Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing long enough to get to level 33 as a Norn Ranger. I have basic understanding of the battle structure, of the special attacks and attributes from 1-9. What I am having the most issue with is learning how to make my weapons and armor better, figuring out which items to salvage and if its worth upgrading any weapons with runes because by the time I upgrade it I am leveled up to where I find a new better weapon and have lost that rune on a weaker one. I also don’t understand the crafting aspect- is it worth leveling it all up and which ones should I focus on? I don’t find a whole lot of time to play, as I am married with a 2 year old- is PvP or WvW a good idea to look into? I just have a lot of random questions that I haven’t been able to find answers for elsewhere. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks yall.

Always get new armor as you go, the stats will only increase. I tend to salvage everything I don’t use, but if you don’t want to do that, you can salvage white (items with white text) items and ‘salvageable’ stuff. Blue and green items give essence of luck, which increase magic find-increasing overall chances of getting even better loot. But, if you’re kitten money, it’s fine to sell those two rarities. Personally, when I’m still leveling to 80, I don’t focus on the runes I have; you CAN upgrade your armor both by level and runes as you go, but I tend to just pick up whatever loot I find and stick it on if it’s better.
In the long run, you should probably start crafting now, so that when you’re 80, you’re at a decent crafting level. When you max your crafting, you can obtain ascended items, which is one of the few ways to get that max tier of weapon/armor. For Ranger, Leatherworker is good, as is Huntsman or Weaponsmith, depending on which weapons you use. PvP is alright (this is very subjective, as I have just four days ago gotten into it, and they’re making changes in a radical way to how it works). You can earn gold for competing in PvP matches, but other than that, nothing carries over to PvE (yet, like I said, I’m not big in the scene, but they might change some other things related). WvW is fun, if you understand what’s going on. I suggest you see if your server has a voice chat server and jump into one of the borderlands for a little bit, to see if you like it.

I usually switched armour every 10 levels. It did not make a huge difference to my play style. If you get a drop of on-level armour or jewelery use it, the only time you really need to focus specifics of stats is after you are 80 and have picked a play style you enjoy. If you want money sell everything, if you want more Magic Find salvage everything.

Thank you very much, both of your input has helped me. Upgrading weapons and armor with runes and sigils is something most beneficial at level 80, correct?

I’ve been salvaging everything I can’t use thusfar, and have 23% magic find, along with a bunch of random runes. Should I be trying to keep these runes in the bank for level 80? I don’t know how rare or hard to find/make runes is.
My bank and inventory is already hard to manage and keep small so I have to get rid of things that aren’t that important, but don’t know what is worth it and what isn’t. I have many minor runes and sigils and have been thinking of just tossing them on the items I currently use, or selling them, but would hate to regret doing that if I should wait until 80.

As far as crafting goes- I am currently trying to do jewelry and huntsman. I don’t have a problem switching anything since I’m not even level 20 on either of them. My question is this: Lets take jewelry for example- I am to craft silver filigrees for certain recipes I have unlocked, but am currently only able to craft copper junk. Do other components and refinement options open up automatically as my crafting level increases? Do I just keep crafting copper junk until I level high enough?

Most runes are incredibly cheap on the TP. Do a right click on a rune, select sell on TP, and see what the lowest sell price is. Most of the low end ones vendor for 16 copper and TP for 17 copper (which is a loss due to the listing fee and sales tax). Or maybe they TP for 20-24 copper … anyway, other than some high end level 80 exotic ones, you’ll be paying maybe a few silver for one.

Crafting: Don’t do it by crafting recipes you know. Use the discovery window. Discovering things around your current skill level gives you a huge boost. Crafting “junk” is miniscule in benefit.

Short guide: Check a recipe you know to see the pattern of items that go in. Craft those “crafting components” along with any special item. In the discovery window, double click anything to move it to the discovery square to the right. Repeat for the next square with another item. Eventually it will say “this looks like something” and you can make it. You get one of whatever it is, to salvage, sell, or use, and you now know that recipe. With huntsman you will want to make the best insignia you can, then each of two weapon components, combine in discovery. You can use several of the same insignia but only discover that variant once per weapon type.

You don’t have to switch, btw. You can learn every craft on one character, though you do have to pay a little to swap which ones are active. You can have 2 active at a time. Me, I like to do just two per alt and swap to the alt that has the skill.

Thank you very much Donari. I’m getting a better grasp on the whole crafting and rune things now. And it looks like its time to experiment in the discovery window!
Eventually I’m going to have to figure out the Trading Post, I’ll search some other threads to see if other noobs have asked questions I can check. I really appreciate your input. Thanks.

