Guild Wars 2

I just reached level 80
and I do not understand the items they talked about in the guides.
(armors and weapons?)

This post is going to be huge, double-post even, I want to cover any questions you might have. Things you already know? Just skip to the next section.

What do stats mean?
Every piece of level 80 equipment has 3 stats, 1 major stat and 2 minor stats. For example the prefix Berserker gives +Power with lesser amounts of Precision and Ferocity. Each stat helps to improve your characters performance, each stat means the following:

Power – The damage of your direct attacks, the big numbers on your screen.
Precision – Increased your chance to land a critical hit.
Ferocity – Increases the strength of your critical hits.
Condition Damage – Increases the damage done by damaging conditions; Bleeding, Confusion, Poison, Torment and Burning.
Vitality – Increase your total health, so you can endure more hits before you die. It will allow you to live longer, but is high health is also more difficult to replenish.
Toughness – Increases your armor, so you take less damage. Taking less damage scales better with your #6 skills, the downside, however, is that conditions ignore armour.
Healing Power – Increases the effectiveness of your healing, your #6 skill and the applied by you buff Regeneration (on both you and allies.)

Which stats do I want?
Which stats you want is completely up to you, how-ever I assume you’re looking for some guidance. For PvE you generally want as much damage as possible with the survivability you need. For experienced players this means no survivability stats at all but the same thing might not work for you (yet.)

If your weapons and build mention little to no conditions (like burning, poison, bleeding, torment, confusion) you will want to focus on Power, Precision and Ferocity, with as much Toughness and Vitality you need, both have their upsides and downsides as mentioned above. Example prefixes are Berserker (Power, Precision, Ferocity) or a more defensive option such as Knights (Toughness, Power, Precision) or Soldier’s (Power, Toughness, Vitality) and multiple others.

If your favourite weapons and build mention the conditions mention above multiple times you’ll want to get Condition Damage. On top of that if your Traits mention a lot ‘Applies X effect on critical hit’ you will also want to take Precision to increase your change of a critical hit. Conditions themselves can’t crit and thus Ferocity would be a wasted stat, meaning the last stat will be filled by a survivability stat. Example Prefixes are Rabid (Condition Damage, Precision, Toughness) and Dire (Condition Damage, Vitality, Toughness.)

PvE mainly consists out of big hits that need to be dodged because it takes multiple heals to outheal the damage taken if dodge isn’t used properly. Due to that and little to not dedicated healing options, healing power is often avoided completely in PvE.

In World vs World the same rules apply, as much damage as possible, but you need a lot more survivability due to the fights between big groups. If World vs World is what you’re into, I highly recommend becoming part of your server’s community (ask information in any of the Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds.) Most communities have a TS or a website with people more than willing to help. For a beginner I’d recommend full Soldier’s gear (Power, Toughness, Vitality) to survive easier. But Berserker Trinkets can be added for more damage. (Celestial is also a popular mentioned option, but due to the difficulty of acquiring Celestial I’d recommend ignoring it for now.)

sPvP (heart of the mist) might show your armor on your character, but it actually has no effect. Your stats and traits are determinded by “PvP-build” at the top of your screen. Most options will automaticly be available, all you have to do is make a selection.

Wonderful, now how do I actually get the gear?
When you just reached level 80, you likely don’t have loads of money to spend yet. I’d recommend starting off with a set of rare (yellow) armor found on the trading post. These armor costs ~40 silver per piece, but once you’re done with it you can salvage (master’s/mystic salvage kit recommended!) for a chance at ectos, to earn back most of the money spend. In rares you’ll be able to do most content comfortably and test if a certain stat-combination works for you, from there on you can start working on exotic pieces (and eventually Ascended, but that’s so complicated and expensive, I wouldn’t think about it yet.)

There’re multiple options to get armor/weapons;
1. World vs World/Edge of the Mist; Badges of Honor can be traded for armor of multiple stats (including the very popular berserker, soldier and rabid armors.) Badges can easily be farmed by following around a blue tag in a EotM or WvW map, especially EotM is quick. This armor also requires a small gold investment and it can’t be salvaged, which means any expensive runes put on it (now or in the future) will be lost if you stop using the armor!

