Guild Wars 2

Hello, I’m here with another informative post to help out the guildwars 2 community.

My last topic here was a post on how to earn gold.

It seems people still are having an issue with gold, so I thought I would help out.

Today’s topic is how to avoid a reliance on gold. a slightly different theme. How to take a character from level 1, and get to level 80 whilst decked out in ideal gear whilst needing an amount of gold so small that you’ll naturally gain 10x the amount you need.

You will mainly be using other forums of currency, such as karma and dungeon tokens, but you’ll see throughout the guide.

First, I would like to introduce you to Amder.

http://i.imgur.com/WFqrQ.jpg

Amder is my lastest level 80 and my current work in progress. I have not moved one coin from my elementalist to my thief at all.

I’m going to outline how I’ve geared him to the point where he’s at now, and what I will do to continue. I will also list alternatives that you can do as well.

This is his current gear:

http://i.imgur.com/GA7fw.jpg

Now, for the guide.

Leveling

One of the great things about Guildwars 2 is that pretty much everything awards you with experience. Crafting, world completion, WvW, exploring and doing dynamic events, dungeons, etc.

I started out with basic map exploration. Doing dynamic events, hearts, and map completion in Metrica Province. I then moved on to the next area. I also poked my head around WvW a lot as well. When I got to level 30 I did a bit of crafting that got me a few levels, did some WvW and I was soon level 35.

At level 35 I started doing Ascalonian Catacombs explorable mode. A complete path gave me enough experience to level up almost every single time. Not only that but I made a good amount of coin as well as tokens from there. From there I continued doing dungeons as well as WvW. When I hit level 70 I used a small amount of the coins I had obtained and some karma to max out my cooking, for level 80.

Alternatives As I mentioned, just about everything gives experience. You can continue with map completion (it’s how I leveled my ele) You can do dynamic events, hell you can stay in WvW until level 80 if you wish.

Gearing up while leveling

For these levels it’s important to remember one thing. You do not need anything better than masterwork gear whist leveling. What I did was every 10 levels I would buy masterwork gear off the trading post for a pittance. At this point unless you’re using waypoints everywhere you go or buying a ton of gems or something, you should have no issues upgrading your gear every 10 levels.

So you’ve hit 80

Great, congratulations. You are now level 80, give yourself a pat on the back.

Now it’s time to work on gearing up. As promised, this guide will show you how to do so while using a minimal amount of gold.

Armor

Dungeons

This is where a lot of people think you need gold, this is where a lot of people are wrong. As I was leveling my ele I realized something, I couldn’t buy Power/Toughness/Vitality gear, it wasn’t an option. So I started farming AC. I’ve since learnt that, if you’re patient, dungeons are by far the best method to getting exotic armor.

First, pick the stats you want. Then find which vendors offer those stats. Then preview the armor to see which skin you want.

In the case of Amder, I realized I want to build him with berserker’s gear, Power/Precision/Critical damage. After previewing the various gears, I realized that Arah gear was the best option for me, since it offered beserker’s stats and the best looking medium armor in my opinion. If you want you can farm 2 sets, one with the stats you want, and another with the skins you want. By the time you have all the tokens needed, you’ll have more than enough gold to get fine transmutation stones.

Alternatives

Karma:

In orr you can purchase exotic armor from karma vendors for 42k karma. This will require the temple to be uncontested for you to purchase, so you may need to be patient. If necessary, you can get your guild to try to help you clear the temples.

more information can be found here
http://dulfy.net/2012/09/08/gw2-templegod-karma-armor-sets/

WvW :

Exotics can be purchased from WvW vendors for badges of honor. If you run the jumping puzzles you can get it in a fairly short amount of time. Note that these gears have a small range of stats available.

Weapons

Dungeons is your best option here, by far, same as the armor, look around to find the stats you want, and the skins you want.

You can also get the weapons from WvW. Or you might get them to drop from fractals but I wouldn’t count on the one you need dropping.

Runes/Sigils

Now, this is where you’ll need gold. However as long as you didn’t blow your gold on pointless stuff, then you’ll have made enough gold from running dungeons, wvw, or getting karma to buy the runes and sigils you want 10 times over.

Accessories

First we’ll start with the rings.

