What do I do at level cap?

Me and my friends just purchased the trilogy and started today. We found that grouping to level 20 is a pain so we are soloing until then. I'm wondering what we can do at the level cap?

You play the game.

Leveling up is not an important part of Guild Wars, and people tend to see the pre-level 20 part of the game as something of a tutorial.

Do missions, do quests, finish the campaigns, get/play Eye of the North, do dungeons, do elite missions, vanquish, do titles, farm, try PvP...there's plenty to do.

You reach level 20 at about the end of the tutorial section of the game. (in Prophecies, it is a bit after the end of the tutorial) After that, the real game begins. You get stronger by aquiring more skills and learn how to make and use good builds, not by getting higher levels and better gear.

getting to level 20 is all part of training. from here you finish campaigns, switch to HM and have fun, do pvp, do elite dungeons

Um, you just started. GW is different, the level cap is not the goal. Level 20 is like 3-5 hours of play (exaggerated but...starting area) unless you're in prophecies.

i don't think theres any other answer than "play the game"

Generally speaking, it’s pretty easy to hit level 20 and obtain the ‘best’ gear fairly early on. The emphasis of guild wars PvE tends to be on story progression rather than stats, but as noted unlocking additional skills to develop more complicated builds should be a goal throughout. I’d personally suggest picking the campaign that most caught your attention (Eg not prophecies), and playing through the missions and side quests.

As an aside, in case you’re wondering why there are weapons being sold for thousands and thousands of gold, it’s purely out of vanity – rare weapon skins tend to fetch a high price, but they’re not statistically any better than default PvP gear.

Like some ppl already stated, getting to max lvl is not the main goal in this game, unlike other games. When you hit 20, just keep doing quests, missions etc etc. If you're unsure about the storyline, follow the primary quests, they automaticly take you along the story and following the primary quests you wont miss anything, then you can do other quests along side and you move along.

Level 20 is only the beginning. GW does not worry so much about what level you are in. It places more importance in how you build your characters up. So when players say level 20 is where the game begins, it means it is the level you can really start to build some very powerful builds to play the game with

If you find grouping a pain now - for whatever odd reason - it will be just as much of a pain after you get to level 20.
Group now, have fun, and remember, this is not a WII game - no need to rush, no need to try to "beat" the game.

Grouping was a pain because at 4 man parties. I am a ranger, friend 1 a elementalist and friend 2 a necro. We didn't have room for both a tank and healer so we got wiped alot...

That's exactly what we had between my husband (ranger), my best friend (necro) and me (elementalist) when we began playing. Tanks aren't needed where you're at... at most, your necro could be raising minions to be meat shields... so take the healer.

If you're getting wiped a lot with those professions, look at your builds... because honestly, I can't imagine anything you'd be going up against so early in any of the three chapters that a ranger/ele/necro/healer combo couldn't get through fairly easily. About the only exception to this would be if you rushed out of pre-searing Ascalon at like level 2, in which case you're definitely going to need to work harder/smarter than you otherwise would.

Also, make sure you all have the maximum armor you can get for wherever you're at in the game, not to mention that you are adding the appropriate runes & insignia to your armor... and that the weapons you are each using are appropriate for your stats/skill builds.

I'd advise using the Wiki extensively.

GW has a steep learning curve... it isn't like most games where you slap on a bunch of skills, all of which are equally powerful/useful no matter where you go. It isn't set up that way. You have to put a lot of thought and consideration into what skills you choose and how they synergize with each other and work against the environment you're facing.

While it is true that you will need to pay attention to what you are doing in order to get far in GW, it needs to be said that even with a bad build you can eventually get past almost everything, the only thing thats really important and can't be avoided is the armor/runes that need to be correctly set up. In example you shouldn't take 5 superior death magic runes, the effect doesn't stack but it does lower your max health (unless going for something that requires low max health).

As stated above, tanks aren't needed untill you do "harder" things (in example: elite missions and speed clears), after some practice and experience with a good build of skills, those tend to become more and more easy though.

If you need any help with missions or quests, feel free to ask me for help ingame. My ingame name is Matirion Maeronta.

Awww, and I was so looking forward to making an Ele with brown hair and a moustache, dyeing his armour blue and red and jump squashing monsters with my butt

Life begins at level 20!

But yeah, making a good build means a lot in this game. Go browse through the Campfire section of this forum, read the skill comments on the wiki of your choice, ask for help.

I've played all 3 of those classes, so feel free to ask me about them or to ask me for a hand in-game (my ele needs her Protector of Tyria title still) - my IGN is Jennarose Mashaba.

I'm afraid you can get far without runes/insignia as well. I went quite a bit into the storyline of each chapter before it dawned on me: "Hey, what if I actually put some runes/ins on my armor, what a neat idea, I wonder why nobody thought of this before, I must be a genius!"

So the only real requirement is the armor/weapon. Although I'm sure there must be some poor masoquistic bastard out there (like me) who crawled their way through the game with inferior equipment for various reasons.

