I’ve been playing for awhile (mostly PVE and WvW, map completion, etc) and I’ve avoided fractals etc because I am clueless when it comes to understanding agony resistance. What should I be doing to start the path towards being able to do higher level fractals and having agony resistance?
Also, because this probably affects the answer, I’m awful at crafting and don’t really do much of it. So if I need to level up crafting, some tips there would be great.
Thanks in advance!
Necro Main Forever!
((helping out non-thinkers since 1989))
You can get decent agony resistance without crafting, though it’ll be a bit more expensive, and in case of weapons and armour dependent on RNG.
Rings drop from fractal runs after reaching level 10, you can get accessories and amulets from the laurel merchant/guild commendations trader; all of those have one slot for an offensive, a defensive or a versatile infusion (all of which provide +5 agony resistance, but only the latter is avalaible for fractal relics).
Weapons and armour need a 500 crafting profession, though with an infused backpiece and/or ring, you don’t really need those.
The links Behellagh posted will show you which amount of agony resistance is needed for which level of fractal. You can reach 30 AR without any weapons, armour or infused (but ascended tier) accessories, which will get you to level 39 with a group that’s willing to rezz you every now and again.
If you want to level up a crafting discipline or two for weapons and/or armour, http://gw2crafts.net/ is your friend.
PSA: The amount of small felines serves as an indicator for just how angry I am at something.
You can get 25 from having two rings, two accessories, and a back (all ascended, non ‘infused’). Get the ‘versatile simple infusion’ for each.
(added later) Sell any “+1 agony infusions” that you get — they have no value to fractal newbies and by the time you need them, you can buy the +N values you want for about the same price it takes to craft them on your own.
Other details are covered in Behellagh’s links.
edit: added a bullet about selling off the +1 infusions; they have no value until you hit L30, which a lot of people never do.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
With the new daily system, don’t forget that you can get extra pristine relics by doing Fractal dailies, which will let you get your first ring faster.
When starting out, don’t worry about the +1 Agony Infusions you get from the daily chests and from Fractals itself, those are used for high end rings and backpieces. Just use the Versatile Simple Infusion (which can go into any offensive, defensive, or utility slot) which you can by in the Fractals lobby for 75 normal relics.
You can use agony resistance that gives you 6% per tick, if you are extremely careful to avoid boss granted agony. It would also be an issue in Mai Trin, since the unavoidable agony is bugged and gives you two stacks instead of one, so you take 12% per tick and have around a 90% healing penalty. It’s still strongly recommended that you work toward 1% per tick as soon as possible.
