Guild Wars 2

I stopped playing shortly before HoT was released and now that I got back into GW2 I noticed that most if not all meta builds for all the classes are using HoT specializations.
I’m a mostly WvW player with some occasional PvP and even less occasional PvE(only dungeons) and I’d like to ask if there are classes that do as good without elite specs as they would with them(Linking builds would be greatly appreciated)
Also please don’t write “Just buy HoT lol”, I don’t see a point in spending 45 euros with my current financial situation because I probably wouldn’t touch the HoT content anyway.
Thank you in advance.

Wait a few days before you change anything, on the 13th we will get a balance path. It may change the meta a bit.
You can always check out metabattle.com to see if you can find a build without HoT