Guild Wars 2

Greetings ladies and gents! Since I own only the original game, I was wondering – how much can I do without the expansion? So, here are the questions:
1. Will I be able to obtain strongest possible gear (ascended gear, legendary weps)?
2. How much will my DPS be affected by lack of masteries (if that’s how they’re called)?
3. Will I be able to do endgame that doesn’t include raids and episodes of the current Living Story?
4. How much will I actually going miss?..

1. Yes.
2. Masteries will not effect your dps but the Elite specialization will. For core PvE and fractals it is not necessary though.
3. Well endgame is hard to define in gw2, most say it is fractals and PvP/WvW so no. But for WvW and PvP you will be at a disadvantage.
4. If you do like gw2 I suggest that you get yourself HoT becouse it is alot of neat stuff to do in HoT and some stuff to take with you in Core game like gliding.

1. Yes
2, you probably wont have the ‘optimal’ build but thats not really a showstopper unless you intent to raid or do rated spvp
3. A fair amount, its well worth the money.

1) Yes you can. The only reliable way to get ascended is crafting. Ascended crafting pre-dates HoT so you don’t need the expansion to do it. You can also get it as rare drops from Fractals and Tequatl.

You won’t be able to craft a precursor for a legendary so you’ll have to buy one from the TP, or try your luck with the Mystic Forge, but you can still make a legendary.

2) Masteries have nothing to do with DPS. They add non-combat abilities like gliding and faster movement speed in cities, but nothing that gives you an advantage in combat. (Most of them can’t even be used outside of HoT maps.)

3) Yes, everything that was in the game before HoT is still available to you, including dungeons, Fractals, WvW etc.

4) Hard to answer that as it depends on what you’re interested in. You’ll miss the HoT storyline, and LS3, the new maps, some new armour and weapon skins, raids, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting, but I know a lot of people don’t care about some or all of that.

Awesome, thanks everyone for the quick and quality replies. I’ll give it a shot since I miss this game a lot! ^^

1) Yes and no. No because you can’t get any of the HoT 4 stat combos, the insignia recipes are account bound and require HoT to buy from vendors, so you can’t craft or forge these stats.
2) As others have said above.
3 & 4) Everything that was available before HoT launched is still available to you, but you won’t get anything new. The exception being the festivals and any overhauls to pre-HoT content (e.g Shatterer, fractals, wvw, pvp). Anet are unlikely to add new dungeons, world bosses or maps to the core areas.

Its pay2win. Buy HoT or lose every 1v1 with your vanilla spec.

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

Its pay2win. Buy HoT or lose every 1v1 with your vanilla spec.

Not enterilly true.

I know the Reaper elite trait line is entirely unnecessary for all game modes and does not represent a significant dps or sustain improvement over standard Necromancer. It is just one additional build option for variety.

Anchoku.8142:

I know the Reaper elite trait line is entirely unnecessary for all game modes and does not represent a significant dps or sustain improvement over standard Necromancer. It is just one additional build option for variety.

Most WvW necros are reapers, don’t know why.
PvE reaper is a shredder farming tank machine.
Most elite specs offer much more in terms of flexibility, utility and fun.
HoT is an extortion

There are four big things I would miss without HoT:

• Gliding — this mastery is so much fun and it changes how I get around (e.g. for map completion).
• True Auto-looting — this is a game changer for me. The core game allows you to easily loot drops within range, but it requires remembering to press a key repeatedly, in all circumstances. Simplifying this so that loot auto-drops into inventory is also game changing for me.
• Profession Elite specs — these are also a lot of fun. While they aren’t anything close (in my opinion) to essential for playing the core game, they change how I relate to the game.
• The new maps and new story — after playing the game since launch, having new distractions was important to my continuing interest.

Now, if you aren’t enjoying the core game, none of this stuff is important; they won’t make the game fun enough. However, if you already like the game, then plunking down US$50 is (again, in my opinion) well worth it for the above elements.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There are four big things I would miss without HoT:

• Gliding — this mastery is so much fun and it changes how I get around (e.g. for map completion).
• True Auto-looting — this is a game changer for me. The core game allows you to easily loot drops within range, but it requires remembering to press a key repeatedly, in all circumstances. Simplifying this so that loot auto-drops into inventory is also game changing for me.
• Profession Elite specs — these are also a lot of fun. While they aren’t anything close (in my opinion) to essential for playing the core game, they change how I relate to the game.
• The new maps and new story — after playing the game since launch, having new distractions was important to my continuing interest.

Now, if you aren’t enjoying the core game, none of this stuff is important; they won’t make the game fun enough. However, if you already like the game, then plunking down US$50 is (again, in my opinion) well worth it for the above elements.

I agree, well said.