You’ll want to head to fractals of the mists. Go on GW2lfg.com if you need helping getting a group started. Soon you should be level 10. Now once a day you can do a level 10 fractal run, at the end you’ll get a bonus chest that has a chance of giving an ascended ring. Didn’t get a ring? No worries, you now get a pristine fractal relic, if you save up 10 of them you can exchange them for a ring. It’s just a simple matter of doing the daily and picking the ring with the stats you want.

Within no time, you should have 2 ascended rings.

Backpiece:

Now while you were getting those rings you more than likely got a lot of fractal relics. The back you want to start with is one of the exotic ones that you can buy with relics. 1350 seems like a lot, but it’s really not. If you do a level 10 and a level 8 daily each day, then in 2 weeks you should have enough relics to buy an exotic back.

Then you’ll want to get another 500 relics. A couple more days of the dailys should be enough to get the 500 you need. Take the relics that you get and buy a gift of ascension. Take the gift, along with your exotic back, a vial of condensed mists essence, and skill point items (crystals of philo stones) and put them in the mystic forge. You now have an ascended back, and it didn’t cost you 1 copper.

So now that just leaves the amulet, and the earrings. You’ll have to buy these. By the time you have gotten your rings/back you’ll have gotten enough gold from fractals to buy these 20 times over, gold shouldn’t be an issue here.

So, now you’re level 80. and ideally geared, and what have you had to buy?

Your runes, your sigils. Your necklace, your earrings. Oh and trait books.

Depending on which ones you want, your grand total should be less than 25 gold. Meanwhile in the process of completing dungeons, dynamic events, wvw, and fractals to get your gear, you should easily have double that.

Hope this helps, I’ll be adding to it.

CassieGold.7460:

I see that there is some resistance to the notion of doing Dungeons for enough tokens to get armor and wanted to offer an alternative with a method to make life a little easier:

Karma Armor from Orr:
For many people, the notion of getting Karma armor seems like an invitation to grind DEs until DR kicks in and then wander on to a chain of missery that does not end for a goal that seems unobtainable. This does not have to happen.

How to get Karma Armor the easy way:
Step 1: Do the daily achievement every day. There are 2 things you’re looking to get out of this, the first one is the Jug of Karma, the second one is the Mystic Coin. Save both of these!

The daily achievement means you only need to do 5 events, and you can pick them up anywhere. If you’re down on Orr, it’s fast, but I find that I chain low level characters through DEs in Harathi Hinterlands or Sparkfly Fen frequently…. If you really need DEs for the daily, the lvl 1-15 zones have events up frequently, so you can always go back to pick up events there. Bonus, you will also get Karma from these events, at 300ish Karma per event, 5 events daily will net you 1500 Karma.

The daily achievement also requires you to gather. If you’ve hit 80, or are close, I encourage you to get mithril / orichalcum if able, and elder / ancient wood when available as well. Swing the pick and axe a few times and you’re set.

Step 2: Do the monthly achievement. Personally, I’m kind of fail at this one because I don’t WvW much. But, it’s worth it… 10 Jugs of Karma and 20 mystic coins, right there! Oh, and of course, you can get Karma and finish your events (maybe your gathers…) while doing WvW.

Step 3: (Optional) Obtain a Karma booster. If the gods of RNG have been kind to you, you may have gotten one as a reward from a daily, or a key from a daily and you’ve gotten one from a quest. For myself, I converted Gold -> Gems when I did this and it cost approx 1.3G at the time. If that feels like a lot, skip this step, it is OPTIONAL, but, if you look at 1.3g for a full set of exotic armor…. that’s cheaper than a single piece on the TP, so I call it a win.

How many jugs do you need? Well, a full set of exotic armor is 252,000 Karma, so now for the math:

1500 Karma per day for events X 30 days doing dailies = 45,000 Karma
4,500 per Jug from dailies X 30 days = 135,000 Karma
4,500 per Jug from the monthly x 10 jugs = 45,000 Karma

All that gets you 225,000 Karma, 5 more days of doing dailies for the Jugs will get you the rest that you need (1500 × 5 + 4500 x5) with a little to spare.

