Guild Wars 2

Hello, I would like to know what I can craft now that I am 80, without having to run endless repetitive dungeon content. Can I craft legendaries without running instanced content over and over again? I think ascended gear is only acquired from ascended dungeons, correct? I’m not even sure what an ascended dungeon is. Any recommendations on exotics I should craft? Maybe set my sights on legendary while crafting something more reachable in the meantime? What is this about cultural armour?

Reason I ask is someone in my guild was saying it ONLY takes (insert number of random runs, random times a week, random times a month) to get my citadel of flame gear…

I don’t want to run instanced repetitive content to chase a carrot; I quit MMO’s on this basis, and I have been playing them for 15 years now. I play for the new experience of exploring and this game is really good for that for the most part.

SO anyway, as I understand it, there is exotic, legendary, and ascended gear. I’m not really interested in the very best gear if it only means a few points better and especially if it means running repetitive instanced content.

It sounds like you’ve gotten some contradictory advice, so I’m just going to start from the beginning.

Exotics and ascended are the top 2 tiers of equipment. Legendaries aren’t really a separate tier because they have the same stats as ascended, but they have more distinctive skins and you can change their stats any time you’re out of combat.

Exotics

Exotics come from a whole variety of different places. A lot of people do recommend running dungeons (often CoF 1+2) to get them and this is exactly why I don’t like that advice – it’s great if you like doing dungeons, but people end up thinking it’s the only option.

Some other others are:

• Craft them yourself if you’ve levelled up the relevant professions (or want to level them).
• Buy them on the TP with gold.
• Buy them from the temples in Orr with karma.
• Buy them with badges of honour in WvW.
• Get them as drops.

Or any combination of the above.

A lot of people don’t like karma and WvW exotics because you can’t salvage them so any upgrades you put into them are stuck. If you’re sure you’re going to want to keep that stat combination it’s not a problem, but it’s something to bear in mind.

Ascended

Ascended equipment is the top tier but the benefit over exotics is very small, so a lot of people don’t consider it worth getting, or only get odd pieces when it’s convenient.

It’s acquired from several different places, but it’s only required for one dungeon – Fractals of the Mists, and even then only for the higher levels where you’re hit with Agony.

The armor and weapons are crafted, the accessories can be bought with laurels or guild commendations.

Ohhh so that’s what agony is for. I was beginning to see that. This is really good info, thanks!

So I take it then that I can begin with crafting exotics and then set my sights over time with legendary. Any tips/links on an exotic berserker set? I am fleshing out a guardian with greatsword.

Can I craft cultural armour? I was seeing something about them.

It isn’t possible to choose what skin a crafted armor has. The skin for crafted armor is hardcoded. For example, if you want to craft an exotic heavy armor piece with berserker stats, you always create a piece with the Draconic skin. There is no armor smith in GW2 who is able to craft this piece with a different skin.
If you craft armor of a different rarity or level, your armor has a different skin. Crafted rare heavy armor for example always has the Gladiator skin. Crafted heavy armor of lower level and lower quality also has some different skin, but for one given piece, you can never choose the skin.

If you want to craft your armor but with a different skin than the hardcoded one, you have to unlock the skin you want in your wardrobe and use a transmutation charge to put the skin on the Draconic armor piece.

for legendary, at most you only need to run a dungeon 9 times for the specific gift for your legendary.

for ascended gear. dungeon is a good source for empyreal fragment. But you can also get those from wvw, eotm, or farming chest in open world.

Ohhh, okay, thanks about the different crafted looks. I was confused about that. So I will go for draconic for now and then transmute over it for a different look if I want later.

Ya, I’ve been getting empyreal fragments from all sorts of boss chests from different zergs I glom on to as I explore the maps. Thanks for the clarification on one of the main reasons for dungeons.

Here’s a gallery of heavy armour (there are links at the bottom for different races/sexes).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_male_heavy_armor