Guild Wars 2 vs. World of Warcraft | In 2022 

I understand WoW but GW2 for me has been a game that gives me freedom i get to come in grind if i decide or take a break! coming back and still feel like im part of the endgame its great for me and i feel like its the only mmo that doesn’t feel like a job

i played wow for 10 years and just recently got into GW2, i love JUMPING PUZZLES SO MUCH OMG on top of that exploring this world is one of the most beautiful thing ive ever done, really immersive and great zones. i never had an issue with the wow combat i like the tab targeting so im torn on this one.

Leaving WoW for GW2 was like leaving an abusive relationship. I was floored at how readily the game just gave you constant affirmation for just playing how you want. Experience for leveling, experience for vistas, achievement systems, beetle races, mini games, world events - hell, even jumping puzzles. And its design encouraged cooperation and fosters a community which works together instead of just tagging mobs for a breadcrumb of experience. I feel appreciated, and that my time is actually yielding something with GW2.

The reason I quit WoW (played from release until Cataclysm) is because all it takes for all of your accomplishments to become irrelevant is another new expansion. Your gear becomes obsolete. Your build becomes obsolete. Your trade skills and money making recipes become obsolete. Your arena rank resets (AND your pvp gear becomes obsolete). Sure you’re chasing new things constantly, but you’re never allowed to enjoy the carrot before another carrot on a stick is put in front of you. I quit GW2 a few months after release because I ran out of things to do. It was pretty barren on content back then. I came back a few months ago after 9+ years and everything I worked on is still relevant and viable - save for build which didn’t have elite specs back then. My end game gear is still end game gear. My trade skills still matter. The mats I had built up still retained value. All achievements were still there - which granted me a number of mastery points right out the gate that I didn’t have before. GW2 respects your time as well as your wallet. Despite its shortcomings, as this video points out, it cannot be stated enough how game changing GW2 is in this aspect. An MMO that doesn’t feel like a part time job? Who would have thought?!

There is no MMO like GW2. The unique classes, specializations, skills, jobs, the amazing and diverse map, THE VIEWS, an amazing story, customization, unique mounts, a good player base economy, character design, mobs design, world bosses, and finally and most important, THE LEAST TOXIC COMMUNITY, they all made me feel welcome since day 1, in every single server, without a doubt the best gaming community. If you thinking on joining GW2 in 2023, you should really do it, there is no regrets, you will fall in love with it.

I played most MMO's anyone can name, WoW is awesome of that traditional MMO I grew up with but GW2 feels like an entirely new genre with the experience I get. GW2 is where I go back to after getting tired of other MMOs.

playing wow for 10 years i think that the game looks awesome so do the zones but the feeling i got exploring guild wars 2 is just insane if you are big into exploring beautiful areas this is the mmorpg to play

The biggest draw for me in gw2 is that it’s a completionist’s dream. Even if there’s no power progression, there’s always new achievements to get, more skins, more titles, etc. it is what has kept the game alive for me since launch.

If you have tons of unused leveling tomes in GW2, they're good to consume at max level to earn spirit shards (end game currency). Alternatively, you can save a lot of time on weekly personal story key farming with leveling tomes.

This desperately needs an up date. 2022 was a massive year for GW2.

In regards to the comment on GW2 getting new expansions being iffy, Arenanet has recently given a long term roadmap confirming a 4th expansion already!!

Just recently hit level 80 and completed the Personal Story in Guild Wars 2 and I can’t say enough good things about it. Enjoyed the video 👍🏻

Definitely disagree when it comes to the gw2 story. Ofc the delivery is subjective, but the lore and story are both very fleshed out, and actually make sense unlike wow

guild wars 2 for the win

You forgot to mention masteries in the leveling portion of the video for GW 2. You do have to level these, earn and use mastery points effectively raising your mastery level. Also, tomes of knowledge can be used to obtain more spirit shards which are used for endgame recipes like legendary weapons / armor and other items

