User talk:Tanetris/So You Want To Gear a Character

I take it that you're going to cover the new fractal vendor method of crafting armor boxes? -Chieftain Alex 07:16, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Both fractal vendor and pvp vendor, yeah. Though on a personal level I'm not crazy about either of them, as they both actually require more crafting steps than straight-up crafting, and in some cases are more expensive. But they're worth covering anyway, once I find a good way to cover the comparison. Might pull some TP API shenanigans - Tanetris (talk) 13:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

/cheer -Chieftain Alex 07:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

VERY nicely done!

This is excellent! Thank you!!!

There's one question, though, that I couldn't find the answer to: how do I choose which stat group to use? For example, Berserkers vs. Vipers vs. Shamans (etc.) Thanks! Daddicus (talk) 18:34, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

The short answer is... Consult a build guide for your class. The qT guild has an assortment of raid-viable builds for each class, as well as a DPS benchmark list that are generally considered the gold standard by the raiding community. You can also use Metabattle, which is a wiki dedicated to GW2 builds, but at a glance the raid section looks a bit less up-to-date. I try to avoid getting into those specifics beyond broad generalities to keep the scope of this somewhat reasonable and because I personally don't stay that on top of the meta. - Tanetris (talk) 19:05, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Daddicus (talk) 18:59, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Added Siren's Landing

Backpacks are an oddity here, as they are Karma + Currency instead of Unbound Magic + Currency. For now I've simply added them as if they were normal, unsure what is best. -- User:Frvwfr2 17:52, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Feedback

Great guide - I have shared it with my guildies. I have a few points of feedback...

In the "PvP trinkets" section, you don't mention that the Mist Band (ring) come pre-infused - this makes it a good option for those wanting to skip the infusion process for higher level fractals.

You don't talk about WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets as a method to obtain ascended weapons, trinkets and armour.

Perhaps the Blood Ruby trinkets are worth a special mention because of their stat-swappable nature (see Bloodstone Capacitor)?

I also have a couple of questions for you....

When I was gearing out my characters, I decided (foolishly?) that Celestial stats were a good all-rounder option for me as I like to have the flexibility to vary my builds quite a lot. I currently have 3 sets of ascended celestial armour on 3 characters (1 set per character). Is there any point in me keeping this time-gated (Charged Quartz Crystals) armour or should I convert it in the Mystic Forge to Berserkers/Viper/Magi as appropriate?

Why isn't the "Minstrels" stat combo preferred over Magi? Magi has precision which seems a bit of a wasted stat for a healer role.

Thanks again --Combatter (talk) 08:58, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

WvW skirmish tickets went in the game after the last time I did a major update, so they have yet to be added, but they will be, along with some other bits and bobs from that update and the one since. Haven't quite gotten around to it, but I will.

Whether it makes sense to keep celestial armor isn't necessarily a question I can answer. It depends on what you wanna do, how your resources are, etc. If all you do is open world pve, fairly casual fractalling and dungeoning, wvwing (I think celestial may actually be considered good for wvw in some cases? As I said in the guide, I'm not up on wvw meta), it's entirely possible you're fine sticking with celestial. If you want to get into raiding, though, or challenge modes of Nightmare and Shattered Observatory, you probably want to pick your 'top' raid-viable character and switch theirs over. Another alternative, particularly if you're not particularly rich and in no particular hurry to start anything "serious", would be to wait until the expansion drops next month and see how that affects the meta (if a class that's currently power-based flips to condi-based or vice versa, or if there's a brand new stat combo that supercedes berserker or viper)

