Guild Wars 2

So the last thing I remember is killing Scarlet in Lion’s arch, after she was dead some bad juju started to go down in the Jungle, some pact airship got shot down and we got this new zone, I did a few story missions and then…I stopped playing.

Now, 2 years later, I’ve come back – I haven’t bought HOT yet but I am super conisdering it.

Can someone please explain to me where I being trying to understand the changes that have been made to the game, the progression of the story, a long with some of the new content they have added?

Many thanks, I play an Engineer/Ele/Warrior/Necromancer if this helps

This should be a good start for you to catch up on changes and things added to the game:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

Just do everything!

15 characters forum thing.

There isn’t a whole lot you can do as an old player without HOT – the jungle provides a large powercreep from the core game. Though, if I were in your shoes, I would want to go to Lions Arch to find a guild. From there, I’d probably do story, the christmas event or head to Dry Top/Silverwastes. World bosses and map exploration are still a thing too, if you’re into that.

Fractals of the Mists and Dungeons are also a great way of making gold. The community there is USUALLY pretty chill, and people are often willing to explain encounters. If they aren’t, then they probably aren’t the sort of successful group they think they are.

Living story 2 is also on the gemstore if you want to review what happened between LS1 and HOT – if you played through living story 1 like you say it have, it might make more sense to you (to the some of us, we STILL don’t know who some of these characters are in ls3!).

If you’re on a US server, hit me up in game, I’ll give you a tour of what’s new, and answer your questions directly.

HoT is worth it, if you were unsure if it is for you, or not. You get the new zones, and elite specs, on top of more story. Elite specs alone are enough to buy HoT, which was my biggest buying point.

As far as the core game is concerned, Westenev is on point. The great thing about this game is the replayability. You’ve done absolutely everything to be done in the game, make a new class, and start exploring again. PvP is a ‘never-the-same’ Avenue of play, and with all of the tweaks that have been done since HoT launched has made core and elite specs closer in viability, so the disadvantage of not having HoT is much smaller than it was at launch, barring dragon hunters lol.

One thing I would consider, if you haven’t already, is level up professions like weaponsmithing, or making armor for your main class(es). The ability to make your own gear will always be a good thing, as long as they don’t make changes to crafting, or gear drops.

A suggestion, make a gear set for marauder’s (or berserker if you don’t need the health), a set for condition damage, like viper’s or carrion, and a prismatic set (all stats, can’t remember the name). That will give you a great base for gearing for just about any spec you could think of. Legendary weapons are pretty great, too. Changeable stats on the fly, ftw.

Nobody said it yet, so: in addition to HoT you can also purchase (for gems, which means also available for in-game gold) LS2, which allows you to play the 8 episodes from the second season.

Lucky you, you played LS1, so you have the background; LS2 fills in some gaps pre-HoT, then HoT, then LS3 brings you to the current day.

Ultimately, I’d ask myself: am I going to get enough fun time out of this to justify the cost; I’ve certainly personally spent enough time in HoT territory than it’s worth it.

1: Get HoT
2: Tempest (Ele), Chrono (Mes), Berserker (War), get the Elite Spec for these classes
3: Do Masteries
4: Do Fractal T4 dailies (look at AR guides)
5: Do AB (HoT Map) Multi Map
6: Do all HoT map dailies (Including Silverwastes and Dry Top)
7: Enjoy lots of gold and whatever else you want

You can get 5/6 Ascended armor from grinding the Ranked Reward Track (and until holiday event is over, the Wintersday Reward Track for lots of extra liquid gold)

You cannot change the stats of the PvP Ascended Armor, make sure you look up what stats your class would make the most use out of

I’ll vouch for the fact Heart of Thorns will give you a lot more content to jump into. Judging from your current standpoint you haven’t gotten into Living World S2 yet, which tracks the post-aftermath of Scarlet Briar and the activities which lead to the conclusion that Mordremoth is indeed awake and capturing/compelling sylvari to be used as part of his deathly army. LW S2 is definitely worth buying and playing over at least once.

Also, HoT expansion unlocks elite specs for all existing classes as well as one new class (Revenant, heavy armor), a reason for you to farm those hero points. Fractals, raids, and special prefixes you can acquire as inscriptions/insignias and armor by playing the HoT map metas. “Viper” is one such HoT-specific prefix (Auric Basin) and is used for condi-specific setups.

Some prefixes are available off the bat, but of course you need to run HoT maps to get at least one of the materials (“Marauder” requires ebony orbs, which often drop during HoT maps).

Otherwise, core is alright, but you’re cheating yourself out of content and flex.