Guild Wars 2

Hi, I’m looking for some assistance in getting some starting gear for my Ranger. Just come back to the game after a few years away and boosted a ranger to 80, so I have the Soldiers armor. I’ve just completed my personal story ankitten ow looking to step into fractals and eventually raids.

I’ve looked at the Meta and condi ranger seems to be the way to go. I understand the preferred armor is Viper’s for this. I have searched and asked in Guild but I don;t think people understand how little information there is or my limited understanding.

1) I am after a set of armor that will let me do decent damage whilst I work on gearing up
2) I have around 9G total on this new character and am happy to purchase from the TC. I have ~170K karma
3) I have no crafting yet on this character
4) I believe that Exotic armor will be a good starting point

What is the armor called specifically on the TC if any? I’ve seen the Yassith’s but that is too expensive. If it’s not on the TC, where can I go to purchase and what would it be called?

Appreciate any help, please spell it out for me because coming from WoW this is VERY unfamiliar but I am a quick learner

Hi there, and welcome to the game! Exotic armor is very close in stats to Ascended. The damage gain % from Ascended over exotic is very low, and for every piece of content in the game, with the exception of Fractals of the Mists, exotic is acceptable.

Because of this, I would strongly suggest starting with exotic weapons and armor. To get this gear, I would run Citadel of Flame in Fireheart Rise. Path 1 and Path 2 are commonly run every day due to how easy and quick the paths are, and you can benefit from the dungeon tokens to purchase exotic berserker gear for your ranger. Also, in Orr, there are karma merchants that sell exotic berserker gear and you can spend your chunk of Karma on some of those items.

This is an efficient and cost-effective way to gear your characters without having to spend all of your gold. Second, I would recommend purchasing masterwork-quality ruby mithril trinkets for the time being . You can eventually upgrade, but masterwork trinkets are cost-efficient and offer the best stats/gold, in my opinion, and 9g would not be able to purchase 6 exotic-quality (maybe rare-quality, but you’d be broke) trinkets. Similarly, usually the first pieces of gear to be upgraded to Ascended are trinkets. I would recommend spending your gold on purchasing runes and sigils for your newly acquired berserker weapons and armor (these are expensive, so try to save up and purchase them when you can). As a ranger, the weapons that would probably benefit you most is sword/warhorn and longbow. On my ranger, I use Superior Sigil of Force + Bloodlust on my sword/warhorn and Superior Sigil of Force + Fire for my longbow, but for you, and for the time being, I would recommend just substituting major sigils. You can replace them later, but the benefits from major is still going to outweigh not having any at all.

Good luck!

Will agree with Sparks The Rescue, both Citadel of Flame and Crucible of Eternity will get you some armor well designed for more damage output, but CoF is run more frequently than Crucible. For most of the content, the only reason you’ll want Ascended gear is fractals, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. Outside of fractals, Exotic nets you more worth and flex. So run some dungeon paths, and use what you gain to purchase your gear.

Perfect! Thank you both, this gives me something to work towards. I actually had someone contact me in game last night as well and they were very helpful in explaining some things. The community here is the best, appreciate it!

I actually do have some power, precision, condi gear from my personal story which i took the plunge and equipped last night so that should help with my damage output whilst I farm for these!