The reason for Magi over Minstrel's is that Minstrel's has toughness. About half of the raid bosses have a mechanic where they automatically target the player with the highest toughness, making them the 'tank'. In most cases, at least for PUGs, it is preferred to give that role to a chronomancer, due to their high amount of evades. So when the healer takes toughness, that means the chrono has to take even more toughness, which means less of another stat that's more useful to them. If you're not going to be raiding, this is not relevant (but if you're not raiding, 99% of the time you're better off not gearing for healing at all) - Tanetris (talk) 16:30, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I think I will wait until the expansion drops, hold on to the ascended celestial armour and use exotic berserkers/vipers armour in the meantime while I think it over. Wow I didn't know that about Toughness at all. What a weird mechanic for the bosses to actually target players with MORE toughness! Seems like a rather strange AI decision and one that creates an otherwise unnecessary split between what makes a good healer stat combo in raiding and what makes a good one in WvW --Combatter (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I love your guide and have shared it with a handful of people, but I feel like it would be a good idea to mention that PvP/WvW reward tracks can drop ascended rings, armor and weapon boxes. Under the weapon section you said that fractals and teq were where you get boxes to drop the most, but I have definitely gotten a lot more weapon boxes from WvW thanks to my horrible pve luck - i blame the mystic toilet for eating it. If WvW/PvP boxes are affected by MF, maybe there could maybe be a section added for those that have high magic find? Almost as a side note for those that are using wvw/pvp methods for the trinkets. Allisondellue (talk) 03:10, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

The guide is intended for PvE (only lists PvE gear and sources so no minstrel, no celestial, no marauder, etc). Personally think it would get too cluttered if we added too much. That being said if you're referring to the Ascended chest drops from WvW ranks they also drop from a ton of sources and listing random drop sources isn't really the idea of the guide. Maybe Tanetris thinks otherwise but it's my opinion that the random chest drops are at most just mentioned. Maybe I'll end up putting a line about it in there anyways though. Dak393 (talk) 04:01, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Harriers

Some feedback from reddit where this guide was linked: Magi's is a bit outdated. Harrier is now the stat of choice for healers. This gear is either from Fractals/PvP, or crafted from Path of Fire recipes. Could do with an additional table for Harrier direct recipe craft. Trinkets are trade contracts or raid tokens. -149.254.234.93 14:28, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Weapons might be in need a bit of a spruce up if we're updating anyway. I'll get us started by listing weapons that are something like the meta setup.

Berserker Dagger, Berserker Axe, Berserker Greatsword.

/ Viper Longbow, Viper Sword, Viper Torch.

Viper Shortbow, Viper Dagger, Viper Torch.

Viper Shortbow, Viper Axe, Viper Torch.

Harrier Staff, Harrier Axe, Harrier Warhorn.

// Berserker Staff.

Viper Dagger, Berserker Staff.

Berserker Rifle.

Berserker Dagger.

Berserker Rifle.

/ Viper Pistol.

Viper Scepter, Viper Torch, Viper Sword.

/ Berserker Greatsword, Berserker Scepter, Berserker Torch, Assassin Hammer.

Viper Mace, Viper Axe, Viper Shortbow.

/ Berserker Sword, Berserker Axe, Berserker Staff.

Commander Sword, Berserker Sword, Berserker Shield.

Viper Axe, Viper Torch, Viper Pistol

Viper Scepter, Viper Torch, Viper Dagger

Viper Greatsword

-Chieftain Alex 20:41, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Also, some bits of Commander gear for Chronos, Harrier for Druids, and Assassin for random increase-critical-chance to 100 setups. -Chieftain Alex 20:44, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Also the Harrier stat is cheaper to stat change in the Mystic Forge than to buy the recipe for. Life Infusion «T» 19:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Doing some updates to the guide

Trying to bring the guide more in line with the current meta and add some missing stat sets and details in. Hope you don't mind Tanetris, I still refer people to this guide because I think it's the best one out there. -Dak393 (talk) 09:34, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Those sure are some weird weapons you've added.. what uses condi shield? (also I can fix the price lookup, I can update the subpage per the notes later in the week) -Chieftain Alex 23:46, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Missing WVW Gear

