Was Guild Wars 2 Secrets Of The Obscure Worth It? Here's My Thoughts 

Just a quick note: after unlocking Weaponmaster, you have access to all weapons of elite spec, even if you don't have any expansion or ever trained them. This is a huge difference from all other xpacs because then you were locked by skill points. Not in this one. I think that deserves a big highlight.

It think its very much worth mentioning that the current SotO is, at leat in terms of story, is only one third published, so more story is to come without spending extra. Also the introduction of a new way to craft legendary armor feels pretty relevant to me.

Weapon master is great since it does go across EVERY Character you have even new ones. So my new ranger can basically rock a staff, dagger, or hammer while levelling. It feels very open for base classes.

As a new player who started with this new xpac. I have 312 hours in and I still havent seen the majority of the game yet. This game is LOADED

I'm having an absolute blast with SotO I started playing GW2 last year in august when it released on Steam, and was doing all expansions and living world seasons in order. I finished a week after SoTo launched, just in time to jump in while it's still fresh :D

$25 bucks for the 6-8 hour of story ALONE was worth it. But the amount of content on top of it, from collections, new items, events, strikes, etc and we are still getting 3 patches with additional content AND no subscription? Its a steal :3

I went thru all of the archipelago nest spots, most of the amnytas ones and then I was flying around like an idiot wondering when the nests respawn because I had gotten the egg a day or 2 prior and didn’t even notice because I was so used to seeing “you found nothing”

Wow, really great review. There's depth but it's simple Thank you for putting this together

To be honest every guild wars expansion worth it’s price, 20-25€ for the basic version when other games charge 10-15€ per season(outside the initial purchase). I play since gw1 release, always been a good experience as a casual.

New player here who came back. Got my old left for dead lvl 45 to 80 and then bought SotO and the other xpacs cause I really enjoyed my time in the main story. It's been about a month since I came back and I've completed the Skyscale and all of Soto story, and all of PoF xpac. I really think SotO is so worth it. The Skyscale is still tedious to get, fully grinding it everyday took me about 5 days, so for a casual it may take a few weeks. But it has made the other areas of the world so much easier and fun to explore. The story of SotO was really solid too and doesn't take away from the other xpacs, the zone is great to explore and overall it's a small xpac so it's fairly easy to complete.

No Rock Dog?! Oh No.

Unless I'm doing things that specifically require the skyscale, I find the griffon to be the better mount for general traversal, especially after you unlock the flight mastery.

Newer player probably have about 4 months and 300 hrs in... Definitely feel this expansion is worth it from my perspective I was able to get the sky scale fairly quickly and is making the gift of exploration much more palatable

Hey CFD really enjoying your content. I’ve dipped in and out of GW 2 over the years and I just boosted my character to lvl 80 and completed the HoT story with some of my masteries complete. Somethings not clicking for me should I go onto POF with incomplete masteries, should I jumpy to new expac? I’ve even thought of just restarting from lvl 1 to get more out of the story cause of dipping in and out. any suggestions would be great 👍

Returning player that just unlocked Weapon Mastery on my Weaver & I’m halfway to unlocking Catalyst! Excited to dive back into the game

One personal critique from me is that I can't recall any of the SOTO music after finishing the story this expansion. (Spoilers) In End of Dragons, I instantly remembered The Cycle Ends when fighting Soo-won in the meta event, because it was so different from every other musical theme they had done previously. Heart of Thorns own medley and the songs within were all very memorable from Faren's Flier to Tarir the Forgotten City. Here, there hasn't been any motif, theme, or song that I can readily identify. Aside from that, the expansion has been pretty good. The story's pacing is so much better than in previous expansions. Weaponmaster training allows a lot more flexibility in builds, although some weapons may need additional tuning. I personally find rift hunting a bit bland, but it's fun enough to do. The new zones are okay. I actually liked Skywatch Archipelagos more than Amnytas. I love the fact that we got to explore the Wizard's Tower as we have all been speculating about it for the last 17 years, although I would say that sometimes leaving things a mystery has its own mystique.

