Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

After taking a very long break from the game, I am interested in returning to Guild Wars 2.
I have a couple of questions:
1) Is the Heart of Thorns Expansion Necessary for end level content? Although I have never lasted to max level, I would be interested in continuing to play the game past that point.
2) Which ranged class should I main? Originally, I played engineer but stopped through bad in-game money choices. I am interested in trying the Necro, Ranger, and Warrior classes but would be open to other classes.
3) Is culture armor bad stat-wise? After browsing the forums, I’ve notice a lot of the “end game” gear threads usually praise grinding armor instead of the more “mundane” sets.

Heart of Thorns is necessary to access the expansion maps, Elite Specializations, Masteries, Living World Season 3, Raids, etc. I suppose it depends on what one considers ‘end-game content’.

I main a Ranger, but, of course, it depends on the individual.

Cultural armor is only of Rare tier, so I don’t think many (if any) use it on L80 characters for any length of time. Players usually use Exotic or Ascended gear.

Welcome return.

1) No, but the best rewards and builds u have to hot

2) Eng and Neco do good condi range damage. Open world it does not matter what build or weapon u use. If your grouping with others you have to know when to melee stack. All classes do more dps when stacked. So, saying your just RANGE is very limiting if you want to pve in a group.

3) Culture armour really just for the skin unlocks. It good for a few lvls leveling. But you level so fast it not worth the cost. You want to pick something good for your dps, learn combos and your skill rotation. If your a f2p doing your story at level and just having greens is ok until your 80. Try and have the best dps weapon to your level helps the most. The only gear you need to grind is ascend and leg which are only for fotm and raids.

Logging in and doing your quick dailies will speed up leveling a lot.

1.) No but also yes. For competitive PvE or PvP; yeah. For new zones/content yeah. It’s sadly very limiting as f2p at 80. There’s certainly a lot you can still do; but you’ll prob hit a wall much sooner w/o it. Besides there’s more slots, tabs, you can actually trade and send stuff to other players…

2.) All choices viable; all can go ranged and melee. Engi/Necro are Condi DPS primarily. Which, isn’t always best in Open World/solo in that, condi takes time to work. However definitely still great. Both offer a lot of support too. Warrior is well, easy to learn and hard to much up, great survivabilty and damage.

3.) They are for skins; the gold to get ‘em pending. With wardrobe/transmutations you get a lot of things for stat and then skin unlocks. There’s a lot of exotics not too expensive on Trade Post; and if you play it right never get for price instant, always shoot lower but above current offers. Also, esp open world weapons first then rest.

lvl 78 exotics also often are better than 80 rares. And cheaper than 80 exotics. And ascended gear is not needed for many things btw; hardcore raiding and high tier Fractals mainly. Fractals more so than Raid imo depending on group. WvW too but it’s WvW exotics work fine.

2.)

If you’ve never made it to L80, I’d play for a bit until you have 2-3 toons at or near L80. Then, decide if you like the game enough to keep playing every week.

If I got to go back and review my decision to prepurchase, I’d still buy again, if for no other reason that gliding, true-autolooting, and the new, elite specializations are well worth the cost (to me). (There’s a ton of other stuff in the expansion, too.)

1) Heart of Thorns adds a lot of new things to do. But like Illconceived Was Na I’d recommend waiting until you’ve gotten to level 80 before deciding if you want to buy it. You can’t use anything in the expansion until then anyway and you’ll be in a better position to decide when you know more about the game. (Plus it might be available cheaper by then.)

2) All professions can be either ranged or melee (or use both). My favourite is ranger but I recommend you try out any that interest you and see which you prefer.

3) Cultural armour is mainly used for the skins – which are then applied to higher tier armour via the Wardrobe.

This is because it’s only ‘rare’ rarity and the higher tier (exotic) is easy to get at level 80, so most people use that instead.