What to buy to start the game?

Actually there is nothing more interesting than taking secret of the obscure + base free game if you are on budget.
WHY?
for the price of one extension you got access to best flying mount on any zone for a small gaming effort. that will allow you to complete vanilla game 100% completion 5 times faster (and also make the game way more enjoyable, increase your gathering efficiency.... etc.

having at least one extension gets you out of F2P account limitation and IS a big multiplayer game feeling upgrade.


Second thing you need to know is ....

How will i know if im going to enjoy the class im going to play in 50 hours of grind.

To do so,

create a character of the class of your choice and join the edge of the mist World versus World zone (its on the top menu of the game), you will be able to try out a fully leveled character for no time investment (all skills etc...).



NEXT things to know.

In guild wars 2 you do have basic housing, with the vanilla game you can add the Crystal quartz node to your personnal instance as the first thing you buy to exploit this personnal mining area (worth 1 gold/day).

Some nodes to buy to add to your home instance cost laurel currency, for all laurel nodes you do need a total of 90 laurels (25 25 25 15 for krait obelysk), so you may wanna focus on saving your laurels and get some completing weeklies missions.


GETTING cheap Exotic gear (called exos)

the best way to find cheapest exotic gear with specific lvl 80 stats is the honor badge seller in World versus World. you just need to play WvW a bit then you will have access to a active income of honor badges. you will save 100's of golds if you play several characters.

World versus world is a main feature of endgame content, i'd even say if you don't enjoy it after 10-12 hours of WvW, i would quit guild wars 2 if i were you, because its like not liking 25% of the cake in the end of a long bake.




Best things to invest your real money in.

Except extensions there is also a utility type of features you can unlock for real money or ingame currency converter system (that will ask you to play alot to convert to the median currency , equivalent to real cash gems).

the best things i would invest in in order are :

- infinite teleport to a friend (10 minutes cooldown)
- mistlock sanctuary (infinite) pass key (not always available in shop, just wait for it).
- if you like being able to play all classes, character slots (it also works as storage, and you know... we are in Storage Wars 2).
- the three cash shop unbreakable recyclers (copper fed for blue, the purple rune one for green, and the silver one for gold equipment and exotic gear recycling).
- material storage bank expansion (makes your mats storage increase by +250 every time you pay once, paying once makes it increase from 250/250 to 500/500, then 750/750 , etc...)
- a set of Unbreakable harvesting tools with 3 glyphs chests, in which you pick 3x glyph of volatility.
- once you have chose a main character, eventually 1 bag inventory slot.
-having 5 shared inventory slots for infinite teleport to friend, the three recyclers and your mistlock sanctuary pass key is a big upgrade compared to base game.

there is also living world chapters which are not properly extension but they are equivalent to it, so you might want to get them in the end, it unlocks features, maps , etc.


there are several other utilities you can easily overwrite for exemple world boss portal device becomes really limited interest with a whole map discovered character and this : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers

1) if you like World vs World content in your 5 base character slots pick up at least :

- a Mesmer
- a Guardian

2) If you like to roam and be a solo star in pvp and roaming pick up at least :

- a Rogue (deadeye is also incredible PVE DPS)
- a Ranger (soulbeast/untamed elite spec, soulbeast is king of 1v1)

3) If you want pet hunting minigame inside the game pick up at least :

- a Ranger

4) If you like arena? well look what top players play in meta comps videos.


5) If you like easy PVE mode pick at least :

- an engineer with mechanist elite spec (easiest class).
- or a revenant for the vindicator elite spec (almost easiest class).

6) if you like solo fight hard achievements completion pick up at least :

a) at least 1 elite spec S tier
- a Mesmer |
- a Revenant |
- an Engineer |

b)at least 1 elite spec A tier

- a necromancer |
- a Ranger |
- an elementalist |
- a rogue |
- a guardian |

c)mostly B tier elite spec at best, but shines for fractals and raids in group.

- a warrior |


6) everything is indicative /!\ everything is reliable classwise (or almost, depending on updates) /!\

7) if you want the unique ability to help other with puzzles and obstacles and teleport them you'll need to have a mesmer.

If you got only HOT/POF extension and only one lvl 80 character boost, i strongly recommand you use it for a mesmer, or if you want to use it on the hardest class to level up then use it on an elementalist.

FOR BUILD RESSOURCES.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki
My go-to for browsing builds.

https://hardstuck.gg/
Second place I look for builds

https://snowcrows.com/
Try-hard raid builds.

https://guildjen.com/builds/
More experimental builds

FOR CRAFTING RESSOURCES.

https://gw2efficiency.com/

https://gw2crafts.net/

https://www.gw2profits.com/


THE REST

Most of these resources pull live data from the game through APIs. To some of these resources you can add your own personal API from: https://account.arena.net/applications.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/
OFFICIAL ARENANET WIKI CRAZY GOOD FOR MOST QUERIES.
Part of my daily routine from official wiki:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Faction_Provisioner
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Supply_Network_Agent

https://blishhud.com/
UI Overlay. I use it for in-game access for timetable, event notifications, trading post watcher, radial mount wheel, and then the big one called pathing where you can download map overlays that show achievement locations etc.

https://gw2efficiency.com/
Account overview, crafting calculator, material storage listing price etc.

https://fast.farming-community.eu/
Daily farming checklist, alt parking, currency/item conversions (with live data), guides to set up the most profitable farming builds etc.

https://www.gw2lunchbox.com/
Material promotion cheat sheet.

https://www.gw2craftgold.com/
Easy money, can do more advanced stuff but I haven’t gotten to that yet.

https://www.gw2profits.com/
Crafting suggestions based on inventory.

https://gw2crafts.net/
Crafting discipline levelling guides.

https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/
Trading post overview.

https://guildjen.com/
Guides!

https://gw2timer.com/
Timer overview, inventory cleanup tool etc. This has kinda been replaced by blish hud.

If you wish to optimize which cash shop items you can get for free.

you must reserve an empty slot on your account, where there will be a character to recreate and raised to lvl 10 and the end on the first lvl 10 mission quest line (every week you can do it , reset on monday).

The best race and specs is to take a human commoner (raised by common folks) to go fast.

Once you'll be advanced into the game playing world versus world and stuff you'll get that many tome of knowledges / week that you'll can easily afford throwing 8 on your alt to lvl him up lvl 10 instantly.

the chain quests takes 15 minutes max.

So basicaly for 15 active minutes / week you got a maximum of 52 Black lion chest keys / year . which is equivalent of 4300 gems ( 45 euros ) .

Once you have finished the lvl 10 questline and earned your black lion key, transfer it to your bank, and then delete and recreate the character.