It was very worth it to me, as I finally was able to obtain the skscale, which has made a world of difference for completing map exploration.

skyscale is still 100x easier than normal method. we have to walk all over WITHOUT rentals in that god forsaken LS4 map THREE times before the chores even start for the normal Skyscale.

Really miss the rune of the ogre Rock dog pet on my ranger!!

i think the biggest thing to remember for me is that we technically only have 1/3rd of the expansion right now. as a veteran player, i fully admit that i was disappointed initially, but a huge part of it was that i havent explored the maps properly yet, havent done as many events, and since its all new characters and storyline, i wasnt feeling as invested. but starting from one part of the story involving mabon, i started to really get into the story. after finishing story while doing random quests on map, i realized each of the characters had their quest chain around the map - and thats what i was missing, cuz the quests were delivering a lit of the character development. i was honestly very surprised. and the thats when i realized - hello we only have a third of the game right now. and i distinctly remember being somewhat unimpressed with EoD beginning too until somehow at some point eod transformed into my fave expansion. if you gaveme obly the first 3rd of eod, i wouldve said it was disappointing too. in some ways i think because ppl expected/are used to expansions to drop the entire thing on day one made ppl forget that we actually dont have everything yet.

Hey o/ How's it now in 2024. I was not so excite about getting it but now that I have some free time and waiting on Dawntrail. Is it worth it in 2024? In term of updating stuffs in Soto from beginning till now, are the improvements good? Thanks.

what are the sets are used in intro character fashion wise?

As a new player who just start a month ago with 250hrs Maybe I should've gotten this expansion first before doing the skyscale quest. But I have my skyscale anyway

Hi, i new player here, just buy POF+HOT like 1 Month ago. My question is About Skyscale and Weapon Mastery. If i Buy SOTO, but without EOD. Can i get those 2 things? Wanna try Scrouge with Gun and Unlock Skyscale too. I Plan to buy all expansion in the end, but this time maybe one by one

One of the things I enjoy about this game is the mount system. I thought the griffon and the skyscale would make the other mounts obsolete, but that isn't the case. The ground mounts, and the skimmer, each have their own purpose to fulfill, and neither of the flying mounts overstep their boundaries. The flying mounts aren't overpowered, either. You can't fly as much as you want with either of them, because you'll be descending at some point whether you like it or not. This is somewhat alleviated by the skyscale's wall-latch, but it's more like a band-aid than a fix. As said in the video, flying can be tedious at times. In other games like WoW or FF14, obtaining more ground mounts become pointless once you get a flying mount except for achievement or completion purposes. The latter is just as fast on the ground, and is even better in the air. In GW2, both the griffon and skyscale are terrible on the ground, which is where the raptor shines. Both flying mounts have decent vertical ascension, but they won't beat the springer's jumping power on their best day. And even with regards to flying, neither the skyscale nor the griffon do the exact same thing. The griffon is the fastest mount in the game, able to traverse vast distances in high speed if you know what you're doing. The skyscale cannot compare when it comes to speed.

The story? THE STORY?! "Go view a vista" *Crickets chirping* I appreciate your opinion though, and the weapon additions in SotO, so still gave you a like. Ofc.

Skyscale being "clunky" is the perfect description. Giant wings but can barely fly up 2 stories of a building. But overall a good mount. I like that you can mount in air once the ability is earned

As a new player, the game is amazing and a lot of activity could be done. However, i argue they need move guidance for new player like me. I’ve feel lost sometimes.

I hate the story quests in this game and I want skyscale, so I think I'm going to buy it. Thank you for the video!

Quaggans arent playable yet brooo

Do you know when we will have access to the rifle mesmer or pistol elementalist?

the game is incredible, the best mmo I've ever played and the one I have the most hours of play, my only complaint is the celestial stats in wvw that is breaking the game for me

hey! i stopped playing GW2 when PoF came out and after seeing this vid it made me go back to GW2 as a main game!...would u say its a good time to get back into the game or is it a bit to late? can i easily catch up ?

kinda sucks that there are no new elite specs

what about PvP and WvW ? why to buy this exp as a competitive player?

Is grinding the Skyscale still super boring?

