Hey, what’s up?
Today, I wanted to share my review of the Guild Wars 2 Janthir Wilds expansion. Should you play it?
Now, I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 since the beginning. I was there on launch day in 2012. Since then, I’ve been playing on and off all expansions. The only one that I haven’t played is the last one, Secrets of the Obscure. I purchased it when it came out, but I had other priorities at the time.
One great thing that I love about Guild Wars 2 is that I don’t have to worry about content and gear getting outdated. I can always come back and go right in.
So I’ve been playing the Janthir Wilds in the last days. I finished the story. Unlocked the ascended spear. I explored the maps. Unlocked some masteries, but not all of them.
WARCLAW
This is the mount that was previously only available for WvW. It is now available as a normal mount that we can use anywhere, with its own abilities and perks.
I love what they did with the warclaw and how it is helping us in our journey. During the story, we get to put down trees, entangle enemies with chains, sniff and uncover clues and treasures.
I really liked that. I found that so cool and original. It felt like our mount was literally necessary, helping to complete our mission.
If you unlock masteries, you also get to double jump, remove fall damage and other cool features.
I find all that interesting, but so far, unless it is part of the story or some select few events, I don’t see myself using it that much. So far, in an open world map, I really only see myself using the double jump feature that much. The skyscale will probably remain undefeated.
Maybe Arena.Net could add more treasures in open world maps that actually require sniffing, unblocking passages, putting down walls with the chains, etc.
HOMESTEAD
The homestead feature was something that I was excited about. Before that, we had the home instance where we were able to have many nodes and collect them every day. I don’t have many of these nodes, but I was happy to see them in my homestead.
That said, I did unlock all the masteries related to the homestead, but I actually don’t quite understand what they all do. I might need more time to actually understand what all those updates do.
TWO BEAUTIFUL MAPS
On launch, 2 maps were made available: Lowland Shore and Janthir Syntri. At first, I found that a bit small, but the quality of those maps are astonishing. It includes so many beautiful different terrains, mountains, creatures, events and many more.
In particular, I loved this shore area with massive dinosaur corpses. I think it’s so cool.
If we look at the roadmap, they should also release more content in the future.
GRINDING EXP
When you’re done with the story, and you’ve explored entirely the two maps, you’re left with a lot of experience to gain if you want to unlock all the masteries. Many people are choosing to grind exp by farming events around the maps.
One good way to do it is an event from Ekto where you spawn a bunch of spirits, and you just kill them.
I’m sure that was probably not intended, but it’s basically an exp feast if you want to grind some exp.
Also, there are a few collecting events that seem very similar, where you have to get plants and meats. It seemed a bit boring and repetitive to me.
SPEAR
In Janthir Wilds, there are no new professions or elite specializations. Instead, every class get a brand-new weapon: the spear. I mean, it’s not new, it has been an underwater weapon all along, but now, all classes can use it as a normal weapon.
In my case, I’m playing a thief and this weapon quite new and different. Firstly the auto-attack is dependent on the distance of your enemy. If you’re close, you melee attack with the spear. If you’re far, you actually shoot the spear. I find this mechanic quite hybrid.
Another mechanic of the spear for thieves is that it has skills that are grouped together. You choose your “Lead Attack”. Then you choose your “Follow Up”. Then you choose your “Finisher”. Allowing for many different combos.
On top of that, thieves they have a skill that is both a heal and a block that is entirely off cooldown. You obviously need initiatives, but it’s quite cheap. Maybe that can be interesting to use.
PRICE
One good that I like about Guild Wars 2 is their business model and pricing. GW2 never felt P2W to me. I bought the Janthir Wilds expansion for a one time purchased $25 without needing a subscription to play it. Compared to WoW that asks $70 and a subscription, I think this is very reasonable.
BUGS
I had a quest that bugged or wasn’t working properly. The Lowland story quest about closing rifts with the Heart of the Obscure.
Now, I purchased the Secret of the Obscure expansion, but it is the only expansion that I haven’t really played, so I think maybe I was missing an item that was only available in the expansion.
I actually had to follow and group with someone that actually managed to make it work. I don’t know if he did something special or whatever, but I know that this problem happened to many people because the map chat was talking about it a lot.
EVENT BUGGED
In the very beginning of the first map, at launch, I experienced an event that wasn’t working properly. I had to collect and deliver animals to a barn, but we weren’t able to deliver the items to the place. Since that was in the very beginning, many people were struggling there and were wondering what was happening. After a while, I ended simply ignoring it.
CRASH & ROLLBACK
I did experience a crash and a rollback. I was working on something, then the game crashed. When I logged back in, I wasn’t where I was before the crash and I actually lost progress.
Now, this is one of those things that are quite common on new games and releases because a lot of people log in and use the server all at once. I don’t know if it happened to someone else or if I’m alone that experienced this. I have to say that I’m playing on Linux with compatibility tools. Not Windows, nor Mac.
I was mad when it happened, but it only happened once so far.
Since the launch, many updates and fixes have been released, so I assume most of them were fixed.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the Janthir Wilds expansion is exactly what I expected from Arena.Net. An excellent piece of new content. Compared to World of Warcraft, where every expansion is basically a new game, Guild Wars 2 feels much more like an expansion.
I can always come back, everything is pretty much the same as it was, and I can get into great quality new content.
Yes, there were a bunch of bugs and issues at launch, but I’m assuming that most of them have been or will be fixed.
So that’s pretty much it, I hope this was helpful to you. If this blog was valuable to you, you could consider following me on social media and if you have any thoughts or comments, you can leave them below.
I hope this helps, peace!
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