On the crafting window if the item you are able to craft is bronze/brownish in colour it give the most exp. So if you have a bunch of logs for example you get easy exp to make them into planks when it is bronze, less for yellow-blue and none for white. Discovery is a neat twist and gives really good exp as Donari said. There are several sites that give walk-through to get to max crafting and what it costs if you buy everything or find everything on your own.
Always check the TP price of everything before you sell to an NPC sometimes you are pleasantly surprised. If the TP price is the same as the vendor price though as Donari again said sell to vendor since the money sink system takes a % of buy and sell money on the TP.
Also make sure you use the deposit all collectibles in your inventory (cog wheel on top right corner) an amazing quality of life option in game. You can see all your collectible in the bank, lower tab on the left side. All crafting takes items from your bank so you don’t need to have them in your personal inventory.

I typically use the gear I find off of drops as I level up. That, and about every 20 levels I may buy some better (cheap) armor if I need it.

Do not spend much on armor/weapons until you hit 80 and you decide on your build. You will quickly out level any sub-80 armor or weapons while leveling.

There are plenty of cheap runes and sigils to use to boost you up a little while leveling and at the same time not drain your pockets.

And you can either salvage or vendor or TP the whites/blues/greens you accumulate while leveling. It is mostly a personal choice.

If you are crafting, there are very good guides available for that. Try gw2crafts.net. That is a pretty popular site.

Stryker.1863:

Thank you very much, both of your input has helped me. Upgrading weapons and armor with runes and sigils is something most beneficial at level 80, correct?

I’ve been salvaging everything I can’t use thusfar, and have 23% magic find, along with a bunch of random runes. Should I be trying to keep these runes in the bank for level 80? I don’t know how rare or hard to find/make runes is.
My bank and inventory is already hard to manage and keep small so I have to get rid of things that aren’t that important, but don’t know what is worth it and what isn’t. I have many minor runes and sigils and have been thinking of just tossing them on the items I currently use, or selling them, but would hate to regret doing that if I should wait until 80.

As far as crafting goes- I am currently trying to do jewelry and huntsman. I don’t have a problem switching anything since I’m not even level 20 on either of them. My question is this: Lets take jewelry for example- I am to craft silver filigrees for certain recipes I have unlocked, but am currently only able to craft copper junk. Do other components and refinement options open up automatically as my crafting level increases? Do I just keep crafting copper junk until I level high enough?

I always stick a sigil of bloodlust on my weapons as I’m leveling up. A minor one until level 39 and a major one from level 39+. The extra power is helpful and the sigils are cheap.

Other than that it doesn’t really matter

Figuring out the trading post should be your number one priority. If you’re selling stuff to NPC vendors you’re losing A LOT of money. For instance, selling copper ore to a vendor will net you about 3c. If you sell it on the TP, even for the lowest offer, you’ll get more like 37c. Seriously, that a big loss on each item. Over time it will add up big time. I’m sure I lost tons of gold for the first few months of the game because I had no idea what the TP was or how it worked. I’m not sure if there’s a youtube walkthrough video on it. If not, there SHOULD BE!!!

since you`re walking around low level maps anyway, GATHER EVERYTHING.

mine all the ore and chop down all the trees u see. they give u xp for the gather and sell the materials on the trading post for A LOT of money for a new player.

Unlock all your weapons and see which ones you feel most comfortable playing with. When you hit level 80, go with the weapons you like and research builds for that combo in your class. I leave it to those guys to min and max numbers to get me going down the path for a good build for your playstyle. As for armor, I bought a new set armor every 10 levels, the lowest cost Masterwork out there, regardless of runes or stats. Then I just loaded them up with runes as I went along – again not worrying about stats, at least until level 80. Then, as with the build, you’d do well to get sets that work into your playstyle.

Crafting is fun if you like the discovery aspect. The cook is a good secondary profession behind leatherworking or huntsman (for the ranger) as you can cook up food whenever you want. Also, quite a lot of discovery potential with food recipes.

Most important, GW2 is a sandbox game – there really isn’t a lot of ‘right way to play’ versus ‘wrong way’. WvW is fun for me, PvP not so much. Join up with a guild and do some dungeon runs when you get higher level and guild missions. Lots to do, at your own pace!

karma armor

every gold heart you complete becomes a karma vendor! some of them sell armor and some sell weapons, and some sell food items in bulk. when i level a character i usually go around buying the armor/weapons that is available at the hearts and that is better then the ones that i have currently equipped.