Let me start by saying just how much I enjoyed the expansion. There will be spoilers in this post so stop here if that’s something you’d like to avoid. I thought they handled Zojja’s return really well, I had always felt not having her rejoin us during the Kralkatorrik arc was a mistake especially with Snaff’s appearence but what they did worked. I liked most of the new characters R’tchikk, Lyhr, and Mabon particularly. Like a lot of people I feel it was a shame to reintroduce a Mursaat and then kill them off so quickly, I also found it strange they had all of the Elder races except the Forgotten, but there was a lot of in game talk about Vaas so maybe something will come of that.
Gameplay wise I did find the expansion a bit minigame-y, I enjoy Guild Wars 2 combat system but it felt like a significant number of events were very minigame heavy – or perhaps the minigame events went on too long, then there are the chests which I hardly ever bother to open anymore. I liked the Skyscale (and Griffon) additions, I’m looking forward to the next time I’m in Heart of Thorns areas to see how this impacts them, I’m not a fan of the rifts but I am going to stick out doing my weekly rifts in the hope that it’ll at least get me on the path to legendary armour. I enjoyed both the strike missions, I joined blind runs which were all welcome, feeling emboldened I finally did more of the Icebrood Saga strikes afterwards. I’m ok with the daily reward system rework but I am sad I was exactly one day short of the chest of loyalty. I do think there’s room for improvement e.g. having a choice on daily achievements, potions of PVP/WvW reward track progress could be added to the rewards, etc. So far I have the Griffon skin and 2/3 of the sanctified armour skins, after that I feel almost obligated to get the legendary chest but the only legendary I like in it is the Scepter but at the same time I prefer the gen 2 scepter. I might just get it for the gift of might/magic as that would be 200 gold of materials saved. I’ll probably grab the clovers and gold, beyond that I’m not sure.
So my goal for the expansion is to make a set of legendary armour, and probably a legendary relic. My only concern is the amount of Kryptis Essences, though one set of weeklies did provide enough for one amalgamated essence, of which I need six for the Astral Ward armour, beyond that it’s a little less clear. I need to look into how motivations work, hopefully it won’t be as grindy as it seems or maybe the grind will be made easier in future updates *fingers crossed* – wish me luck!
Fomar0153 