I keep forgetting there’s a whole bunch of achievements for rift hunting core maps

It was sooooooo nice to be alone without havingto talk to the others all the time. It does not mean i think they should never be a part of our world again, but this time it was very nice to just be me and all interactions with Zoja is with me, well ok a few lines with Taimi but it felt that i did not have to be the hero and was not really set up to be i just did my best and then maybe they like that or they could also say fuck off, well ok no maybe not, cause story, but you know it felt more like a story around my choices of what i wanted to do and i did not lead it. Different and nice. I also like they running the rifts in core Tyria where players level. It give a lot of xp and you can be in on it even if you do not not own the expac. You will not be able to open it but so many others does. And also save the currency you get because one day you might get the expac so having a pile will help you out. And that egg, god damn it. My friend got it on the forth i thing, me, twentyfive tries =( But over all i agree with you, the expac delivers more then i thought it would and that was nice.

I fuqing love GW2❤❤❤❤ I can always come Back to this game

The skyscale was pretty easy. There was a little time gating (provisioner tokens) and gold farming involved (cuz I broke) - but other than that I already had like half of the components just randomly from playing around SOTO, story, and core game random stuff, before finally starting the skyscale. Once I 'officially" started it, it only took like 2 days and that was only because of time-gated provisioner tokens.

Yes. Yes it was. :)

what cape skin is that at 00.37?

Them calling the new Skyscale method 'streamlined' was a bit misleading when I was reading up on the new expansion. Sure, it's streamlined, it's still a pain in the ass scavenger hunt...it just isn't time-gated the way the original method was. I completed it in one 14 hour session (from finding the egg --> fully unlocked and I have to say.... worth it, but still a little too tedious, especially the fact that the egg is RNG, and some people have had to wait for 1 or 2 nest resets just to START their collection.

I like to wait to see what gets nerfed before getting something like this-the only appeal are the flying masteries and even then, they are niche-so will wait for the dust to settle down.

Hi, I’m new to the game, playing a ranger. How do you recommend I play the game as I am trying not to pay any money for expansions right off the start.

Relics are a complete clusterfk. There are fewer relics that are worth anything than there were rune choices that had decent 6th slot bonus. Weapon master is an insult. They unlocked something which took 2 seconds, instead of actually creating a new elite spec. Did anyone else notice that every single kryptis except the meta boss is nothing but a reskinned asset? Hylek, forged, mordrem, branded, etc? I’m getting fed up with the wow-level shortcuts.

they call this a mini expantion, it was 10 chapters. EoD was 18 chapters. and SotO still has 3 more content update left.

It's a good expansion because establish the foundations for future expansions but... i still feel kinda disapointed about the ryft system, it's too easy, repetitive and kinda tedious to do it constantly, not mentioning that Tier 3 Rifts are expensive. The Wizard's Vault system it is amazing.

I fell for the hype. The intro quest is shcking designed a mob that can LITERALLY see behind itself should be fired from ALL game development permanently) 12 times tried... no matter how far the f>cker is from me, he still spots me and insta kills me. Worst $25 spent in a LONG time.

$25 it's just a no brainer tbh🤣

Owning a skyscale use to mean something. Now everyone has it.

The skyscale nests are a collection, you need to visit them all.

I so miss so many of the rune effects

"Everything's been related to dragons so it's time to do something new"... and we're probably going to have another 11 years about demons now XD

