Typical WoW vs GW2 Questions

[Rogalicus]

GW2 is a pain to get top gear, in WoW is super easy.

Top gear in current patch of WoW is 2 BiS legendaries (or more, if you have to swap them depending on fight), max ilvl Antorus trinket, 985 ilvl Arcanocrystal, 985 ilvl in other slots with the best combination of stats (including any combination of tier sets you need, like 4T20 + 2T21 for shadow priests), 3 max ilvl relics with BiS artifact traits and BiS NLC traits. When you'll earn that faster than ascended gear in GW2, I'll listen to what you say.

Yeah, but really getting ilvl 960 in WoW is not a huge challenge there. It is no joke that you can get ilvl 900+ in one day, heck I'd say fraction of a day. Then in between that and WoW basically throwing boatloads of gear at you - you can get to pretty high ilvl in a pretty short time.

The biggest challenge will be sneaking into Heroic Raids, but if you have guild that will be a given.

WoW has issues, but gearing is really not one.

I've already covered that point, it may be easy to reach some reasonable level of power in given patch (and full exotic in GW2 is still faster to achieve and still stronger relatively), but constantly having to bump up your item level every time new content comes out (more so when expansion comes out and almost all your gear ends up in vendor's pockets in a few hours) means that you'll spend more time improving your gear overall.

[PACOX]

WoW's gearing system has a special place in my heart.

Spent countless resets hoping gear you piece you want drops? Congrats, because it will be obsolete next patch.

Grinding AP for your artifact? Did the rep grinds? Quest grinds? Did we tell you that we're scrapping the entire system?

[Gray_Matter]

Yeah, but really getting ilvl 960 in WoW is not a huge challenge there. It is no joke that you can get ilvl 900+ in one day, heck I'd say fraction of a day. Then in between that and WoW basically throwing boatloads of gear at you - you can get to pretty high ilvl in a pretty short time.

The biggest challenge will be sneaking into Heroic Raids, but if you have guild that will be a given.

WoW has issues, but gearing is really not one.

To use your words.

"It is no joke that you can get exotics in one day, heck I'd say fraction of a day. Then in between that and GW2 basically throwing boatloads of gear at you - you can get to a few ascended items in a pretty short time.

The biggest challenge will be sneaking into Raids, but if you have guild that will be a given.

GW2 has issues, but gearing is really not one."

The part in italics is key. In any game if you want to do top level content then there is going to be some gating from the players. That happens sometimes in GW2 as it does in other games. There are a lot of raiding guilds looking for players. You don't even have to be well geared. My guild keeps asking me to raid with them and they don't care about any ascended items. Some items cost gold and time, others cost effort. For example, you can pick up an ascended weapon by doing the living story episodes. To add to that, ascended gear is account bound so it's easy to switch mains. The only thing that won't switch is the armor type but weapons, the back item and accessories are fine.

You can buy exotics from the TP the first day you are playing which is the second best gear you can get. Then, if you spend about 10 minutes a day for 2 weeks you can get an ascended back item, ring and accessory in Bitterfrost. Much shorter if you want to do it with multiple characters. You get a weapon by doing the living story. That's a whole chunk of ascended gear in next to no time. Remember, that gear will still be valid with the next expansion and the one after that. I have enough of the various items to buy 13 ascended trinkets (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket) just by visiting my home instance and harvesting the nodes daily for a few months.

As I said in your quoted text. GW2 has issues but gearing isn't one of them.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyway, just trying to get an idea if GW2 would offer a more gratifying experience than WoW. What was your experience like when you started playing GW2?

Everyone will have a different experience. For me, it's my go to game. The best advice I can offer is to not play it like you would play WOW. Enjoy the leveling experience. Explore the maps. There are jumping puzzles scattered across the game that are a huge amount of fun. There are little nooks and crannies on all of the maps. You get rewarded for just playing so have fun. Once you get to 80 try and set your own goals because the game won't do that for you. Spend some time doing WvW or PVP or jumping puzzles. If you get stuck doing one thing then switch to another for a bit. Hunt down the world bosses (http://dulfy.net/2014/04/23/event-timer/). They are a lot of fun, especially the 3 worms or Tequati. Look out for chain events. There are some great chain events in Harathi Hinterlands.

[goettel]

My 2c, as a long-time WoW player who's recently defected to GW2, again (and from the look of WoW's next expansion, this time for good).

