Guild Wars 2

I recently reinstalled GW2, after being away for..quite a while. I stopped playing just after Chapter 3 of Season 2 of the Living World (Entanglement).

I’d played most all of the Scarlet’s arc, enjoyed WvW, PvP, started to learn Fractals, and generally had a ton of fun.

And then RL, as it often does, reared its ugly head with a number of family issues that took me away from gaming in general. Now that I’ve had a chance to come back, I am having quite a bit of fun again, even if my playtime is rather hit and miss, but have a few questions.

First, I do not have HoT. And unfortunately likely will not anytime soon. What sorts of things are still “viable” for someone to do, who does not have access to HoT? I enjoyed WvW and PvP, as well as the PvE story content and dungeons, but am unsure how useful someone without HoT can be in those now.

Any suggestions, help, ideas, etc for someone coming back and feeling like they almost have to learn all over again?

Dungeons and fractals are fine without HoT, although you won’t be able to play the highest level fractals as you’ll be missing out on max agony resist without HoT/masteries.

In PvP unfortunately elite specs seem to rule, so you might find yourself at a disadvantage without HoT. It can’t hurt to try though, and see if you can find a level of play you’re comfortable with even with core classes.

In WvW again elite specs bring some extras, and there are some stat sets favored that need HoT access, but if you plan to play with a larger group or zerg then you should be fine with core classes and regular equipment.

Rasimir.6239:

Dungeons and fractals are fine without HoT, although you won’t be able to play the highest level fractals as you’ll be missing out on max agony resist without HoT/masteries.

You can stack infusions high enough even without attuning rings. you just have to put +10 infusions on all slots rather than +9.

My advice would be to start off with just familiarising yourself with the game again. A lot has changed since you left and you’ve probably forgotten some stuff too. It might be worth making a new character (keep the ones you’ve got though) to play through from the start and get reintroduced to all the mechanics.

As for what you can do everything that was in the game before is still here and you can still play it. You may have to buy the remainder of Season 2 from the gem store if you didn’t unlock them and want to finish it, but each chapter is only 200 gems and there’s a bundle deal too (and don’t forget you can get gems with gold). Season 3 is currently running, but you need HoT to play it so there’s no need to buy it yet.

I don’t know anything about what builds are currently popular but I’ve only got the elite specilisation from HoT unlocked on 1 of my characters and even then I don’t really use it, and I haven’t had trouble completing any part of the game.

Yup, I started from scratch with a couple new characters, since there seem to have been a TON of changes. Easy enough to get familiar again, with just enough little changes to trip me up and make me pay attention.

I’ve been looking at saving up gold to get gems and the remainder of Season 2, in time (lots of time, I am HORRID at farming gold), but definitely enjoying the game again. I enjoy a bit of everything in the game, from PvE to PvP and WvW as well as being a heavy RPer and enjoying crafting so… should be plenty to do!