Guild Wars 2

Hello forums!!

I’ve been holding off buying HoT for now, and i’ve decided to come back to GW2.

I was wondering if by not buying the expansion, the players who do own the expansion could have an advantage over me in terms of power or anything in PVP or WvW

What am I missing out by not buying?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated

Yes. Not to the point where it’s unplayable, but the disadvantages are there.

• Specializations are strong, and often part of the meta for a number of modes, not having access to them may leave you out of the meta.
• Various runes and stats such as Durability and Vipers are only available in the expansion and are quite powerful
• Only HoT users can use guild boosts. scribe, or capture a Guild Hall.
• Only HoT users have access to pve masteries. Most of them are for the sake of convenience, but the fractal mastery has rewards locked behind it.

Daniel.9405:

What am I missing out by not buying?

Here are the game-changing elements that make HoT worth the money (for me), even if other aspects are flawed:

• Gliding — just as I can’t go back to GW1 because there’s no jumping, I would have trouble going back to pre-HoT because there’s no gliding.
• True autolooting (gated behind ‘masteries’) — not having to worry about picking up loot is another thing I can’t live without. (It’s gated behind masteries in PvE and behind a HoT-wvw bonus.) Stuff just flies magically into inventory, something I’ve wanted in every game.
• Top Tier fractals — while you can do low tier fractals without HoT, there are much better rewards now for being at the top tier.
• Elite specializations: even if they weren’t far stronger than the base profs, they are also a lot of fun to play — animations, combat style, and a greater diversity of builds (imo anyhow).

Here are things new to the game that don’t require HoT (and are fun, too):

• Lower-level fractals — if I didn’t have HoT, I’d still enjoy these. A lot of nice QoL improvements
• Shared-inventory slots (an expensive gem shop purchase: 700 gems each or 5 for 2.8k). This is another game-changing improvement; I haven’t bought a harvesting tool or salvage kit since this was introduced.
• Some new events (that mostly don’t require HoT).
• Lots of QoL improvements (although many specific to HoT zones).

For me, HoT was well worth the money, even if I don’t think it was as good a value as GW2 at launch. Since I continue to play, I am much happier owning HoT. If I spend “only” 60 bucks (for basic) every 2-3 years, I figure that’s a great deal (again: for me — other people’s tastes will vary).

edit: per ‘JustTrogdor’, added a note about shared slots requiring gems

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Here are things new to the game that don’t require HoT (and are fun, too):

-SNIP-

• Shared-inventory slots. This is another game-changing improvement; I haven’t bought a harvesting tool or salvage kit since this was introduced.

-SNIP-

It should be noted that shared slots are a gem store purchase. They are not just included in the core game. HoT accounts do get one free included with the L80 boost.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Here are things new to the game that don’t require HoT (and are fun, too):

-SNIP-

• Shared-inventory slots. This is another game-changing improvement; I haven’t bought a harvesting tool or salvage kit since this was introduced.

-SNIP-

It should be noted that shared slots are a gem store purchase. They are not just included in the core game. HoT accounts do get one free included with the L80 boost.

Good point. I’ll make a note in my post to clarify that.

Yes. Generally, the elite specs do have a significant, noticeable advantage over vanilla ones in PvP (And, to a slightly lesser degree, in WvW). Noticeable so much, that at a higher competitive level in sPvP noone’s running vanilla builds anymore. Additionally, there are some runes locked behind HoT that are very useful in WvW. The same with some stat sets, but that’s of the least importance from all those 3.

TL/DR; in sPvP, if you don’t have HoT, expect to lose unless you are way better than your opponent. Winning is still possible, but it’s an uphill battle.

If you PvP & WvW, the short answer is yes, you’re at a disadvantage if you don’t buy HoT. The new elite spec classes are everything. They totally and completely outclass original classes.

Thanks alot for the info guys!! this really helped me make up my mind about getting HoT

Considering the circumstances, I probably will

I appreciate the help

You are at no disadvantage if you don’t buy heart of thorns. This is coming from a person who used to play necro, “upgraded” to reaper and quit maining necro because reaper actually nerfed their current build. I now play revenant which is more fun, wouldn’t call it better because I have tons of trouble with rangers, mesmers, and the like. Just play your way and if your way just so happens to be a “hero” class aka espec or a revenant then by all means get the expansion. I’m not saying don’t support the developers because I think it is worth it to pick the xpac up, I am saying and cannot stress enough that you are not at a disadvantage by any stretch of the imagination.

