Guild Wars 2

Hi all, I am a returning player who took a very long break from the game and started playing again about 7 days ago.

I am playing my level 80 Ranger who is fully kitted out in Exotic armour. I asked in my Guild about getting Ascended armour and the majority response was that it was all there for me on the Dulfy website. I looked there and to be honest couldn’t make head nor tail of it all. Someone else told me I need to get Mastery Points and that I need to start in Verdant Brink. So I got a Guildie to teleport me there and then I hit a stone wall.

I could not go out into the wide open spaces without dying very quickly, it seems like I don’t have the armour to survive there or the killing speed either.

I now appear to be in a Catch 22 situation, whereby I need the armour to survive in Verdant Brink, but I have to farm events there to get the points to get the armour.

Could someone explain to me in laymans language what I need to do, or point me towards an article that leads you, step by step into getting the Ascended armour. Thank you.

Alright I will try to put it in simple terms, since, those are the terms I understand best too.

1. Go to the Crafting space in Lions Arch (Near Bank.) and learn to be a Leatherworker.
2. Follow the Crafting Guide(s) on http://gw2crafts.net/ do the, “Normal” guide for Leatherworking then, the 400 to 500 Leatherworking Guide. (Costly to craft to 500, but you’ll need it to make your Armor.)
3. Talk to the Leatherworker NPC and go to the tab that sells Ascended Recipes, buy ONE of each (They cost Laurels and Gold.) Learn whichever recipes that are needed for your desired stats, and don’t worry if you learn the wrong ones, since there is a Mystic Fountain recipe to fix stats to whatever ones you need/want.
4. From there on the subject of Armor, you can either, craft the parts you need (Time gated.) or if your wealthy or into farming gold, purchase the already made parts to assemble your armor. I personally farm Silverwastes chests/events and make my money that way.
5. Do the same for your weapons, since your a Ranger I would assume your going to need both, Weaponsmithing and Huntsman, since bows are Huntsman and melee is Weaponsmithing, repeat what I said about armor, and you’ll be set there.

On the subject of “Mastery points” I am assuming these are for your, “Elite Spec”, correct? Well, there are several ways of doing this, the way I’ve done it is, go to each of the, “Core” or “Pre HoT” maps and grab all of the Hero point challenges there, when your all done, your going to need to do around 5 to 6 of the HoT hero challenges to get the full 250 points for your elite spec total unlock, follow your HoT story, do events, ect. to learn the useful masteries there, like your gliding ones, ect.

If I as a squishy thief could survive in HoT maps in full exotics so can you, mobs do hit harder there, so if your using something where your dying a lot, try something more sturdy/tanky until you learn what to do and what not to do there, ect. Usually there is a mentor there, or people who will help you if needed.

Also, http://www.metabattle.com is another website to look at, it has builds there that could give you kind of a, “Platform” to change/grow from as you get more understanding under your belt, ect.

IF you have anymore questions, feel free to ADD me in-game and hit me up with a mail or whatnot and I will help you out with whatever you might need.

Good luck, have fun, and watch out for those pocket raptors!

Unless you’re planning on doing high level fractals I wouldn’t bother with ascended armor at all. It’s VERY expensive for something like a total of 2% stat increase.

If you play the season 3 living world stories (if you don’t have any unlocked just do the next episode) each one gives you a way to easily get ascended jewelry and backpieces via merchants on the new map.

It’s not your gear that is the problem, you just need to up your game for the new areas. They expect you to use more of the tools at your disposal than the joke of PvE that was the core game. Things like condi removal and stun breaks become important.

Feel free to stop by the ranger forum if you need build or playstyle tips for ranger. I am a ranger main.

Thanks very much to both of you for your excellent advice. I have bought all the materials in the Crafting Guide, but ran out of gold to get it all, (I had 51 gold and it all went before I bought everything), and also I didn’t appear to have enough of certain materials, especially Bolts of Jute.

I crafted what I could but I still haven’t got past Novice Leatherworker yet, so I don’t know what I am doing wrong.

Incidently, I had tried out Silverwastes, and got quite a lot of stuff from there, but I salvaged a lot of the armour etc. perhaps I should have waited and sold it.

I have sent you a Friend request in-game, so maybe we can get in touch that way. Once again, thanks for your help.

Internomad.6149:

Hi all, I am a returning player who took a very long break from the game and started playing again about 7 days ago.

I am playing my level 80 Ranger who is fully kitted out in Exotic armour. I asked in my Guild about getting Ascended armour and the majority response was that it was all there for me on the Dulfy website. I looked there and to be honest couldn’t make head nor tail of it all. Someone else told me I need to get Mastery Points and that I need to start in Verdant Brink. So I got a Guildie to teleport me there and then I hit a stone wall.

I could not go out into the wide open spaces without dying very quickly, it seems like I don’t have the armour to survive there or the killing speed either.

I now appear to be in a Catch 22 situation, whereby I need the armour to survive in Verdant Brink, but I have to farm events there to get the points to get the armour.

Could someone explain to me in laymans language what I need to do, or point me towards an article that leads you, step by step into getting the Ascended armour. Thank you.

So… yeah, others were right: ascended armor isn’t going to help you here. The biggest difference between HoT and “core” maps isn’t so much that everything hits harder, but that it hits smarter.

You need to approach each enemy type with some caution, understand how they attack, and make sure you avoid their most damaging swings with a dodge or some other mitigation.

(eg: watch for snipers about to send that ground effect shot, walk to the side to minimize hurt. watch for the charge and dodge from the t-rex looking mordrem mounts. break the bar on rolling devils with tracking skills, not ground skills.)

You probably want to spend a while in the Silverwastes and/or Dry Top, which is a kind of a third step up from core mobs to HoT mobs. (In a previous life you would have been 80 for a while, and done LS2 which also provided some steps up in challenge, making it more a curve than a brick wall of challenge.)

Basically, though, even in fully defensive ascended gear … you would get stomped by the HoT mobs, as you would in the new living story maps. They hit hard, they hit smart, and they don’t just stand there and let you punch them to death.

Play smart. Also, consider which traits, etc, might help you with extra damage mitigation, avoidance, etc, and consider running those while you get used to it.

Fun fact, though: just yesterday I was telling my guild “I remember when HoT mobs used to seem challenging, but now the Lake Doric and Bitterfrost folks have made them seem so soft…”

Internomad.6149:

I have bought all the materials in the Crafting Guide, but ran out of gold to get it all, (I had 51 gold and it all went before I bought everything), and also I didn’t appear to have enough of certain materials, especially Bolts of Jute.

I crafted what I could but I still haven’t got past Novice Leatherworker yet, so I don’t know what I am doing wrong.

You’re not doing anything wrong, it’s just that expensive. To go from 0 to a full set of ascended armor, I don’t know the cost off the top of my head but I’d guesstimate over a thousand gold. All for a 2% stat increase. Just not worth it unless you’re a long term player looking for long term goals.

The difference between full exotic and full ascended is supposed to be something like 10% for a power build but on the other hand you also get a lot more benefit out of getting weapons than armor and the trinkets are easy to get from LS3 maps.

Weapons and trinkets are a bigger difference. Ascended armor is what I mean is not at all worth it, it’s something like 2% total stat difference, maybe less? (Coming from someone with many different sets of ascended armor for funsies.)

I’m not OP but have benefited from all the good info in the replies here. Thanks, folk.