Guild Wars 2

Just looking for some tips on weapons/armor/runes etc. I’ve been away from the game for a little more than a year a recently started playing again. I’m not really concerned with the looks of items, I’m more concerned with the “how much should I be paying” for new armor and weapon (I like using great swords, mine doesn’t have max damage stats)? I have a level 80 Warrior and it’s likely only a shell of what it could be with the right gear. I read the DPS guide by Purple Miku which I think helped a lot as far a fixing my skills and traits goes.

I really don’t do PvP, I stick almost completely with PvE and thats what I’m trying to build for. As I said my biggest concern is I just dont know how much I should be paying for the items I would want. Don’t have much money to spend right now, been trying to do the Dragons whenever they are up look for some decent items to sell but I w.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

What sort of PvE are you expecting to do? Open World? Dungeons? Fractals? SW zerging? All of the above?
What are your Crafting levels like and do you have interest in getting gear that way?
Which weapon/s do you use on your switch?

Without these answers I can tell you right now that the “meta” is using all, or almost all, Beserker gear for Dungeons and Fractals, as DPS is considered the best option. Some PUGs will kick you out if you don’t have Zerk gear.

Open World content like world bosses you might want Soldier gear, since bosses can’t be crit’d and the extra toughness is nice for survivability in SW.

Runes have more wiggle room. Let me know what you want to do.

- I would say all of the above but most of the time it’s Open World with some Dungeons and a little SW so that’s what I’m looking to build for. If I had to pick I spend most of my time just in OW exploring doing random stuff.

- I don’t/haven’t done much crafting to date so my crafting skills/knowledge are severely lacking, however if that’s the best way to do it I’m absolutely open to it.

- My secondary weapon is just a Rifle so I have something for range, 99% of the time I’m just using a Greatsword.

Now this is just my opinion. I’ve only just recently got back into the game too (2 year break for me) so I know how it feels to play catch up on a budget. Given how armor and stats are going to be changing when HoT hits, I suggest the following:

Soldier gear might be best suited for you. It’s not as expensive as Zerk and its better suited for World Bosses and SW survivability. (I say this because I have been switching my Soldier armor over to Zerker and the SW hurt noticeable more the more Toughness I lost.) You’ll want exotic quality because Ascended just isn’t a good enough reason right now for armor if you don’t have 500 in Armorsmithing and aren’t looking to do Fractals.

Which means you’ll either want to look for Dragonic gear or you could get similar quality from dungeons. AC and SE both have Soldier armors. You could also look into getting some Zerk pieces from dungeons (CoF, CoE, Arah) if you want more damage.

I’ve never been asked when joining a PUG to ping my Zerk gear, even if they state they want it, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it; just know some groups have expectations and will list “Zerk” in their description if that’s what they want. Join or don’t, up to you, but it won’t be too much of a hassle to find a group to do dungeons.

Treat yourself and get a good weapon/ trinket. Zerk ones, because you’ll want a decent crit rate for Forceful Greatsword. If you want to try doing some level 1-9 Fractals you can get real nice Zerk rings (Red Ring of death, Crystalize Ring) for just 10 Pristine tokens a piece. If you see a Fractal daily, do it. They’re like dungeons and it won’t take you that long to get enough tokens for those rings.

A Crafted Zerk sword off the TP will run you ~4g 80s. If you have the Mystic coins saved up from logging in and enough Skill points, you could instead make a Mystic Claymore which, buying just the blades/handles, will only run you ~2g 83s. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Claymore

I never use Rifle so I can’t give you much advice here. Same advice I guess.

Runes/Sigils can be expensive but there are some alternatives. Get rid of the Sigil on the Mystic Claymore if you go that route. It’s crap compared to other options. Battle is the usual go-to because of might granting on swap (which means it’s one of the more expensive ones). Also use Superior quality, it’s worth it.

Runes you have a few options. Strength is the preferred Meta, but 6 of those will get costly. Hoelbrak is almost just as good, a little cheaper, but not by much. Pack is also popular if you’re planning to always be grouped up for what you’re doing, though Swiftness isn’t super critical in PvE as it is in PvP/WvW. Personally, because I started with Soldier Armor too, I made up for my crit rate/damage with Eagle runes because they were pretty cheap (~1g per vs 8g for Strength). They’ve served me pretty well but now that I have Zerk gear and transfered them over, I have between 50-70% crit chance depending on buffs and over 200% crit damage.

I’d say do dungeons and get your armor and money, daily Teq for money and chance of exotic weapon drop, and SW if you are sturdy enough.

I wish I could give you better idea on prices but I crafted most of my armor and I’m still learning, too.

Actually, thinking about it, since you use GS almost exclusively, get a Bloodlust And Strength Sigil instead. It will be much better suited than a Battle one.

Alright that all sounds good to me. I definitely need to work on building up some money but this gives a route to go and an idea of what I need to finish my build off. Thanks a bunch for the help!

Feel free to drop me a whisper/mail in game if you got any more questions or whatever.