Guild Wars 2

…and I’m level 400 leatherworker and jewelry!

More specifically, I have spent time leveling up both of these, and have access to a bunch of recipes, but I don’t know what I’m making, why I’m making it, how to upgrade it, or what any of the features do.

For example, I wanted to make a new outfit for me and my girlfriend. I assumed that the best was the most costly, and so I poured a bunch of resources into making an exotic set for us both.

As with all clothing, I started by making an insignia.

The problem is, I really don’t understand what one insignia does over another. Hey seem to all result in the same ugly looking gear so that can’t be it. I realize they have different stats, but because I really don’t understand how the stats work together, or which ones are best for our characters, I just made whatever.

So, I mailed off the set to my girlfriend (which she quickly trams mutated), and started looking at my own. It turns out that most of the gear I’ve picked up in my travels is equal to, or better than the best exotic stuff I can make.

So, I now have a set sitting in my inventory. Which brings us to my second issue.

I have no idea how upgrades work. I finally realized the other day that if I add two of the same upgrades to my armor, it will give me the next “feature” on the list. I have no idea if this is a good thing to do, what upgrades are beneficial for me to add, or how to attain more of the same.

So, in the end I’m really quite lost. I’ve spent a lot of time gathering and purchasing materials, but in the end it seems like I can’t even create armor that is better than the stuff I found. I don’t know how to get different styles, better stats, or how to apply the correct upgrades.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, I’m a double dagger thief, and my girlfriend is a double pistol engineer.

Thanks,

CLM

Oh…I’ll add the same goes for jewelry. I made a bunch yesterday and ended up just selling them because the random stuff I picked up was better. I also have no idea which upgrades to add.

The armor you wear should complement the build (traits) you are using. You should start by gaining an understanding of what all the stats in the armor mean and then decide which one works best with your play style.
Not having a high level thief or engineer myself the advice i can give you is pretty limited, maybe you should try the thief and engineer forums for some more in depth advice.
If you have exotic armor already from karma or dungeon tokens, the crafted sets won’t give you any stat advantage over those, they are there if you are looking for a particular set of stats to run with.

Gear can be made in several varieties, and each type has different kinds of stats.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature

These items can then be further upgraded by adding a Rune or Orb. Orbs have the same kind of stat grouping that gear does, but Runes add various other abilities depending on how many of that kind of Rune you have equipped at once.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune

The stats from your gear, the stats/effects from upgrades, and the stats/effects from your traits combine with your chosen weapon and utility skills to form your “Build.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute

There’s a basic breakdown of what each stat does, and why you’d want it. As for your “Build,” it can be as complex or simple as you like. Builds with interesting little tricks baked into them because of how their effects combine have what’s called “Synergy.”

For example, Engineers can equip the Medkit whenever they want and it counts as a “Heal Skill.” Superior Rune of the Adventurer has an effect, when you have 6 of them equipped, that reads, "When you use a healing skill you gain 50% endurance. (Cooldown: 10s). Combine these together and you can easily get 50% endurance every 10 seconds. If you want more, then equip a Superior Sigil of Energy. This grants you more endurance when you weapon swap, and swapping to a toolkit (including Medkit) counts. If you need still more dodges, there’s a trait in Alchemy that grants you Vigor whenever you get Swiftness, and another trait in Tools (?) that grants you swiftness whenever you equip a toolkit. Add it all up and you get all your endurance back every 9-10 seconds, plus swiftness, plus vigor all from pressing 6 twice.

That’s not “the best” example of build synergy, but it’s only an example of what you’re looking for. There’s nothing bad about making a straightforward build that just hits things and heals, but half the fun of designing a build is finding the little hidden treasures inside the different stat combinations.

For the above Engineer build, since we’re focusing on maximum dodge power, we might design armor that is high in offensive stats (such as Berserker’s) and trust that we can dodge anything that comes at us. If we wanted to be extra durable, we could aim for Knights and depend on the Toughness to help take a few extra hits. If we wanted to use pistols, we might go for something like Rampager’s or Carrion for the condition damage since pistols put out loads of conditions. It’s really up to you, though. It’s your toon, so build it how you want.

If you’re not having fun then you’re doing it wrong.

Thanks for the replies.

I’m having fun, but I also feel like I’m wasting a lot of time and resources making builds without ryhme or reason.