So, one month of doing nothing but logging on to do your daily and doing the monthly. Be out in the world, play the game, have fun! But wait…. remember that Karma booster? Here’s the math with the Karma booster:

1 Jug w/ booster = 6,750 Karma
23 Jugs from dailies = 155,250
10 Jugs from the monthly = 67,500
Karma from the 5 events x day = 34,500

Total Karma = 257,250, congrats, you’ll have a little left over and have earned a complete set of exotic armor in 23 days…. BTW, this can be further reduced with the guild karma boost and the guild karma banner allowing you to get over 7K karma per jug.

Of course, you may have more Karma in your starting pool, further reducing the number of Jugs needed.

The OP has already linked a great resource at Dulfy.net for figuring out which temple set you want, remember the looks are the same but the stats are different. Once you have the karma, keep an eye on Orr for the temple you want to open up, or, hang out down there and clear it yourself when able. GL and happy hunting!

Note: please do not spam this thread. Any posts along the lines of “lol anet wants you to spend real life cash” will be reported.

Reserved, this is where I will post updates showing the progress I make on gearing up Amder, to serve as an example.

TL:DR Run dungeons

We already know this, the problem isnt we dont know where the cash is the problem is there are people who belived the “play the way you want” credo who dont want to spend all day grinding dungeons or fractals for a descent return

Lutharr.1035:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Reserved.

Note: please do not spam this thread. Any posts along the lines of “lol anet wants you to spend real life cash” will be reported.

The fact that you have gone out of your way to make such a post is a credit to you (the OP that is) but ya let yourself down with the quoted statement in my view. Peoples opinons if they aint breaking the terms and conditions are not yours to censor, and threatening them with reports because you dont like it is kinda childish.

It is against the terms and conditions.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/forum-code-of-conduct/

“Do not spam. This includes bumping threads or making posts that lack content.”

A post of “lol anet wants you to spend real life cash” is completely void of content and offers no insight, no discussion and is no more than meaningless drivel.

Also in the ToS:

“Do not post petitions, “I demand an answer” threads, conspiracy threads, or comments about circumventing the rules.”

Saying that it’s all a conspiracy violates this rule as well.

This approach is correct and is how I’ve been gearing my characters.

You’re totally right about using masterwork for leveling, and this needs to be emphasized heavily. It’s only slightly worse than rare for maybe 5% of the cost.

cargan.5689:

TL:DR Run dungeons

We already know this, the problem isnt we dont know where the cash is the problem is there are people who belived the “play the way you want” credo who dont want to spend all day grinding dungeons or fractals for a descent return

Or world versus world.

Or dynamic events.

Or crafting. (which to be fair, I didn’t mention much of, guide isn’t fully complete)

to be fair alot of the time its cheaper to buy said items than craft em. Ya could sell the mats for more than the craft. Kinda sad the economy is like this.

Lutharr.1035:

to be fair alot of the time its cheaper to buy said items than craft em. Ya could sell the mats for more than the craft. Kinda sad the economy is like this.

That’s why the OP recommends dungeons for getting armor and weapons.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

cargan.5689:

TL:DR Run dungeons

We already know this, the problem isnt we dont know where the cash is the problem is there are people who belived the “play the way you want” credo who dont want to spend all day grinding dungeons or fractals for a descent return

Or world versus world.

Or dynamic events.

Or crafting. (which to be fair, I didn’t mention much of, guide isn’t fully complete)

400 in 5 crafts dabbled in the others maybe broke even on a few but no way to make money. Sure if i was lucky like the guy that threw 40 daggers at the forge and got dusk yea but knowing my luck it would be like the guy who sank 200 rare swords into the same pit for 0.

Dynamic events sure in october before the nerf bat hit every event that gave you more than porusbone and a few copper.

WvW havent done enough for a resonable comment on the drops.

This isn’t about making gold, this is about obtaining gear.

You can get exotics through WvW thanks to badges of honor.

You can get it through dynamic events from getting karma and using karma to buy exotics.

You can craft exotics.

How do you get the skill point item (crystal of philo)?

cargan.5689:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

cargan.5689:

TL:DR Run dungeons

We already know this, the problem isnt we dont know where the cash is the problem is there are people who belived the “play the way you want” credo who dont want to spend all day grinding dungeons or fractals for a descent return

Or world versus world.

Or dynamic events.

