Originally posted by BadSpock

Originally posted by Eluldor

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Guardian for group play isn't about killing power, but support.

That will be its cousin, the warrior.

For the world, a shout build that can put virtues to good use will do fine.

Ya, I play a full boon support guardian, and I'm almost always picking up the DPS guards in a group :) Good for solo I guess.

For Badspock, if you like the look of your Vigil gear you'll be able to get some Fine Transmutation stones from world exploration/black lion chests and keep that look for Karma Exotics (or whatever route you go), since I presonally think most of the Vigil pieces are rather nice looking.

If you're ruling out dungeons atm, does that include FoTM? They updated them to be far more user friendly. Also great route for globs of ectoplasm from rare drops. Get exotic drops in there etc.

What do people do at lvl 80? Lots of people do FoTM and WvW, Dungeons, PvP, and of course level an alt. Some people pursue the legendary weapons. Full Map 100% and jumping puzzles and the often unknown Mini-Dungeons (listed in exploration, some are quite fun, and may be best off with a friend) are also out there. Once you get one 80, lots of people start crafting on alts and master it that way, helps with lvling them all up.

Appreciate the responses all.

What kind of build would that be then?

I like the healing and defense Guardian can spec into, as well as group utility but I just... I get so bored without having a bit of killing power!

 

For the Open world anything will do.

If you want to play DPS, do so.

My girlfriend and I have been playing GW2 for a month or two and we just got to level 80 recently.  So we are sorta bored with it now...  There are still things to do but the best part of a themepark mmo like GW2 is the leveling, exploring areas, doing primary quest.  We have taken to watching the dragon timers on gw2 temple (a website) as we study and logging in when dragons are up.  Then when we log in after we fight the dragon we will check the 3 zones in Orr and ask our guild if they want to do anything, which always seems to end in us doing FRACTALS.  

Fractals will be much more fun now that they fixed the bugs with disconnecting and adding players to the group late.

We are working on second characters but we only play those when 2 of our friends are on so its hard to get the 4 of us together at once.

I would like to do more PvP sometime but my girlfriend doesn't care for it as much.

That is the difference between most MMORPGs and ones that are dear to me like SWG was.  In a sandbox game there are always tons of things you want to do in it that may or may not have anything to do with the developers original intent.  There are tons of things to do in GW2, but the difference is that the achievements in GW2 mostly have no meaning to me (ie, collecting gear or getting 'achievements').  Most of this 'end game content' in linear MMORPGs are arbitrary points set high in order to spend players time (aka, grind).  That makes sense because we can't expect a developer to make unlimited REAL content.  Only a sandbox can have unlimited content because the players create the content not the developer.

As soon as you hit 80 AND you have enough gold you should:

• Raise a craft to 400 in your profession's armor level if you haven't already.
• Craft a full set of Rare gear, weapons, and jewelry.  Buy any pieces you can't craft.
• Put Major Runes/Sigils into Rare gear.

• Craft or purchase Exotic gear, weapons, and jewelry.
• Put Superior Runes/Sigils into Exotic gear.

• Run Fractals up to at least level 20.  I recommend getting to at least 28.  Get infused rings from the daily, or upgrade non-infused rings, or purchase rings using infused Fractals Relics if you get really unlucky.  This grind in and of itself takes longer than getting your exotic set, so have patience.
• Farm a lot of gold (IMO Dungeons > Fractals > T6 Mat Farming > Orr farming) and purchased an Ascended Backpack and infuse it.  This requires 250 Ectoplasms and will take a lot of gold farming to complete.
• Get 30 Laurels by completing daillies and monthly achievements to buy an amulet and infuse it.

• Look at the dungeon sets available to you in Lion's Arch vendors.  Also check your cultural armor sets in your race's city and the invader's set in WvW.  Decide which armor set or combination of pieces you like best and start working on it.

• Work on your legendary weapons.  This is an extremely expensive task that will require a large amount of luck and time spent exclusively farming.  The karma requirement is only ~1.2 million on average so it's generally not something you have to worry about.  On the other hand the gold requirement with the current cost of materials is anywhere from 800g to almost 2000g, so this will be your biggest bottleneck.  Running a set of AC EXP and CoF everyday will make a small but effective amount of progress to your goal and with persistence you can have a legendary weapon in about 3 months time.
• Level and max out every other profession to 80.
• Upgrade your infused backpack to the final cosmetic glowing version.  Again, this is 250 Ectoplasms and is quite expensive.
• Collect every minipet in the game.
• Use the Mystic Forge to create special exotic weapons.  These can be as cheap as 50g, but some are absurdly expensive and near the cost of Legendary weapons.
• Do the special events Guild Wars 2 has (usually monthly) and collect things like endless tonics and minipets.
• Do WvW daily, work on getting your server to number #1.
• Raise your Fractal level as high as possible (since the patch it's impossible to go beyond level 50 and 30+ can be fairly brutal).
• Complete the "Dungeon Master" title by clearing all story mode and explorable dungeons.
• Farm other achievements and titles.
• Become a SPvP master and show up on the Tournament leaderboards.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

As soon as you hit 80 AND you have enough gold you should:

• Raise a craft to 400 in your profession's armor level if you haven't already.
• Craft a full set of Rare gear, weapons, and jewelry.  Buy any pieces you can't craft.
• Put Major Runes/Sigils into Rare gear.

