Guild Wars 2

I finally dinged 80 on my first toon, a Guardian, and now I’m looking at my options to gear up and I could use some advice.

My goals:
- Get a good weapon and set of armor for open-world exploration, that’s my main activity because that I don’t have a lot of playing time.
- Eventually work up to the Exotic Draconic Armor, I like the looks on that one.

My resources:
- currently geared with lvl 65-75 armor and a lvl 80 green greatsword.
- 5g, 65k karma and some crafting mats
- Armorsmithing at 300

My main dilemma is whether to spend my gold buying gear or investing in leveling Armorsmithing to 375 and making Explorer’s or Knight’s gear for myself.

Should I continue in my current gear and buy Exotics one by one, or go for a rare set first?

Is a rare cultural sword/hammer a better buy for my karma than one exotic armor piece from Orr?

hey there! grats on becoming lvl 80!D i play a Guardian as well, so hopefully i’ll be able to help a bit.

it’s always fun trying to figure out how to gear out your character when you’re at that stage! and it hink i am still figuring out how i want to gear mine up. i think it ultimately depends on what you want to do. as you mentioned – open world exploration. i want to then ask though, are you planning on going for a legendary? or crafting other exoics?

so main thing first is do your best to map out what you want your sets for in terms or armor and weapons stats. then set goals for yourself and slowly work your way towards ’em. : )))

MF Set:
- i previously asked what you intend to “do” simply because if you want to amass gold and resources (ectos, and other rare mats, etc), then i’d suggest investing in a rare MF set. here is what i’m wearing, full rare explorer’s with superior runes of the pirate x and a superior rune of the traveller, and then green MF jewelry (opal? iirc) and that’s it for my MF set.

of course, it took me a while to build up and get the gold to buy this set (didnt’ craft it because my craft lvls weren’t high enough then) and i do feel it makes a difference in terms of drops. then you can start to sell / salvage the more rare items for gold / or crafting.

Armorsmithing vs Buying:
- for the MF set, as mentioned above, i just bought it because i wasn’t at that level yet with my armotsmithing. and after a lot of farming and gold i was able to slowly accumulate, i made my way to lvl 400 eventually
- if you’re going for the Exotic Draconic Armor set, i’d say go for the crafting. it’s a fun process (although does take time as well as resources!) but i want to say in the end it’s cheaper to craft yourself a set, rather than buying it, if you have the resources / mats and don’t mind farming / grinding. of course you can take into account all the money you can get if you just sold those mats, so it’s up to you. i personally want to craft my own armor.

Rare vs Exotic:
- again, as mentioned, i went rare first and then will work my way towards an exotic set. do note though, i am just going to stick with my rare MF set. i personally don’t feel the MF exotic set will make that much a difference since the MF% is the same on armor (both 3%). and i don’t have trouble surviving so far in PvE.
- i am working towards a full exotic Knight’s set as well. i currently have a rare set and will slowly work my way up to a full exotic set. i don’t like getting things piece by piece, lol, not sure why, so i am going to save up until i can get the full set in one go

Cultural Weapon vs Temple Armor (karmr)
- this is all up to you : ))) i feel the cultural weapons are more for the skin and for the armor, you can’t craft some of those stats so depends on what you’re looking for. i’m saving up all my karma for a legendary, so i can’t really comment here haha

hope this helps! and i tried my best to write this up.. logically… but have a headache lol woke up early to play the mad king event last night. :ppp

If you do it carefully your five gold and current crafting materials should be able to get you to your desired level of armorsmithing. You’ll definitely use some money making your armor but the turn out is well worth it. As an engineer using gear similar to yours for a while as a level 80, I can give you a personal account on switching to 80 rares and masterworks. The numbers don’t appear to be a huge change but all together it is significant.

If you’re worried about stretching your gold far enough I suggest using a guide to get you started on how the crafting system works with discovery and leveling expediently. The process of buying exotics individually at a slower rate may just kill your soul if you’re not up to the grind. I’m personally still using said greens/yellows and I’m having a blast without feeling like I’m losing out on the exotic craze.

Edit: Use your karma to buy weapons and gold to craft your armor. Forgot to add that.

TL;DR – Try out crafting. Use a guide to get your money’s worth if you’re worried about that and get out there and have some fun with it!

Thank you for the replies!

With your experiences in mind, I’m confident now that crafting a rare Explorer’s set is the way to go.
It should help me collect gold a bit faster so I can eventually go for a Knight’s Draconic set, and get me close to 400 Armorsmithing while doing it.

Btw, thanks for the tips jukkou on figuring out crafting, I already used a guide to get to 300 expediently and it made a huge difference compared to “just trying”, so I know the value of that advice. I even learned I should wait a day or so for the WvWvW crafting bonus to stack up.