Or crafting. (which to be fair, I didn’t mention much of, guide isn’t fully complete)

400 in 5 crafts dabbled in the others maybe broke even on a few but no way to make money. Sure if i was lucky like the guy that threw 40 daggers at the forge and got dusk yea but knowing my luck it would be like the guy who sank 200 rare swords into the same pit for 0.

Dynamic events sure in october before the nerf bat hit every event that gave you more than porusbone and a few copper.

WvW havent done enough for a resonable comment on the drops.

There are few DE ya can frequent that can earn a fair bit of coin if you dont hit the DR. Ill not mention which cos Id hate for Anet to nurf these too. I pass the info on to guildies and hope that they stay in effect.

good mini guide. this method is very similar to how I got my warrior to 80 with full exotics sans dungeon running 2 months ago. I got world completion(solo)on the way to 80 and I ended up with near 70g by the time I finished. only bought greens every 6-10 levels and stayed out of wvw(enjoyed it with my guard). the whole process took me 2 weeks and I spent almost nothing. afterward I spent 15g buying mats to craft all my exotics.

it was very liberating knowing there was never a moment when I had to worry about how much coin I had.

Xav’s Guide to Not Needing Gold

1) Don’t make alts.

I totally fail at this step, and hence, if I wrote the rest of my guide, it’d be a complete fabrication.

Much better off learning how to make gold.
-In WvW, just run with the zerg. You make decent coin completing the events that are tied to both taking towers and defending them. Also, instead of buying siege, run the jump puzzles which gives siege blueprints as a reward.
-Harvest all possible resources. Even if you’re not into crafting there are hundreds of thousands of players who are. And while it might not seem like much to be selling copper for 10c or whatever, if you sell everything, it adds up pretty quick.
-Dungeon runs. Prolly the best return versus risk in the game.
-Fractals. Very good return once you get above level 10, albeit harder than normal dungeons
-Map completion of high level zones. You get 2 exotics. Those exotics will often have very valuable runes. You also get a pile of good crafting mats.

So while I suck at not needing gold, I’m really good at accumulating the gold I need to feed my altaholicism.

Lutharr.1035:

Peoples opinons if they aint breaking the terms and conditions are not yours to censor, and threatening them with reports because you dont like it is kinda childish.

but it kinda is. and i think my post and your post should be removed too.

it’s derailing the thread and going off topic. which is something they moderate very heavily here

Two words, one mission: Steel Tide

nuff said.

Thanks for the guide, many of us do need help with choices as the game it self isn’t always clear in terms of play direction.

Love the guide, I think more people need to see this sort of thing. I’m curious as to what you think about Mystic Weapons as a way to obtain exotic weapons. Depending on the weapon, the parts can often be crafted out of materials you gather along the way, depending on where you play, and they result in an exotic without needing Ecto, so you can avoid some of the RNG.

So basically: only run dungeons.

Sorry but in a game that wasn’t supposed to be dungeon focused, it’s still a problem to expect everyone to run dungeons. That aside, drops don’t occur universally the same way for everyone.

Second since Nov 16th on many servers no one is running anything BUT Fotm. Another flaw in your plan. You see. Fotm’s still have many an issue (DC’s etc) so people can’t run those right now or face getting disconnected during a critical fight and get nothing. AC also has this issue tho not as often. Once you are booted you can’t get back in until it’s fixed. My game crashes STILL to this day just from me teleporting to a far off waypoint from one of the cities, a bug i reported during BWE3. Had a computer tech that works on large company servers check my machine out because I was being told by support that it was my machine, it’s definitely not. So there’s bugs in the game that cause it to randomly crash for people and if you have that issue, you can’t run dungeons without a loss of both time and rewards.

Third, if you crafted cooking I can guarantee you that you spent money on something, whether it was standard precursor mats like sugar, flour, starch, or water you were also spending them on bank space in order to keep all of these precursors as no one is buying them from the TP at any size-able profits. I know I went thru it and got to 400.

And finally, the problem isn’t drops in general (altho i’ve heard reports from dungeoneers that drops in dungeons have been lowered considerably as well) the problem is open world drops have been nullified all in the name of stopping bots. Well they can detect them now so we’d like our drop rates back please. Not that this will fix that some people’s accounts either have really poor luck (which is impossible if they were using a truly R in their RNG system), has a permaDR setup somewhere where DR never expires and affects the entire account, there are bugs where the improved drops from Veterans/Champions never happens. There’s definitely something going on, that we’re not getting communication about.

