Desirables

Just a quick question guys,
What is it that makes GW desirable for experience players?
Ex. WoW is a grind for the best gear.
What in GW serves as a symbol of experience and professionalism? I've heard some talk of dyes? And the whole HoM thing? I've heard GW is NOT primarily focused around the gear aspect of the game.. but if you could clear this up for me I'd appreciate it!

Basically, you have limited options of what you can do to gear and weapons via runes and inscriptions. Also, the basic/inherent properties of gear is capped to certain levels. Everything else is cosmetic.

Imho, the real heart of the game's mechanics is carefully selecting your 8 skills to synergise with your team or particular enemies/missions/situations.

In GW reaching max lvl and perfect weapons and armors is a tutorial bit. You don't have to grind at all to get as good armor and weapons as other people.

Guild Wars = Build Wars
There are hundreds of skills in GW, but you can take only 8. So you must pick carefuly.

You should try Trial first and then ask.

Getting max gear and level is not hard in this game. Getting a decent set of skills to use is challenging and fun if you start from scratch. The main show of experience is the "good-looking" weapons and armor, and there is a title system. But mostly people just like to have the expensive stuff to look elite.

Some people desire to have "elite" titles, such as gwamm.
Others show their "leetness" through rare skinned weapons and expensive armor (obsidian armor). These weapons/armors are no better than any other max weapons/armor though.
Whether you get 50/50 on HoM or 3/50, nobody really knows unless they enter your name in the HoM-calculator (which I only do with 2 of my friends to see with what weapons I can surprise them).
Still other players like to collect certain rare modded items, even if the skin is actually pretty common. Some collect r8 chaos axes and try to gather one of each inherent stat. Others want r8 +5 energy swords of different skins. Still others want rare low req shields....

So yeah, there are different things that are desirable to different people ><

As the person above said;

The best/rarest titles, such as Zaishen/GWAMM.
The most expensive weapons and armor, (for looks.)
Full HoM.

Builds, attitude, and ability are the best ways to show you are experienced and professional. There are countless players with fancy armor, titles, and even full Hall of Monuments that still have not learned how to play well or at least be willing to improve how they play in both skill and how they act.

Those who can join a random PuG and get them to work together and finish the mission/quest/thing

in honest opinion there are no pros in a video game, only skillfull players, however people can revere you as amazing etc if u make builds or farms that usually distrought people such as my, frostmaws ashway, or if u could run ravenheart gloom solo. its more less epeen(gear skins and ectos) peopel just hoarde things. gear isnt difficult to get with a little saving up however getting a certain skin to drop is difficult at times, most peopel usually just buy it. theyll eventually tire of it when something new comes out.

gear is gear - hardly anything matters as long as stats match - its personal preference

Grinding for gear is lame...GW is based around the whole idea that a player must be skillful to be better at the game.

Having better gear just means you have more money then other people, and in no way shows how good you are at facing challenge.

GW is desirable for experienced players because you can't rely on your money (as much),, you have to actually KNOW what your doing....you have to know what skills work for which profession. and you have to know WHY those skills work.

Low on health.. guess what......... no pots to help you cheat at being bad
low on energy..guess what........... no pots to help you cheat at being bad

(knowing breaking points for every skill in every profession becomes useful information) .. so much so that the whole game is basically based around it.

Example: you need a tank for your party....some random PUG joins .. he has the correct build (Defy pain, ect) but hes maxed out his Tatics and sword line...so he could "do damage" .. this person has no idea how to play his roll....

Example 2: You need a monk for your PuG team
you get a monk that has put 12 points into Protection...8 in healing....and dumped the rest into Divine Favor..
His build consist of an Elite in the healing line, Protective spirit from Protection line, and other random heals in the Healing line...

Knowing why these builds does not work is the essence of GW is about.....

Yes and no. There is little practicality in collecting all the rare gear in the game (not to mention it's very much an expensive route to take in appreciating the game). However, there are some collectors who are out there to collect on these "hardly-practical" but "extremely rare" "gear" pieces.

If you take a look at this section of the forums (and almost every thread), you'll find that farming/finding the rarest "gears" is actually quite profitable when you sell to those who collect them.

To clear it up for you, the part of the game that most appeals to you is wherever you find your niche. Whether it be high-end PvE or PVP, casually helping your buds out in PvE, or maybe even as far as roleplaying, GW1 is very diverse in it's appeal to the general populace. That being said, it's pretty easy to get bored of the game if none of what it presents is appealing/grows redundant or boring.

It seems he knows very well how to play his "roll" well and is likely bringing Defy Pain to keep the mouths of players with less understanding of the game shut.