It's funny but it almost feels like the future of Guild Wars 2 really depends on the success of the next two expansions rather than this one. I'm glad to see them on a more regular content cadence and very happy to see them finally divorce themselves from the Elder Dragon Saga which has been holding the story back for years, but now they really need to focus on growing the development team and releasing a higher quantity of content in a shorter period of time. Every time I want to make Guild Wars 2 my main MMO, I'm constantly reminded just how infrequently this game releases new group content. Secrets of the Obscure adding only 2 Strikes, 1 Fractal, and 0 Raid Wings over the course of an entire year + 1-6 months is just not acceptable output for a modern MMO (especially considering the expansion is really lacking a big headline feature and doesn't add any new Elite Specs). The reason that the Guild Wars 2 community is stable instead of growing is because it doesn't have the content output to keep people playing. I get that they have a smaller team and focus on a much more consumer friendly business model, but I'd really love to see a bigger investment in this games future by the devs (because I think if they could just grow the number of players the money to sustain a larger dev team would be there). I'm not saying they need to get to the level of Final Fantasy XIV or WoW, but could you imagine if we could even just get 4 Strikes and 8 Fractals a year? Maybe even an annual raid wing? The reason FFXIV is consistently my main MMO is because it keeps me playing by releasing stuff to do with other people (in the last 2 years FFXIV has gotten 9 Trials, 13 dungeons, 3 Alliance Raids, and 3 standard raids not counting Savage/Ultimate). But I love playing Guild Wars 2, I love its combat and its business model and its buildcraft and its amazing open world zones and I even think the story has serious potential even to rival FFXIV. I want a reason to play it, but the dev team refuses to give it to me. They've said SOTO was profitable, so I can only hope that over the next 2-3 years they reinvest that back into the game, grow their team, and make more stuff. Maybe they can even invest some time into adding headline features that can drew new players and enhance the community experience, like player housing or more silly side-stuff like the Golden Saucer from FFXIV.

Caffeinated Dad: ".. Find an egg in one of the empty nests". @4:33 Me: 🤔🤨 🤭 edit: just joking around, but it was funny.😉

SotO do have spoilers, a lot of them. Example, if you haven't finished the HoT expansion it spoil the HoT story since part of the SotO story is about what happened to Zojja. Then there's a mention of Aurene. Heck the whole Skywatch Archipelago is a huge spoiler. So no, I don't recommend jumping to SotO right away. Just speedrun the expansions, but don't skip them.

Rift hunting is fun? Seriously??? 😳 People only help, because they need the essences for their legendary armor. As soon as they get their armor, there will be not too much help anymore I suspect!

to be honest I do not like the new expansion.. travel is far too slow,, all the vertical is annoying even with all the flight masteries unlocked, the rift hunting lost its appeal after a couple days and there's just nothing interesting to do.. I am already back in WVW not caring at all about the new content

Ya it fixed the game. It fixed the login reawrd system, and made content that brings players back to old maps, rewards more gold, more customization, and more game play options.

i noticed its on the cheaper side by 5dollars im sure people were happy to see that lol

Rifts being fun? Doing the same event with 4ish random bosses over and over for minuscule rewards? Hard disagree. The expansion is fun but rifts fall way short of fun content after you do them for a few hours IMHO. I did not like the pacing on the final 2-3 chapters of the story it felt rushed. Weapon master is great. I am not sure if it is worthy of being a expansion keystone replacing elite specs.

skyscale and even griffon works best with flight masteries, updraft, leyline riding and leybloom. if you are not using it, that maybe the cause of the frustration in using skyscale. literally can move around SoTo maps without even moving either mouse or keyboard

Would prefer a bigger expansion with more explorable area, storyline. The end game stuff is busy-work and the fractal-like, giant boss battle thing has been done to death and is annoying. GW2 is stuck in a rut.

*Skyslug Fixed it.

I think that You, Caffeinated Dad, like so many others gave forgotten one important point when asking _"Is it worth it?"_ Which is that we have 3 more Updates to the Expac still to come We already know on of those things is a 3rd Map, presumably with 5 more Chapters So your $25-30 (my £22) includes a whole he;; of a lot more, i would hesitate to suggest we've only had 25% of it, as i expect we got the bulk of it with first release, but we can round down and assume we only got 50% of it Now if they plan to charge us for the next 3 Expac updates i will revise my thoughts, but my current understanding is we have paid for all 4 parts Those who didnt buy yet may also find the price has gone up if they wait for Parts 2, 3 and 4 If my assumptions are correct, i think its great value for money, and i speak as one who cant work and gets very little to spend on this sort of thing Apreciate the vid and discussion ❤

It's not worth it for me, yet. Not enough content for an expansion. I don't like these policies of half-made-games-come-out-and-then-add-more-later. It's in a way forcing me to be on standby. Which is also enhanced by the wizards vault. Rifts are basically bounties. That's it. They just now take you through the rest of tyria. Story is ok but treating emotions as manifestation gets too much too quickly because everyone is overflowing with them. You also constantly have a voice doing ASMR in your ears that has this mystery about it, but not that much. The new characters treat you as a rookie, and constantly demote you until they give you a new title and they do all these for no real reason because they already knew who you are. Zones are hard to traverse, even with skyscale. It used to be a quality of life change, now it's the standard to have it.

