makk3400: A few things:

- Your Class Difficulty Chart is all over the place, specs like Bladesworn, Chronomancer and Holosmith for example are some of the hardest classes in the game and they are green/yellow

- They literally released a new Raid with Janthir Wilds a few weeks ago so they are giving raids another shot, if people like them and play them they will make more.

They said, they stopped making raids in the past cuz they had a play rate of a lot less than 10% of the playerbase, they literally just made a new one cuz the community was begging them to.

- Fractals are the closest to games like WoW's progression, you have to infuse your gear with Agony Resistance (Basically a permanent dot you have in there) and if your resistance is too low you literally can't clear them and it goes up to 150 Agony Resistance for lvl 100 Fractal (There is also Challenge Modes for some of the Fractals and Strikes, the Strikes especially are harder than most of the Raids on Challenge Mode)

- Lategame if you have your BiS Gear and fully slotted Agony resistance is basically Fashion and a lot of QoL items you can craft like Legendary Armors, Weapons, etc. they have really flashy skins but not better stats than Ascended (normal BiS) Gear but you can change their Stats out of Combat for free and Reskin them for free.

- There is also a lot of Massive Open World Content like huge World Bosses, stuff like Defending / attacking Cities etc.

- For the non PvE players there is also WvWvW (Basically open world PvPvE with a LOT of players and 3 Factions) you literally have to attack and defend entire castles and battle with more than 100 Players at a time, its literal war.

- Gear will ALWAYS be relevant, I still use gear I made like 5 Years ago and it will never be outdated (Maybe I will have to change stats or something but you can do that on your gear for a small price of ingame Gold, unless its Legendary, then its free)

I know you can't know a lot of that stuff as a new player but I wanted to clarify some of the Stuff in case someone wants to play the game and reads the comments.

Glad you like the game tho! We need more people making Videos about the game since Anet for some reason hates marketing lol

alexandrospapadopoulos4297: So, I will give my opinion on guild wars 2 as a jaded veteran (2,5k hours, full legendary armory, all expansions, all challenge modes, most PvE achievements etc.) that has also played WoW, SWTOR, FF14 and BDO.

TLDR: The less you understand the game, the more fun you’ll have. The moment you start optimizing, the flaws become impossible to ignore. Play the story, do most instances once, and get out. The endgame isn't worth it.

The game is incredible for the first 200-300 hours. You get a fantastic open world, a unique art style, an S tier story if you push through its slow start, and a lot of player freedom. The leveling experience is arguably one of the best in the genre. The mount system is unique and engaging, the combat system is fun/flashy at first (before you understand how much of it is smokes and mirrors). It's still an insanely good value for money proposition up until this point.

But once you reach endgame, the design cracks start showing: Legendary gear grind is just a disguised gear treadmill, at a glacial pace compared to other MMOs I might add. There is no meaningful itemization diversity, everything is a stat stick and most prefixes (stat combos) are useless. There is no meaningful class diversity, everything is homogenized. In reality there are only a few well-performing builds, and the illusion of absolute build freedom very quickly fades away. Boons (buffs) are too dominant, making performance feel out of your control (60% of your damage is boon based). Roles are shallow, making group content less interesting. Most of PvE is extremely power crept and just falls over if you blob up (everyone stacks on top of each other and you spam heals/boons). PvP and WvW are abandoned and at an atrocious balance state. Most of the good fashion is locked behind real money. The community SEEMS not toxic but it's actually full of toxic positivity. Everyone that remembers the Soo-Won tribalism incident knows what I mean.

The community is also extremely fractured at this point. Most of the good players are locked away in guilds and try to interact with the casual part of the playerbase as little as possible. For example, there are far fewer Commanders (PvE/WvW group leaders) than in the past.

It's free to play, but frustratingly pay-convenient. The monetization approach is create a problem to sell a solution. I really don't mind paying for GW2, I have more than gotten my money out of it, but it just feels bad to have your money inconvenienced out of you. Buy inventory slots, buy gear templates, buy build templates, buy gold to buy items. You can buy everything in this game, you can have a legendary item on day 1, level 1 if you swipe your credit card.

Still, it's one of those games that you have to experience at least once before it is shut down (game is doing great atm), and it's easily in my top 5 games of all time. Just be aware of the pointless time sinks that await you towards the end of your journey.

derekcabral1170: Someone teach me raids please

andrasylvan9915: Playing since 2012! Still awesome and popular to this day! One of the most non-toxic communities I've seen!

Jeffsharp937: I been playing mmos sense 2020 and that was with wow and then ffxiv then back to wow ….. I been playing guild wars 2 for the past month and have been loving it soooo much …. I’m working my way through living world season 1 and getting my masteries.

Calembunial: GW2 is IMO the best MMO out there currently. I'd say specifically for the story (it's REALLY good), but also mainly if you like PvP.

You mentioned having to understand your class in order for PvP to be fun, but it's more than that - you have to understand every other class and see what weapons they're wearing, in order to know what they might do (so that you can dodge important attacks). It sounds complicated at first, but THAT'S what makes it fun! It's almost like a fighting game.

The main reason why I love PvP in this game when compared to Throne & Liberty, is you don't just instantly die. There's no such thing as getting endlessly crowd-controlled and then killed without being able to do anything. And also, if you're struggling in PvP, you can just play a more tanky build and help out your team with CC and hold points.