Honestly, I think you pretty much nailed it. I would say that for me GW2 wins over all, and if I had to pick a single reason to give for why, it would be because GW2 respects my time, and doesn't treat me like a metric. WoW only seems to care about maximizing their MAUs, making sure I log in every day, and twisting my arm to make sure I participate in every aspect of the game, even the parts I don't really enjoy. It relies heavily on FOMO and other manipulative psychologic techniques to trick players into thinking that they have to play constantly, which just makes everything feel like a massive chore, even if I would otherwise enjoy it. GW2 on the other hand doesn't seem to care if I don't log in for 6 months. I can play when I want, do the content I want, and not feel like the game is trying to force me to do everything, every day to fill up an arbitrary bar or else! It's certainly not a perfect game, and I'm pretty sure I would get bored very quickly if I tried to play it exclusively, but it's a great game to play casually and something to play when I'm feeling a little burned out on other games. But besides that big primary reason, I'm also a sucker for a good story, and while no, GW2's story is not as good as FFXIV's, not even close, it still absolutely destroys WoW's story. The beginning is a bit rough and there are some pacing issues throughout, but once you get into Living World season 2, it's a genuinely well written, and well presented story.

I'm very excited to see what happens to GW2 after it drops on Steam.

I started gw2 this year, amazing game, best mmo community too

I've only started playing GW2, but one of the things that I noticed is that you get XP for doing any activity. This a really good thing because it means no matter how you play, you're going to level up.

Great video. In some cases I don't completely agree with the final assessment though, but that might come to a matter of taste and preferences. As the Open World is just one flavour of pve content, the pve section might need a new title if you do your next update on this one: Something like grouped, instanced or structured pve. The fact that you only covered the instanced pve content under this section also shows a general misconception often leading to the false conclusion that there is "not much to do" at max level just because the number of instanced pve installments is low in comparison and many players are used to these being the only source of (fake) meaningful character progression. Fake, because this progression gets invalidated pretty regularly - in case of WoW with the next patch or expansion. This, by the way, is why I disagree with you on the final progression systems assessment.

10 Year vet in both. I prefer action combat. Dark Souls series, Devil May Cry series, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima etc... I feel more engaged with a stamina bar, dodge rolls and I-frames, positioning (NOT L.O.S'ing!). The cast bars and channeling spells were fun as a kid but not so much anymore...

I don't understand where this final fantasy free trial with no restriction thing comes from. It's not even true. There is a bunch of restrictions until you upgrade your account to the payed version.

Guild Wars is killing it now! Things are looking up for GW2 - its been a real suprise. I love both these games but im going hard in GW2 atm and I'm really enjoying it

I feel like more information could have been included with GW2s achievement system. I also feel like more imformation could have been included on the vast complexity of character customization with runes/sigils and stat types

Okay so here are my 2 cents as I have played wow on and off for 16-17 years until I finally quit back in Feb 2022 for good (I hope). I strongly disagree with the leveling. Leveling used to be my fav thing to do in WoW back in the day. Blizzard has done absolutely nothing to evolve leveling. in fact, it is worse cos it is so dog shit easy. And every time i level a new character I feel like I would have more fun gushing my eyes out. While in guild wars 2 the leveling is so different it feels fresh. It could also be the fact that I played Wow for 16 odd years before I quit for good and I have only been playing GW2 for a few months now but for once I am enjoying leveling again. Lastly, The Mythic + system was fun back in legion but imo it is so stale and boring today. Just thinking about mists or TOP or NW makes me want to gag. You run the same dungeon 50+ times in hoping your BIS item will drop and each season it is rinse and repeat. they don't even bother to introduce new dungeons or introduce old dungeons into the mythic plus pool. Raids was WoWs selling point for a long time for endgame and now it is mediocre at best. I wish wow was the better game but I'm sorry if anyone takes offense to this comment BUT wow on its own is mediocre at best and let's not even talk about the toxic community where all they care about is high parsing, which imo sucks all the fun out of the game.

as someone who joined shadowlands a couple months before zereth mortis, i really enjoyed torghast. maybe not the runecrafting but thorgast itself was fun. i enjoyed the absurd over powering of my class and its abilites

do you need to buy all expansion to play for example you got the guild wars 2 game for free and you want the last expansion to buy you would play that expansion ? need an awnser thanks

just played lost ark last couple weeks and got bored from the grinding, chasing a new gearscore or doing every Raid to get better gear. Then i remembered how nice gw2 was to your time u invest, it wasnt like "this isnt enough" like in lost ark, it was more like "its okay you can come later again np" and i figured out that this a very important point for me - how does this game treat your time

GW2 is superior in a lot of ways

Really good video!

