I've searched everywhere and can't find a solid guide for people who decide to boost to 80. If you know of a guide, just ignore this post and link me haha!! I'm level 30 and I'm a little bored with just doing hearts and I want to jump to end-game content. I'm trying to make a chronological list for people who boost to 80 so they'll have a clear path of progression. So here are things I've learned that I should do, I'm just not sure which I should do first.
1) Research an open world build, for example at metabattle.com, go to the pvp lobby and practice your rotation on golems.
2) If said build requires weapons you don't have, grab some off the trading post in Lions arch, easily accessible from PVP lobby.
3) Play through HOT intro quest and earn the raptor mount. Mute the gameplay to avoid spoilers if you like, you can even change the subtitles to a different language to avoid reading the story.
4) With new raptor you can quickly unlock all the waypoints in the game, or you can buy a waypoint unlock for gems, probably bad idea, just mentioning it.
5) Go back and play through the personal story...I'm assuming that's still possible...to learn lore and experience the plot.
6) Continue map completion at your leisure. It will go faster at level 80 with a mount. Map completion is necessary if you plan to craft legendaries. Map completion also gets you mastery points, which unlock elite specializations? Is that correct? Map completion will also get you lots of mats for future crafting and karma.
7) Learn your professions and max them out.
8) Finish the HOT story line - this unlocks all other mounts?
9) Thorns story line gets you a glider?
10) Buy exotic gear (from trading post) because it's not that expensive and it's nearly as good as ascended gear.
11) From here I don't know when exactly, but begin experimenting with fractals, raids, WVW, dailies, general endgame content that I don't have any experience with yet.
I hope to edit this list after you guys make suggestions. As a noob it's frustrating talking to GW2 players and trying to nail down a clear progression path. GW2 is such an open game. Players keep telling me to do what I like. But I find it more stimulating to know what my goals are and then gradually achieving those goals.