Originally posted by aesperus

Not sure why you're having such a hard time lvling (are you dying a lot, or just not sure what to do?). I've heard similar complaints from some of the other necros in my guild, but once they knew how to play a necro correctly they were dominating.

You're still low lvl, but you shouldn't be dying much. Second to the guardian, Necros are the most survivable class in the game. Minions will definitely help you before you get into your 20s, and I'd recommend keeping the healing minion, and bone fiend (ranged attack minion) as your utility. I'd also highly recommend focusing on conditions. You won't hit as hard, but you will be doing a lot more damage (especially against tougher / high lvl mobs, since conditions bypass defenses). Generally I stick with a focus / dagger main combination, and switch between staff or axe / warhorn for my 2ndary (high damage output, and you can use locusts to either give you a speed boost or to double up your damage at close range).

That combo did really well for me all the way into my 30s (and I still use focus / dagger as my main weapon of choice), using grasping dead & bleeds to keep any number of enemies crippled and DoTed while I kited them. Eventually I modified my utilities away from minion-heavy, towards more condition / utility heavy skills (spectral walk, blood is power, epidemic), but by the time you get to 30+ you have enough talent points to really start customizing your character any way you want. I chose a split between curses (conditions focused) and blood magic (toughness / life leech / group heals). Made me a really good offensive support character for parties and dungeon groups, and I didn't die very often at all (even in explorable mode dungeons). I've even had cases where I was the last one alive, and kept the fights going while I waited for my teamm8s to respawn and run back.

- Anyway, glad you found a class you liked. Seems to be different from every person. Don't worry too much about lvl 80, just have fun w/ the game. This game is one of the least lvl focused MMOs in a while. They probably could've gotten away with removing the lvls altogether, and making it more like GW1, but oh well. They made a decision and stuck to it.

You're confusing xp gain with actual difficulty of the game. I don't die very often at all, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of quests to do -- unless, of course, A.net expected me to grind the same quests over and over to certain levels, which is what I am doing at the moment.

I just finished exploring the entirety of Divinity's Reach and I'm like a quarter of the xp bar away from level 10, finished all the hearts I have come across in Queensdale so far, and farthest I've travelled is to Claypool, where I trained with the Militia, which I found pretty cool.

Focus on map clearing instead (completing hearts, discovering points of interest and waypoints) and when you bump into DEs, do them too. Also chop down and start picking at mines as you pass them by. Do NOT focus all your energy on DEs as this will just make the game seem boring, repetitive and leveling slow (this is what people mean by old mindset I believe). 

That is how I play the game anyway and loving every bit of it.

Originally posted by Vaultar

Focus on map clearing instead (completing hearts, discovering points of interest and waypoints) and when you bump into DEs, do them too. Also chop down and start picking at mines as you pass them by. Do NOT focus all your energy on DEs as this will just make the game seem boring, repetitive and leveling slow (this is what people mean by old mindset I believe). 

That is how I play the game anyway and loving every bit of it.

That's how I'm playing.  I find I have to change zones occasionally when I fall behind.  But they have plenty of overlapping zones so it isn't an issue.  At least not until I make an alt who has to run the same zones.

I gave up on crafting, but not mining.  I plan on unlocking everything after I hit 80.  Then I'll craft and WvWvw.  After that I can level alts.

Originally posted by Aviggin

Originally posted by aesperus

Not sure why you're having such a hard time lvling (are you dying a lot, or just not sure what to do?). I've heard similar complaints from some of the other necros in my guild, but once they knew how to play a necro correctly they were dominating.

You're confusing xp gain with actual difficulty of the game. I don't die very often at all, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of quests to do -- unless, of course, A.net expected me to grind the same quests over and over to certain levels, which is what I am doing at the moment.

I just finished exploring the entirety of Divinity's Reach and I'm like a quarter of the xp bar away from level 10, finished all the hearts I have come across in Queensdale so far, and farthest I've travelled is to Claypool, where I trained with the Militia, which I found pretty cool.

Not confusing anything. My very first question is whether you are having trouble with difficutly, or finding enough content. I assumed you were talking about game difficulty, as your OP talks about you dying a bit. However, that's why I put the question at the top of my post.

As for not having enough stuff to do, here is a very good video that explains this: Enigmius; Leveling Too Slow?

Anet doesn't really expect you to do anything specifically. They designed the game to allow you to do a whole plethora of things, and choose what you want to do. Ultimately, aside from Personal Story, you can lvl by only doing 1 type of thing. However, that doesn't mean that it'll be enjoyable, or will be at the fastest pace. People have often asked me how I lvled so fast (which really isn't that fast, I'm only lvl 60 atm), and the answer is always 'do a bit of everything'.

Unlike most MMOs, GW2 literally rewards you for pretty much everything you do. You will generally always get a reward for doing something, provided you are actually doing something. For example; typically my mindset for this game goes as follows. I go for map completion, and I gather as many crafting nodes as I can (in the hopes that the trading post will eventually come online, so I can sell them to make some extra money). Just these two steps basically sets me up for the following:

It guaruntees I'll be going to all the hearts (which you're already doing), and it encourages me to go off the beaten path to find obscure gathering nodes (especially rich ore), which often leads to hidden puzzles / dynamic events / treasures / etc. My rule is, whenever I come across something like that, I do it (usually). Not only have I had no problems lvling this way, but I'm almost always over lvled in a zone before I finish. When I get bored, or too far ahead on lvls, I either jump into pvp for a bit, or get caught up on my personal story.