GW2 has only five mounts (you need Path of Fire for them), but each is used and handles very differently (speed, jumping range & height, a water mount, one can jump certain portals, and the gliding/flying griffon). You unlock all mounts except the griffon by simply playing through the expansion story, which you're going to do anyway. The griffon is a bit of a cash grind, but that's very doable in a few weeks - or even days if you're a gold grind boss.
GW2's transmog system is superior to WoW's in every respect, hence Fashion Wars 2.
Character development: vanilla or your choice of two 'elite' specs (one for each expansion), skills & traits (talents) bound to your choice of weapon(s). GW2 is a solo player's wet dream, whether you like a challenge or not. The casual community is great, can't speak for guilds (done with that).
Profession (class) balancing is an ongoing thing in GW2, no different than any other MMO, and it's always hotly debated. GW2 PvP is a quackmire of complaining players, so I'm assuming it's not good (done with that too).
Statwise, there is hardly any catching up to veteran GW2 players. If you get either or both expansions (Heart of Thorns and/or Path of Fire), you need to grind out two elite specs if you want to try them fully, but that usually can be done in a couple of days by joining a 'hero point train'. Hurrah for the static level cap - raising the level cap (with BC) is pretty much where my love for WoW started to take a nose-dive.
IMO, for a casual solo player, GW2 is far superior to WoW, with better leveling (I'm not an altoholic but I'm working on capping my ninth toon here), events (let's call them 'world quests done right') and tons of QoL features for alts. WoW does instanced content better though, and you might miss the holy trinity. These days, there's a bit of a 'soft trinity', i.e. it is possible to spec as pretty much a healer or tank. Outside of instances (fractals, raids), none of that matters.
To close, if you're going to try F2P (you should), you'll get all of the vanilla content with a few limitations, but personally GW2 really took off for me with the Hearth of Thorns expansion, which added a ton of highly explorable zones (some people hate these for their sometimes convoluted maps), gliding (which was and still is great, even if I have a grifoon) and best-in-class casual open-world content (meta events).
Have fun!

[Lazuli]

Lots of misinformation from salty nerds in this thread.

First, comparing BiS in WoW to GW2 is unfair. WoW has a forging system which can increase the ilvl on your drop if you got lucky by random, so you could get a piece of gear then I get the same thing but mines better. This makes actual best in slot nearly impossible to obtain, and completely retarded to actually aim for that since it is no where near needed or required (or realistic).

Secondly, these are the facts: you can easily get 900 ilvl in a day. That's like equivalent to exotics. 2-3 weeks you'll be 940+ and honestly at this point unless you're a serious mythic raider, you are done gearing because you can run heroic antorus. This means you are at the very least doing your weekly M+ 10 or higher and normal antorus which ironically is even easier to PuG than the LFR version. Doing LFR only each week and complaining about not getting good gear is... funny.

Thirdly, you are guarantee'd a legendary every week in this patch, and possibly 2. This means you will get your BiS legends quite fast.

Last but not least, yes WoW is less friendly to PuGs I think, haven't tried GW2 raiding or fractal in a long time. This likely stems from how easy it is to buy carries, get gear, and still be completely fucking clueless. WoW has millions of players, it isn't uncommon to run into scrubs constantly, therefore we are required to put ridiculous requirements when we PuG. The best solution to this is run with a guild, because that's how you are meant to play an MMO: as a community and with friends. Then you'll realize just how much more you're enjoying the game and how easy it is to get into groups for stuff. A guild should be your first priority in any MMO, if you refuse to do this then it's your fault to deal with PuG restrictions. Make your own damn groups and don't complain about gear.

[Rogalicus]

Secondly, these are the facts: you can easily get 900 ilvl in a day. That's like equivalent to exotics.

The thing is, it's not. Even by comparing two 100% parses on two mostly single target bosses you can see, that the difference between perfectly itemized 911 ilevel and perfectly itemized 980 ilevel is three times more damage. Even 940 ilevel is straight out 33% weaker than 982 ilevel. Ascended is like 6% stronger than exotic and you can buy full exotic in 10 minutes after hitting level cap.

[SirCowdog]

The biggest difference between WoW and GW2 that I notice is that GW2 has a much larger ratio of skill to gear. In GW playing well makes much more of a difference. Gear is sitll a factor, of course. Just not as much as with WoW, where gear is like 99.99% of your effectiveness.

