Guild Wars 2

Title says it all. I hit 80 a while ago as an engineer and I’m simply curious as to how I go about starting that process. Any definitive guides around online or anything along those lines?

Buy lvl 78 or lvl 80 exotics zerk gear right away if you have the money, if not, buy lvl 80 rares. Especially the trinkets since you can get the armors from dungeons.

1. Learn how to dungeon and do easy dungeons daily for money / Champ train
2. Use dungeon tokens to gear up more (COF / COE for zerk)

OR

Flip TP.

Gold → Gear.

Alternatively, use some of your WvW badges if you love WvWing, but note that you can’t salvage the gears unlike the AC gears which can at least net you some Dark Matter.

What I did was just like xallever suggested.

During my journey to 80 I gathered all the materiales I could find while leveling(wood, metal and other crafting mats) and upgraded my gear each 7-5 levels with stuff from the Trading Company. As I was reaching 80 I started selling my mats depending if the prices were good for me.

Right now I have Exoctic gear and I’m running dungeons with the Looking For Group tool and with my guildmates. Also doing Fractals of the mists runs but only in the first levels since I dont have much Agony Resistance in my gear(didn’t know I would need it until my hp bar started melting).

Also take advantage of seasonal events, like Xmas or Halloween. I remember selling collectables and materials for the events and made a tiny fortune during the first days.

Now that you are 80 you probably have a bunch of Karma saved up, maybe enough for a 1-2 pieces of armor. Visit any of the temples in Orr and you can purchase a piece of lvl 80 exotic armor for about 42,000 Karma each.

Go to http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temple_armor to check which temple sells which armor. The armor skin is the same for all temples but stats/rune may vary
After that you can do a couple of different things:

• Craft
• Buy from Trading post
• Complete dungeons for tokens to trade in for armor ( check the wiki I posted above and search what dungeon provides which stats, as they are not all the same stats!)
• Collect badges of honor in WvW by completing objectives/ killing people. Trade them in for armor.
• Complete a sPVP dungeon reward track ( 1 piece of armor per track)-Takes a while to complete.

Most people right now run exotic gear. This is not the highest tier as there are ascended items. Ascended items tend to take a lot of money/time to craft and only provide a limited number boost in stats compared to exotics (about 5% boost overall from what I’ve seen). As it may take hundreds of gold to make a set most people tend not to bother with it. Once you have a full set of exotic that should be enough to get you through just about everything in the game and later on , when you feel you are ready you can go and make Ascended/ Legendary items.

The way I did it was to grind Karma for a bit and then buy Exotics with Karma. I guess there are also ascended rings and amulets with Laurels also (which I’m looking to maybe get).

I crafted my exotics. Had a piece or two from drops, but mainly crafted them all. And then I went Ascended. Made a full set in about 3 months, mostly grinding, and buying mats when I could.

It’s all about crafting. Get your leatherworker to 500 and then you can craft ascended armor. See www.gw2crafts.net for some guides on which materials to buy.

On the Badges of Honor issue, EotM train for a few hours and you will have more than enough badges to get an inexpensive set of armor with almost any stat line <6g. If you have been doing dailies/monthlies you could opt for ascended rings/amulet with laurels (or if you have more BoH then get them in WvW for a mix of laurels and BoH). This would leave you only needing accessories and weapons. Weapons are rather easy now, if you don’t mind doing PvP for a few hours you should get enough points in a track for at least 1 possibly 2 exotic weapon chest, just make sure the track you are working on offers weapons with the stats you like. That leaves you with runes/sigils, which can be very expensive or very cheap/craft able, just depends on what you want/need and how much you can/want to spend.

Keep in mind a few things:

Items purchased from NPCs are NOT salvageable (at this time) and thus the any upgrades you place on them are only obtainable via very expensive gem store items (to the point that new upgrades are less expensive). Know going in that you may NOT be able to get that upgrade back and that the item has no way to be recycled right now.

I urge you to consider the stat differences between Exotic and Ascended before pursing the later. Ascended equipment requires quite a bit of expense and effort and while weapons do pose a stat increase that most players agree is worth the effort, Ascended armor in general does not. It can be a worthy end game goal, but outside of high levels Fractals (where Agony Resistance is needed and can only be obtained via Ascended gear), it is NOT needed to play any end game content.