Guild Wars 2

The title is pretty self explanatory. Many, many people hate Fractals.

Will grinding them be the ONLY way to acquire one? (Different skins – not the one pictured). If so, why?

Will we be able to acquire one based around other game modes – WvW, PVP, PvE, etc?

Only time will tell.

To be honest, we don’t even know how weighted the back piece will be; they do say that it will involve doing things inside and outside of fractals:

“A guide will appear in Mistlock Observatory to help point players in the direction of new types of challenges, timed boss encounters, and collections of items to obtain both inside and outside of the fractals.”

So as to how each of those elements are weighted, we don’t know. For all we know, there could be only 5 elements to the back piece that require doing things within a fractal, and then 2,500 other things that we have to do outside of a fractal. It could even already involve doing things in other game modes, such as WvW or PVP.

As for whether or not there might be future legendary backpieces found through other means, I find it almost certain, but that is my optimistic thinking.