I really like the video and look forward to you're review of the next xpac of gw2. Do you have a stand alone video of gw2 world v world pvp? I got lost in both the end game open world pve and pvp because I don't know what I should be doing or where I should go.

i was so stupid to buy end of dragons (even the ultimate ed.)... i played it through, even "fetched" the turtle -> i was so disappointed, i completely retired from gw2... good job, AN

you forgot to talk about the other name gw2 has which is fashion wars. it has an amazing system in place for personalizing your wardrobe with different transmogs, dyes, and so on. definitely something gw2 has over wow.

I think the 2 extra you could have done, is Pay models Pros v Cons, and Tradeskills and Impact / Worth. Very good video tho and a pretty neutral Point of view for both overall which is good :)

The best thing about GW2 over WoW is that PvP in GW2 is gear independent and anyone from the lowest level can start doing it and learn about all elite specializations, whereas WoW PvP is, unfortunately, gear dependent with conquest/honor character bound rather account bound. On the other hand, WoW PvP has premade and rated battlegrounds whereas GW2 is completely in shambles with disbanding premade and later bringing them for tournaments. There are no real rewards and progression systems as such. WoW has excellent dungeons, whereas GW2 dungeons are totally useless, whereas fractals are totally boring and repetitive. Stike missions are great and raids are awesome but not that will keep a player glued to it.

For me the bigest thing is combat and synergies between classes for raids or even other group contents with world vs world on top, because its pvp on a whole slew of different scales...1 man roaming, small group roaming up to guild vs guild (usually 15 vs 15) or all the way up in all imagaginable setups to blob vs blob or zerging. The last one shows really, why the skillsets of classes, the sizes of aoe fields or shouts are layed out as they are. It is catering this group fighting bezter than any other game, as the spells and weaponskills arent to big. Take a healing guard in wvw. It all revooves more or less on his movent, staying pretty close, avoiding traps from the enemy team and working together to inflict damage, bait them, trap them, trying to mitigate damage, apply the right boons, take away boons from the enemy through corrupting them and coordinated strike right after those cprruptions with crowd control + damage....and this all is so rapidly and fluently to be played, that this for me since years is the ultimate explanation on why the combat system is so good in gw2. I also like more flashy ones like BDO or Lost ark combat, but all the skills and the way they are set up ultimately fail in a real longlasting pvp or at least pvp group content. It doesnt feel you do stuff alone losely, but in really intricate setups and coordination. The whole fact that it is cool to play along a commander and his movement and or ability to follow and play your class to a good level decides who wins or not...is simply great fun. Sadly this very competitive mindset isnt for many gw2 players it seem. The gamemode survives still after years, but it is a constant new people vs people that were extremely good leaving as the content gets too old for them. It also has to do with the way people gather. They gather in winning teams/servers and soon have no strong enemies left...so one skilled guild has fun, slaughter, fun dies out for them, an enemy is not good enough so they leave when new guilds come up in skill. Its a huge time investment of hundreds and thousands of hours sometimes to be good in it. For me it is worth playing it for years (drought sadly is currently a huge problem in wvw).

the worst part about gw2 is the community, you are only allowed to love the game but not to the point that wants it to be better, anything toward gw2 except praise will consider toxic. if you're a rational person.. oh boy, thinking about it makes me sweat.

I prefer tab target MMOs. GW2, ESO and D&D Neverwinter hybrid styles of combat are just too busy for my taste.

For gw2, is voice chat mandatory for end game? Or can I get away with avoiding it?

When I started WoW (well I played vanilla a bit before) I started leveling in Legion storyline. The moment I hit the level requirement for current expac (BFA at that time) I felt "wait, I wanna go back to Legion, I wanna play there, the story, characters, maps, everything was so cool" and then the big yawn of BFA and Shadowlands after was so lackluster I just quit. GW2 is the best overall MMO right now on the market. FFXIV has shit pvp, BDO has shit progression, WoW has shit...well, a lot, ESO has mediocre class fantasy. Only GW2 is good across the board, never excels in anything, but is solid on every front, pve player, pvp player, casual and hardcore alike. But if I had to say where GW2 is absolute best is the mount system 100%. Nothing comes close.

