Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Review

Guild Wars 2, that is a name I hear by many ether new and or veteran players to the genre of MMORPGs. Usually with a mixture of high praise or someone simply stating it lacked the strength of a solid endgame feature that most games within the genre struggle to keep afloat. Personally I am what you call a veteran to the game itself however rusty as nails on a stormy porch. So diving into everything at first was pretty much a large surprise. I was joyed to find my favorite class (Necromancer) got some fine tuning, along with a bad ass Greatsword. Hear that Mesmers, You are not the only ones anymore with cloth to enjoy thrusting big pointy things into monsters. Before I get ahead of myself and go on about class overhauls. Let me introduce the story, and or plot for those new to this series.

The story for the game at its core was you are one of five playable races. You progress through each of the said locations each race lives in. You then had to defeat Zhaitan, the elder dragon of death and shadow. This expanded all the way to the players eighth level and then some for endgame content and so forth. Other then the main story Tyria is broken down into large zones of which mini elements of lore and active quests are bloomed from. Each race started out with one of many paths and lore related to their own culture. This varies depending on which paths you take. A dragon Chunks of the story are progressed whenever you gain ten or so levels from that point. So this grants you time to grind along and explore the game at its core. The game bleeds a living story that over time changes the landscapes and locations you might remembered awhile ago. One of those locations being the Grove for this Season (Season two). Mordremoth reaps havoc among the dwellers of Tyria’s landscape. It leaves off after the events of the core story in the game. So if you love some lore, I would advise you to simply if you are new to play through all of the games original content before going into season two. Any way lets break down the new classes as many veterans might be interested in learning about.

All of the professions including Revenant are now given Elite profession Specializations.With each profession’s new elite specializations, you’ll unlock access to previously unavailable weapons traits, skills, and unique mechanics that will transform your profession into something entirely new. I found most of this pretty refreshing. Adding some new bold or basic elements of depth to each character. I mostly worked with the Elementalist, Nercomancer, and the Revenant for this coverage. So if I seem vague on some bits to the classes then hey sorry I am restricted for time. I will note new weapons added to each of the other classes beyond my depth given to the three I mostly worked with. I started off with my main toon or character the Necromancer and began to knock out the skill trees brought in for granting access the new weapon: Greatsword. The greatsword itself is pretty much a wrecking machine. In every aspect of the term. The weapon is meant for up close and personal combat unlike most of the time me spending time in the back tossing marks around to CC all day long. I usually focused heavily on Vit,Condition Damage, and Power as a base. Then for Runes Superior Afflicted runes to focus my Condition Damage per second. So I was built for the class: Reaper. Reaper in itself is a vampire with many of its abilities life drain. Think Dark Knights from other games and you will perhaps got a solid grasp of the said character. I personally found it a blast to be in the fore front smacking enemies down as my golem takes the damage on the chin from big or small packs of enemies. You mostly deal with Shouts for this class involving boons, conditions, and life absorption. You gain a F1 ability which turns you into an Reaper’s Shroud. Which gives you a Scythe, and lets you run around doing massive damage. I would not go as bold to say face tank, but hold your own when running into a small pack of baddies. One of my favorites out of the bunch. What I love Dark Knights, and anything related to heavy swords. Call me a softy. Moving on to elementalist gets the Warhorn. The Warhorn transforms most of the skills into beasts of their former selves. You still have the same basic elements of Air, Water, Fire, and Earth, but with a big time kick. Overload is a profession mechanic exclusive to tempests that grants additional skills while in each attunement, causing an effect while the tempest channel it and for a short period afterwards. Each overload skill is able to be used after 5 seconds in the attunement. Overloading increases the recharge of the attunement when swapping to a different attunement. Druids, or the Rangers new specialization involves pure healing, and some condition damage. Their weapon is also a staff, in which they can cast a series of attacks. Some of these spells such as Solar Beam heals alies within the beam, plus heals others in the area. Which rocks! Sure most of the earlier classes could do some pretty darn good support roles, Nercos and eleys’ being th two primary healers I usually placed my safe bets on for some of the best at the time. Like the Necromancers shape shifting form, Druids also can shape shift into their Celestial Avatar. These things up close and personal are healing machines through and through. If you love a designated healing build, these mofos can put a smile on your cheeks quick. Lets talk Glypths and their roles with the Ranger’s new line up of awesomeness. Glyphs play a role in their slot skills. These skills vary from healing, or just simply punishing enemies. My favorite out of the bunch being Empowerment. Which increases damage dished out from allies. Next on the list is for Guardian, Dragonhunter. Their weapons added are long bows and Traps. Traps are their main bread and butter for some pretty impressive crowd control. Each trap Boons(gives a buff, or a added perk to characters in the area) and hurts the crap outta most enemies in the unfortunate area of the said trap. Other then that it looks and feels like a holy Ranger. Next on the plate is Thieves. Their elite specialization is the Daredevil. Not to be confused…. who the hell am I kidding, it is a mid evil Marvel character. It has a bit more endurance(the games defensive skill), and can face tank a little better on top of dodging. I have not seen many of these running around to give a valved education on them other then reading experiences of them. From their skill sheets they are a interruption specialist. In better words, the bane of PVP. Next up on the buffet of professions and french fries is the Revenant. People wanted the Dervish something bad. So in response Arenanet gave us something like that. They use Stances for their attacks and abilities. For raids this class is the easy choice due to its clear cut format of being able to swap between specializations on the fly. These stances are the following: Legendary Assassin, Centaur, Demon, Dwarf, and the Elite specialization Herald’s Stance: the Legendary Dragon stance. I found myself leaning against going for the Centaur, and Dwarf stance in the most part whenever I was leveling up the class originally. Dwarf being an tank from hell. I was able to survive easily through most of the content whenever stuff got really dangerous quick. Then for the Centaur I stood around for supportive reasons. Tossing around its Project Tranquility to other players to dance around like it was a portable water sprinkler. Another handy skill(protective solace) was super useful too. To bounce off projectiles if players stood around the thing saved the day so much, and added some great strategy. You can call the class the jack of all trades if you will. I would go more into depth but I would be here for a month. I will post a link to more about the class/s below this section for your reference.Overall I really enjoyed the classes I preferred and their tuneups. They felt like a Brisk splash of cold water to the already existing classes.