Because I don’t really understand every aspect of how the different parts work together, I’ve really just created a mish mash armor base on whatever I can build/salvage/afford. It seems to be working for me (except in dungeons), in PvE for the most part, but I still feel like I’m doing something wrong…or if not wrong, just ignorantly.

I’ll take a look at your links and see if I can make some sense of it. Do you guys know of any sites that have pre made builds outlined? It might be easier for me if I can see a build or two that work really well, and then reverse engineer it to understand why.

Welcome Crazylegsmurphy, you’ve come to a good place to get help. I wanted to chime in and offer up a few suggestions for general effectiveness. First, to answer your question about builds: Each sub-forum has a sticky “share your build” thread. I’ve linked the thief forum’s thread below. It’s a good place to start because people will in general, explain the build, how it works, and you will frequently find good discussion about the builds posted.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Post-Your-Build-Thread/first#post206151

To gear itself, there are a few things I wanted to suggest / point out that are good starting points. As you get better at the game, and more refined, you will start to develop some builds and gear choices of your own.

#1: Exotic Armor. You commented that the armor you can craft is not better than the armor you can find elsewhere and this is true. All lvl 80 exotic armor shares the same quality. You can get the same stats of armor you can craft for dungeon tokens. Some combinations of stats are only available for Karma, but the armor is no better and no worse than what you get elsewhere.

#2: Choosing Stats. Here, I will speak only to the thief as I do not play an engineer (though my fiancee does.) The current trend for thieves is to focus on Berserker stats (+Power / +Precision / + Critical Damage), though there are certainly other options. The goal here is to hit hard, and Precision ups your critical rate, the power makes you hit harder in general, and when you crit (which will be often) it hits even harder. This is also referred to as ‘glass cannon’ because you hit hard & break easy. A Thief is built on hit / run, with lots of mobility and stealth to escape, so it tends to work well. Again, it’s not the only method, but it is a fairly straight forward one.

#3: Runes. I suggest starting with something that is both simple and straight forward. You can craft Superior runes of both The Thief & The Engineer. Honestly though, you could also just buy them. You want 6 of them, one for each piece of armor to get the full bonuses from the runes. There are other ways to go, and I suggest browsing the list of runes that PinCushion linked to see if any hold more appeal, but when getting started, using the rune set named for your profession generally works.

#4: As a jeweler, you can craft items with the same general stats as the armor you craft. To mirror Berserker stats, you would want to craft jewelry with Rubies.

The game has an overwhelming (at times) amount of depth and flexibility, take your time, and don’t ever worry that you’ve gone down a wrong path or wasted things. If you craft a Berserker set and decide later that you want something that’s tankier, keep the ‘zerker set for when you want that much offence, and build a 2nd armor set that suits those needs. My thief has 1 set that is 50% Berserker / 50% Rampager and a 2nd set that came from one of the temples in Orr. My temple armor gets dragged out for dungeons and WvW where I like to be able to take a bit more damage, but for all my open world event farming, it’s all about offence.

I hope that helps, and as always, happy crafting!

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Thanks for the replies.

I’m having fun, but I also feel like I’m wasting a lot of time and resources making builds without ryhme or reason.

Because I don’t really understand every aspect of how the different parts work together, I’ve really just created a mish mash armor base on whatever I can build/salvage/afford. It seems to be working for me (except in dungeons), in PvE for the most part, but I still feel like I’m doing something wrong…or if not wrong, just ignorantly.

I’ll take a look at your links and see if I can make some sense of it. Do you guys know of any sites that have pre made builds outlined? It might be easier for me if I can see a build or two that work really well, and then reverse engineer it to understand why.

What I did to save money when I was still testing things out on my Elementalist was to buy/craft Masterwork (green) or Rare (yellow) armor and weapons for the build and try it out for a few days while I made a few minor tweaks. Also, I’ll often go to the Mists PVP Lobby and change things around to try out new combos or test damage output for different traits/runes/sigils/whatever. Respeccing and Regearing are all free in the lobby, and fighting the golems and test NPCs there will give you an idea of how well your build will work in actual gameplay.

There is a very simple way to go about all of your questions in learning stats and traits. Go to pvp, and play with everything, it’s all unlocked, use practice areas to test your build, fight the golems to test your defenses. Learn about basic combos with your girlfriend, put down a field and use a blast finisher or combo finisher and see how they work. Discovery is half the fun and the rest just makes you a better player, the 2 of you working together, using the right gear for your build and comboing well off each other will make you a powerhouse team in practically any dungeon.