What was the name of the rpgs at the beginning

I quit WoW back in 2011 and joined GW2 from the day one (then there was ESO, I like Elder Scrolls world a lot too and action combat is fun too) only to see other MMOs, WoW included, borrowing features implemented by GW2. In GW2 dungeons were a huge thing before HoT. Raids are short but deadly, fun. Some meta events are a real challenge and I like it. Overall, I never looked back to WoW or Aion from this new generation of MMOs from early 2010's

GW2 feels like a live game. There is always someone who plays alongside. The thing I hate about GW2 is no matter what gear you have or what level you are you feel like a no one. You die in 2 shots. The worst thing about Wow is that there is so much map and story that you will never see and there are almost no one along side you. They are in the end game content. It feels like a dead game.

GW2 is fun and all, but I just cannot get into it because of the camera system. I tried action camera and normal and it just feels bad. If I could make the camera exactly like WOW or FFXIV I would be hooked for sure.

I have 13 characters in gw2 and 24 in WoW. Imo, WoW is definitely better than gw2 but if you want to play casually without worrying about paying monthly subs all the time, play gw2. Totally f2p but you really need to buy expansions and buy some in-game contents for better experience. While WoW has more contents, mechanic, better story and a big player base it's definitely more fun to play the game. There's a reason why WoW is more popular than any other MMOs. Gw2 is really fun to play too so try both games and have fun.

Well done :)

After so many years I think wow is complex just for the sake of being complex. There is such a large gap between achievements, and I get burned out quickly only leveling, not to mention the actual endgame. In GW 2 I feel everything I do matters. And that brings joy. This is why we began playing games as kids. For the joy, for the imagination, immersion. When a game becomes your daily work, is not a game for you anymore. Don't want to say wow is bad. It was such a good game for me. But I got old. Can't stay 24/7 in a game and farm. GW 2 replaced wow perfectly, is the best place for wowcolholics. Eventually every burned player from any mmo will come to GW 2. Is just so much joy ❤

just one point: mega dungeons have been in wow since classic. maraudan, blackrock, temple, .... there are plenty but were considered to time-consuming so were scrapped for a few expansions and later reintroduced

Guild Wars 2 is easy and provides you with armor and weapons .WoW is more the traditional RPG more like Guild Wars and both have a better stoyline .I will say this Guild Wars the original is the real winner .

Probably should add that gw2 devs aren't sex offenders and don't talk shit about there player base

Summary of wall of text below: combat is gw2's greatest strength and weakness. If you are interested in Gw2 and coming from wow you should know .... Ranged combat basically doesn't exist, Gw2 is kinda a melee only game. If you pick a ranged profession you are forced to play in melee range due to how the buff system works. If you like playing a healer, look elsewhere GW2 doesn't really have that. Gw2 has supports, they heal, shield and buff generally through a dps rotation (you never feel the difference you make). The buff system really limits and ruins gw2 combat, buffs are far to powerful and essential to ignore and they force you to play a certain way. If you can play those roles differently then you may enjoy Gw2. The game is fun, much more so if you enjoy melee combat.

Gw2 has become my new love for videogames! Its just that good!

Gw2 is 1000x more fun and better to me

The biggest reason I prefer GW2 is that no content is ever trivial. You scale down to each zone so even a lvl 80 could have issues in a starter zone. Unless WoW has changed, low level content is not worth doing anymore.

Came here since leaving wow and playing Star Wars for a good bit of this past year. Looking for a good mmo to play along side. I think this will be it for me! Great vid thank you!!

Turn action camera on in GW2 and you will play a totally new game. I can't imagine going back to wow without this feature

Gw2 is the only story where you character has a character.

I am a little surprised you missed some things about both leveling and PVE content for GW2. IMO, the personal story system tied in with all the living seasons episodes is a far superior leveling system then WoW’s . You can have a different experience for each race and class based on choices you make in the storyline. The living season system seemed to be left out of your analysis too? The ability to stop, start or replay and move between any episode is a cool feature unique to GW2 and imo far more interesting then Wow’s linear (yet fragmented) content. Open world PVE content solidly goes to GW2 , there is always some event to hop into if you want. Weather it’s a huge world boss fight, a zone meta or a small escort quest, there is almost always something to do that chances are you haven’t done before. Where GW2 struggles imo is explaining their systems and incomplete information during quest lines that aren’t answerable in the content itself.