If you don't have enough gold simply farm Orr events in Cursed Shore or work on map completion in various zones till you have enough gold.

 

If you hit 80 and have a large amount of gold:

• Craft or purchase Exotic gear, weapons, and jewelry.
• Put Superior Runes/Sigils into Exotic gear.

If you don't have enough gold to do this, run EXP AC or CoF repeatably.  This will net you gold in the fastest amount of time without overreliance on RNG.  It will also earn you badges in which you can purchase exotic gear.

 

Now, to finish maxing out your character:

• Run Fractals up to at least level 20.  I recommend getting to at least 28.  Get infused rings from the daily, or upgrade non-infused rings, or purchase rings using infused Fractals Relics if you get really unlucky.  This grind in and of itself takes longer than getting your exotic set, so have patience.
• Farm a lot of gold (IMO Dungeons > Fractals > T6 Mat Farming > Orr farming) and purchased an Ascended Backpack and infuse it.  This requires 250 Ectoplasms and will take a lot of gold farming to complete.
• Get 30 Laurels by completing daillies and monthly achievements to buy an amulet and infuse it.

If you aren't concerned with raising your Fractals to a high level you can avoid the steps above and only raise Fractals to 10 and farm that daily out for uninfused rings.  You can make an uninfused Backpack cheaply if you spend enough time doing your 10 Fractal daily and getting the components for it.  It shouldn't take long, infusing it is the hard part.

 

Now that your character is 100% maxed in terms of gear you should aim for the cosmetic sets or mix and match a set of your choice:

• Look at the dungeon sets available to you in Lion's Arch vendors.  Also check your cultural armor sets in your race's city and the invader's set in WvW.  Decide which armor set or combination of pieces you like best and start working on it.

Finally, some long term goals to work on:

• Work on your legendary weapons.  This is an extremely expensive task that will require a large amount of luck and time spent exclusively farming.  The karma requirement is only ~1.2 million on average so it's generally not something you have to worry about.  On the other hand the gold requirement with the current cost of materials is anywhere from 800g to almost 2000g, so this will be your biggest bottleneck.  Running a set of AC EXP and CoF everyday will make a small but effective amount of progress to your goal and with persistence you can have a legendary weapon in about 3 months time.
• Level and max out every other profession to 80.
• Upgrade your infused backpack to the final cosmetic glowing version.  Again, this is 250 Ectoplasms and is quite expensive.
• Collect every minipet in the game.
• Use the Mystic Forge to create special exotic weapons.  These can be as cheap as 50g, but some are absurdly expensive and near the cost of Legendary weapons.
• Do the special events Guild Wars 2 has (usually monthly) and collect things like endless tonics and minipets.
• Do WvW daily, work on getting your server to number #1.
• Raise your Fractal level as high as possible (since the patch it's impossible to go beyond level 50 and 30+ can be fairly brutal).
• Complete the "Dungeon Master" title by clearing all story mode and explorable dungeons.
• Farm other achievements and titles.
• Become a SPvP master and show up on the Tournament leaderboards.

do jumping puzzles and hidden areas some are really chalenging as that one in lornar´s pass (with a bomb on your hand to open the chest)

Originally posted by BadSpock

Originally posted by Eluldor

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Guardian for group play isn't about killing power, but support.

That will be its cousin, the warrior.

For the world, a shout build that can put virtues to good use will do fine.

Ya, I play a full boon support guardian, and I'm almost always picking up the DPS guards in a group :) Good for solo I guess.

For Badspock, if you like the look of your Vigil gear you'll be able to get some Fine Transmutation stones from world exploration/black lion chests and keep that look for Karma Exotics (or whatever route you go), since I presonally think most of the Vigil pieces are rather nice looking.

If you're ruling out dungeons atm, does that include FoTM? They updated them to be far more user friendly. Also great route for globs of ectoplasm from rare drops. Get exotic drops in there etc.

