Guild Wars 2

Hi all! Well my warrior hit 80 yesterday and im thinking of getting me som better gear but heres the thing, I plan on buying my gear of the tp because i dont have so much time that i can grind my way to it. When i look at some of the guides it seems that bying some kind of draconic gear is my only option? I just dont want to spend my gold on something and them realise that i did some kind of horrible mistake^^

Yeah im pretty new and this is my first time looking at content outside pve. I currently have only green and blue gear so im guess exotic would be the way to go?

I have about 38 gold and 115 000 karma to spend on stuff.

All input is appreciated!

(And i realise this kinds of questions comes up all the time so sorry about that)

A few basics bout gear and what is what.

The first is the name. Lets take a gear name as an example:
Celestial Draconic Coat of Balthasar.

Each gearpiece consists of three components
A:The main stats
B: The Rune
C: The skin (or looks)

When buying gear the first and most important are the main stats. Runes can always be replaced, looks can be changed through a TP item (transmutation crystal in case of level 80 gear). But what you are really buying are the stats.

Now to the name i gave as an example. The only important part is ‘celestial’ cause thats the part that names the stats. ‘Dragonic’ means it is the draconic skin. Coat means it is a chest piece and ‘of Balthasar’ means it comes with a rune of Balthasar.

All gear pieces use the same naming system. So it is important.
Dragonic is the default skin made by crafters (real players crafting armor and selling it) and is therefore pretty common available.

For a warrior it is important to ask you what you want to do now your level 80.
What are your goals with that character?.

There are basicly two streams of warriors.
a: those that use beserker gear in all situations
b: those that recognise that beserker gear is best for many dungeons, but for other kinds of game play it is less viable.

So easy you say: Lets go Beserker.
Yeah, but please check the tradepost for the beserker draconic gear. It is a lot more expensive (due to the high demand).

But with 38 gold you should have enough to buy a set (without the proper runes).
The runes you ultimatly want on a beserker set are runes of the scholar. But they are very expensive.

Now what is beserker gear:
It gives you + power, +precission and +critical damage.
This means that you hit hard, you have a high change to hit even harder (critical hit) and if you hit harder you hit even harder then harder :P
This off course means you have little health and toughness. So you are killed quickly. So you have to be prepared to have heavy damage spikes but also receive heavy damage. Knowing how to dodge and avoid damage is the key element.

Having said that it is up to you to go for a beserker set as your first set or for something with more toughness (for example Knights armor) (wich would only cost bout 20 gold for a full set with appropiate runes) and getting beserker gear later on.

On top of that, you can use the knights armor to farm mats and level up to be a level 400 weapon smith so you can make your own beserker gear.

Hope this helps in making the right decision for you

Warrior is the one class I’ve never even tried, so I don’t have any helpful advice on the subject. I did want to say, however, that this is one awesome post on Mercury Ranique’s part.

Wow, Awesome answer man!

To be fair i prefer not to get punished to severly when im learning so the Knights kit sounds promising. The beserker stuff seems to demand a more skilled player than i am.
So im going to start off with some knights gear and then when i am feeling more confident i can aim for something else

Redenaz.8631:

Warrior is the one class I’ve never even tried, so I don’t have any helpful advice on the subject. I did want to say, however, that this is one awesome post on Mercury Ranique’s part.

Yeah i was not prepared for such great feedback. Really happy bout it though.

It may also be helpful to know that all armor of the same rarity/colour has equal stats.

So for example exotics you can craft (or buy from someone who crafted them) are just as powerful as ones that drop from enemies or can be bought with dungeon tokens or whatever.

So you don’t have to worry about missing out on stats by going for one method over another, just go for whatever is easiest for you. If you play a lot of WvW for example you might want to buy them with badges of honour. Or some PvE players get them from the temples in Orr for karma because it can be easier to acquire (or save up) than gold. Or you can do a combination of methods.

I’m frugal so I went with exotic karma armor for my warrior, and spent gold for the superior runes that I wanted. Then used laurels for my accessories. This put less of a dent in my gold so I still had some to buy weapons and sigils.

Here are some references so you can decide what set you want.
List of all armor sets: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_armor_sets
Select your race, sex, and heavy armor to see a list of all exotic armor on a character. http://www.gw2armor.com/
Exotic Karma armor list. (stats and location) http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armageddon_armor
Named armor http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor

Prefix stats table below. Image taken from wiki

callemec.8576:

… this is my first time looking at content outside pve….

By that. I suspect you are thinking of WvW? Because that’s a whole new ball game as far as gear.
You’ll generally need PVT gear (aka Soldier’s, Invader’s) , which can be bought for karma from the WvW vendors in your Citadel.

you -could- buy them off the tp but imo thats a waste of money since you can trade in dung tokens for armor pieces and get them for basically free. however buying them off is the best option if you want your armor set fast. If your willing to wait a while, you could run CoF for dung tokens and turn them in for the zerk set. CoF p1 is still the fastest dung in the game, with a decent group its about a 8min run.