In my opinion WOW wins progression. Cause after dealing with it Masteries that lock most core mechanics to enjoy endgame, is far worse then Shadowlands mechanics atm. But this is my opinion. Which has me on fence to not continue, because its a pain to level Masteries as new Level 80.

As a casual player and having played a lot of mmorpg's, I would say that both games are different and is not to be compared. GW2 is more of a pvp type of game in a pve environment (dodge rolling is a must, especially in expansions or you'll get killed easily even though you are using heavy armor characters) and is more on the achievement side (endgame gears are basically achieved through achievements, even mounts). I am a casual player and not a big fan of constant dodge rolling and as for the achievement side, it forces you to work hard to get those achievements if you want to see any progress for your character (my main character is currently stuck (the reason why I stopped playing) because getting those achievements feels like a job and is no longer enjoyable for me). Not to mention the elite specializations, wherein you need to unlock them first with hero points. I was so excited to play HOT as an elite spec and was frustrated to know that I have to play the HOT maps first to unlock HPs to unlock my elite specs, so by the time I fully unlocked my elite specs, I was already done with the story of HOT and never got to enjoy the elite specs much until POF came. As for WOW, it's more of a questing type of game and dungeons achievement on endgame. It is more casual friendly than GW2 with the questing and battle system but the dungeon achievements are a bit of a grind especially if you're teamed up with crazy players. In the end, as a casual player I will choose either ESO or FF14. Just my opinion. No need for hate comments. Peace. :D

I never liked WoW and I love so much GW2, however, both games labeled two very different MMO styles. Sadly, overrated games like FF14 are the most played at the moment, despite of being just a mediocre clone of WoW that also steals ideas from other MMOs, but poorly executed. But players prefer girls with bunny tails and furries than a good game overall.

The GW2 Story Content I personally loveeeeee.. Dragons is one of my favorite things and the way they are depicted on GW2 is amazing and just awesome, My favorite dragon is Zhaitan the Undying, I honestly think they did him dirty but the Hero has to win in that situation tho.

Yes, yes, this video is out for a while already, still, I want to point out that when it comes to story, GW2 is miles and miles ahead of WoW. Simply because their story is in the game. Yes, they too have published books, three if I'm not mistaken, but those are (as was the case at the start of WoW) to flesh out the world for those interested - but events, people and places were perfectly explained ingame. In WoW, if you have never touched the books, nothing makes sense. And if you have the lore background, its still bad. So, yeah, points for GW2 here (even if it falls short compared to FF14, but that shouldnt surprise anyone ^^°). "Chromie is a magic gnome" ... ... moooooving on... o.O I suppose I'm biased: though I get burned out by GW2 and though I played WoW almost uninterruped for thirteen years or more... imo GW2 wins in all points. Even with the droughts and all, GW2 has way more diverse content to keep you busy. When it comes down to colletibles, GW2 has much more to offer, and even low level maps of the base game are always full with players. Dont espect a single soul to be out in the Barrens... north or south.

Guild Wars 2. Best combat. Feels great. Beautiful game. No competition.

WoW is just such a special game, unlike all other MMOs, there is something about it and the story/ lore that always keep me coming back for more.

In terms of combat, GW2 definitely takes the cake on this one; though, I'd say I loved healing in WoW. Healing in WoW, for me, is up there with GW2 combat - enjoyment factor. Playing a healer in a raid in WoW is something very enjoyable and challenging. DPS always felt mindless and very robotic. I actually enjoy leveling in both games. I would just grind dungeons in WoW from all of the different expansions (though some were scaled REAL bad - coughcataclysmcough). Exploring in GW2 feels great and almost feels like Classic WoW - you actually get to explore the world the developers took so much time to make. WoW's story, currently, is a dumpster fire and makes no sense. GW2 story is fine, honestly. I just like the good voice acting and artwork that comes along with some of the cutscenes. FFXIV takes it a little too far sometimes, IMO, with the story. If the story doesn't click with you in FFXIV (especially ARR and Stormblood, for me), the mandatory story elements will become a huge annoyance and drag. Every player in FFXIV openly admits those two games just suck.

lets see the review of EOD now thats its out for gw2!

bene playing wow off and on for 17 years. quit wow till the next explansion. (dragons) GW2 is similar. I can keybind exactly like wow. I have a weird style and a lot of other MMOs dont let me keybind how I want. its a fun game. its nice to explore and have wonder again. plus its free.