Yeah no. For me the story was just about OK, but pretty sloppy and full of holes. Rifts are rapidly becoming boring. Design of some of the new environments and the music is great though.

The rifts got to be too repetitive. They need to add some other incentive or add something to make them a little different from each other.

Bad dragon lol

Really?? The cost of three to four cups of coffee or one and a half months of WOW subscription.

£25 for a 2 year+ of gameplay before next exp = Worth it.

According to lazypeon it is not so....

To each their own but I can't stand rifts.. Boring and repetitious.

The only thing i hate about guild wars 2 is the cheer number of currencies. It's just not digestible. Also i think they should do a bit more of set grinding, like, hunting for epic set rares.

I don't regret paying for SotO, even buying the ultimate pack like I did. I feel like there's more than enough value there. The maps are gorgeous. I've mostly enjoyed just flying around on the new map getting my bearings. It's triggered my own fear of heights/falling. I don't expect the game to cater to my phobias. Exploring is teaching me how it happens and I'm learning to work around it. That's the right coordination of the game and my needs. I don't agree with some of the loud criticisms of having "recycled content" because I feel like there's sufficient justification to see those things in this new story. The idea of the expansion is engaging. I also like that we have new heroes and allies for a whole new threat. I've been enjoying Weaponsmaster Proficiency. I'm wrestling with a surplus of ideas for making an entirely new toon and getting to explore this system for the ground up. That's a good problem to have. I do feel like this was released with insufficient care. The relic system feels like I lost more than I gained. I lost my beloved Rock Dog and nothing fills that gap. The best new runes that I want to play haven't come yet in the content (I'm a slow player) and so I feel under-equipped. Plus, the tooltips on the relics we were given were terribly sketchy. It has a lot of room to improve. It should improve sooner rather than later, IMO. The Wizard's Vault system has been pretty good. I crafted my first legendary because of it so YAY! But, I also feel like it demonstrated a lack of care. We needed to be told more about it so we didn't make mistakes on the first day and that made me lose a lot of time, adventure and loot until I got all my choices in order. I also think that it was just insulting that WV tasks were offered as choices that have been bugged for months or the tooltip was incomplete. So, I'll give it a 7 out of 10. There are more pluses than minuses and the significant problems we have don't break the expansion.

Relic system was a non-sense decision with a total mess implementation. Copy paste islands without good exploration options. Confusing new story characters. Skyscale is easy to get now - and the adventure to conquer it also is gone. Living World short rushed content now is called expansion. Old player here leaving the boat. Sorry for being honest.

These expansions are getting smaller and smaller.

I have to say i didn't like SOTO, I just can't find myself wanting to play it.

Feel like I'm the only one that dislikes it, or maybe I'm just letting my annoyance ruin things. I wanted the to try the new weapons for the classes, thats it. So I created a new character, and then I saw that you needed to complete another collection. And then I googled how to get it.. and my entire, possible enjoyment just.. plummeted. Because you basically need to get through a huge chunk of the new story to even be able to access the place to get the collection bits. (Or WvW which.. no. Just.. no). I like the actual story bits, but I actually dislike the rift hunts, because it forces you to hunt a bunch of those things to continue with the story, and the Skyscale is just.. annoying to use with the temp one. Maybe I'd be happier if I had the various flight perk things, but as it stands? I just wanna.. not play it.

Pay $25 to use new weapons and do a horrid grind for pve legendary armor because people are too pussy and whiney to do pvp/wvw/ Its story is among the worst things I've ever played. For a really creative group of game devs, they repeatedly show remarkable lack of imagination in developing new content. Same boring mechanics, same boring events, same boring dialogue, same boring mastery system, etc.

No!!! Dont stay caffeinated, thats terrible advice!

this xpac is for new players. they forget veteran players. all those things we have already done in previous xpacs in one or another way. lame. so for new players is great content and worth a lot. not for vets.