According to the wiki, for full zerker heavy armor set you need 1380 tokens. Running p1 and p2 daily will take you around 40min and net you 120 tokens. So in a little less than 2 weeks you can get a full set for basically free, plus the the daily dungeon completion rewards will total around 25g.

callemec.8576:

and this is my first time looking at content outside pve.

I’m guessing from this that you are thinking of something WvW-worthy?
In which case, I’d suggest, join a guild and ask your commander/s what they’re wanting for their team setup, they will love you for it.

Step 1: buy rare gear
Step 2: do everything listed above

Rare gear is available on the TP for about 2-3g for a full set. And the stats aren’t that much worse than exotic. So if you want some gear fast, get rare armor now, then work toward your exotics.

Heya,
there is one method for getting excotic gear that is not mentioned yet:

Buy them in wvw, either for badges only (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor_Trader) or for gold and badges (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor_Master). Those armor comes without runes, but you can choose from a lot of different statcombos (even some that are hard to get like PVT).

Imho its one of the cheaper methods (karmagain got nerfed badly and you might want to save it for other things (obsidan shards for example)). Badges are not hard to earn if you play a bit of wvw and the achievement chests give you some nice amounts too.

mercury ranique.2170:

Having said that it is up to you to go for a beserker set as your first set or for something with more toughness (for example Knights armor) (wich would only cost bout 20 gold for a full set with appropiate runes) and getting beserker gear later on.

On top of that, you can use the knights armor to farm mats and level up to be a level 400 weapon smith so you can make your own beserker gear.

Hope this helps in making the right decision for you

That is not really true in a couple of ways.
Full Set of Berserker’s Draconic
- instant buy 30g 14s 69c
- custom order 24g 58s 07c

Full Set of Devona’s armor (same stat as Berserker’s also includes Superior Rune of Strength)
- instant buy 22g 79s 85c
- custom order 16g 63s 12c

Full Set of Knight’s Draconic
- instant buy 29g 75s 46c
- custom order 23g 44s 58c

So Bersker’s stat would actually be cheaper unless they really want the look of the draconic set as well.

That aside, Berserker’s armor doesn’t necessary mean you are easily killed. The armor is at best half the story. Traits, runes or orbs, trinkets will have a very significant impact.
My warrior uses Berserker’s most of the time but still has 2.8k armor and 21k HP. That is not especially squishy.

Khisanth.2948:

That aside, Berserker’s armor doesn’t necessary mean you are easily killed. The armor is at best half the story. Traits, runes or orbs, trinkets will have a very significant impact.
My warrior uses Berserker’s most of the time but still has 2.8k armor and 21k HP. That is not especially squishy.

warrs do have a really vast health pool, greatest of all classes in fact. and their armor is a benefit of being a heavy, which helps you mitigate more % of dmg as compared to being say an ele. Both these combined means you can take more hits than other classes (except guard) before dying.

Like Khisanth said, zerk armor doesnt have much a deciding factor on ur survivability. For one, there is more weightage in terms of stat points on your trinkets than on your armor. For another, survivability mostly relies on traits/skills/weapons and of course your experience. The greatest deciding factor of survivability IMHO is the latter — your skill. If you are starting out with little to no experience you can expect wipe a lot regardless of how much toughness and vit you have stack.ed.

All this having been said, it will take you awhile to get ascended accessories and when you do, I recommend choosing zerk stats for all of them. This will allow you to change around the stats on your armor pieces so you can find the right combination of survivability and DPS. Though, if you are new to your class and opt to jump straight into full zerk then you will be dying a lot (I know from expereince). As you learn how to play your class, you become more skilled at timing your dodges and using blocks/skills to mitigate dmg and increase your survivability.

My 1st recommendation would be that you start out with knights armor with soldiers, then you can swtich to full zerk with rubies/scholars when your comfortable. Failing that you can use rares with whatever stats you care for (PVT, knights, etc.) and slowly work your way to a full exotic zerk set. Though this would apply only for most dungeons and general PvE. In a few other cases including WvW, you might have need to use an extra set with different stats, say PVT with soldiers runes.

If you want some “better” gear while working toward Exotic, I suggest looking at RARE (YELLOW) armor on the TP. Relatively cheap and will get you decent stats so you can WvW or do Dungeons.

What you really want to pin down when pursuing LVL 80 armor is the LOOK you want. Keep in mind that transmutation stones do add some expense, but give you complete control over the stats you want on whatever armor skin you desire (same goes for weapons).