I've played 1-40 on GW2 as a WoW player. For me, the combat system took me a while to get used to and even has me thinking it's lacking in some areas. The 1-5 Weapon Swap system leaves more to be desired as there's simply less abilities to mess with. Compared to WoW where you can sometimes have numerous buttons in a rotation in addition to utility or conditional spells. For GW2 because of the smaller spell pool, it's more necessary for those spells to be engaging. So when I like 3/5 spells, it's a shame I can't just eliminate those remaining 2 from my rotation in favor of other spells. In a way I guess this can be circumvented with Off-Hand weapons or class Elite Specializations, but you're not guaranteed to like all off-hand weapons and Elite Specializations don't come until much later on in leveling, meaning you have to commit to a class anyway. I've also noticed larger cooldowns on your higher damage or utility spells. Leaving you with 1-3 actual spells to work with while the remainder are on cooldown. Maybe it's just my Rogue brain of needing to have complex rotations and full control of every single encounter in PVP and PVE, I just don't really feel like I get the same thing out of GW2. It's a fun game, but it is different in the combat sector.

I find combat in GW 2 a bit floaty. Wildstar could do action combat with the Trinity and still work well. I think the story telling in GW2 is better though, between the two.

GW2 Needs to have more addon's than 3-4 they have now

well they announced the 4th expansion, lsw1 and lsw5

GW2 just announced their new expac and a lot of other things. It will be more lively than ever.

GW2 vs WoW Dragonflight in 2023??

But GW2 has tab-targetting too, right? I don't understand how the ability to dodge and the other differences listed suddenly make it non-tab-targetting.

nice video but you should have added time stamps

Tired of RU-vidrs praising FF14’s “story”. Yeah, *IF* you manage to survive 1,000+ brain melting, IQ devouring “quests” that are notorious for tossing you back and forth between TWO of the same NPC’s that are 5 continents apart. No voice acting, shit ton of reading. And it’s not even GOOD reading. It’s “I had pizza last night great Hero, don’t you care?” “By the way, do my laundry.” “When you’re done, go back across the continent and re-talk to your initial quest giver to tell him you did my laundry” 1 down, 999 more of the SAME quests with ZERO urgency left to go before “IT GETS GOOD!” Yeah, okay.

I had chance to play both games, both are good in their own ways, I just prefere But2Play over Sub2Play. Yes GW2 without DLCs is basically exploration simulator cause you don't get any story above lvl 80 but it's still fun to run around with your friends exploring, running dungeons, doing events etc...

Waiting for gw2 to come to steam

For me i would say something along the lines of Gw2 > combat, leveling system, Open world repeatable content, character progression, large scale pvp Wow> story, linier progressive content, small scale pvp

I never gave wow a try, it had more focus on faction fighting and instances whereas I prefer to explore an open world. Gw2 just has so much more to offer for my preferences. Wildstar was pretty close but didn't keep me with combat and content. And now that I'm spoiled with the gw2 mounts and lively world, I couldn't even get into playing ff14 because it feels like a dead ambiance game. Towns are too silent and npcs don't chatter on their own.

the feeling is like for me..ohh there's nothing to do for me..ahh wait there are a lot of things to do

At some points in gw2 story the gw1 story is incredibly relevant to the gw2 story.

WoW in 2022 is doggy poopoo. been playing it since Vanilla, freaking game is so dumb and less epic every expansion, FFXIV on the other hand replaced WoW for me, Guild Wars 2 is amazing, truly a masterpiece.

Im new to gw2 and am looking for people to play with..😢

I do think Anet consistently fails to recognize the importance of small-team instanced PVE content, and we arguably have too much open world content at this point. I think they should take a breather with the latter and put some elbow grease into unifying their different instanced "modes" and expanding on the concept as a whole with new fractals, new regular dungeons, and some cool systems surrounding strike missions.