So you’ve personally had good luck. Good for you but this guide doesn’t work when the game isn’t functioning properly as it should be and in the ways we were told both originally and recently that it should be functioning.

Giving people false hope to the people who have any of these problems I’ve listed, isn’t going to help their situations.

waste of time and effort

Cordlessjoe.2415:

waste of time and effort

dat post history …
no, seriously. please inform TS in what ways that comment helped the topic. I think it was a great guide and its very nice of him to make it. because if you are a new player u might not now much about leveling /how to gear your character once you dinged 80 or how to level the most efficient ( if that is what you want to do) it took me a while before i realized that those dungeon Armour pieces was just as good as any other exotic Armour. and if we are talking about waste of time and effort then you can consider yourself a victim to it as you apparently read it and bothered with commenting it. please, grow up or try and think before posting,

Very good guide OP, I used a similar approach and am very happy with the results. Running 3 or 4 paths in a dungeon for each armor piece may be a bit of work, but it isn’t excessively difficult and there is no RNG involved.

It is a very good guide OP and I don’t even run dungeons.
On my main I crafted my exotics to transmute over my Order Armor and that cost me a bundle.
Now on my alts I am feeling the bite since it took me ages to collect all the mats just for one exotic set.
Three of them will be hitting 80 roughly at the same time.

I have been saving gold and banking it to gear them but your way will be much cheaper
Ps I am a skin kitten

Well, if you are following this guide, why are you even gearing up? You’re going into dungeons undergeared, going into WvW undergeared, going into fractals undergeared, so obviously you don’t even need the gear, why spend so much time?

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Then you’ll want to get another 500 relics. A couple more days of the dailys should be enough to get the 500 you need. Take the relics that you get and buy a gift of ascension. Take the gift, along with your exotic back, a vial of condensed mists essence, and skill point items (crystals of philo stones) and put them in the mystic forge. You now have an ascended back, and it didn’t cost you 1 copper.

This part – is around 65-70G each time , it cost 250 globs of ecto for beta capacitor and the next one 250 ectos
- Please always use the TP to buy stuff, sighz so sad.

I really don’t understand the point of this post. It’s the most basic information, that anyone who has every played a online game already knows. “You don’t need gold to farm/grind.”

Then on top of that you follow it with posts basically saying " Do not post anything I dislike or I’ll find a way to report you." ruining any aspect of the post redeeming. Are we going to receive posts on how to name our characters next?

I respect the attempt, but we really do not need basic tutorials in gaming.

I actually use alot of blue stuff, and right now, im leveling two chars at the same time, a lvl 65 guard and a level 52 war. The reason being that I can “hand down” my blue mats to the lower levels after I’m done with them. Once I get these 2 to 80, i’ll start on my ele/mes duo to 80, and use the same tactic. Probably gonna level up tailoring on my ele/mes and artificer on the other.

To all the posters that say game isnt functioning as intended because he says to run dungeons, I ask you to think about this for a minute.

Max level gear (exotics, not counting backs/rings atm)
Has SEVERAL ways to be obtained
-Trading Post
-Mystic Toilet
-Crafting
-WvW
-Dungeons

His guide is on how to not spend gold, and in that sense, telling people if you want to be CHEAP you have to put in an alternate currency (time), then you should not be disagreeing with him or telling him that the game is broken. This is an example of working as intended.

Also, fotm is not the only dungeon being ran, I can get a group for any dungeon, including arah exp in a reasonable time frame. gw2lfg.com. It may not be an ingame tool (yet) but that doesnt mean you should refuse to use it either just because anet did not create it.

TL:DR
You dont have to run dungeons for max level gear,but it is the cheapest option to do so. Good job OP

Making gold so you can buy the (hopefully) often added new exciting treasures, is a major fun part of game play. And not everyone likes a overly challenging dungeon…especially when those dungeons involve dieing alot and running back.

I see that there is some resistance to the notion of doing Dungeons for enough tokens to get armor and wanted to offer an alternative with a method to make life a little easier:

Karma Armor from Orr:
For many people, the notion of getting Karma armor seems like an invitation to grind DEs until DR kicks in and then wander on to a chain of missery that does not end for a goal that seems unobtainable. This does not have to happen.

