Guild Wars 2

Ok, I now have three level 80 characters, but they are still pretty raw. A couple of them don’t even have all Level 80 gear, let alone anything like exotic level 80 gear.

Anyway, I’m looking for the best way to get Level 80 exotic gear with the resources I have.

I’ve got 800,000 Karma, 65 gold, 120 laurels, and all three characters have various crafting skills in the 200 skill range. I also own the Heart of Thorns expansion.

Someone suggested karma vendors in Orr. Is there are particular map in Orr I should focus first?

Should I just skip Orr and start doing Fractals? Should I skip all that and start doing HoT stuff?

Just a nudge in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Get exotic for HoT maps. Old Orr maps rare are very good so if you want karma or gold you could do event farms in the old Orr maps and then get the karma armour as you go. Read the wiki pages on karma armour so you get the set you want. All temples have different stats available.
Fractals exotic work fine until level 20, then need ascended rings and such, then armour for high level fractals. Laurels can buy jewelry at ascended level so not a huge issue.

You won’t have enough laurels to equip all your toons- welcome to time gated content.

Do dungeons for gear, or Orr temples, depending on the stats you want.

Do low level fractals for the ascended rings, no one will likely notice that you’re in the lower level gears.

Take out card, purchase gems, convert to gold, buy materials, craft ascended or buy an exotic set.

Remember if you have to choose, do the weapon first before armor.

Don’t bother with the pay cash for gold unless you have zero self control.

You can get karma easily by doing Tequatl if you want as well.

If you need berserkers armor (Which is most common) you can buy it of exotic quality after the temple of Grenth is cleared in Orr. It costs 44K karma for each piece I think.

Exotic armour from karma merchants at 42k per piece. Choose your stats:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temple_armor

Most other stuff (rings etc) from laurel merchant in LA.

Get lucky with ascended weapon from a boss on only the second attempt. Well, it worked for me…

Equipment in this game is a bit different to a lot of others, in particular because all equipment with the same rarity and level requirement is equally good and most attribute combinations are available in a variety of ways. There also aren’t any ‘set bonuses’ for wearing pieces from the same source (those are provided through runes, which can be applied to any equipment with the right level requirement).

Which means there’s not really any sense in ‘skipping’ karma gear to focus on dungeons or aiming to get exotics from HoT instead of the core game because the end result will be the same. Unless that’s the only way to get the attributes you want. (See below.)

It also means if you can’t afford to get a full set through one method you can mix and match, for example buying 1/2 of it with gold and 1/2 with karma, without worrying about some pieces being worse than others.

If you just want level 80 exotics and don’t care what the attributes are then you can buy them very cheaply from the Trading Post, or get them from any of the Temples in Orr – you don’t have to complete the map, just find one where the karma vendor is there and you can buy it. The Temple of Balthazar in Straits of Devastation is the easiest to get to.

But if you want to make sure you’re getting a set which is actually useful for your character it’s a bit more complicated (although still quite quick), see below.

Step 1: Choose your attributes

(If you already know what attributes you want you can skip this step.)

This wiki is very helpful with this step: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature (I can never remember the name of this page but you can get to it by searching for prefix, suffix or the name of any of the sets, like Knight’s or Beserkers.)

Ignore the single and dual attribute sets because those aren’t available at level 80. Decide which of the triple or quadruple attribute sets is best for your build. Remember you can also mix and match sets to achieve different results (although that can get complicated) and you can use runes to boost certain stats if you can’t get the result you want purely through weapons and armor.

If you have no idea what to choose that’s a whole other topic, but here’s some examples:

• Pure Damage: Beserkers (Power, Precision, Ferocity)
• Some Defense: Knights (Toughness, Power, Precision)
• Condition Builds: Rabid (Condition Damage, Precision, Toughness) or Sinister (Condition Damage, Power, Precision)
• Ele: Celestial (Small boost to all stats)

Step 2: Find out where they’re available

Check out this page (which is linked from the one above): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats

Scroll down to find the name of the set you want in the table and that will tell you which options are actually available for that set (e.g. if you wanted Sinister equipment then you’d have to craft it or buy it from the Trading Post).

(Remember that crafted or looted equipment and some of the stuff from the Mystic Forge can also be bought on the Trading Post).

The pages linked in the legend above the table give more details, they’ll tell you which specific karma vendor or dungeon you can get them from, or what you’ll need to craft them.

Step 3: Go get it

Then it’s just a matter of doing it. Some are much easier than others but none of them are hugely difficult. Certainly easier than in some games where I know people who have been running the same dungeon every day for months hoping to get the pieces they need, only to see them assigned to another player if they do happen to drop.

