Return after 2 years

Hi Everyone,

I've just recently returned to the game after a 2 year hiatus. Last I left off I was doing wvw and some heart of thorns with various characters. Free dye kits on 11 characters, woot! Going to purchase pof.

I do have fully geared in ascended Elementalist, Warrior,Guardian,Thief and stacks of ascended boxes from Fractals. Fractals was pretty much my main objective at the time. Raids had just barely came out and I took out one Boss, forgot which one, before I left.

Going to start back on my Ele as she was my favorite. While I'm still doing research and rebinding keys, looking over my inventory.Any tldr important changes I should be aware of and research further? What's worthwhile to grind? I'm fairly casual while also doing objectives. I've stayed with groups who were having trouble with Fractals and always helped/taught new fractal players.

What's profitable/worthwhile yet fun to do nowadays?

1. Fractals still worth it? I have unopened various slots/stats, 20 armor boxes of and 10 weapon boxes and lots accessories. Any reason to do fractals other than ascended now? Not sure why I've stacked up so many unopened boxes.
2. Heart of Thorns was fun and I believe very profitable.
3. I vividly remember only trying to make it to Tequatl the Sunless for a world boss, think he had some wanted goodies if I recall correctly.

. . . .

Cheers for the reply. Indeed GW2 community is the best. I'm definitely more of the just play for fun and profit comes as a bonus. I work a somewhat stressful job and yeah, don't need more stress. Although profiting is fun in itself :).

I've pretty much finished all the fractal achievements. I think I was doing them before I left for Legendary parts. I was fairly lucky with Mystic Forge gambling and drops. Got 5 or so precursors in 1 yearish. So in fact I'm not a veteran at any rate in the game but my time was fast and furious(also had more time back then).

I see HOT and Silver Wastes is still a thing. Although I feel like a new player right now, I do vividly remember strategies for those maps.

Thanks for the tips, will look intovolatile magic farming and Domain of Istan map.

Worse thing about returning is sorting out my bank/mules and figuring out why I have all these items stashed.

If you enjoy fractals, there are a couple of new ones that got introduced during the time you were away. Those often bring their own set of unique achievements. Doing fractal dailies is also quite lucrative, especially if you are able to play in t4 (fractal scale 76-100). Check lfg for fractal groups (they have their own category) and see how far in you are and how you like the new fractals.

For Istan (and all other living story season 3+4 episodes you missed) you might have to unlock the episodes that you missed (each includes both the story episode and a map with events, achievements and more) for 200 gems each, but those can be gotten by converting gold to gems while casually playing, and all of them are really worth it. Just like season 2, all newer living world episodes will only be free to players that log in during the release (usually 2-3 months for each episode). It's definitely worth it to play season 3 before PoF if you are interested in the story, as the PoF story will be a huge spoiler otherwise. If you are missing a lot of season 3 episodes there is also a bundle in the gem store that allows you to buy the rest of the season at a discounted price.

I did enjoy Fractals the most, will definitely look into the new fractals. That was the one daily I tried to never miss and is where I picked up all my ascended gear. I enjoyed finishing 100 fractal with pugs not long after they introduced the scales. I stopped not long after HOT came out, as I was working towards and finished HOPE before I went on hiatus. I remember Silk was fairly expensive before I left, wonder why it dropped.

Thanks for the heads up on the discounted bundle. I wish I had logged in when the episodes were available to at least pick em up for free. That was my plan as part of the hiatus, which I didn't carry out. I took a break because, although I enjoyed working towards pieces of gear I liked, it was mostly stagnant and they kept releasing outfits. I preferred to mix and match armor pieces and dyed to my liking. Only certain pieces meshed well and from sets and caught my eye. I see they are still adding buttcapes to most clothing :/.