@Newbstr
…OP is talking about sPvP and WvW, not PvE.
Yes, the disadvantage exists, and is quite big. You’ve actually admitted that when you mentioned your necro (which is funny, because pre-HoT vanilla necro meta build is one that likely weathered that change the best).

Yes, you’re at a huge disadvantage in PvP and WvW because of the elite specializations. Honestly? In order to compete, they’re pretty much mandatory. The power creep is definitely noticeable in PvP and WvW.

For example, I can tell when I’m fighting a free-to-play in PvP because I slaughter them in a matter of moments.

Those without the expansion are pretty much fodder for those that do have it.

PvP: Yes, you need it.
WvW: You probably need it unless you want to hang out with the backline of a zerg all the time. Also the expac gives you true autoloot. $50 for a UI feature, a bargain.

Yes, it is practically required for pvp and although less so with wvw zergs it does help

you dont need it for wvw or pve in GW2, but pvp it gives more options. As with any game, generally speaking the player with access to most content has must choice.

Sadly, yes. There are only a handful of builds I can run effectively in sPvP without owning HoT. Nothing about the PvE in HoT interested me, but I still wanted to play sPvP. That only lasted a week or so during the first season. I quickly learned I couldn’t play many of my core professions effectively against elite specs so I quit. $50 was too steep a price tag for someone like me who only wanted to PvP.

Daniel.9405:

Hello forums!!

I’ve been holding off buying HoT for now, and i’ve decided to come back to GW2.

I was wondering if by not buying the expansion, the players who do own the expansion could have an advantage over me in terms of power or anything in PVP or WvW

What am I missing out by not buying?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated

YES! HoT builds are far superior to core builds. HoT builds are mandatory in WvW and PvP, so you’re at a disadvantage.

However, in PvE you’re fine.

Don’t bother with WvW/PvP without HoT. You’ll be at a massive disadvantage. And when the next expansion comes, you’ll be at a massive disadvantage again unless you get that. Side-grades indeed.

Does this anybody surprise here? It was absolutely foreseeable that this will be the case, because Anet naturally somehow wants to incentivize people to buy HoT..

If HoT would offer absolutely nothing that makes it mandatory to buy it due to various kinds of advantages and limitatations that keep vanilla players outside of content, if they don’t own HoT, then alot lesser people would buy the expansion

This is the most simplest form of PSYCHOLOGY how you bring people to buy something, even if they personaly don’t want to buy it, but people will simply buy it if they don’t want to have somewhere disadvantages compared to players that do buy the expansion or don’t want to be left back as some kind of “second class player”, so they will buy the expansion sooner or later once for every person is some kind of “critical point” reached where they can’t ignore anymore the differences between owning the expansions and not owning it…

ANet needs your money, so that they can keep on maintainign the game, develop new content and so on…
if the gemstore alone would run to prfectly well, then they wouldn’t need to make such psychological marketing strategies with their expansions, but NAet is and will be alwys just a company, that needs to make money and as company seen, they would be DUMB, if they would let this huge oppornunity go over unused to make with the expansion in one go alot of money by using marketign strategies that will incentivize as many people as possible to buy the expansion when its hot and freshly out so that the company can generate as much possible money from us as possible from all the people, that don’t want to have any disadvantages in the game from day 1 on and also don’t want to wait first, until the next expnasion comes so that they could get HoT for free under Anets sales strategy, because at that point when the next expansion comes out and they you continue with the previous expansion first then, then you have lost as player already alot of time in the old content, that many other players could have made use of instead of you to be in many things in advantage of you, which you couldnt have, because you weren’t part of the “full” game from begin on then anymore…

So nobody should complain about being in disadvantages, when they wait for too long to follow the direction of the game and buy the expansions, because thats exactly what the developers want from you, that you buy their expansions so that they get money to continue their work and you get the content that guarantees you that you are in no disadvantages or are left back as second class player for not owning the expansions that stays left out from new content in the future that builds up from this point, that you keep on buying the expansions, if you want to get the complete PvE related content, the elite specializations and so on to stay on the same level of accessible game content…

Its as usual a give and take from a company, that needs to make money to guarantee that the cycles don’t stop to turn around for this game, but keep on running.
This game still doesn’t pay itself from alone magically.

