Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire is the second Guild Wars 2 DLC that adds quite a lot and where Arenanet seem to finally finalize their footing and style to greatest effect. While I can't personally say Path of Fire is my favorite part of the game, it does hold it's own in many aspects, at the expense of making the story a little garbled and biting off more than it can chew.
Gameplay wise, we have another new set of specializations, they are good, solid, overall a great time. We also have a continuation of the style of events from Heart of Thorns which find themselves here, and work quite well in their own right, but I don't think they feel nearly as unique or interesting as the one's presented in the previous DLC. Where the new DLC really shows up is in it's introduction of mounts, which are downright the best mounts in MMOs, period. They have the most fun traversal methods and they really outshine most others in game context. This does however make Gliders feel a touch useless in a majority of instances, and the best mounts (Griffon and Skyscale) are time-locked and achievement-locked which (in the case of Skyscale) can take up to weeks of work to unlock and use. Otherwise though the gameplay front is solid, it compliments the introduction of aspects from HoT, and then continues to push those forward to middling success.
Story is where I think this fumbles the ball a bit, Living World Season 3 was a good opener, but the DLC of Path of Fire is a little too all-over-the-place. The main selling point (fighting a god) is underplayed and not incredibly well executed, along with half the plot feeling dedicated to an entirely separate story that was seldom explained would be in the DLC. Simply put, Path of Fire has some of the best individual moments, but feels like it overplays it's hand quite often, being overwhelmingly diverse to the point of confusion in some aspects, and not fully fleshing out any major beats for the story. It works, but not the same extent that HoT or even the Main Game does. It's still fun and has some of the best gameplay sections in the game, but it doesn't really live up to the storytelling standard that was set in the previous expansion.
TLDR: Overall another great addition that has it's moments, but also falters a little too often to fully praise. Bundling it with HoT was a smart decision. It really only is a requirement due to it's new introduction of mounts and expanding the mastery system, but it doesn't fully succeed in continuing the story to the same quality, being a little all-over-the-place.
Gameplay wise, we have another new set of specializations, they are good, solid, overall a great time. We also have a continuation of the style of events from Heart of Thorns which find themselves here, and work quite well in their own right, but I don't think they feel nearly as unique or interesting as the one's presented in the previous DLC. Where the new DLC really shows up is in it's introduction of mounts, which are downright the best mounts in MMOs, period. They have the most fun traversal methods and they really outshine most others in game context. This does however make Gliders feel a touch useless in a majority of instances, and the best mounts (Griffon and Skyscale) are time-locked and achievement-locked which (in the case of Skyscale) can take up to weeks of work to unlock and use. Otherwise though the gameplay front is solid, it compliments the introduction of aspects from HoT, and then continues to push those forward to middling success.
Story is where I think this fumbles the ball a bit, Living World Season 3 was a good opener, but the DLC of Path of Fire is a little too all-over-the-place. The main selling point (fighting a god) is underplayed and not incredibly well executed, along with half the plot feeling dedicated to an entirely separate story that was seldom explained would be in the DLC. Simply put, Path of Fire has some of the best individual moments, but feels like it overplays it's hand quite often, being overwhelmingly diverse to the point of confusion in some aspects, and not fully fleshing out any major beats for the story. It works, but not the same extent that HoT or even the Main Game does. It's still fun and has some of the best gameplay sections in the game, but it doesn't really live up to the storytelling standard that was set in the previous expansion.
TLDR: Overall another great addition that has it's moments, but also falters a little too often to fully praise. Bundling it with HoT was a smart decision. It really only is a requirement due to it's new introduction of mounts and expanding the mastery system, but it doesn't fully succeed in continuing the story to the same quality, being a little all-over-the-place.