Guides/Starting out
Which expansion to buy first
Each expansion adds its own way of moving through the world, its own elite specialisations and its own masteries. What is in each, and why the answer for a newcomer is almost always the same one.
On this page
The base game is free and expansions are bought one at a time, permanently. Where to start is a question everyone asks, and the answer turns less on story than on how you want to move around the world.
Short answer
Path of Fire. It carries the mounts, and mounts change the game more than anything else on this list.
Heart of Thorns next, for the glider. The rest to taste.
The shape of fourteen years
The base game launched on 28 August 2012. What came after, in order:
- Heart of Thorns: the first expansion. Gliding, the first elite specialisations, the hardest maps in the game.
- Path of Fire: mounts, and the moment traversal in this game changed permanently.
- End of Dragons (March 2022): Cantha, the siege turtle, fishing and skiffs.
- Secrets of the Obscure (August 2023): relics and Weaponmaster Training, the short skyscale route.
- Janthir Wilds: homesteads, the warclaw mastery track.
- Visions of Eternity: the current one.
Between them sit five Living World seasons, and those are the part that confuses people buying in today, because they are content but they are not expansions (how episodes work).
What each one gives
| Expansion | Movement | Elite specialisations |
|---|---|---|
| Heart of Thorns | the glider, Gliding | Dragonhunter, Herald, Berserker, Scrapper, Druid, Daredevil, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper |
| Path of Fire | every mount | Firebrand, Renegade, Spellbreaker, Holosmith, Soulbeast, Deadeye, Weaver, Mirage, Scourge |
| End of Dragons | skiffs, jade bots, the turtle | Willbender, Vindicator, Bladesworn, Mechanist, Untamed, Specter, Catalyst, Virtuoso, Harbinger |
| Secrets of the Obscure | Flight Training | none |
| Janthir Wilds | Warclaw in PvE, homesteading | none |
| Visions of Eternity | none | Luminary, Conduit, Paragon, Amalgam, Galeshot, Antiquary, Evoker, Troubadour, Ritualist |
Every expansion also brings its own masteries, maps and story.
Why Path of Fire
Mounts work everywhere, not only on the expansion’s maps. Take a raptor and the base-game maps you walked across shrink by half. A Springer for one gold opens up places that had no route at all (the order and the prices).
It is the one purchase that changes how the game feels immediately and permanently, rather than adding content off to one side.
The second argument: the griffon and the skyscale live here, and they are the most striking mounts in the game.
Why Heart of Thorns second
The glider is the second-biggest change to movement. It is also where raids begin (what those are) and where the maps many players still consider the best-built in the game sit.
The downside: HoT is famous for punishing newcomers. The maps are vertical, the enemies are vicious, and after comfortable Kryta it is a shock. Hence second rather than first.
When End of Dragons
When you want the two-seat turtle, fishing, skiffs and jade bots (about the turtle). This expansion is about conveniences and new toys more than about movement.
It also holds a fresh set of elite specialisations, some of which rewrite their class outright: Virtuoso removes the mesmer’s clones altogether (why that matters).
Secrets of the Obscure and later
Secrets of the Obscure brings Flight Training and, more practically, the short route to a Skyscale for 15 gold instead of the long Season 4 slog (the comparison).
Janthir Wilds adds the Warclaw in PvE and homesteading, a corner of the world you furnish yourself.
Visions of Eternity is the newest, with another full set of elite specialisations.
Buy an era, not a box.
One thing the store page cannot tell you, and it is the only advice on this page that matters.
These are not sequential difficulty tiers. You do not need Heart of Thorns to understand Path of Fire, and nothing is gated behind finishing the previous one. Each expansion is a self-contained region with its own systems, and buying one gives you a complete game that happens to share a character with the others.
So forget “which comes next in the story” and ask instead which of these sentences sounds like an evening you want:
- I want to fly over everything and never walk again → Path of Fire
- I want maps so dense and vertical they feel like puzzles → Heart of Thorns
- I want to fish, sail a skiff and see somewhere that looks like nowhere else → End of Dragons
- I want a house I can decorate → Janthir Wilds
Buy the sentence. The story will make sense in whatever order you meet it, because the game has spent a decade assuming people arrive in the middle, and somebody in map chat will happily explain who the dragon is.
What not to do
Do not buy everything at once. Each expansion holds months of content. Buy one, exhaust it, buy the next.
Do not buy an expansion for a single mount or specialisation. Count what else comes with it: maps, story, masteries.
Do not rush into any expansion at level 20. The base game is free and holds tens of hours. Work out whether this is your game first (what to do at the start).
One detail about episodes
Living World seasons shipped between expansions and are sold separately for gems. 🔴 Episodes unlocked free for anyone who logged in while they were current, so if you played at any point in the past, some of them may already sit on your account. Check before buying.
What you are buying, in one sentence.
Numbers and tables aside, this is what the money gets you.
Path of Fire buys the moment you press the space bar on a raptor for the first time, watch it leap a gap that would have been a two-minute detour, and land already running. Everything afterwards is that feeling repeated in different shapes: the springer looking straight up a cliff you had walked around for weeks, the skimmer crossing a lake you used to swim.
Heart of Thorns buys the moment you step off a ledge expecting to die and open a glider instead. The jungle underneath you is four storeys deep and full of things that want you dead, and you are above all of it, drifting.
Neither of those is a feature you can put in a table. Both of them are the reason people who bought one expansion end up owning the rest.
The tables above tell you what you get. This part tells you why anyone bothers.
Questions people ask
Which expansion should I buy first?
Path of Fire, for the mounts. They work across the whole world including base-game maps, which changes how the game feels more than anything else on the list.
Do expansions expire or need a subscription?
No. Each is bought once and stays on the account forever. There is no subscription in Guild Wars 2 at all.
Do I need earlier expansions to play the newer ones?
No, they are not sequential purchases. Each unlocks its own maps, masteries and elite specialisations independently.
Are Living World seasons included in expansions?
Not the old ones. Seasons 1 to 5 unlock separately, though episodes were free to anyone who logged in while they were current. Content after End of Dragons ships inside the expansions.