The cash shop in the game is not pay to win in any way, first of all every single item in the cash shop can be won/looted randomly from events/mobs, and it's either looks or very little boosts that work for no more than 45minutes, also anet has in-game gold-to-gems (which are the currency of the cash shop) so you can buy the gems using your gold in a legit way, which is keeping the economy balanced all the time, you won't find like in other games people charging 10$ worth of gems to sell it for crazy amounts of gold like other mmos, I've bought the game after they opened purchasing by 2minutes (was spamming F5 then it got crazy laggy from all people buying it), not once have I regret doing that