You will be at a disadvantage, but not to the point where I’d recommend buying the expansion at full price. There’s simply not enough there to justify the price of almost a full game. Wait for a decent sale and then buy it.

Without the expac you have less options. Less options = Disadvantage. It is inevitable.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Yes, you’re at a huge disadvantage in PvP and WvW because of the elite specializations. Honestly? In order to compete, they’re pretty much mandatory. The power creep is definitely noticeable in PvP and WvW.

For example, I can tell when I’m fighting a free-to-play in PvP because I slaughter them in a matter of moments.

Those without the expansion are pretty much fodder for those that do have it.

A free to play player also likely has much less gw2 pvp experience, so you can’t fault that on not having HoT.

I’m going to be one of the dissenters here, sort of, and say you don’t NEED HoT to compete. I have builds I’m quite happy with that don’t use the elite specs.

For example, I main mesmer, and I have a build that I use enhanced phantasm attacks to pummel my foes with, while keeping myself cloaked or heavily cloned (the latter doesn’t help against very experienced foes, but can still confuse some).

However, it needs to be said that the elite specs DO offer you more variety in builds, and that alone I think is important, power creep or no. For example, while I loved my old condi shatter mesmer before HoT, fact is my new shatter build using Chronomancer is much better.

Thing is, I don’t, necessarily, buy the entire idea that the elite specs are more powerful in every case, but they certainly are more powerful in some cases, and, as before, having diversity in build availability is a good thing to have.

Plus having access to some of those items as named above that only HoT owners can get is also a nice thing.

TL;DR – get HoT.

Morfedel.4165:

I’m going to be one of the dissenters here, sort of, and say you don’t NEED HoT to compete. I have builds I’m quite happy with that don’t use the elite specs.

For example, I main mesmer, and I have a build that I use enhanced phantasm attacks to pummel my foes with, while keeping myself cloaked or heavily cloned (the latter doesn’t help against very experienced foes, but can still confuse some).

However, it needs to be said that the elite specs DO offer you more variety in builds, and that alone I think is important, power creep or no. For example, while I loved my old condi shatter mesmer before HoT, fact is my new shatter build using Chronomancer is much better.

Thing is, I don’t, necessarily, buy the entire idea that the elite specs are more powerful in every case, but they certainly are more powerful in some cases, and, as before, having diversity in build availability is a good thing to have.

Plus having access to some of those items as named above that only HoT owners can get is also a nice thing.

TL;DR – get HoT.

To add to what Morfedel said, PvP is about both skill and builds. Counters to prevailing builds are an important part of PvP meta balance. New specs provide more options, as he points out. More options means more likelihood that counter-builds will be accessible, and/or that players will come up with builds that as yet have no counter.

Yep, no matter what they say, this is a pay2win game, by design.

It is a fundamental shortcoming of the B2P model that companies will always create new ways to force you to spend more money while not really improving the stuff you’ve already paid for.

It is also why things like class balance & fixing bugs are very low priority in GW2 – they don’t bring in new income.

Case in point: the sheer number of bugs still in the game since release, nearly 4 years ago, eg: Ele skill Ride the Lightning overshooting even stationary targets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAYiEMR-Rv8

…or new ones like shiro teleport not working half the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d1BZDPL8KA

…they just don’t give a kitten because there’s little financial incentive to, so naturally they just keep churning out quaggan backpacks.

</rant>

Ardid.7203:

Without the expac you have less options. Less options = Disadvantage. It is inevitable.

It’s not that expac offers more options. It’s that expac offers better options.

scerevisiae.1972:

Yep, no matter what they say, this is a pay2win game, by design.

It is a fundamental shortcoming of the B2P model that companies will always create new ways to force you to spend more money while not really improving the stuff you’ve already paid for.