GW2 feels like a hub for people who wants to chill in mmo game you can do whatever you enjoy without the game restricting you to finish some part of the game before doing the other. Want to explore? go ahead you can explore the world and discover stuff. Want to pvp go ahead there are two type of of pvp the WvWvW gear doesn't matter that much unless you enjoy roaming 1v1 play style but if you join the zerg train even level 1 with starting gear can enjoy messing around here. Equalized pvp cool you can enjoy pvp with other players the stats and gear doesn't matter at all just your build and how familiar you are with the class you are playing. World boss , Champ train? awesome you can also find it really chill and fun running around the map hunting those. Completions for achievements? there's plenty with pretty cool rewards too. And there are tons of stuff you can do when you login just its up to you what you enjoy and spend your game time.

The reason Fractals and M+ are compåareable is due to the Affix system being directly inspired by the Mistlock Instabilities. And that's inspired instead of "inspired." As opposed to the SkyGriffon Riding of Dragonflight.

Game was 2 weeks too early. GW2 expac got announced.

I played WoW for over 10 years and I can safely say that WoW leveling is some of the most mundane and boring leveling process in an mmo game especially how irrelevant older parts of the world become as soon as something new has been released and it is not like expansion to expansion basis, it is at a patch level e.g when Nazjatar was released in BfA you would be lucky to someone in the boralus or zandalar maps actually doing activities that's not a leveling player so even the more populated servers could feel dead to someone leveling in an mmo, PvP on the other hand while offering a wide variety of modes to play most of the content is gear gated mainly ranked modes and others such as Brawl, Solo Shuffle have insane queue times due to lack of participation, and casual could might as well be named stomping grounds because you are more likely to run into a party trying out high level comps against people who were randomly matched, and finally the pvp balance is more or less nonexistent they overbuff and overnerf classes and specs all the time so the ladder is dominated by a comp every season or so and most higher rank games are just comp mirrors which not only boring to play but is also boring to watch. Dungeons in the game are what holds the game together for me, there will be one or two every expansion that just fell flat on its face but the rest are fun and exciting to play, mythic mode however is being treated like crap with each new expansion, as in the start of legion it was marketed as a way for players who don't like the large scale raids to enjoy a competitive pve environment and get rewarded evenly as the higher levels of mythic+ would reward gear equivalent to raids, minus the raids unique pieces of gear effects such as tier armor bonuses and unique trinkets but the gear would be of similar power stats wise, then the ilvl of gear acquired through M+ dungeons was reduced to be less than raids, then it was limited to only the weekly chest and lastly was limited to M+15 in terms of progression gain as anything higher than 15 would be done purely for challenge to see if it can be cleared in time. The devs in the past couple of years just ran the title into the ground and that's just a shame.

Your timing, your gear, YOUR POSITIONING, YOUR MECHANICS, your interrupts.... (for WoW).

I tried wow this week again. The last time i played was 2019 when Classic was re-released & I enjoyed it for the most part. First, it was a tough decision to make to buy the expensive expansion after all the money I'd already spent to play the game in the past. The monthly game time on top of that was a big ask, but i wanted to see if WoW could fill my MMO void. Though having heard about the sexual misconduct, I didn't feel good giving money to Blizzard and I think that set the tone for my re-introduction to the game. I played for 2 days. The first day I tried a brand new character and was bored for 4 hours straight leveling from 1-20. The second day I gave my old main a 50 boost and started playing through the Shadowlands expansion... another 4 hours wasted on bland, mindless boredom. There was nothing fun about it so in the end I submitted a ticket and had my money refunded. In the OG days of wow, TBC was my favourite expansion but I quit playing toward the end of Cataclysm. I do wonder if I should just play TBC Classic instead to see if it tickles my nostalgia, but I do also wonder what else is out there in the world of MMOs. I tried GW2 in the past, but it lacked finesse. I wish there was a WoW 2, similar to Classic wow but with the better user interface, allowing for more thorough questing.... back in the day I had to rely on WoWHead for questing which seems now to have been integrated into the game itself - which is the only positive I found as a returning ex-WoW fan.