If you wish to learn more about each existing class plus the Revenant, please follow here and read to your hearts content.

Gameplay has a few new additions to the over all base of how you move about in the game. Gliders are added only for the new maps in Maguuma. Maguuma has many tiers layers of areas you may hop, bounce, glide, and fly too. Flying relating to the gliders of course. Rather then simply parkour around on high mountain tops you are given ancient runes to explore, massive trees to climb, and meet a new breed of the froggy people. You have your pick of the litter for plenty to do. You have mini games which scale your overall performance via gliding about. Also those infamous public events with large scale nighttime invasions. The first new area you unlock Vardant Brink has two scales to the area. Daytime, and nighttime. These change how enemies behave and the events that occur. Daytime is a bit laid back, nighttime enemies become super aggressive and decide to attack outposts through out the area. Apposed to the core areas where this sort of happened, but did not majorly play any role of control over the areas. Unless you counted Waypoints. You then move on along with the story to the second place which architecture wise is one of my favorite places to wonder around( I like Ruins in video games). One of the things the game has you do is sit there and explore the whole place, and grind experience points to unlock Masteries. These are required to reach certain points like higher, or safety reach lower planes of terrain. Players unlock masteries by using mastery points and training the mastery track. Mastery points are obtained through various sources specific to each mastery region. Tasks may include completing mastery point challenges, story achievements, meta events, and other activities. Players train a mastery track by gaining mastery experience and only one track can be trained at any time. The experience bar is replaced with the mastery training bar once players reach level 80. Gaining experience is identical to level progression. Once the player has gained the experience require for the mastery track, the mastery can be unlocked using mastery points. Other Masteries evolve you being able to speak a different language, or learn how to use materials for Legendary items like weapons or armor. The good news is Mastery is Account-bound. So if you bring up other characters they benefit from this mastery system off the bat. Most of the core content is intact with a few key locations having alterations. So older players will not be as confused(if you visit Lions Arch, you might be overwhelmed if you never played in a long time haha!) Raids. At the moment we are given one. A large scale freaking raid that is challenging, but very, very fun(at least the one I encountered)! Strict to rewards once per week you can enter them with.  You and nine others enter in as a squad. Your progress resets every week on a certain date. At the moment, we have a taste of a single raid wing. the other two will be released in 2016. You rely on mostly swapping out specializations adding that sense of skill to each fight along the way. I would say more on this bit of content but hey, let this official trailer hype you for that part.

In Closing:

The Expansion is huge! With tons of to do and has plenty or both PVP’ers and PVE players to be satisfied for a length of time. There are now more then ever the options to build and make your experience within the game more accessible. The new locations in Maguuma are pretty freaking beautiful. I can not express enough the loving detail behind mostly all of the locations, and creatures you find. With beauty sometimes does come a few downsides. The game itself prides itself on the experience you have while going through the game. But when you reach the very end. What then? PVP? Or farming to make that new sexy piece of gear. It then unwinds down from the experience you once had. This is still a problem that the game does have. The game does have a few benefits for fans of much PVP. That type of content does not really end. You have a on going battle of top spot no matter what. Then you have the Raids aspect. I can find myself repeatedly doing that kinda thing a ton. For others who do not like repetitive content might be turned off that sort of thing.

Recommended – Guild Wars 2 as its core game is free so 50 bucks is not that much to ask in the long run. Buy it once, play it forever. Get it if you love exploring vast locations. The lore and story telling has vastly improved. They seemed to find the sweet spot in the presentation. Aiming at your heart strings. Added great new forms to make your favorite classes.