How to get Karma Armor the easy way:
Step 1: Do the daily achievement every day. There are 2 things you’re looking to get out of this, the first one is the Jug of Karma, the second one is the Mystic Coin. Save both of these!

The daily achievement means you only need to do 5 events, and you can pick them up anywhere. If you’re down on Orr, it’s fast, but I find that I chain low level characters through DEs in Harathi Hinterlands or Sparkfly Fen frequently…. If you really need DEs for the daily, the lvl 1-15 zones have events up frequently, so you can always go back to pick up events there. Bonus, you will also get Karma from these events, at 300ish Karma per event, 5 events daily will net you 1500 Karma.

The daily achievement also requires you to gather. If you’ve hit 80, or are close, I encourage you to get mithril / orichalcum if able, and elder / ancient wood when available as well. Swing the pick and axe a few times and you’re set.

Step 2: Do the monthly achievement. Personally, I’m kind of fail at this one because I don’t WvW much. But, it’s worth it… 10 Jugs of Karma and 20 mystic coins, right there! Oh, and of course, you can get Karma and finish your events (maybe your gathers…) while doing WvW.

Step 3: (Optional) Obtain a Karma booster. If the gods of RNG have been kind to you, you may have gotten one as a reward from a daily, or a key from a daily and you’ve gotten one from a quest. For myself, I converted Gold → Gems when I did this and it cost approx 1.3G at the time. If that feels like a lot, skip this step, it is OPTIONAL, but, if you look at 1.3g for a full set of exotic armor…. that’s cheaper than a single piece on the TP, so I call it a win.

How many jugs do you need? Well, a full set of exotic armor is 252,000 Karma, so now for the math:

1500 Karma per day for events X 30 days doing dailies = 45,000 Karma
4,500 per Jug from dailies X 30 days = 135,000 Karma
4,500 per Jug from the monthly x 10 jugs = 45,000 Karma

All that gets you 225,000 Karma, 5 more days of doing dailies for the Jugs will get you the rest that you need (1500 × 5 + 4500 x5) with a little to spare.

So, one month of doing nothing but logging on to do your daily and doing the monthly. Be out in the world, play the game, have fun! But wait…. remember that Karma booster? Here’s the math with the Karma booster:

1 Jug w/ booster = 6,750 Karma
23 Jugs from dailies = 155,250
10 Jugs from the monthly = 67,500
Karma from the 5 events x day = 34,500

Total Karma = 257,250, congrats, you’ll have a little left over and have earned a complete set of exotic armor in 23 days…. BTW, this can be further reduced with the guild karma boost and the guild karma banner allowing you to get over 7K karma per jug.

Of course, you may have more Karma in your starting pool, further reducing the number of Jugs needed.

The OP has already linked a great resource at Dulfy.net for figuring out which temple set you want, remember the looks are the same but the stats are different. Once you have the karma, keep an eye on Orr for the temple you want to open up, or, hang out down there and clear it yourself when able. GL and happy hunting!

zorifour.2173:

This part – is around 65-70G each time , it cost 250 globs of ecto for beta capacitor and the next one 250 ectos
- Please always use the TP to buy stuff, sighz so sad.

while this is correct, the OP was referring to a fully statted backpiece, which does not require it to be infused, as agony resistance does nothing for you in open world pve.

the 250 ecto only infuses the backpiece, which is not necessary unless you are going for fotm 30+

the OP is still correct in not having to spend a single copper.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Gearing up while leveling

For these levels it’s important to remember one thing. You do not need anything better than masterwork gear whist leveling. What I did was every 10 levels I would buy masterwork gear off the trading post for a pittance. At this point unless you’re using waypoints everywhere you go or buying a ton of gems or something, you should have no issues upgrading your gear every 10 levels.

I have not found this to be true. I only bought a set of armor from the TP one time, at lvl 45 when it was very cheap. Now I’m 65 and am not even close to being able to afford a full set (at about 2.5g), let alone a full set every 10 levels. I level by doing hearts and DE’s and the personal storyline.

Also, running AC is only good advice for someone who’s already run AC a lot. A new lvl 35ish player is not going to be very welcome in a group or be very confident and capable of forming their own group. Would you want to follow someone into a dungeon who’s never been there before?

