slowly improving your gear also gives you mini-goals to work towards even after hitting the level cap.
Some easy ways to start gearing ascended:
- Living World Trinkets – Accessories via map currencies
- Laurels – Amulet and ring purchases
- Guild Commendations – Armor pieces from your guild
- Fractals – Earn rings and weapon boxes
| Gear Slot | Sample Ascended Gear Source |
|---|---|
| Backpack | Living World Maps |
| Amulet | Laurel Vendor |
| Ring | Fractals of the Mist |
PvE builds always benefit from more precision, ferocity and toughness from that shiny pink ascended gear!
Challenge Yourself With Endgame Content
Once you‘ve honed your skills and gear, it‘s time to test yourself in GW2‘s most challenging team-based content:
Fractals – Ever-scaling short dungeons requiring coordination and frequent combat. Instabilities spice things up!
Raids – 10 player boss battles with complex mechanics to solve and master as a team.
Strike Missions – Introductory baby raids that ease you into high-level PvE concepts
Jumping into fractals, raids and strikes lets you push your combat abilities to the limit in a team environment. The smooth mix of roles in GW2 means everyone gets their moment to shine!
Not to mention they reward sweet looking armor and weapons to show off your dedication 😎.
And that covers the key things every fresh level 80 should look to focus on first in Guild Wars 2! Prioritizing your personal story, elite specs, gear progression and challenging PvE will give you hundreds upon hundreds of hours worth of meaningful progression. Couldn‘t ask for much more from a buy-to-play MMORPG if you ask me.
Let me know if this guide to leveling past 80 helped give you direction. And as always, feel free to ping me in-game if you ever want to group up for some fractals or raids!
