The most helpful advice

In the Facebook GW2 group there are a lot of newbies who transition in from WoW. Not surprising. It’s exactly what I did.
I think this is the most helpful response I’ve ever offered.

Hello to whole community. New player here, been playing World of Warcraft for years and came up to give Guild Wars a chance, I like it a lot, just don’t get it how to get gear, is it same as WoW, trough dungeons and PvE, or? Also would appreciate if you give me a YouTube link or channel who explains game for newbies. Thanks!

I did the same thing. You’re smart to ask now. I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue and got to level 80 and to the end of PoF and was naked by the time I offed Balthazar. I was so stressed/unhappy/frustrated I deleted my character. Dumb. Really dumb.

Your very best option is to craft armor for yourself. People will tell you to just struggle through with whatever drops or buy matching stats on the TP but that’s truly not your best option. Your goal isn’t to get to 80 as fast as you can, it’s to understand your class by the time you get to 80. The shock of trying to manage the level 80 content if you’re clueless is truly painful. Plus you’re going to need max level crafting to get the most out of the game so you might as well work through it as you go.

Figure out which stat set works best for the build you’re running and make it. Crafting, with the Guild Hall boost (you do know you can get free specific boosts from the bartender in the guild tavern?) for crafting will help speed along your progress. Collect mats from the guild hall daily. (If you can, get into a guild that has four guild halls that are all farmable daily.) Get into a full home instance every day (park outside a home instance and catch a full home instance offer) and farm it for mats.

You can learn all crafts on the same character and that’s the best way to manage. When you switch between crafts it costs 50 silver. You don’t lose any progress. You can switch as often as you need to. In the beginning you will only need three or four (armor, 1 or 2 weapon crafts, jeweler). As you build your stable of characters you’ll need all the crafts.