Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I’ve only played solo PvE for the last three years. I’m just starting to do Fractals and maybe some PvP or WvW and am really struggling to survive – especially in HoT content.

The thing is, I’ve been told that I should change my builds/weapons/armors for my alts for each game mode, but am confused and reluctant about whether or not/how to do this.

I have several level 80 alts, all of whom are using high level armor/weapons/sigils/runes, which have cost a lot to make in both gold and in ‘grind-time’. All alts are spread over light/medium/heavy armor classes.

Is the only option to stick with the same set of armor/weapons for each game mode for each character, or do you ‘professionals’ buy or craft new weapons/armor, as well as add full sets of runes and sigils to that gear, and simply keep the new items in your inventory and swap according to the game mode you decide to play for each alt?

For example, my main is a Warrior who may or may not be using the right weapon/armor stats for PvP, but is fine in PvE. If I want to change stats/armor/weapons for my full Ascended gear and play some PvE, is there any option but to add new runes/sigils by replacing/destroying the old ones, or do I have to craft a whole new set of Ascended armor/weapons and add new runes/sigils to it and keep it in my inventory …Or use Upgrade Extractors every time I want to change stats/runes/sigils etc?!

Hopelessly confused, and probably needlessly complicating the whole issue, so any advice would be very much appreciated.

I’m not missing a hidden weapon/armor set option somewhere, am I? If not, surely that’s something that ANet needs to look at adding to the game.

Many thanks in advance.

No, you’re not missing a hidden set of armor…not yet anyway. Supposedly Legendary armor will have the ability to swap stats out of combat but I don’t know if it’s true. Legendary weapons have that ability though so it would seem in line with the tier.

I personally just crafted my various sets as exotic gear. It’s not prohibitively expensive and some I even used a karma merchant for as it was a more common stat set. Some sigils are very cheap…others not so much. I also have the ability to craft the armor and weapons myself if I feel the cost is a bit high on the TP.

I’d suggest to specify some of your toons for PvE stuff and some for WvW stuff.
PvP doesn’t use your equipment stats anyways.

PvE toons should still work fine in berserk (or for conditions, viper or sinister or something) equipment, while WvW could use some more defensive stats.
I’d personally wouldn’t craft two armor sets for each toon (especially when you’re a perfectionist like me and only using ascended stuff). At the moment, I’m using guardian and necro and thief in WvW and the rest in PvE. Ele/tempest should work fine in WvW too, but it’s my main, so I’m mostly doing PvE stuff with him.

If you’re planning to get legendary armor, it will work perfect for your main as you can easily change stats between game modes.

Before anything you have to know what’s good right now.
Ruby orbs used to be really good on Thief, now no one uses those because the game has changed and they aren’t good anymore.

I’m guessing a while ago you might have looked this up, set it up, and leave it at that, am I right?
You need to know what works right now, the pieces you said costed you a lot of money, might be worthless right now.

Your best bet is to have different characters for different stuff, for example, amongst other characters I have a Bunker Warrior and a Zerker Warrior.
My Ranger carries around 2 sets of gear, Zerker and Condi, but for something like that you wanna have a lot of inventory space.

Don’t destroy upgrades, it’s almost always better to craft or buy (either gold of dungeon tokens) a new Armor/Weapons.

But again, before anything check the current meta builds, there you’ll find the recommended gear too.

yeah, it is sometimes hard to know what to use for different aspects of the game at any given moment.
Personally I only play wvw thus I will usually have 2-3 ascended sets for each class/specialization along with various accessories/trinkets which can be shared as well.
The need for multiple sets usually depends on what you want to do. If you primarily roam, that will require a set if you want to be optimal vs if you wanna run with a group in which you may have a little more leeway (depending on what group you run with, lol). Either way, group play vs solo will have different benefits from different sets. Thus, if you start out roaming, then join a group, you may wanna switch on the fly.

If you plan to go to wvw as your main form of gameplay just consult with people on your server or metabattle.com wiki to get a platform to build from. You can then further personalize later. Start by using exotic armor to see if you like that style (e.g. pwr vs sustain, dps vs condi) and place your runes there if you wanna get them back out. Once you find your style you can make the appropriate ascended set.
Also, ascended armor in wvw can have wvw infusions used as well which you may want to add to your ascended set you already have.
Good luck and yes, it takes lots of time-gated time, lol.

p.s. in mentioning the time-gated part, celestial is one of those, one size fits all type pieces you can mix with multiple accessories and still not lack too much optimization.