Guild Wars 2

So my Guardian is almost lvl80 (lvl72) and I am starting to look at the market prices for Exotics and I am amazed how cheap they are. For ~$35 actual dollars I can buy 250g ($35=2800gems and 250g=2100gems)and judging from the prices on the market that will be MORE enough to get every piece of gear as Exotic.

My question is, other than the story, is the gear you get doing PvE better than what you can get in the market?? Are these Exotics that I am seeing total garbage and thats why they are so cheap?? Like the most expensive armour pieces are only like 12g. Looking at weapons is a totally different and the more expensive ones look better but just going by stats the wep is only going to cost me, maybe, ~30g.

So what is going on here?

This isn’t really a Living Story question.

Exotic stats are all balanced with each other. The pricier ones are because they have rare skins or are part of collections so there’s more demand for them in particular. I think (but am not sure) that some stat combos can only be gained by crafting, not drops, and some of those might be accountbound on creation. However, the overall balance will be the same between any two exotics of the same level. The TP ones are going to be mostly drops, and crafted items made for skillup.

Where are you finding such expensive pieces? When I kitted out a toon from the TP (I usually use KArma or WVW badges mind you), I’m pretty certain I was paying 2-4g a piece, weapon included.

This isn’t a gear orientated game, hence why gear is so easy to get and cheap.

mb forgot I was in the living world forum.

What do you mean by TP? I have 200k karma and I forget how many badges.

Sorry, I thought when you referred to the gold prices in the market for gear, you meant the TP, as that is the game’s market.

Regardless, all exotics of the same level throughout the game are given the same stat weight. Particular stat combos might be considered “garbage” by min maxers. Anything you see in the TP is de facto something gained by doing PvE or getting drops in WvW (well, maybe there’s a source of tradeable gear from PvP but I don’t think so?).

If you want to spend karma the Temple gear is around 242K for a full set of armor, more to get backpieces etc.

Nope, those are the top of the top exotics as far as stats go. Some may have rare skins that make them more valuable, but you won’t find better stat-wise unless you go to ascended/legendary, and that will cost you much more than 250g.

Apologies, tp is short for the trading post

You can get exotic gear from the dungeon vendors too by doing dungeons and getting the tokens. If you’re into that you don’t even have to spend gold.

Also as said before, some stat combos are garbage and therefore very cheap. You will notice that after the harder to obtain stat combos, berserker (power, precision, ferocity) will always be the most expensive.

Exotic set is supposed to be easy and cheap to get. GW2 is not a gear grind game. Now legendaries and ascended are a different thing, however. Neither of them provide any game-breaking advantage over exotic, though, so there is no point shelving off a lot of gold for them.

Gonna go ahead and assume that the OP thinks exotic gear is the last tier of gear and that is why he is so surprised that it’s so cheap, well it’s not, after exotic comes ascended and that will set you back more than $35.

@OP not sure if you’re going to ever look at this again but hey.

There is, imo no point spending RL money on the game to buy your gear. Sure you can do it and nothing is stopping you. But it’d be a lot more cost effective to either spend about 5 gold +1.2k Badges of honor (from WvW) to buy a full Zerker set (with Ruby orbs or similar) and then get yourself dungeon armor.

You can pick up an ascended neckpiece from Laurel vendors, Ascended earrings from Guild mission vendors and AScended Rings from either Laurels or fractals.

Look into doing Citadel of Flame and Sorrows Embrace. both dungeons are very quick and pretty easy and they cater to less experienced dungeon runners (pug groups)

Orpheus.7891:

mb forgot I was in the living world forum.

What do you mean by TP? I have 200k karma and I forget how many badges.

You can buy exotic gear in Orr for around 40K karma a piece (although stats aren’t too varied). Not sure about WvW prices but it’s not too extreme either. Could also just use dungeon tokens which is around 2K (maybe a bit less).
The real thing you need to consider is the type of gear you want.

Tom Gore.4035:

Exotic set is supposed to be easy and cheap to get. GW2 is not a gear grind game. Now legendaries and ascended are a different thing, however. Neither of them provide any game-breaking advantage over exotic, though, so there is no point shelving off a lot of gold for them.

I would say traditional MMOs like WoW are “stat grind” games, whereas GW2 is a “skin grind” game.

Xenon.4537:

Tom Gore.4035:

Exotic set is supposed to be easy and cheap to get. GW2 is not a gear grind game. Now legendaries and ascended are a different thing, however. Neither of them provide any game-breaking advantage over exotic, though, so there is no point shelving off a lot of gold for them.

I would say traditional MMOs like WoW are “stat grind” games, whereas GW2 is a “skin grind” game.

That would be quite an accurate depiction of GW2’s “endgame”.