[Sorrior]

The thing is, it's not. Even by comparing two 100% parses on two mostly single target bosses you can see, that the difference between perfectly itemized 911 ilevel and perfectly itemized 980 ilevel is three times more damage. Even 940 ilevel is straight out 33% weaker than 982 ilevel. Ascended is like 6% stronger than exotic and you can buy full exotic in 10 minutes after hitting level cap.

That is just ludicrous imo. They may as well ditch ilv and go full horizontal progression imo

[gaymer77]

First, comparing BiS in WoW to GW2 is unfair. WoW has a forging system which can increase the ilvl on your drop if you got lucky by random, so you could get a piece of gear then I get the same thing but mines better. This makes actual best in slot nearly impossible to obtain, and completely retarded to actually aim for that since it is no where near needed or required (or realistic).

Even if you remove the titanforging and warforging of items, getting the "other level" of BIS is still a very lengthy process in WoW. Warforge & titanforge are just the icing on the cake. WoW is all about RNG in obtaining gear. Yes you can get a legendary a week if you push doing the various things you can to get waking essences but that doesn't allow you to pick which legendary you actually get with it. There are numerous people who's 2 BIS legendary items were the last 2 they got. The damn bubble shield neck seems to be the standard first legendary item people get as a drop and its utterly useless.

Also your BIS in WoW doesn't always give you the best stats for your class. The only way to do that is by wearing all crafted gear which is only 885 (upgraded to 935 with primal obliterum and the primal sargerite needed to upgrade it each time). At 935 ilvl the gear does not take into account any perk of having tier pieces nor does a fresh lvl 110 have ANY primal sargerite to start upgrading their gear the moment they hit 110. Compare that to GW2 where you can literally get exotic gear before you even hit 80 and then put it on once you hit 80. That exotic gear will have your BIS stats on them (assuming you buy the one you need) but will be ungemmed. You can buy the gems off the trader and put them in yourself. Literally 10 minutes of time and you're in full exotic gear (comparable to heroic 945 gear in WoW) and fully gemmed. How many times have you seen a fresh 110 in WoW with gear on that is the BIS stats and it all be 940+? I'm going to guess the answer is never because it doesn't & can't happen.

Secondly, these are the facts: you can easily get 900 ilvl in a day. That's like equivalent to exotics. 2-3 weeks you'll be 940+ and honestly at this point unless you're a serious mythic raider, you are done gearing because you can run heroic antorus. This means you are at the very least doing your weekly M+ 10 or higher and normal antorus which ironically is even easier to PuG than the LFR version. Doing LFR only each week and complaining about not getting good gear is... funny.

Getting to 900 in a day just allows you to run LFR to get 915 ilvl gear (925 for Argus the Unmaker). 900 is the equivalent of Fine in GW2, 915 is Masterwork, 930 (normal loot) is rare, 945 (heroic loot) is exotic, 960 (mythic loot) is ascended, and titanforged/warforged is legendary. In WoW the highest ilvl you can buy the minute you turn 110 that is crafted (not including a handful of BOE epics that drop from Antorus since there's only literally 1-2 per armor type at the most) 885 (aka not even LFR quality gear). In GW2 the minute you hit 80 you can buy a legendary weapon if you have the money/gold to do so or you can buy exotic (aka equivilent of heroic Antorus loot) for under 5g per item. Your comparison of exotic gear & 940 normal Antorus gear isn't quite right. Yes you could say that unless you plan on doing mythic raiding that 940 gear could be your BIS stopping point but the same could be said for exotic gear in GW2 being an easily obtainable BIS stopping point for anyone who isn't going to raid or do "end-game" content. And as I pointed out earlier, exotic gear is comparable to heroic Antorus gear not 900 ilvl stuff.

Thirdly, you are guarantee'd a legendary every week in this patch, and possibly 2. This means you will get your BiS legends quite fast.

If you consider 14+ weeks to be "quite fast" to guarantee you get your 2 BIS legendaries then yes you are right it is "quite fast". Even if you get 1 a week from doing the quests to get them, there's no guarantee you'll get THE BIS you are looking for for the spec you are in. Not only does it give you a random one for your armor type/spec but it pulls from the shared legendary table as well.

