Guild Wars 2

Based on personal experience, how would you recommend allocating your Wxp upgrades as you increase your WvW rank?

Here are my thoughts on the first upgrades you should focus on

1) Guard Killer 10
2) Defense Against Guards 10
3) Build Mastery 1
4) Supply Master 4
5) Repair Mastery 1
6) Flame Ram Mastery 3
7) Siege Might 5
8) Catapult Mastery 5
9) Siege Bunker 5

You could swap these first 9 around a bit. I personally didn’t get max Guard Killer and Defense Against guards until much later but now I think it’s a great way for a newer player to start off in WvW though 115 points in each is quite an investment Applied Strength and Applied Fortitude are very nice buffs.

Depending on how much you like to rely on fellow players to carry enough supply or carry more yourself, increase
Supply Capacity (up to level 5)

Depending on which siege equipment you like to specialize in, get some or all of the following
Cannon Mastery 4
Ballista Mastery 5
Arrow Cart Mastery 5
Burning Oil Mastery 5
Trebuchet Mastery 3
Mortar Mastery 5

This always comes dead last
Mercenary’s Bane

I thought is was common knowledge that any more-or-less serious young WvWer should get vita stacks→ power stacks before even looking at the other rank rewards

You might want to skip Defense against Guards when you use stealth (Thief / Mesmer / Ranger) because of the Retaliation effect.

iFruit.6190:

I thought is was common knowledge that any more-or-less serious young WvWer should get vita stacks-> power stacks before even looking at the other rank rewards

And if you’re serious about WvW you’ll get them both and all the others. The order is a matter of preference. OK sure, vitality stacks will help you survive a bit better but it only comes after 115 ranks. If you could wait 115 ranks to get the vit stacks then you can also wait 230 and get the power/cond dmg stacks first to deal more dmg. ok just get them both. they’re both great.

The first points should always go into Supply Mastery. The chance to recover supplies is probably the single most important trait.

They are also fairly cheap so it the trade-off isn’t huge.

After that I’d recommend a few points into both supply and build mastery, just to make those more efficient. But that too only costs a few points.

Only after that would I encourage Defense against Guards. It costs 115 points and it’s not something you can just casually pick up. It also takes a long time to pay off since all the preliminary upgrades are pretty useless.

And frankly, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference if you’re running with the zerg.

Dee Jay.2460:

The first points should always go into Supply Mastery. The chance to recover supplies is probably the single most important trait.

They are also fairly cheap so it the trade-off isn’t huge.

After that I’d recommend a few points into both supply and build mastery, just to make those more efficient. But that too only costs a few points.

Only after that would I encourage Defense against Guards. It costs 115 points and it’s not something you can just casually pick up. It also takes a long time to pay off since all the preliminary upgrades are pretty useless.

And frankly, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference if you’re running with the zerg.

Exactly supply master first, low cost point wise and high reward, such as faster picking up supply, swiftness after you pick up, swiftness after you spent supplies plus chance to get some supplies back.

At least 1 value point in both build and repair masteries (doubles build/repair speed), rank 4 in supply mastery for the chance to recover supply. After that it depends on how much you sit on siege, if not go applied fortitude before guard leech. For siege it’s obviously more points-efficient to get the early levels in multiple sieges so you can hop on different types of siege and not be badly unequipped for it. Mercenary’s bane is useless more or less.

My Top 10 list:

1. Defense Against Guards 10 – Applied Fortitude is the best WvW skill in the game.
2. Supply Mastery 4 – Returns supply which can be invaluable.
3. Flame Ram Mastery 3 – Takes doors down over 50% faster
4. AC Mastery 4 – The most powerful siege in the game currently
5. Build Mastery 1 – Faster building of siege which means less time in AC fire and faster tower/keep takes
6. Repair Mastery 1 – Cheap and a time saver
7. Guard Killer – Nice offensive buff but 100 power/100 condi dmg isn’t a game changer
8. Treb Mastery 3 – Steal supplies from an enemy is near priceless
9. Catapult Mastery 5 – Makes catas useful!
10. Siege Might 5 – 5% isn’t a lot but it adds up

I would add that ballista mastery is very powerful. I don’t use them often but when I do I am glad I have the extra kick so I would probably go here for #11.

Aside from Applied Fortitude, Supply Capacity is probably my favorite since I use it ALL the time. The problem with it is that it requires 300 WvW levels. That said I would not fault any player for going down this road after Applied Fortitude. It is without a doubt worth every point.

4 ranks supply mastery
2 ranks AC mastery
2 ranks build mastery
1 rank repair mastery

Bare minimum things I would invest in before guard stacks. 3 ranks of flame mastery, 2 ranks of treb, 2 cannon, 2 ballista, and 1 cata are also nice things early on.

Some great suggestions! The upgrades have been a bit bewildering to me as to what are the best ones. I am only rank 50ish, so am fairly new to WvW compared to most others out there. So far, have been putting most of my upgrades into supply, supply capacity, treb, siege might(I tend to do a lot of trebbing when there is not a whole lot of other stuff going on in WvW) and repair and building. Will start saving up points to get the fortitude upgrade, as that sounds very good.

Thanks again…really informative thread!

4 in supply mastery just because as said above, the low cost and high benefits
1 build mastery— saves you time
1 repair mastery (optional)— same
Max Defense vs Guards* — big health boost but takes a while to get. In a zerg, survivability is king and guard stacks allow certain builds that would normally die to be pretty viable. General combat upgrades are always wanted as well.
1 in Arrow Cart and Flame Ram (these are rather big upgrades)
Max Attack vs Guards*-- Just a general combat upgrade
Pick a siege weapon to max out.
Rest use at your leisure except ignore mercenaries and save supply capacity for when you have a surplus.

*Classes with low base hp such as guardian would benefit a lot more from 2500 extra health. Classes like necros with high health can get away with maxing the attack stacks. Though honestly the attack stacks don’t really give that much.

Ironically since these boosts are flat, that means that glass cannons benefit more from health stacks, and tanky low damage builds benefit more from attack stacks.