Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing for about two months now, and I still have a few questions about basic game mechanics.

I do all the normal stuff – World bosses, SW (trains), Auric Basin, and Im up to level 24 Fractals.

I want to start upgrading my trinkets to Ascended (for higher fractal reasons), but it looks like I am serverly restricted by Laurels.

I have my rings no problem, but the amulets, earrings, and trikents can only be purchased by Laurels and Laurels seem to be limited to daily rewards and achivement chests. Right now Im stuck at 10AR.

Question 1: Am I missing something, how can I get higher AR without Laurels?
Question 2: Is it possible to put AR on Exotic Gear, and does anyone ever do it?
Question 3: Do Fractals ever drop other Ascended equipment, or only rings?

Nextly, I have both 500 Wep/Ar smithing. The cheapest Ascended piece of equipemnt that I can find to craft is about 50 gold per piece.

Question 4: Is that true? I have some inscriptions and I want to do the swap thing with the MF but I have no where near the 400 gold I need for a whole set.

Nextly, Im still confused on this whole backpiece thing.

Question 5: I currently have the rampager’s coral backpiece given from the Main Story. Is that good enough for now or should I make one using Ar/Wep smithing?

Lastly on Ascended equipment.

Question 6: If at some point I do manage to make a full set of Ascended gear. Would I be at any type of disadvantage if I used every infusion slot for AR? or do people manage to craft two sets of Ascended gear?

Thanks for any and all help : )

As a side question (6.5 if you will), do people find that they get better drops in AB or in SW? Im primarily looking for black diamonds.

Thanks again.

Edit: the wiki explains how to get max agony resistance, you can pick the bits of that which are practical for you https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Agony_Resistance.

1. Attune your rings, then you can add craftable agony infusions to them (remember to take your versatile infusions out first, or they’ll be destroyed when you attune) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attuned_equipment.

2. The exotic crafters backpack has a slot for agony, which may be worth using. Generally no, otherwise.

3. Weapons and armour, but rarely and at high levels. You’ll need another way to get to them.

4. Not clear what you’re asking here, but ascended is expensive.

5. Craft one of these https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elegant_Weaponsmith%27s_Backpack (or armour equivalent) and put an infusion in it for the moment.

6. I’m assuming you mean using the slots for AR vs +stat infusions. That’s normal.

6.5 I don’t know.

Amulets you can get 10 laurels cheaper if you buy them in WvW with some badges of honour, and accessories are cheaper if you buy them with guild commendations, though those are also time limited and require joining a guild running missions.

Get fractal mastery, and go around to the left as you enter the Mistlock Observatory- there’s a MAST-ER604 golem which will teleport you to an area where you can buy infusion extractors, +7 infusions and craftable infusions.

Q1. You are indeed missing something. You can craft (although this also requires laurels to buy some of the recipes) or get as a rare drop from fractals and champion bags, ascended armour and weapons, each of which gives you a slot that can be used for up to +7AR. You can also get some amulets and trinkets as rewards, e.g the various dungeon collections, and completing all achievements for a chapter of living story,

Q2. Short answer, no. There is at least one exotic back piece I can think of that can be used for AR, but it was a reward from living story season 1, and so no longer available. I can’t think of any that can still be obtained, so if you want AR, you need ascended.

Q3. See my answer to 1. Yes, and it seems more likely at higher levels. You have a chance to get armour or weapon chests.

Q4. Your best bet, if forging, and if you have the patience, is to wait for an ascended chest drop. Each acended chest will either give you a specific piece (i.e. shoulders), but let you choose from a subset of stats, or will be a fixed set of stats, but let you choose which piece. As you only need the exotic inscription or insignia to change the stats in the mystic forge, even if the drop isn’t for the stats you want, it’s much cheaper than crafting from scratch.

Q5. Not sure on that specific backpiece, as I’m not sure exactly what it is. The crafted ones are level 78 exotics, so if you already have something around that level, it’s good enough to be getting on with. As you get to high level fractals, you’ll want to upgrade to ascended, and then infused for the extra slots for agony resistance. The ascended ones are made through the forge, though not crafting.

Q6. There isn’t really any PvE content (except maybe the new raid) that requires anything better than exotic gear, let alone ascended. If you really want to min-max, you could run two sets of gear for different infusions, but ascended by itself is more than enough. Personally, I just have one set of gear and use my slots for AR.

Q6.5 I think black diamonds are HoT only so won’t drop in the Silverwastes.

6.5: Black diamonds are exclusive to HoT maps.