Yaki.9563:

Would you want to follow someone into a dungeon who’s never been there before?

Yes, in the principle that we have all been new at some point, and everybody deserves a chance. I have probably around 900+ hours with my main and have not completed every explorable path for each dungeon yet. I consider myself “experienced” otherwise. Also, some players may have done all AC paths before, and may be trying them with an alt. I can’t relate with this rather elitist attitude that it’s “wrong” for people to be new and thus “slow down” experienced explorable paths runs.

I will always welcome players, experienced or otherwise, because I have been inexperienced before, and it would be ridiculous of me to expect perfection from somebody doing things for the first time. “All things have a right to grow”-including newbies.

Therefore, even for new players, learning to do the dungeons even as a non-level 80 character is quite an advantage and gold saver. I do not believe that it’s the one “best” way to acquire Exotics for EVERY player, but it’s a very good, money-saving option (time vs cost.)

what do you do if you don’t like farming dungeons?

jason.9217:

what do you do if you don’t like farming dungeons?

Save gold by following the OP’s guide while leveling the character and then you will have enough gold + mats to buy/craft some exotics if you supplement with karma armor.

I geared up my first 80 without using dungeons.

Yaki.9563:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Gearing up while leveling

For these levels it’s important to remember one thing. You do not need anything better than masterwork gear whist leveling. What I did was every 10 levels I would buy masterwork gear off the trading post for a pittance. At this point unless you’re using waypoints everywhere you go or buying a ton of gems or something, you should have no issues upgrading your gear every 10 levels.

I have not found this to be true. I only bought a set of armor from the TP one time, at lvl 45 when it was very cheap. Now I’m 65 and am not even close to being able to afford a full set (at about 2.5g), let alone a full set every 10 levels. I level by doing hearts and DE’s and the personal storyline.

Also, running AC is only good advice for someone who’s already run AC a lot. A new lvl 35ish player is not going to be very welcome in a group or be very confident and capable of forming their own group. Would you want to follow someone into a dungeon who’s never been there before?

Masterwork = Green

Use green items. They are extremely cheap at all levels. They are only slightly worse than Rare (yellow) items.

This is the most important thing to realize while leveling. Use greens.

jason.9217:

what do you do if you don’t like farming dungeons?

like me hey?

While I loved the OP I don’t really do dungeons since I have a 5 year old.
I do dailies and save up karma, I also have 400 tailoring, chef, jeweler.
So I make the gear I can for my alts with mats that my alts gather, I figure they can at least supply the mats for gear I make for them. My husband has weaponsmith and leather worker, so we help each other out

But mostly what I do is bank all money except traveling costs- leveling alts, I find enough blue and green drops to tide me since you swap gear about every 5 lvls, so I don’t waste money trying to gear them, instead I plan ahead and save for when they hit 80, either gold or karma depending on what I want.

I find personal story also useful for gearing while leveling unless you get a totally useless reward like gathering tools or food.

At 80 it is a different story of course. I love order armor and for my Sylvari I want the tier 2 (she already has tier 1).
I might just do the temple runs for the stats I want , since I find them really fun and transmute the skins to what I want. Crafting some pieces is an option but has become really expensive if you don’t have the mats.
My husband spent 7g last week crafting 3 pieces.

tigirius.9014:

So basically: only run dungeons.

Sorry but in a game that wasn’t supposed to be dungeon focused, it’s still a problem to expect everyone to run dungeons. That aside, drops don’t occur universally the same way for everyone.

I’ve listed several alternatives such as karma vendors in Orr, and WvW. Please read the guide before commenting.

Yaki.9563:

I have not found this to be true. I only bought a set of armor from the TP one time, at lvl 45 when it was very cheap. Now I’m 65 and am not even close to being able to afford a full set (at about 2.5g), let alone a full set every 10 levels. I level by doing hearts and DE’s and the personal storyline.

What masterworks are you buying that cost 2.5 gold for a full set?

jason.9217:

what do you do if you don’t like farming dungeons?

Then you read the rest of the guide that mentions alternatives.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Yaki.9563:

I have not found this to be true. I only bought a set of armor from the TP one time, at lvl 45 when it was very cheap. Now I’m 65 and am not even close to being able to afford a full set (at about 2.5g), let alone a full set every 10 levels. I level by doing hearts and DE’s and the personal storyline.

