Noob question about xpac skills

I was thinking about starting up GW again and I only own the original version of Guild Wars.

On the GW wiki i was looking at the skills from Prophecies/Nightfall and i was wondering if i can get these skills for my character when my account is only tied to the "core" version?

Do i need to buy all of the xpacs to prevent myself from being handicapped against other players because i lack the newer skills?

Thanks in advance

If you would go PvP you'll need as much diversification off skills you can get. So it would mean getting all skills from all campaigns.
And for PvP you'll have the backfoot on everybody playing it mostly, and this will be very hard to overcome, you'll need a dedicated group with which you can play and learn and don't stop because of the losses. PvP is on a very high level atm esp. for returning or new players. Or you'll have to find a good existing team that is willing to teach you, but you'll have to understand they will mostly not wanna risk there ratings with newer people.


If you would play PvE you can go with-out them but you will lose the versability from having access to all skills. I'd suggest here go one campaign at a time.

So if i do not buy the xpacs i will not be able to get a lot of the skills?

Pretty much. You'd have the same skills we had 3 years ago. And only some of them were buffed since then.

I'd advice to buy Nightfall first, then Factions and EotN if you want to play PvP.

I'm not sure if you realize that the "core" version you have is also known as Prophecies. You have access to all the Prophecies skills, but not the Nightfall, Factions, or Eye of the North skills.

Also, before you feel like shelling out the cash through the online store to get the skill packs or the games you're missing, consider buying the Guild Wars trilogy that can be found for about $30 and EotN for $10 in North America. Can save you a lot of money. (speaking from experience)