What do people do at lvl 80? Lots of people do FoTM and WvW, Dungeons, PvP, and of course level an alt. Some people pursue the legendary weapons. Full Map 100% and jumping puzzles and the often unknown Mini-Dungeons (listed in exploration, some are quite fun, and may be best off with a friend) are also out there. Once you get one 80, lots of people start crafting on alts and master it that way, helps with lvling them all up.

Appreciate the responses all.

What kind of build would that be then?

I like the healing and defense Guardian can spec into, as well as group utility but I just... I get so bored without having a bit of killing power!

My first attempt was 0,0,30,30,10 - then I realized if I expanded my boons like Protection, that I could maintain it almost 100% for the group in exchange for some healing and self survivability. Plus I figured 2 extra seconds of most boons is better than having plus 100 healing or some extra armor.

So I went to 0,0,20,20,30. Now you can still deal a decent amount of damage, because the Staff gives 12 Might stacks to group and can couple that with greatsword (sigil of battle for more might stacks or damage bonus). The latest update also added 2 more seconds to Staff Empower's 12 Might stacks, combined with that trait tree = nearly constant might stacks for group. Normal weapons are Staff, Scepter/Shield. Greatsword, mace, hammer, focus swaps depending. I went with Rune of Earth and Grove for Protection duration. There are also ones for Boon duration and Regen duration. All of those rune sets, normally just use 2 of each, are quite helpful for a support Guardian build.

Never thought this would happen, but I have gotten addicted to Fractals. The thought that it gets harder and harder as you level up makes me keep going back in there.

Not to mention the loot keeps getting better and better.

Apart from what everyone else has posted, here's some novel way to spend your time between waiting for new events.

• Helping others in your guild - you never know when you might need help yourself, and if you help others,  you'd hope they'd repay the favour.
• completing maps.
• alts.
• crafting. 
• Jumping puzzles - either solo or with you guildies, can make event out of it  :-p

Yeah I kind of want to reroll an Asura now that I've got my human up to 80.

But I have no idea what class.

Guardian is my human (80) and I reall only like melee classes and I hate pet classes.

Warrior is kind of.. plain?

So I'm thinking on a Mesmer - but I only ever really see people using Greatsword on Mesmer.

Originally posted by BadSpock

Yeah I kind of want to reroll an Asura now that I've got my human up to 80.

But I have no idea what class.

Guardian is my human (80) and I reall only like melee classes and I hate pet classes.

Warrior is kind of.. plain?

So I'm thinking on a Mesmer - but I only ever really see people using Greatsword on Mesmer.

mesmer is my vote very unique class:) GS + staff is a great combo for leveling.. but all mesmer weapons can be used well.. i also like all combos of sword in mainhand...i haven't really used sceptor much yet..  i can pull off some pretty amazing things with my mesmer and able to take on a lot of encounters I never could with my other characters

oh also underwater combat with mesmer is actually a lot of fun:)

Best way to get exotic gear is to craft it yourself or do dailies for your jugs of Karma.

I recently got back into GW2 after a 2 month hiatus, and I traded some gems for gold and level leatherworking & jewelcrafting to 400 for a cost of about 17 - 20g, with 800 gems roughly equal to 7g or something (not exactly sure on this, as it fluctuates) which got me a nice 22+ levels using a crafting booster. I am now lvl 50 on my Engineer 40g in my pocket from crafting & salvaging gear for ectos / upgrades and I have a full 80 exotic set waiting for me when I hit 80, which I am taking my time with exploring all the areas I didnt on my first play through.

Originally posted by BadSpock

Yeah I kind of want to reroll an Asura now that I've got my human up to 80.

But I have no idea what class.

Guardian is my human (80) and I reall only like melee classes and I hate pet classes.

Warrior is kind of.. plain?

So I'm thinking on a Mesmer - but I only ever really see people using Greatsword on Mesmer.

You might try the Engineer.  I know it is not Melee (you could run with a wrench kit if you feel like you need to get up and smack something) but it definitely isn't a range class either.  I thought that I would hate it, tried it for my son and it was my first character I got to 80.  Couldn't stop playing it. 

You want to get up close and personal, you can go with a bomb kit, its rigth up close and personal, and you will love it the first time you set off the Big ole bomb and everything goes flying.  :) 

The tool belt skills are the onrly profession skills that can set to what ever you like.  You chose the F1-F4 skills.  The profession is a blast. 

I made a Mesmer alt, while they are very unique, and dynamite in pvp, when soloing they can be rather quishy. GGenerally it's better to use ranged weeps like staff and greats word cuz clothes can't take many hits, that's what the clones and phantasms are for. Though clones dy fast and are really for exploding while phantasms can take a few hits, your can find your self dead if overrun by the critters. You can switch web forms in combat, so idf they close enough, you can finish the, off with a sword.