Important note: Trinkets

Since you have 120 laurels I’d recommend getting ascended trinkets (rings, accessories and amulets) from the laurel vendor instead of using exotics. They have better stats and if you’ve got the laurels they’re easy to get. If you have Badges of Honor (which you get from WvW and achievement chests) you can get them slightly cheaper from the WvW vendor.

Wow! Thanks for the great responses.

1. I do have Exotic Weapons. I have a Staff (daredevil) and Short Bow w/ Superior Sigils

2. I managed to make it to the Cathedral of Silence in Cursed Shore and found the Rubicon Berserkers gear for my Daredevil.

a. I haven’t bought it yet because I feel a little too “squishy” at the moment. I even died a couple times getting through the Straits of Devastation and Malchor’s Leap.

3. I’ll check out the Laurel vendor in LA for Amulet and Rings.

Thanks again for all the help!

I’m not entirely sure, but if you do HoT personal story, you might get a few exotic gear which you can pick stats. So you can get some free exotic gear.

Use your laurels for ascended amulet and skip exotic all together. If you have some wvw badges (250 per amulet iirc), go to the laurel vendor in wvw and save 10 laurel per amulet.

Next I would get to the 1st hot zone (Verdant Brink) and join the meta there and work towards bladed exotic armor (look for maps that are trying to get tier 4 pregression on the meta in the lfg tool). You would get daily rares from learning to get gold on the adventures, and a lot of the achievements/collections you unlock will give out exotic gear (loads of accessories).

Some general advice on the side, I would recommend joining in on any newly released open world pve content that you can when its fresh. The early swarm of players provides a kind of wave that any under-geared player can effectively ride and get good loot while discovering the zone and learning the content. Later when people have moved on and the zones are less regularly full it can be a harder job to get a grasp of the zone, especially when not in the best gear.

Do NOT buy (ascended) rings for Laurels thats a waste of good laurels. You will swim in ascended rings as soon as you do fractals.
Ascended jewelery you best get:

• Amulet for laurels in LA (or less laurels and some bagdes of Honor (BoH) in WvW/EotM)
• Rings from Fractals (Do your fractal dailies in 1-20)
• Accessoires from Guild Mission Rewards (Join a large guild and do the weekly Guild missions with them)

Backpack in ascended is very expensive, Soldier-Exo-Backpack (for 42k karma) you get from Grenth Temple in Cursed Shore (or craft with 400 crafting)

For Exotic Armor look into the TP, some are as cheap as 40s.

Exotic Weapons you can get easily from PvP-Reward tracks (if you just do your PvP-Dailies you get one every 2-3 days), or dungeon rewards (or 1g plus some BoH in WvW/EotM)

Map-completion of Lvl 70-80 areas gives you 2 exotics as reward per map.

ill answer your “how to get exotic gear” question,after which ill answer your “what part of the game should i play next”.

1) Where to get exotic gear

First you should ask your self what exotic gear stats do you need.
But lets say you need a basic set of zerker armor ,here are your options

1)Karma armor in orr, 42k karma/piece
They come in a few different stats so check http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temple_armor where the specific npc with your stat type is located. There are also exotic trinkets available.

2)WvW Badges armor in any borderlands.

These are sold for a small amount of gold +wvw badges. Look for a armorsmith in your starting area outpost. Note that the armor npc offers different armor that scales with your level and exotic stuff come only after lvl 80.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor_Master

3) Crafted exotic armor
You could invest your materials and gold to raise your armor crafting up to 400 in order to craft your own exotic armor set. They can also be bought from the trading post and getting it that way might be much cheaper.

Search for Draconic (heavy), Emblazoned (Medium) and Exalted (light) for crafted exotics.

NOTE: There are also lvl 80 exotic gear that comes from mobs and drops, sometimes they are cheaper than the crafted ones even tho they have the same stats (mob droped exotics also come with a superior rune) so be sure to check prices.

4) Ascended trinkets

Sometimes buying specific exotic trinkets can be expensive. You might wish to buy ascended trinkets instead.

However you should know that there are several different ways to get the same pieces, and you can potentially save time ,gold and laurels.

My suggestion:
-2 rings from guild commendation NPC (participate in your guild missions to get commendations (costs 10gold and 24 commendations. You save 80 Laurels and 100ectos)
-1 amulet form wvw laurel vendor (costs 250 badges and 20 laurels. You save 10 laurels)
-2 accessories from wvw laurel vendor (total cost 500badges and 50 laurels. You save 20 laurels

NOTE: You cant use 2 identical ascended trinkets at the same time. You cant use 2 royal signets.
NOTE: Ascended gear is account bound. You can put it in bank and use it on other chars.

@Vulkorep: You mixed up ascended rings and accessories, didn’t you?

Still rings are cheapest from fractals.