Overall drops tend to be better in AB if you can catch it during its primetime event which is the Octovine Meta. However, this relies on a decent map and having keys. SW is more forgiving in that you can just hop in for the most part, though you get much better rewards during the Breach/Vinewrath events which are not time gated and is much easier to find a map for.

People already answered your specific question so I’ll just give you advice how to improve your AR.

- Infuse and attune your ring for more AR slot. You can do it in any order you want. Attuning need Fractal Mastery, while Infusing need some ascended material that you get from higher fractal so Attuning might be easier first for you. You can buy a AR remover in fractal so you can remove your infusion from your ring, attune it, add AR back in it and later remove them again to infuse it. So you don’t lose your AR.

- Back Item. You can craft relatively cheaper an exotic back item with 1 AR slot. That’s the only exotic item that can do that as far as I know. They are relatively cheap and each crafting profession can do it. It just temporary because on the long run you want Ascended infused back item (only ring can be attuned and infused and only Back item can be infused). Mawdrey is the cheapest ascended back item in the game to my knowledge, especially for infused (most other back item need 250 ectos to infuse, but not mawdrey). The problem is that it can one month while you daily craft some item.

- With fractal mastery you can exchange your +5 Versatile AR to a +7 versatile AR. That,s for the first AR slot of each piece. When you Infuse or Attune then those slot use those +1 you get and that you can craft to get higher AR.

- You can buy an amulet in WvW for 20 Laurels instead of 30.

- Accessories can be bought at a cheaper price with Commendation that you get by doing guild missions. So find a nice little guild that fit your needs.

- The ideal composition to get to 150 AR the max is +7 AR on your armor and weapons and 94 AR from your trinkets. A +7 on each trinkets then on you 5 additional AR slot (2 on each rings and 1 on Back Item) you want 3x +10 and 2x +11.

- You can drop ascended weapons and armor from pretty much any daily fractal, but the chance is only good at level 50+. The daily 56/67/77 are in farm mode on the LFG and you need 109 AR for that. Like I said, fully upgraded trinkets get you 94 AR so you could only have a two handed weapons and 1 piece or armor ascended to reach 115 AR and do the daily 56/67/77 to drop ascended chest. It could be long because on average you will receive one chest per weeks if you do it each day. But it would be the cheapest way to get your ascended on the long run.

- Buy 30 keys each days in fractal. At that lowest price, it’s profitable to even buy encryption and open them so always buy your daily key and buy encryption if you can’t get 30 encryptions per day from fractal. That will give you free gold each day and will give you enough +1 to craft the +10 and +11 you need.

Have you worked on your HoT personal story? You get an ascended amulet called the Moon and Stars upon completion. I think you get a few laurels as well.

I’m working on that. I completed 2 or 3 of the fractal masteries and now I am trying to complete updraft gliding to continue on with Act 4(?) of HoT.

As another side question, what do you guys think of this build?

Im a Condi S/A warrior and I was thinking of going Vipers’ Exotic Armour/Weapons (until I can save up for ascended) with Rabid (CD/To/Pr) ascended trinkets. I was thinking of either using Krait Runes or just using Black Diamonds for filling the armor. Thoughts?

For builds we generally use online tools like http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ to draw it out. Makes it a lot easier for us to look at specifics and critique.

Alright, this is what I was thinking of running for gear.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJIQJAsXjMdQfH24BefAnIA-TxBFAB2r+j56BS2+DtUC+kyPBeAAAcCACAgAwEn4En4EnYA-e

Any thoughts on the gear?

Nefariis.4135:

Alright, this is what I was thinking of running for gear.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJIQJAsXjMdQfH24BefAnIA-TxBFAB2r+j56BS2+DtUC+kyPBeAAAcCACAgAwEn4En4EnYA-e

Burnzerker is indeed fun. But you need the new Berserker trait line for it to be really good. I recommend getting a longbow and dropping the off-hand axe for a worhorn (for speedbuff) or better a torch (for dmg).

The armor however look good. But if you are willing to go the whole mile, then do some PvP (twillings arbor line) or some twillingt arbor dungeon runs so you can buy 5 runes from twilling arbor.

5 nightmare runes + 1 blact diamont is alot more dmg then the 6 black ones you have in the build atm

1 more thing

The sigils, to make it cheap (and more dmg at the same time), take 1 sigil of Earth and 1 of either Geomancy (or if you have the gold Bursting)

https://youtu.be/Q7wwxZ3Gv0w?t=10m53s

Take a look at that build. That’s the Burnzerker which is near what you wanted to do and it’s one if not the highest dps of gw2 right now.