What i like about gw2 the most is pvp.If you get owned you can ve sure its b8ecause of skill, not cheating,exploiting or some cheesy armor/ weapon/ trinket set you must grind like in wow or eso

Guild Wars 2 should be the game all new MMOs take notes from. Arena Net may not have hit the mark on everything they tried to do, but everything they tried to do was the general right step forward for the MMO genre from a design perspective. Out of all of the “next generation” MMOs it’s the only one that actually evolved the genre. ESO and SWTOR did nothing as ambitious as most of what Guild Wars 2 delivered at launch. Let’s also not forget Guild Wars 2 had mythic plus 5 years before WoW.

Guild Wars 2 is imo the best feeling MMORPG out there.

As a casual player I think the GW2 progression system stands out more and is much more appealing.

Have to disagree with you on leveling. going back to wow and all my hard work on leveling and gear is wasted but with gw2 my max level and gear and still up to-date and how long they take to get that max gear is way better and with each xp pack you still get levels through master system thats like a paragon system and sad you didn’t touch on that as a level. So this is were I disagree with you.

All of this really is so subjective. Someone might like Dali more than Picasso, and might prefer pie over cake. Pancakes or waffles? It really does come down to that, making X vs X comparisons interesting, and it's always good to see things from a different perspective, but it doesn't change personal preference. The biggest single reason, if I had to pick just one, for playing GW2, is the progression. Nothing sucks more for me than working my butt off to get everything how I want, then it becoming vendor trash a few months later. Getting where I want, then having a bunch more options to continue building up my character or just enjoying things that aren't the same things I did before with a different wrapper, is my kind of game. It's also more realistic. Less like playing a game, and more like self improvement.

Am I right in saying gw2 and WoW in 2022 have the same amount of devs working on each game? 300 or so? I still think this maybe should have been prefaced with WoW being a subscription mmo where as gw2 much fairer business model? i.e not quite a fair comparison.

They're very different games. I'd say GW2's combat system feels dramatically better than WoW's, but the group play is not as engaging because it lacks the trinity. This has a significant impact on instanced PvE, which I feel WoW not only does a better job of generally, but also has vastly more content on offer. With regard to story, GW2 wins easily. It's not that WoW doesn't have a ton of good lore to draw upon, it's more the delivery feels disconnected from the player. You're a passenger, along for the ride. By comparison, in GW2 the player is at the center of events and the story is the primary driver of content (of which there is quite a lot!). In terms of the leveling process, I give the win to WoW. GW2's core game is, frankly, atrocious. It feels boring and aimless. Even the environments are bland. Of course, that all changes the moment you set foot into the expansion content, where the environments are incredible, the combat is fast-paced, and the rewards, events, and everything else kicks up about 10 notches! So, leveling process itself goes to WoW, but open world in general is an easy win for GW2. Competitive play is similar to my comments on the combat system and instanced PvE. GW2's superior combat system makes PvP a blast, but the lack of game modes is a major flaw. WoW just has a much wider variety of PvP content on offer, even if the combat that forms the foundation is relatively weak. It's also worth noting that GW2 offers a level playing field for PvP. Your character's gear and level don't matter, which is a major draw for truly competitive players. Vertical vs. horizontal progression is a tough call. I think a lot of players just don't know what to do with themselves once they hit the wall. What's the point in playing if your character never gets stronger? I think it's a valid criticism. On the other hand, there is still a ton of content in GW2, enough to keep most players busy for years. But I think for the hardcore players, having systems like M+ and frequent new content catering to the hardcore crowd is going to make WoW the better option. Graphics. What are you nuts? GW2 came out many years later. Art style aside, GW2 obviously looks a lot better than WoW. You'd have to be a serious WoW fanboi to say otherwise! Having said that, they're both old games and won't hold up to the standard of today. GW2 also has a major issue with visual noise in group combat. Particle effects end up completely obliterating the target so you can't even see visual cues you're supposed to react to! It's...embarrassing. UI. WoW wins. Duh? It has vastly more features and is fully customizable. GW2's UI is intentionally basic and it's part of the reason they struggle with group content (e.g. you can't even target allies for healing/support!). I think that about covers it?