Guild Wars 2

I am fairly new to the game because the last time I played was 2 years back, I only leveled a mesmer to 80 before I understood anything the game can offer. I started playing last month and decided to level a ranger but I got bored of the ranger and realized how I really liked my mesmer.

I need advice on what ascended armor and weapons to craft. I am currently crafting ascended tailor marks and can exchange a piece of ascended gear but I do not know what to get. Should I get commander, minstrel or zerk. I went thru alot of meta thingies and forum post and still there are so many options and now I am more confused than ever. One thing to know is that I play either support or dps on my previous mmo and I hate playing tanks but here on gw2 I read that mesmer are the tanks/support tank on raids. I am willing to learn how to support or tank just to be able to bring my mesmer on raids if ever (which is probably not ever but it is still ok).

Sorry on the long text, I really need some advice.

If you are low on gold, I wouldn’t get anything ascended yet. An expansion is on the horizon, better to wait for it and its changes.

You can get very cheap exotic gear. I would get a full Berzerker armor set, and then work towards ascended trinkets.

The thing is, unless you are playing raids or high level fractals, both ascended equipment and stats like commander and minstrel won’t be useful to you. Berzerker lets you kill things faster when you are alone in the open world or doing the story.

Now if you absolutely want to craft ascended gear, the orser of importance in which you should acquire them is: trinkets (rings, accesories, backpack) > weapons > armour.

In raids, there are 2 mesmers in every organized group, one is the tank, the other is support. Tanking in this game works differently, and it’s only something you should do if you are familiar with the mechanics of each fight.

As RabbitUp said, I would hold off on getting ascended gear (at least no armor) for now. You seem to have spent some time gather information, that’s good. You lack a lot of experience with the game (and especially endgame), that’s bad. I’ll give the reasoning first, then my recommendation:

- ascended armor is barely an upgrade over exotic, it is 10-20 times more expensive though. Absolutely do not get ascended armor, you will regret it at this point in the game.

- ascended weapons might be useful, but are quite expensive. If you absolutely want ascended weapons, don’t craft them. Do the Caladbolg questchain(get the 1hand sword), get you elite specialisation collection shield, use exotic on other slots.

-ascended trinkets are easily available via Living World Season 3 maps, no crafting or gold needed (well except the map materials and unbound magic which could be converted to gold). Get berserker first, then commanders second. Those 2 trinket sets will get you through 100% of the pve game.

- there is an expansion around the corner with very likely heavy changes to the meta

All this said, I’d recommend you get some experience in the game modes you actually want to play. Get some experience on different exotic gear with your class. There is no hurry to get ascended armor, trinkets via gathering is fine. Use all methods available to you to get items from achievements instead of crafting. Crafting ascended gear has to ALWAYS be the very last or desperate choice since the avenues to get ascended from collections/drops is quite high.

Maybe I did not explained very well,

I am already crafting ascended tailor marks, those things I need to buy ascended armors on the fractal merchant. I already have exotic gears and ascended rings and amulet. I am doing fractals T2 at the moment, well because I do not want to join a higher fractal where I get to die because of agony and be carried (I do not like the feeling of stepping on a boss fight and drop dead, without even doing anything yet). I am also doing some daily teq, triple wurm and daily pvp win that gives me mats to salvage and hoping for an ascended drop. I got 3 ascended weapons but I chose a bow and a staff, this is back when I adored my ranger and elementalist (both have exotic gears and ascended rings). And got another drop and chose another staff because I got confused….

I know I might not be able to raid, because of my limited gaming time and I do not have friends who plays within my time frame but I am just wondering what to get just in case I get to be in a raid and well I absolutely would like to play on higher level fractals.

But I will take your advice, hopefully the Grandmaster Tailor Marks I am crafting won´t be obsolete. I will just continue to craft the marks for now and wait for the expansion.

Thank you for the advice, I am thinking to wait for the expansion before buying LS3 because I am hoping for a bundle or discounted price, but if the expansion is still 2 months away, I might as well buy it.

You can easily reach up to high level fractal level T3 without any ascended armor. Armor is only needed for T4.

That said, again weapons are your main priority and ascended trinkets. We understood you are making items for crafting ascended gear, it’s just not a good idea at this point in time. I’m sure the Grandtailor Marks will remain valid in the future.

With 2 agony resistance slots on weapons, 1 on backpiece (non infused since infusing the back ist quite expensive), 3 per ring (if attuned and infused) and 1 per accessoire you’ll endup with 11 agony infusion slots. That’s 11 times potentially +9 (3-4 gold on the TP) infusions giving you 99 agony resistance (keeps you at minimal agony damage up to fractal level 71). If you exchange 7 +9s for +10s (7-8 gold on the TP, since we want to save on infusing the backpiece) you can even push your ar to 106 (good until fractal level 75).

Personally I think the LW Season 3 maps are absolutely worth the 200 gems investment per map. Once the expansion hits everyone will be in the new zones leaving the old story zones a bit emptier for a certain period of time (until the new expansion hype has died down and people start farming all over again).

Right now the LWS3 zones are very frequented with the legendary trinkets release. That’s just me though, if you want to wait for a price discount that’s fine. I’d probably get at least Episode 3 for access to Bitterfrost Frontier and the trinkets from that zone, but that’s just me.

EDIT: and if you are wondering, the first set of trinkets on mesmer should be berserker.