Guild Wars 2

I have exclusively played sPVP/tPVP the whole time this game has been out except to get my character to 80 via pve and finish the story.

I tried to step into WvW yesterday for the first time ankitten ot sure how to play because I don’t know how the playstyle is different from small scale PvP and if I have any hope of actually standing a chance, considering I don’t have time (nor want to) grind for gear. Should I just stick to s/tPVP and quit when I’m bored? From what I understand, WvW was always gear-dependent, and I never had a lot of time to devote to this game in the first place, which is why I stuck to s/tPvP. I don’t have friends that play anymore and haven’t played in like 2 months.

I have 1 class only—mesmer. I haven’t played nor really wanted to play other classes and pretty much got the game, so I could play this class and have been frustrated with how it is turning out in tPvP. I feel like other classes have it better in s/tPvP and am trying to try a new venue…should I even bother?

Most level 80’s are still sitting in exotics for their gear, ascended gear is a real grind. Best thing about exotics is the number of ways you can get them, karma, gold, wvw badges + gold, crafting. Depending on your build but you may have to spend mostly gold to upgrade. I’m sure you will be able to pick up whatever pieces you need even with just gold, runes and sigils cost vary depending on the build you want. Can use your laurels to pick up ascended trinkets.

If you want to quickly build up badges I would suggest eotm as they drop like candy in there, and lots of places for your mesmer to throw people off. Even running around with the zerg in wvw will net you a decent amount of gold.

As for your build you will need to decide which you want to play mostly, the condition clone builds are good for roamers, might want more toughness if you’re going to run with the zerg which in itself requires certain skills up like veil timewarp, portals for golems.

Anyways good luck, it really wouldn’t take long for you to gear up a character for wvw.

yeah, worst case, 2 weeks time to get full setup ready.

Ascended backpieces you can get from crafting. You easily get lots of T6 mats from WvW

Prysin.8542:

You easily get lots of T6 mats from WvW

And yet after playing wvw every day from release, I still don’t have half of what I need to get a legendary. Playing a Mesmer, funnily enough, the entire time (tagging disparity between classes is a kitten). But I digress.

Check the mesmer forum for builds (stickied thread). Shouldn’t take you to long. Join a guild, run with other people, either small man or zergs. It’s a lot of fun. The gear will come if you just keep going, then you’ll have it for life.

Consumables will give you a far bigger buff than Ascended stuff.
As per the above posters, just stick to Exotics.
The most important gear for WvW is empty bag slots.

I recommend going full soldier gear until you get a hang of what you’re doing, and slowly switching your gear out to a more glassy or condi bunker build as you see fit. WvW is gear dependant, but the importance of gearing influences what kind of role you play, rather than how well you do in a fight. A full cleric guardian will rarely beat a glass thief in a 1v1. It’s about builds and skill, not stats.

I would go with full invader/soldier armour first, exotics if possible (42k karma each, get the “big” pieces with karma like chest and pants and buy the minor pieces with badge or gold). You can buy a full set rare trinkets/accessories for like 3 gold. Also you can get cheap exotic rings and/or trinkets under 1 gold each if you are lucky (like Ring of blood).

The really expensive things are the runes/sigils. You can spend a hell amount of money if you want TP-only pieces. A set of traveller can cost more than 60 gold. But for example a set of Undead is 10 silver :P

The good thing in WvW you get every kind of rewards: gold/salvage/karma/badge so you have many ways to gear up.

And ALWAYS have food/oil/crystal/stone! These are the best “gear” items you can get they are really powerful. If you want to make money go for the 2nd best. The difference in stats are only 10% but the cost is 1000%.

++ for trying out in soldiers/invaders gear. You can always mix p/v/t armor with berserker trinkets for a mix of health & attacking power. WvW is great fun once you get a little experience, and mesmers are a great class to play.

I ran with cheap mesmer runes for a long time in WvW. Love playing my mesmer there, the only thing I dislike is the movement speed – you have some ground to cover and mesmers are the slowest class. Travellers runes help but they are (too) expensive. In groups this is not such a problem – others will give you swiftness.

Alacrity.4312:

The most important gear for WvW is empty bag slots.

Nah. Most important gear is a good server. If you are going up against 3 guild groups on every map all that bag space is wasted because u aint killing no one. Also being on a bad server as a WvW newbie can make you hate the game. When people are standing outside your main keep camping everyone cause your server sucks and not letting anyone by it will make you rage quit in a hurry