It is also why things like class balance & fixing bugs are very low priority in GW2 – they don’t bring in new income.

Case in point: the sheer number of bugs still in the game since release, nearly 4 years ago, eg: Ele skill Ride the Lightning overshooting even stationary targets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAYiEMR-Rv8

…or new ones like shiro teleport not working half the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d1BZDPL8KA

…they just don’t give a kitten because there’s little financial incentive to, so naturally they just keep churning out quaggan backpacks.

</rant>

So which MMO sells you an expansion that’s not pay to win? Because as far as I can tell, every expansion in every MMO gives you in game advantages. I’m not sure why you’d think otherwise.

That was never what pay to win meant.

Also bugs are fixed all the time in this game.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/98802888-Known-Issue-Tracker

scerevisiae.1972:

Yep, no matter what they say, this is a pay2win game, by design.

It is a fundamental shortcoming of the B2P model that companies will always create new ways to force you to spend more money while not really improving the stuff you’ve already paid for.

Yep, no matter how often they claim that it is, this is still not a PtW game.

quoting myself from a previous PtW thread because I don’t want to retype it: "In GW2 there is no correlation between the amount of money you spend in micro transactions (RL cash -> gems -> stuff) and the advantage you have in the game over others. That is what PtW is, and that is not GW2.

HoT is an expansion. It is a one-time purchase that gives you more options in your profession; there is no ever-increasing amount of money to spend for an ever-increasing advantage. "

scerevisiae.1972:

It is also why things like class balance & fixing bugs are very low priority in GW2 – they don’t bring in new income.

You are likely now confusing Perfect Imbalance with PtW. Perfect Imbalance means that the devs purposely give a slight mathematical edge to some type of play style, whether it be a weapon, skill, trait line, whatever. This process informs the meta. They make ‘balance’ changes every so often that in part intentionally change the Perfect Imbalance to something new… again, changing the meta. Yes it adds power creep, but it also keeps strategies and builds constantly (even if slowly) evolving and responding to the new ‘balance… PI keeps people playing, because builds and play style must adapt to new balance. And, yes it’d be a bad business decision for the PI to not favor the new expansion, because there will always be people who want to be playing what seems mathematically optimal, even if it’s only temporarily optimal until other players adapt in response…

There are plenty of posts and threads about people succeeding in all modes w/o using the elite professions. Many people come up with vanilla builds that respond to popular HoT builds. A person doesn’t need HoT to succeed, no matter if they’ve convinced themselves that it’s so.

(tl;dr: PI favoring HoT isn’t the same as PtW.)

What so many people seem to think and want as ‘balance’ is a concept that shouldn’t and won’t exist in this type of game. Players would lose interest and quit playing for good.

~EW

It was the same in GW1 as it is here, the expansions introduced power creep over vanilla builds. Like the above if you want to PvP you need HoT to be competitive.

It’s like how each new Magic the Gathering card set is more powerful than the previous year’s set.

Yes if you do not own hot you will be at a huge disadvantage in pvp because all the elite specs are much better than the core options. It is still possible to move up in PvP but you will be limited to a few builds and will be fighting an uphill battle

As far a PvP and WvW go, I’d like to offer one piece of advice- apologies if it’s been brought up before. While most of the elite specs are a tremendous boost to most classes, vanilla power warrior is, while often seen as not -quite- as good as berserker, pretty close on the whole. If you want a non-HoT spec, that’s probably up there as one of your best bets.

Of course you are at a disadvantage for not having HoT in Pvp and WvW, The point of a free account is to let you see how fun the game is, if you appreciate it and want to take it to the next level, then purchase HoT, currently like $30.00…. has been as much as $60. What is $30? You can’t barely go get dinner for two for that amount anymore, and you get hours and hours of entertainment from it, and well ANet has busted their buns to write such a beautiful well thought out interface, combat system, story lines, and etc, giant giant amount of content for the price, give me a break. Anet is not perfect, but more and more I see them getting it right, and more and more this game just seems to get better. I can’t ask for more than that, GW2 is amazing and really fun once you get down to it. And $30 or even $60 for that much content and fun is just too easy to say yes to for me. imho.

mikelwis.4736:

Of course you are at a disadvantage for not having HoT in Pvp and WvW, The point of a free account is to let you see how fun the game is, if you appreciate it and want to take it to the next level, then purchase HoT, currently like $30.00…. has been as much as $60. What is $30? You can’t barely go get dinner for two for that amount anymore, and you get hours and hours of entertainment from it, and well ANet has busted their buns to write such a beautiful well thought out interface, combat system, story lines, and etc, giant giant amount of content for the price, give me a break. Anet is not perfect, but more and more I see them getting it right, and more and more this game just seems to get better. I can’t ask for more than that, GW2 is amazing and really fun once you get down to it. And $30 or even $60 for that much content and fun is just too easy to say yes to for me. imho.

If the OP had a free account he wouldnt be able to post on the forums.

Cannot honestly say that I consider HoT to be worth even the $30 except for my own desire to see the entire story. I bought the expansion for access to LS3, in spite of the content of the expansion itself.

mikelwis.4736:

You can’t barely go get dinner for two for that amount anymore

I could easily feed myself for half a month for this, you know. That price doesn’t mean the same thing all over the world.

Ashen.2907:

mikelwis.4736:

Of course you are at a disadvantage for not having HoT in Pvp and WvW, The point of a free account is to let you see how fun the game is, if you appreciate it and want to take it to the next level, then purchase HoT, currently like $30.00…. has been as much as $60. What is $30? You can’t barely go get dinner for two for that amount anymore, and you get hours and hours of entertainment from it, and well ANet has busted their buns to write such a beautiful well thought out interface, combat system, story lines, and etc, giant giant amount of content for the price, give me a break. Anet is not perfect, but more and more I see them getting it right, and more and more this game just seems to get better. I can’t ask for more than that, GW2 is amazing and really fun once you get down to it. And $30 or even $60 for that much content and fun is just too easy to say yes to for me. imho.

If the OP had a free account he wouldnt be able to post on the forums.

Cannot honestly say that I consider HoT to be worth even the $30 except for my own desire to see the entire story. I bought the expansion for access to LS3, in spite of the content of the expansion itself.

And is HoT plus LS3 worth $30 bucks to you?

Answer to thread question : Yes.

THe elite specs are more adapted to the amount of ccs thats going around therefore it would be recomended to use elite specs. THat’s not to say you cant getit to work with the original specs – you just have to play smart

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

mikelwis.4736:

Of course you are at a disadvantage for not having HoT in Pvp and WvW, The point of a free account is to let you see how fun the game is, if you appreciate it and want to take it to the next level, then purchase HoT, currently like $30.00…. has been as much as $60. What is $30? You can’t barely go get dinner for two for that amount anymore, and you get hours and hours of entertainment from it, and well ANet has busted their buns to write such a beautiful well thought out interface, combat system, story lines, and etc, giant giant amount of content for the price, give me a break. Anet is not perfect, but more and more I see them getting it right, and more and more this game just seems to get better. I can’t ask for more than that, GW2 is amazing and really fun once you get down to it. And $30 or even $60 for that much content and fun is just too easy to say yes to for me. imho.

If the OP had a free account he wouldnt be able to post on the forums.

Cannot honestly say that I consider HoT to be worth even the $30 except for my own desire to see the entire story. I bought the expansion for access to LS3, in spite of the content of the expansion itself.

And is HoT plus LS3 worth $30 bucks to you?

Not so far.

The inclusion of gliding, leylines, jumping mushrooms, and the like on the LS3 maps has reduced their value to me dramatically.

I havent had time to do much with episode 4 yet so who knows.

I’d wait until the next expansion. You may feel disappointment with HoT, given the quality and amount of content.

Since the OP’s post is 7 months old, he/she probably already made his/her decision.

All these arguments should I get HoT or not. All the negative reasons why someone should not get HoT. What’s funny is if you want to continue to progress to the next expansion. You will either get HoT before, or after the next
expansion comes out since HoT will be included in it.

Its ironic, people argue is it worth it and then get annoyed at seeing things they don’t have (but evidently want) The right perspective is perhaps: I have a less choice not having HOT and I see things i want/need – and then work out if you want to buy it.