BTW when I said the story was good, I meant after level 80. 1-80 is a rough experience, but wait until you get to Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire. It's AWESOME! They've got actually interesting characters and amazing world-building!

luca7675: Some clarification:

1) Although the base game of guild wars 2 is free to play it comes with a lot of limitations that were not originally included in the base game. The player trading store is super limited for ftp players and so are some other quality of life features. The ftp version is more like a demo version of the game.

2) The graphics in the base game zones can look pretty dated. It gets much better in the exansion zones. Specially the Ice broot saga and Path of fire maps look really good. The animations in gw2 are also top tier even for todays standards.

3) Guild wars 3 being in development isnt confirmed. What was confirmed is that the concept is being considered. Which in todays gaming industry doesnt mean anything.

And one more point i really want to stress. When you first start the game, specifically as a Charr, you will pretty early on encounter a dungeon. You might be inclined to try it out but cant find any players to play with. You can type /lfg in the chat to open the lfg. You can then navigate to the dungeons tab and select the dunngeon of your choosing (you need to fulfill the level requirement). Chances are there wont be any groups listed. Dont be shy and post your own group with a description like "new player story mode" or sth. If you do that during peak hours you are almost guaranteed to find some players willing to help you out. All you need is a bit of patience.

sw-gs: People who are playing F2P version of GW2 are calling it P2W, while people who are playing paid varsion with all DLC's and Expansions are not calling it P2W.

Like c'mon every F2P game is P2W and if players think that buying full game for money is P2W then they are really need serious reality check.

FRESHY_GG: great video as always Andrey. keep em coming

Jonaslobo20: I've played gw2 since release... I stopped playing it for now as it's only available on PC and I can't be bothered to go to the desk and play there anymore. I left for throne and liberty as I can play in literally every screen available in the house thanks to Xbox. And although I like gw2 and I think fashion is the biggest thing... for the last couple of years all skins can be seen from space... wich it's not my thing.

I'll wait to see what's happening with Gw3. Until then ill play T&L

dragonsieu76: Good new player review. They actually released Raid wing 8 with the newest expansion Janthir Wilds.

For horizontal progression, if we think about it, vertical progression gear wise is just one type of grind to be able to grind other content for rewards. The main goal is rewards. The drawback with that is, you have to grind gear to be able to do new content. Nobody likes to be gimped, so you grind for the power, however it really punishes players for taking breaks, that is why many long time MMO players recognize the flaw and prefer horizontal or in actuality slight vertical progression(masteries etc) that actually do help make content a bit easier, it just does not need you to allocate your time grinding for gear. Sure there is dopamine rush for finding a nice power item but you also get a kick in the nuts when your gear is obsolete, like a abusive relationship(maybe the best metaphor).

In GW2 you can grind other stuff like achievements(for rewards), jump straight into challenges, new content. There are always new masteries that matter in the new maps,so you do have to grind some stuff,but it's not as much of a blocker for you to be able to participate in the new content, compared to gear.

Grisu.: i remember when wow released the burning crusade, the feeling i had when a green item dropped from a trash mob was way better than an epic piece of gear that took me days to get felt like a kick in the nads. thats why i love GW2.

Lazarus_ReSpawn: The best way to understand Hero points and Specializations is - to understand that Classes are flexible themselves. Instead of a Holy Trinity model, you have 4 ways that ANY class can go for, plus every hybrid in-between these 4. There's 2 types of damage: raw power/crit and conditions like bleeding/poison/fire/etc and both are dps. Buffing/healing support style is the 3rd type, and being a raidboss tank is the fourth. Again: every class can build and become good at these 4 things.

Lazarus_ReSpawn: It's not that there is no Holy trinity, it's that everyone can be that role and everyone has a dodge and a small protective/healing option. People still ARE in the roles of dps/support/tank, but a Veteran will be so much better at it that they do not need as much support or tanking, because they're that much better at the game. That is the real endgame here, getting good. It will take alot of time for any new player to become really good, and the game knows it. It showers you with content while you learn. But by the time you learn it - you're in too deep and having too much fun. GW2 gives us great sense of accomplishment, I guess?

vladimirtepis: I gonna say its not nuts the game be from 2012 and still going own. MMOs, different from other kind of games need to be matured, with stead new content and a LOT of patch correction and other stuff. Only after 2 or 3 years of good work its start to pay-off. The problem is 95% of the companies want a quick return for they project, because need to please the shareholders. But its not how this kind of game works.

TechRide.: I kinda regret selling my high level account back in 2014. I had to sell it though coz I wanted to upgrade my PC back then. Now I want to play it again!

Richard1976: Tried to play it today after years away. I cant remember anything map is huge

dre.7107: Im surprised you are playing GW2, I was following your build guide before in TnL several months ago, got bored in the game easily. Went back to GW2, and still the best,

JosephSaintClair: Good vid :)

I think as a new player, if you can find in game mentors, it makes the experience much more fun!

I grind by having fun first. Eventually I achieve things albeit a bit slowly.

I play all game modes but usually found in SPvP doing either ranked, tournaments or theory crafting PvP builds with guildies in private PvP servers (all available in-game)

I got close to 5000 hrs played. And still learn

MisterLatency: gw2 never boring

ironnoodle7992: To clarify, while new expansions are now being released in (so far) 3 parts, you only pay once and each release is similar to one of a three part continuing story.

Stevethebeast08: You sound like Gru from minions

Feb 08 2025

Buy GW2 Gold