Master of My Domain
No, this isn’t about the great Seinfeld episode so get your mind out of the gutter! Not that i consider that topic to be in the gutter but let’s move on anyway. This is about mastery points and GW2’s alternate advancement system. I’m a huge proponent of these post max level experience systems as a way to increase character power. I loved them in FFXI and EQ2, and i love them in GW2. They actually made traversing the terrain so much more interesting.
I’ve been at them at a snail’s pace since their implementation in the previous expansion. Slowly but surely i’ve been making my way up the charts and finally hit a mini-milestone with my 100th mastery point. I’m not quite sure what the max is right now but i see plenty of players floating well north of 260, so i have my work cut out for me. Nevertheless, i’m happy i managed to hit my personal number and finally unlocked unlimited gliding. I know i know i’m far behind, but i’m getting there.
Getting around the annoying Heart of Thorns maps is so much more relaxing now. Coupled with the mounts, it almost makes those zones tolerable now! Actually, let’s not get carried away just yet. Get it? Badum tish? Bad joke is bad. Now i’m going to try and focus on Path of Fire some more which i’m enjoying so much more zone wise. A certain roller beetle is calling my name.
Ald Shot First 
(Second attempt to post this…)
I enjoy the HoT maps so much more than the PoF ones they might as well be entitely different games. I did the bare minimum in PoF to get the story done on one character and I never go back other than to do a vista for the daily now and again. I find them difficult and miserable to play through in all the ways people complained about HoT – impossible to move five feet in any direction witjout being swarmed by mobs. And I can’t stand any of the mounts, which just make the whole experience more awkward and fiddly.
Four years after HoT, however, I still regularly explore HoT maps for the sheer enjoyment of it. I’ve taken half a dozen characters through the Ascended weapon lines and I ran Tarir and Dragon’s Stand for the sheer fun of doing them many times over. Gliding is a visceral pleasure that never gets old, especially in Verdant Brink, where I can literally lose an entire afternoon just soaring on thermals.
It’s about time they started talking about expansion #3. I guess after LS4 winds up. Unfortunately PoF has been far more popular than HoT so I don’t have a lot of hope the next one will be to my taste but I’ll be glad to see anything. Expansions take far too long to appear in my opinion. I want a bare minimum of one a year just to keep me occupied.
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Yeah it’s a weird complicated issue for me. In any other game i prefer large complicated maps requiring teamwork at times to traverse and involving multi-level design. I should love HoT, but i don’t! I do rather enjoy Auric Basin but Verdant Brink makes me want to do evil things to cute cuddlies.
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I wish I’d bought HoT at release because found the activities so much more interesting then PoF. Yet only got HoT from purchase of PoF. Love the keep saving mechanic and even the exploration honestly.
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I recently purchased HoT for a friend and we’ve been going through it for masteries. It’s much better with mounts in my opinion.
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