It gets easier past the lvl 30 threshold

Originally posted by BadSpock

Yeah I kind of want to reroll an Asura now that I've got my human up to 80.

But I have no idea what class.

Guardian is my human (80) and I reall only like melee classes and I hate pet classes.

Warrior is kind of.. plain?

So I'm thinking on a Mesmer - but I only ever really see people using Greatsword on Mesmer.

You can melee with pretty much everyone.

But thief certainly is a melee class.

Warrior is quite varied.

Elementalist dagger/x is a short range caster, just like necro dagger.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

As soon as you hit 80 AND you have enough gold you should:

• Raise a craft to 400 in your profession's armor level if you haven't already.
• Craft a full set of Rare gear, weapons, and jewelry.  Buy any pieces you can't craft.
• Put Major Runes/Sigils into Rare gear.

If you don't have enough gold simply farm Orr events in Cursed Shore or work on map completion in various zones till you have enough gold.

 

If you hit 80 and have a large amount of gold:

• Craft or purchase Exotic gear, weapons, and jewelry.
• Put Superior Runes/Sigils into Exotic gear.

If you don't have enough gold to do this, run EXP AC or CoF repeatably.  This will net you gold in the fastest amount of time without overreliance on RNG.  It will also earn you badges in which you can purchase exotic gear.

 

Now, to finish maxing out your character:

• Run Fractals up to at least level 20.  I recommend getting to at least 28.  Get infused rings from the daily, or upgrade non-infused rings, or purchase rings using infused Fractals Relics if you get really unlucky.  This grind in and of itself takes longer than getting your exotic set, so have patience.
• Farm a lot of gold (IMO Dungeons > Fractals > T6 Mat Farming > Orr farming) and purchased an Ascended Backpack and infuse it.  This requires 250 Ectoplasms and will take a lot of gold farming to complete.
• Get 30 Laurels by completing daillies and monthly achievements to buy an amulet and infuse it.

If you aren't concerned with raising your Fractals to a high level you can avoid the steps above and only raise Fractals to 10 and farm that daily out for uninfused rings.  You can make an uninfused Backpack cheaply if you spend enough time doing your 10 Fractal daily and getting the components for it.  It shouldn't take long, infusing it is the hard part.

 

Now that your character is 100% maxed in terms of gear you should aim for the cosmetic sets or mix and match a set of your choice:

• Look at the dungeon sets available to you in Lion's Arch vendors.  Also check your cultural armor sets in your race's city and the invader's set in WvW.  Decide which armor set or combination of pieces you like best and start working on it.

Finally, some long term goals to work on:

• Work on your legendary weapons.  This is an extremely expensive task that will require a large amount of luck and time spent exclusively farming.  The karma requirement is only ~1.2 million on average so it's generally not something you have to worry about.  On the other hand the gold requirement with the current cost of materials is anywhere from 800g to almost 2000g, so this will be your biggest bottleneck.  Running a set of AC EXP and CoF everyday will make a small but effective amount of progress to your goal and with persistence you can have a legendary weapon in about 3 months time.
• Level and max out every other profession to 80.
• Upgrade your infused backpack to the final cosmetic glowing version.  Again, this is 250 Ectoplasms and is quite expensive.
• Collect every minipet in the game.
• Use the Mystic Forge to create special exotic weapons.  These can be as cheap as 50g, but some are absurdly expensive and near the cost of Legendary weapons.
• Do the special events Guild Wars 2 has (usually monthly) and collect things like endless tonics and minipets.
• Do WvW daily, work on getting your server to number #1.
• Raise your Fractal level as high as possible (since the patch it's impossible to go beyond level 50 and 30+ can be fairly brutal).
• Complete the "Dungeon Master" title by clearing all story mode and explorable dungeons.
• Farm other achievements and titles.
• Become a SPvP master and show up on the Tournament leaderboards.

:-O

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by BadSpock

Yeah I kind of want to reroll an Asura now that I've got my human up to 80.

But I have no idea what class.

Guardian is my human (80) and I reall only like melee classes and I hate pet classes.

Warrior is kind of.. plain?

So I'm thinking on a Mesmer - but I only ever really see people using Greatsword on Mesmer.

 

Consider this, Guardian is the second easiest class to level up; Warrior is the easiest.

Mesmer is the hardest and Elementalist the second hardest.

Course you can just craft your way to 80 or do WvW but for normal Hearts? Mesmer / Ele is really bad.

Asking for no jokes, no flames or no trolls on a popular and well liked Themepark on this site is impossible.  But like the guy said check Dulfy.net.

Although I have pretty much quit and gone back to Asheron's Call, GW2 still is a very good game for what it does.  As for endgame Guardian might I suggest any form of Alturistic Healing build though.