[Lazuli]

Even if you remove the titanforging and warforging of items, getting the "other level" of BIS is still a very lengthy process in WoW. Warforge & titanforge are just the icing on the cake. WoW is all about RNG in obtaining gear. Yes you can get a legendary a week if you push doing the various things you can to get waking essences but that doesn't allow you to pick which legendary you actually get with it. There are numerous people who's 2 BIS legendary items were the last 2 they got. The damn bubble shield neck seems to be the standard first legendary item people get as a drop and its utterly useless.

Also your BIS in WoW doesn't always give you the best stats for your class. The only way to do that is by wearing all crafted gear which is only 885 (upgraded to 935 with primal obliterum and the primal sargerite needed to upgrade it each time). At 935 ilvl the gear does not take into account any perk of having tier pieces nor does a fresh lvl 110 have ANY primal sargerite to start upgrading their gear the moment they hit 110. Compare that to GW2 where you can literally get exotic gear before you even hit 80 and then put it on once you hit 80. That exotic gear will have your BIS stats on them (assuming you buy the one you need) but will be ungemmed. You can buy the gems off the trader and put them in yourself. Literally 10 minutes of time and you're in full exotic gear (comparable to heroic 945 gear in WoW) and fully gemmed. How many times have you seen a fresh 110 in WoW with gear on that is the BIS stats and it all be 940+? I'm going to guess the answer is never because it doesn't & can't happen.



Getting to 900 in a day just allows you to run LFR to get 915 ilvl gear (925 for Argus the Unmaker). 900 is the equivalent of Fine in GW2, 915 is Masterwork, 930 (normal loot) is rare, 945 (heroic loot) is exotic, 960 (mythic loot) is ascended, and titanforged/warforged is legendary. In WoW the highest ilvl you can buy the minute you turn 110 that is crafted (not including a handful of BOE epics that drop from Antorus since there's only literally 1-2 per armor type at the most) 885 (aka not even LFR quality gear). In GW2 the minute you hit 80 you can buy a legendary weapon if you have the money/gold to do so or you can buy exotic (aka equivilent of heroic Antorus loot) for under 5g per item. Your comparison of exotic gear & 940 normal Antorus gear isn't quite right. Yes you could say that unless you plan on doing mythic raiding that 940 gear could be your BIS stopping point but the same could be said for exotic gear in GW2 being an easily obtainable BIS stopping point for anyone who isn't going to raid or do "end-game" content. And as I pointed out earlier, exotic gear is comparable to heroic Antorus gear not 900 ilvl stuff.



If you consider 14+ weeks to be "quite fast" to guarantee you get your 2 BIS legendaries then yes you are right it is "quite fast". Even if you get 1 a week from doing the quests to get them, there's no guarantee you'll get THE BIS you are looking for for the spec you are in. Not only does it give you a random one for your armor type/spec but it pulls from the shared legendary table as well.

.. get real bro I understand you wanna be a gw2 fanboi but no need to take shit to extremes. 14 weeks lol what the hell. both games have their strengths and I was only pointing out the fallacy in ridiculous claims in this thread, I aint trying to convince anyone of anything so relax. even if you didn't get bis legendaries at that pint it's not like it even matters you'll be doing 1m+ dps either way. again, comparing BiS in GW2 to WoW is retarded... it means completely different things. In WoW is not even needed, just means you got lucky or played 1 char for a long time, either way you can do content it's not like legendaries are gating you. gear don't mean jack shit in warcraft this is 2018 not vanilla. but if you wanna keep arguing a small % difference in dps like it's the end of the world... aight I'm preparing my anus for a real fun argument.

[gaymer77]

.. get real bro I understand you wanna be a gw2 fanboi but no need to take shit to extremes. 14 weeks lol what the hell. both games have their strengths and I was only pointing out the fallacy in ridiculous claims in this thread, I aint trying to convince anyone of anything so relax. even if you didn't get bis legendaries at that pint it's not like it even matters you'll be doing 1m+ dps either way. again, comparing BiS in GW2 to WoW is retarded... it means completely different things. In WoW is not even needed, just means you got lucky or played 1 char for a long time, either way you can do content it's not like legendaries are gating you. gear don't mean jack shit in warcraft this is 2018 not vanilla. but if you wanna keep arguing a small % difference in dps like it's the end of the world... aight I'm preparing my anus for a real fun argument.