- Anyway, watch the video. It does a really good job of explaining this; and how exactly EXP gain works in GW2.

Originally posted by Bladestrom
I usually spend the night just wandering with a couple guildies and seeing where our adventures take us- good fun. There is a risk that you don't get connected with the world and that it alm feels a bit mechanical if you just plan optimal routes etc, that's a bit of a traditional end game themepark behaviour where you optimise your route because xp race is a factor.

Pretty much how me and the Girlfriend are playing. We are just going with the flow atm and see where it takes us without a thought for leveling.

Ie: Last night we did a bit of her story quest, then noticed a DE kick off to escort a caravan . So we escorted the caravan which took us to a new town. While there we thought " Hey lets talk to the craft NPC's and pick our skills " . We then preceded to head out into the World looking for Copper nodes , this in turn led us into a cave in which another DE was taking place which we stopped to help clear before returning to town with our ore.

No plan, no set route, no thought for XP or level ..... Just letting things happen around us 

Originally posted by Syno23
I have 98 hours logged and I'm lvl 63. It's easy to level in this game.

But then at max level, there still is so much adventures to do...  Go back to places you havent seen before.

Originally posted by observer
It's crazy how people are leveling so fast.  I guess i just don't play enough like i used to.  I play for around 2-3 hr sessions a day, and i'm still only lvl 29.

That's actually a pretty good rate, considering you are only playing a couple hours a day.

Once you get passed 30, you can start doing dungeons, as well. Maybe not for AC (the lvl 30 dungeon), but for CM (the lvl 40 dungeon), you can run story mode pretty easily, and it'll give you around 20,000 exp at the end of each run (on top of w/e exp you get from killing things).

Think of it this way, game's been out a week, you've only been playing a couple hours a day & you're already 1/3rd of the way done. 2 more weeks and you'll be 80. No time at all.

If people enjoy levelling to 80 as fast as possible then more power to them. (As long as they don't try to force that particular playstyle onto everyone else.)

Played a lot last weekend because I had the opportunity to. Overall I have played a little over 40 hours on my main and he is level 27.

I guess I am rather ineffective at levelling but who cares: I am effectively having lots of fun and with my regular schedule and 1-2 hours play pr. day this game will last me a very long time. 

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by Aviggin

Originally posted by aesperus

Not sure why you're having such a hard time lvling (are you dying a lot, or just not sure what to do?). I've heard similar complaints from some of the other necros in my guild, but once they knew how to play a necro correctly they were dominating.

You're confusing xp gain with actual difficulty of the game. I don't die very often at all, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of quests to do -- unless, of course, A.net expected me to grind the same quests over and over to certain levels, which is what I am doing at the moment.

I just finished exploring the entirety of Divinity's Reach and I'm like a quarter of the xp bar away from level 10, finished all the hearts I have come across in Queensdale so far, and farthest I've travelled is to Claypool, where I trained with the Militia, which I found pretty cool.

Not confusing anything. My very first question is whether you are having trouble with difficutly, or finding enough content. I assumed you were talking about game difficulty, as your OP talks about you dying a bit. However, that's why I put the question at the top of my post.

As for not having enough stuff to do, here is a very good video that explains this: Enigmius; Leveling Too Slow?

Anet doesn't really expect you to do anything specifically. They designed the game to allow you to do a whole plethora of things, and choose what you want to do. Ultimately, aside from Personal Story, you can lvl by only doing 1 type of thing. However, that doesn't mean that it'll be enjoyable, or will be at the fastest pace. People have often asked me how I lvled so fast (which really isn't that fast, I'm only lvl 60 atm), and the answer is always 'do a bit of everything'.

Unlike most MMOs, GW2 literally rewards you for pretty much everything you do. You will generally always get a reward for doing something, provided you are actually doing something. For example; typically my mindset for this game goes as follows. I go for map completion, and I gather as many crafting nodes as I can (in the hopes that the trading post will eventually come online, so I can sell them to make some extra money). Just these two steps basically sets me up for the following:

It guaruntees I'll be going to all the hearts (which you're already doing), and it encourages me to go off the beaten path to find obscure gathering nodes (especially rich ore), which often leads to hidden puzzles / dynamic events / treasures / etc. My rule is, whenever I come across something like that, I do it (usually). Not only have I had no problems lvling this way, but I'm almost always over lvled in a zone before I finish. When I get bored, or too far ahead on lvls, I either jump into pvp for a bit, or get caught up on my personal story.

- Anyway, watch the video. It does a really good job of explaining this; and how exactly EXP gain works in GW2.

Thanks, I've actually been doing everything you've said, and I never really complained about the leveling speed. I just said that I was surprised people were leveling so fast, and I never once mentioned that I was dying a lot or anything. I think you overthought my post.

I've been exploring, crafting slightly, doing personal story, DE's, mined quite a few copper nodes, did a small amount of pvp, and got to level 10 in 2 days. I was simply pointing out that I was struggling to keep up with my Personal Story level even when doing this stuff, and peopel seem to be leveling insanely fast by comparison.

I'll check out the video, though, and see what I can learn from it.

I really don't see the point in rushing to level cap in this game, which is what I usually do. There is no gear treadmill and therefore no worry about getting 'behind'. The people rushing are still stuck in other MMO mindset and will be playing their old games again in a month.

Personally I'm finding it a real breath of fresh air that I didn't have to sit at my PC for a week straight drinking energy drinks for this MMO launch.