Guild Wars 2

Hello all.

I have just got into Gw2 in the last month again since about January when I had my first level 80. I did not get into high end gear etc, but having got a new character to almost 80 (Warrior) and really enjoying it, I wanted to confirm my options for high end gear.

It seems as though:

You can get legendary weapons, but at a massive grind and only via the mystic forge, after getting an exotic weapon. I think exotic weapons should be my first target. Is this true.

There is no legendary armor. There is karma exotic armor at 42k per item. Or cultural exotic armor at about 20g per set. What is worth going for? I am a norn warrior.

There are legendary amulets, rings and back items for laurels. I have collected about 30 laurels having done dailies nearly every day this month and a monthly. What is the recommendation here.

Please can I have some guidance as to what I should be going for? Obviously, I want to get the best gear, but in reality I probably won’t be able to to grind out the best stuff.

The popular warrior meta is going full berserkers (power/precision/crit dmg) gear for maximum DPS, but I always recommend building to suit your playstyle and ability to actively mitigate damage via dodges and good positioning.

If you can stay alive in full berserkers and want that playstyle, go for it! Otherwise, look into knights (toughness/power/precision) helm, chest, and pants, and berserkers shoulders, gloves, and legs, then a mix of emerald and ruby trinkets with a Soldier’s backpiece. For upgrades for your armor, popular choices are Ruby Orbs, Runes of the Scholar (more offensive) or Runes of the Soldier (more supporty). Note that I’m just giving you a gear list for a small set of builds that tend to revolve around axe/mace and greatsword and may not fit your playstyle at all – I hope others can give suggestions for other playstyles.

For weapons and armor, grab exotics. Legendary weapons (right now) are just pretty exotic weapons – no stat boosts. You can purchase them with gold via the Black Lion Trading Company, run dungeons for tokens, or craft them. You can also purchase some armor with karma. There is no cultural exotic armor – only rares – and are only worth purchasing if you want the look (which usually involves the use of Transmutation Crystals).

There are not legendary trinkets. There are ascended trinkets with names that are colored pink. Ascended gear (asc for short) is going to be the highest tier in the game short of legendaries for a while. While I get a lot of my trinkets from doing fractals, you can use laurels, laurels+WvW badges of honor, or guild commendations (earned by doing guild missions with your guild) to purchase the trinkets. If you can afford a single ascended piece, get an amulet. I think it is the best return on investment. The choice of amulet is dependent upon your playstyle, but if you are going for a berserker or knights/berserker set, get a berserker amulet. It’s no big deal if you don’t have all ascended trinkets – many people are still running around in mostly exotics or lower tier.

One of the good things about this game is that broadly speaking all exotic gear is equal (and all ascended gear too) so you have several options to get the best gear. The only difference is that there are a variety of different stat combination and some are only available from certain sources, but there are no fixed rules like dungeon armor is better than karma armor or whatever, it’s just a matter of choosing the stats you want.

Off the top of my head the 3 main options are:
1. Temple armor. Every temple in Orr has a karma vendor who sells armor sets. They all look the same but have different stats. These are probably the easiest/cheapest sets to get, especially if you’ve been saving karma jugs from dailies – get yourself a karma boost and then use the jugs. Otherwise you’ll want to start doing dailies and dynamic events to collect the karma. Then it’s just a matter of either finding a time when the temple you need is open or getting a group together to open it.

2. Dungeon armor. Every dungeon has an armor set with a unique skin, and some have unique stats as well. You buy them in Lions Arch with tokens earned from the dungeon. You get 60 tokens for completing a dungeon in explorable mode (plus a few extra from bags) so it will take several runs to get a complete set of armor. Unless you’ve already been doing dungeons this way will probably take you a long time.

3. Crafting. The main benefit of this method is it gives you more choice of stats, although I think there’s only one skin available. You need to be level 400 in the relevant profession (armorsmith in your case) and will need the materials so again this is probably only a realistic option if you’ve already levelled crafting.

You can also occasionally get exotic armor as random drops, and you can buy dropped or crafted pieces from the Trading Post if you’ve got the gold.

So it really comes down to what currency you’ve got the most of, or find it easiest to get. Gold, karma, dungeon tokens or crafting materials.

Thank you for your help

Legendary is just cosmetic product. It has no value added compared to exotic otherwise.
I personally suggesting researching into what kind of build and then from there decide on the gears you need for the build.

Builds are divided into WvW and PvE so you might to take note of that. I personally don’t believe in hybrid build of WvW and PvE, I think that kind of build isn’t as effective as a optimized one. Warrior’s PvE build greatly differ from WvW’s anyway.

Cultural is Rare and is meant for the skin.