Returning player with a few questions

Ok, I haven't played GW since right before Factions was released. I joined the Army and really haven't done much gaming since. Now I'm in the Guard, and have plenty of free time on my hands, and kind of want to see what GW has to offer nowadays.

I know a lot has changed. I have all skills/runes/mods unlocked in the Prohecies campaign, but haven't even purchased any of the new GW games. I mainly played GW strictly for the high level competitive GvG purposes. I am really not that interested in PvE.

My question is, how long do you think it would take for me to be able to be a competitive and useful player in GvG, or other types of PvP in general? Is it worth the time and effort? Do I need Factions, Nightfall, and EotN? Should I just wait for GW2? Any help is appreciated, thanks.

to be competetive in PvP you need all campaigns + gwen, simple as that. also, lucky for you you can unlock all skills at half price atm. join a helpful guild and you will be back into the PvP game in no time.

So I will need to purchase the other 2 campaigns, GWEN, and the skill packs? May be a little much :S.

Can I get by with just having Nightfall or Factions and buying the skill packs for one of those? The added skills from GWEN don't seem to be pertinent for PvP, but then again...I am way behind the power-curve on just about everything.

I have pretty much all the Factions unlocks for the ranger, warrior, and mesmer because of the pre-release event way back when...if that helps at all.

you can still play the old shock axe build with only prophecies. that build has remained unchanged all this time.

there's been an update to the online store that allows you to unlock 20 elites, 20 nonelites, and 20 upgrades for $20, from any campaign of your choice. however, i think this applies to new accounts only. the good thing is, after you buy this, you essentially have a full pvp-only account and additional skills can be unlocked with balthazar factions.

if you want to get up to speed cheaply, this is the way to go.

Meh skip the campains and buy the PvP unlock packs then.. what are they 5 bucks each these days?

Hmm, good to know. I'll look into that, thanks.

Another question...Is there a way to download the full client with all maps and such already dl'd? I bought a new comp since my last time playing, and its taking me around 15 minutes do DL every new area I travel to and its getting really annoying.

You can DL all the update by running GW from the command line with the "image" flag.

C:\blablah...blah\Guild Wars\Gw.exe -image

And yes, for PvP you can buy the PvP unlocks pretty cheaply now.