Guild Wars 2

So after not playing for a while, since before expansion came out, I’m trying to get back into the game. Usually I PvP’d so I went back there to see where things stand. I’m not sure if I’m just that rusty with the game or if so much has changed that I simply don’t know how to play properly anymore. I heard someone say that people without the expansion are at a severe disadvantage, which I hope isn’t true because I was going to base getting expansion on my current experience. So I guess I have two questions:
1) If I want to gauge the current state of the game do I pretty much have to get the expansion?
2) If no to above, is there a particular class that plays more forgivingly so I can get back in the swing of things?

Warrior is pretty forgiving, as is necromancer. I’ve seen people playing those “vanilla” class builds without the HoT elites. Elementalist as well I think and Mesmer, although Chronomancer (elite) is pretty strong.

Druid, Dragonhunter, Scrapper are all solidly elite only. Thief is debatable for a few builds but mostly is Daredevil (elite) only as well. Not that familiar with Rev, but most I see are running Herald (elite) so it must be pretty strong.

HoT builds tend to add sustain to classes which is the source of “HoT OP” comments in many cases.

You might consider posting in the PvP sub-forum for opinions regarding Professions and how they play in PvP.

Good luck.