Tanks are never needed in GW - or to be more accurate - tanks are not very effective in GW because the enemy AI tends to go right past them. In any case, you will soon get to 6-player parties and the problem will be moot.
Btw, you should have a pet to use as a body-blocker.

But don't waste runes/insigs on non-max armor, which unfortunately in Proph comes fairly late. If you have the cash you might want to buy a Droks run so you can get that over with.

I partially disagree. You can remove runes and insignias using an Expert Salvage kit (or a perfect salvage kit). Of course, you have a chance to destroy the armor piece if you use an Expert Kit, so, just make sure you remove the expensive ones, like Survivor, Radiant, Vigor, etc. first. Cheap runes, such as most Majors, and class-specific Insignias, you can simply re-purchase as needed.
The only problem becomes when you may want to put 2 expensive Runes/Insignias on the same piece. In that case you either need a Perfect Salvage kit, or you need to wait, or bite-the-bullet.
Generally speaking, having the Runes/Insiginias makes things go so much better that any extra expense is worth it.

Well yeah. Actually, I guess, my rule would be: Don't waste dyes on lowbie armor, and only use a Rune or an Insignia (but not both) on each piece. Without access to perf salvage, it's better to take the slight gimp in stats IMO and be 100% sure you'll be able to recover everything afterwards.

Also, who uses Majors? And class-specific insigs tend to be pretty meh, too, with a few exceptions (*cough* Bloodstained *cough*).

Personally, I would just use whatever insignias you pick up, I guess, and be picky about your runes. Don't go for Sups until you have some health runes or insigs, and Majors are kinda sucky in general but if you have enough health I suppose you could take one (they are pretty cheap, after all); I would just pick out a coupla Minors (generally one for whatever you are focusing on, like Markmanship or Death Magic or Air Magic, and one for your primary if it's not too expensive). But it's totally okay to not have all your runes and insigs particularly early in the game (do put them on your max armor as soon as you get it, though). The +1 att or conditional armor bonus doesn't make all the difference, though it certainly can be nice.

Also, a tip: when you come across a blue or higher salvage item, check out what runes/insigs come on it and determine whether to merch it or salvage it. Generally, items with Major runes - except for Major Vigor, of course - are worth more to the merchant than the rune is to the rune guy. But with minors and sups, save it 'til you get home and check the price before salvaging. And you don't necessarily need to buy Radiant or Survivor insigs - you'll probably find quite a few along the way, so being a little patient can save quite a bit of cash.

You can try not to put an expensive rune and an expensive insignia on the same armor piece. Then salvage the more expensive one when the time comes and that's that.

As for dye... I think lots of players have their moments when they go for looks over practicality. I bought my proph warrior 5 red dyes instead of runes and insignia just because it looked awesome on the Charr hide armor, especially on the helmet (with red around the fangs and eyes). And it's not just the dye; I'm probably completely silly, but it bothers me a little when I go into the Shiverpeaks wearing skimpy armor that looks half naked. I felt better for having the Charr hide armor. And what better way to put the fear into the Charr!

I tried to be practical once and bought my Factions warrior Ascalon max armor because that's what I could afford (material-wise). So I had max armor and I even scraped a little more cash and dyed it brown (bit better than that god-awful default grey). But I still totally hated the way it looked. And it was a while until I managed to replace it. :/

End result: I payed for max armor twice. How's that for practical? Don't underestimate the people's sense of style, that's all I'm saying...

This depends, of course, on whether or not it's your first character. I just recently took an ex-storage, level2, post-searing character partially through Prophecies and I dyed her armor every time, using up some of the 80+ green and brown dyes I have.

Many Runes only cost 100g - atm, there's a lot of fluctuation because so many people are outfitting extra Heroes, but things will settle down soon.
Anyway, it's well worth it to buy cheap 100g runes whenever you want and not worry about salvaging them.

I do. That post-searing Ranger I mentioned uses Major Marksmanship, for example, and some of my other characters also use a Major, depending upon the break-points in the skill set.
I'd have to admit though, that it was not my 1st character and therefore, I had lots of money to buy Major Vigor (at 6k!) and any other Runes/Insignias I wanted. Also, Tomes meant that she had a decent (Barrage-ish) skill bar from the get-go, and a set of max bows.
Yes, but most of them are (or will again be) very cheap. It's better to use a 100g "meh" Insignia than no insignia at all.

That's a recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, buying the Runes can make the game go easier, leading to more fun and more cash. It's a matter of risk/reward, etc.

I didn't mean just throw whatever you find on, I meant if you find something you think would be useful put it on.

I guess it's a matter of playstyle, really. I grew up in Factions where this whole intermediate armor thing never really was a big deal, so I'm more inclined towards just getting max quickly and then decking it out properly.

I would also like to note that you may be finding it very hard to get most runes/inscriptions from the rune trader at the moment, and that they are rather expensive. This is usually not the case. We recently received an update that allows people to run around with 7 heroes, which has caused everyone to buy up a ton of runes/insigs to put on said heroes, and basically crash that market. It will take a bit to settle, so don't freak out when you realize they are more expensive than they should be, or that they dont have them at all.