Yes 14 weeks. Using the example of a blood death knight, there are 6 plate legendaries specific to the blood spec, 1 generic plate legendary (not including the BOE crafted belt), 2 blood specific legendary rings, 6 generic legendary trinkets/rings/necks. Sorry my bad, its 15 weeks minimum if you are doing the 1 a week thing. And as far as not having the BIS legendaries, not having 1 of the 2 can be a 25% decrease in your potential dps. That's a significant decrease. To say that in WoW you don't need BIS gear and then insinuate you do in GW2 is wrong. Either game you can do fine without your BIS but the fact that in GW2 you can easily get exotic gear with BIS stats on them the second you are 80 while in WoW you have to actually put effort in is the point. You can't just buy a full set of heroic 945 ilvl gear in WoW to slap on when you hit 110. I'm not trying to be a GW2 fanboi. I'm simply stating the difference in gearing in the two is significantly different in terms of obtaining BIS (mythic 960+ gear & ascended gear) or second tier BIS (heroic 945 & exotic) gear. Hell if you boost a character in GW2 you're given a full set of exotic gear for "free" while in WoW if you boost a character you only get 870 (Normal Nighthold level gear that won't even get you into Antorus raid finder & is worse than the crafted gear's ilvl).

[Lazuli]

I never said you need BiS in GW2, I merely complained the speed in which you obtain it in my original post so again you're retarded and completely ignoring the fact that legendaries still drop like candy, on TOP of the 1 legendary a week. What you mean, just completely afk the character when not collecting essences for no reason? LOL DUMB. If it takes you 14/15 weeks to get BiS legends then you have failed and probably suck at every MMO you play. Regardless, BiS still only matters in Mythic raiding.


Afking wouldn't even work because badluck protection is going to force legends to drop from your daily heroic, daily bg, and LFR/n/h raid kills and you have to do those for essences. I like how you just googled how many legendaries exist in Legion and clearly haven't even played this expansion. Fanboy to the max holy shiiet hahaha. I'm just editing this post as I read more of your bullshit while I cook dinner.

The boosted gear in GW2 is garbage, it's soldier stats. I think you also missed the part, again, where it merely takes a day for 900 ilvl which is well more than enough to LFR. Yes you can buy gear on the auction house by the way, if you played WoW you'd know this. And in fact there are purchasable legendaries, again, something you'd know if you played. You get a free legendary ring on Argus after you kill the unmaker in LFR, just pointing that out to you since clearly you aren't playing and probably unaware of it.

[PACOX]

Please dont compare GW2 and WoW. Theres nothing prestigious ago a legendary in WoW. Everybody gets on with absolutely no work involved.

[Mulled]

GW2 is a casual poormans WoW xD they couldn't stick to the uniqueness of GW1 so they added lots of grind for mastery/ascended/stat combo and it's no different from any other game. They've abandoned pvp.. it is embarassingly bad.

It has a couple pros like good graphics and good solo content but eventually you'd get bored by yourself I imagine so in the end you begin the grind. Ironically it takes like 9000x longer to get a legendary in GW2 than WoW. I just free boosted a 110 void elf priest and got prydaz after 2 days and I'm 913 doing normal antorus with my guild. And they say it's grindy? I get my 2nd legendary tomorrow after weekly reset.

I think my problem stems from GW2 not adding catch up mechanics as the game goes on, they merely expand the ways in which you can obtain the best gear, but not increase the speed. And gods forbid you want to have a ascended condi, support, or tank set on swap. That grind is not enjoyable either, and idk why it has no gear or skill template so you manually change shit constantly.

I played this game for years and never found 1 pre-cursor, you just end up buying everything on the trading post which is lame. Anyway that's my thoughts, it was a decent game at one point but years of cancerous pvp metasand the very very late addition meaningful content had me pretty jaded to the point I just gave up. I still haven't even tried a raid yet and probably never will. The hype is dead along with colin johansons smile kek.

I imagine it would be more fun for someone who never tried it before so why not, base game is f2p but you'll want your elite specialization and begin grinding those masteries asap in HoT or if you can get them in the new xpac I dunno. The core classes are so inferior to expansion specs it's awful -_- it's like playing your class in WoW at 110 without your artifact traits.

you are so far from the truth it hurts my head and I don't even know where to start.

[Squiggit]

GW2 is interesting because pretty much all of its strengths are also some of its biggest weaknesses.