(Note: World vs World also gives a lot of Karma, in the Orr Region there’re temples that once cleared of Zaithan’s corruption will have vendors selling gear for Karma with limited options available (Rabid (condition damage, precision, toughness) Soldier’s (power, precision, ferocity) and Magi’s who’s stats I don’t know by heart.) Which can be an option, these armors can’t be salvaged either, so be careful with expensive runes.)

2. Dungeons, I’m unsure if you’ve done a Dungeon yet, but they are an instance designed for 5 people. In the groupfinder (tab in the contact list) you can find a group, try to find one that fits you (I’d recommend avoiding 5k+ AP, zerk only, exp! or kick groups at first.) Explorable Dungeons end with once a day a reward of 40 tokens + ~1-3g at the end and another unlimited reward of 20 tokens and ~17 silver. These tokens can be exchanged for armors, does take about a week for a set from a single dungeons, not including weapons. Each dungeons has 3 different stats available which can be viewed in Lion Arch (East)

3. Buying it from the Trading Post/Crafting your own. This can be a very expensive option for a fresh level 80.

4. PvP-Reward Tracks. Slowest option by far for armor, you’ll get about 3 weapons and 1 armor per track (and a few tokens to spend on armor or weapons,) but if you enjoy PvP pick a dungeon-reward track with a dungeon that rewards armor/weapons with a stat-combination you like. (Once again, the vendors can be visited in Lion’s Arch, east-section.)

Or ofcourse a combination of the above options works aswell.

All Armors carry the option to have a Rune added to them, these improve your stats and add an effect (such as the Scholar Runes, it provides Power and Ferocity and if you have one on all six pieces you’ll get 10% increased if you’re above 90% hp) these can be very expensive at first, try to search for cheap runes or even orbs (these carry stats only, much like armor, but generally considered inferior) with an ok’ish effect/stats to start off with. Weapons have something similar called a Sigil, they’re effects are rather clear in their descriptions, note that two of the same Sigils don’t stack. Once again, opt for cheaper Sigils or their rare versions to start off with.

Pfff, that’s a lot, anything else? Yes, trinkets
Your character also wears jewelry that improve it’s stats. Exotic Jewelry is quite expensive (~5g a piece) which is a shame since it makes a significant different stat-wise. Each stat-combination has a jewel assigned to them, which I sadly don’t know by heart except for; Ruby (Berserker; Power, Precision, Toughness) and Beryl (Soldier; Power, Toughness, Vitality.)

I’d recommend getting an Ascended Amulet Straight away if you know which stats you want already. They can be purchased for Laurels (you get one per daily and ten for a monthly, you likely saved up a few whilst leveling.) In World vs World maps there’s a vendor offering a combination of Laurels and WvW Badges, since Badges are so easy to obtain (like mentioned in the armor section, farm EotM) I highly recommend this option. Laurels are heavily time-gated and you might come to regret the choice. You might notice each stat-option has 3 amulets, one with a offensive, one with a defensive and one with an utility infusion slot. I’d highly recommend taking the Utility infusion slot, how-ever it’s of no significance yet.

Again, sorry for the huge wall of text and if I went into details too much.

Cosmos, one very important note..
Everyone seems to consider berserker stats as the holy grail of GW2…but make sure you choose whatever YOU feel is convenient for your own playing style..do not let others get to you in your decision

Another quick comment.

Most people recommend you go straight to exotics (orange), personally I think that rare gear (yellow) is perfectly ok if you’re starting and you just got your first 80. You can get a full set of rare gear on the TP for the price of a single exotic piece, which is great for a starting point when you’re still unsure of what stat combination is good for you, then once you find which one works better you can start to replace them for exotics.

Per above, unless you are VERY good at avoiding damage (dodging, blocking, kiting, etc.), Please don’t get a full set of Zerker gear so everyone else nearby has to rez you every fight…. On the other hand, DO get very good at avoiding damage (no matter WHAT armor set you eventually choose).

Unless you are running Dungeon speed runs, FULL Zerker gear is NOT required.