What masterworks are you buying that cost 2.5 gold for a full set?

My mistake, I confused rare and masterwork.

if you are willing to do dungeons sure you won’t need gold. Dungeons are freaking boring as hell because you spend hrs trying to get a gp together and when you have a gp you have 50% chance that someone will suck in the gp and you end up wiping. I rather spend real money to buy fake gold than doing dungeon as pug.
That being said it’s so easy to level in GW2 there really is no pt buying sets of geat until you hit 80. Just buy a few pieces of green with karma as you level up it’s more than good enough to get you by.

So, they took out Platinum, one of the many features that made Guild Wars seem slightly different than your standard mmo coaster-ware.

The best way to make gold is to buy gems → convert to gold. p2w

Nayru.4537:

The best way to make gold is to buy gems -> convert to gold. p2w

That’s not relevant to the topic at hand.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Nayru.4537:

The best way to make gold is to buy gems -> convert to gold. p2w

That’s not relevant to the topic at hand.

Yeah it is.

So the answer is???

Grind dungeons for nothing but cash, never buy anything, never port – just run, don’t craft, and finally… pray from a event precursor?

What do I win?

Long post… but worth the read… I promise.

This OP’s title is misleading and simply isn’t true. You’ll need gold at some point… even if you do dung’s… you might not need to buy gold… but you’ll certainly need a decent amount of it.

The major cost that seems to have been forgotten… runes. Yes you can get some pretty rubbish ones from the dung’s themselves for free (if you’re lucky). Orbs are an option but are inferior to good rune sets. Lets be honest… to be optimally geared… sorry… but you’ll have to spend some gold… and they’ll probably run you a couple gold… each.

Also you’ll need some gold to get some exotic necks/earrings… don’t try to farm the mats yourself… it’ll take you quite a while to get all 5 of the same type of orb you’ll need… for just one of your jewelries. You can get Power/vit/tough jewelry from pvp, but that’ll take ages and those are the only stats you can get. Then you’ll still need to get something to put inside of the slot on them. It’s far easier and better to just get the gold and get exactly what you want.

You can get the ecto’s for the jewelry from salvaging 68+ rares (which you’ll need gold to buy unless you get lucky on your daily and get a free 25 stack of black lion kits… but that’s pretty kitten rare). Dung’s might provide enough rares to salvage, but if you’re not lucky…

Sigils… you can get some 5% damage ones from your story quest items (they are in some of the greens they give you near the end)… so you’ll need to buy some more nice kits to try to get them out. If you more than those… or you’re unlucky and you don’t get the sigils out with your kit… you’ll need to buy some.

You’ll also need some gold for your trait books.

Protips…

Use orders to buy everything. Don’t pay “retail”

Don’t sell things at a loss. Make sure you’re at least getting something decent over NPC cost (the TP will tell you the projected profit).

Do not fill orders unless it is very close to the “retail” price. Instead undercut the lowest seller by 1 copper.

Some level 80 crafted items (including exotic jewelry) cost for more than would cost you to get the mats and make yourself… other final products cost less than the mats it took to make them. Check gw2spidy to see which way is less expensive.

While leveling up buy blues that cost 1c over npc price. Update them regularly. Npc them after… and you’re out all of 1c/item. Greens aren’t superior for that many levels and cost much more. This will help you save karma for your karma gear later if you choose to do that as well. Note Iirc… Karma gear has limited in its selection of stats on the gear. There are certain stat combinations you just can’t get from Karma gear (such as knight’s gear stats).

Try to use karma to buy your gathering tools. Specific heart NPC’s sell them for karma. This is one of the few ways left of turning karma->gold without a massive karma loss and not much gold gain.

If you’re trying to save $… don’t do crafting. You’ll lose a lot of potential gold just on making those inscriptions vs. just selling the raw mats until you’re pretty far into the profession. Even at 400 most things will still be a net loss or just break even.

So “play the way you want” has been totally dropped from this game and changed to “Farm dungeons 24/7 to get end game gear”?

Sounds very much like another MMO 99% of the population seems to have come from…

I agree if you want to enjoy content outside of the dungeon grind you must buy Gems to make Gold, sadly its pretty simple and not real fun..its not even a mmo reborn every Free to play MMO made works like this game..