There's no gear treadmill, but getting up to your first set of full gear is a huge pain, especially if your build of choice happens to use one of the rarer combinations. Not to mention that if you change builds you likely need an entirely new set of gear. That last one is a huge problem, since it means if you're newish to the game and you want to try a new build there's a good chance you literally can't because you can't get the gear to make it work.

It's not like in WoW either where we're talking about different secondary stat priorities nudging your DPS by a few percent. The wrong itemization can literally make a build unplayable.

You have a much more active combat system than WoW's with a strong emphasis on moving and situational ability use, but that comes at the cost of the combat also being incredibly shallow. Optimizing your DPS often ends up just being a matter of pressing buttons when they come off cooldown with no other nuance. The most complicated professions in the game are merely the ones with the longest sequence of inputs in their rotation. There's no concept of procs or synergies or resource management (even for the couple professions that theoretically have resources to manage). That could be a plus for some people though, so YMMV.

There's a significantly reduced emphasis on specific endgame activities. You can go do anything anywhere and get rewards for it. But that can often make progression feel directionless and frustrating in that intermediary stage where you're essentially just slamming your face into a variety of activities hoping RNG drops you something you need.

Ultimately my biggest problem with GW2 is that the game does not respect the player's time at all. Pretty much anything of value is gated behind long grinds or incredibly low drop rates. Sub 1% drop rates off bosses you can only get rewards from daily are pretty common and some of the more 'prestigious' rewards can literally take years to earn. Just as an example there's a yearly halloween event and it all centers around farming thousands upon thousands of loot bags and then either opening them and hoping to get some decent reward or selling them to people who are willing to take that gamble. I opened like 20,000 last year and didn't see anything though.

Their monetization is cash shop driven so it's not a huge surprise most of their content is oriented around making you play continuously and ultimately most of the rewards (other than the gearing issues I mentioned) are cosmetic, but it can still be frustrating.


Despite all that I'd say the game is pretty fun to pick up and play from time to time. The gameplay is solid enough for a while and the story is okay (albeit with its own host of issues thanks to how it's implemented).

[Eleccybubb]

Please dont compare GW2 and WoW. Theres nothing prestigious ago a legendary in WoW. Everybody gets on with absolutely no work involved.

Nothing prestigious about most legendaries in GW2 either.

Open your wallet and boom legendary for most of them. Same as WoW.

So people with money can get legendaries with absolutely no work involved in both games. So enough with the blatant GW2 bias here because both games have nothing prestigious about legendaries. I get it you like GW2 and that is fine but don't be disingenuous towards how it handles it's legendaries.

[PACOX]

Nothing prestigious about most legendaries in GW2 either.

Open your wallet and boom legendary for most of them. Same as WoW.

So people with money can get legendaries with absolutely no work involved in both games. So enough with the blatant GW2 bias here because both games have nothing prestigious about legendaries. I get it you like GW2 and that is fine but don't be disingenuous towards how it handles it's legendaries.

Almost noone buys a legendary with money, its an insignificant statistic. In GW2 you know someone either put in the time craft the legendary (more so with t2 legendaries) or earned the gold to buy someone else's. Either way you know what was put in. WoW? Legendaries are welfare epics that scale. They might as well come with your artifact weapon.

[Rogalicus]

Nothing prestigious about most legendaries in GW2 either.

Open your wallet and boom legendary for most of them. Same as WoW.

As far as I know, this is only true for first generation of legendary weapons. Legendary armor, legendary backbacks, legendary trinkets and second generation of weapons are account bound and tied to collections. Also, there's certainly nothing legendary about legiondaries, they are completely random, they use old skins and their only purpose is damage buff.

[Sorrior]

As far as I know, this is only true for first generation of legendary weapons. Legendary armor, legendary backbacks, legendary trinkets and second generation of weapons are account bound and tied to collections. Also, there's certainly nothing legendary about legiondaries, they are completely random, they use old skins and their only purpose is damage buff.

It would also cost over 300 for even a cheap one if using cash

[frogger237]

You can get a max character in GW2 just by logging into the game daily. Mastery points(mounts/gliding/etc) are account wide so while the mounts can be pretty expensive once you unlock em you don't have to save up the gold to get em for another toon.

Since you can convert gems to gold and gold to gems you can't help but think of everything costing real money.