This is a great guide but it is missing WVW gear, which offer the same trinkets as pvp and all gear, Triumphant Hero's Armour and Mistforged Weapons from the WVW Skirmish Merchant after unlocking the armour/weapon from the Triumphant Armour Rewad Track or Hero Weapon Reward Track. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skirmish_Supervisor . The wvw meta gear for support is Minstrel's, for DPS Marauders or Berserker's, these haven't changed since HoT came out. Celestial for a mixed condi/power scourge or marauders for power scourge currently as it is a power meta atm. Metabattle has the current wvw meta builds and stats. edited 01 March 2019

This guide is not intended to gear for WvW. To quote the first line: "This guide is intended to help level 80 characters gear up for high-end PvE content such as fractals and raids, or who simply want to make the most of their character in terms of PvE effectiveness". I don't mind adding more gear sets now that the ascended armor is on another page but adding too many options and sets to the main guide dilutes it imo (why I haven't added assassin or many other PvE sets). As for the PvP and WvW armor, they are mentioned but since they require actually doing the game modes and more time they are mentioned at the bottom as alternate options. The Ascended armor also covers the token vendors and other options. Dak393 (talk) 08:13, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Grieving?

Grieving stat combo isn't mentioned at all, even in passing. I understand that it isn't meta, but the Funerary Weapon and Armor collections offer it, with the armor being free of cost for the first set (gained through the achievements). Completing either collection also offers a single Ascended with Grieving, though that isn't really cheaper than crafting. While it lacks Expertise which hurts it in longer fights, it has 4 damage stats which seems like it could be viable for Condi burst or builds with lower percentages of condi damage, or at least a viable stopgap to gaining Viper gear. added March 2020

So the general idea was to keep it simple, there are other stats that can be used and are meta but adding every single stat and option kind of defeats the purpose. So limiting it to the 4 main build types helps a lot and when people need to get other stats (like Assassin's, Marshal's, Knights, or something else less common) they can still use the stat selectable options and I did even include Jahnus's Stained Pectoral as an amulet to get. I don't think it's worth listing an armor option that requires a collection that costs gold for some parts and farming for RNG drops on others. Really it's a lot of work and effort for one exotic set if your only goal is that stats (and not the skins). Also the only build it's viable on right now is condi firebrand and even then only chest and boots so really not huge demand for it when you can just get bladed armor instead. Oh and on the topic of stopgaps, the suggested carrion gear actually works surprisingly well for condi FB if you need a budget build till you get the right gear. Dak393 (talk) 07:21, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Vial of Salt / TP Total

Hi Tanetris, such a great guide that inspired to do a cut down one focused on PvE but for some reason the template tp total just doesn't want to work for me even something as simple as the Vial of Salt (…) and even included the tp total calculate near the foot of the page. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. Lady Elyssa (talk) 21:06, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

You need to #vardefine things. For this guide all of that is done on a subpage that gets transcluded at the top, User:Tanetris/So You Want To Gear a Character/items (it looks blank but if you hit edit you'll see a bunch of code). User:Chieftain Alex is a hero who figured all that stuff out for me. - Tanetris (talk) 04:11, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, much appreciated :o) Lady Elyssa (talk) 09:40, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

<3 I continue to send this to new players.

Sent this to 2 new players today! Thank you for making such a helpful page. :) --Rain Spell (talk) 15:48, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Strike vendor gear

Long time appreciator of this guide, thank you :) I did some spreadsheeting today, and as long as there's no strikes purchase comparison, there should probably be some mention? that as a rule of thumb strikes purchases are going to be better value (I dunno how long this has been true for). My best efforts only result in a kludgy spreadsheet, so I can't offer to implement this but I'm highlighting that for example it looks like crafting Yassith's armor vs strikes purchase is a loss of ~ 100G+ (and that doesn't account for karma value either). That laaargely holds true for commonly used stat sets but will have a few exceptions. Yassith's is taking a worst case. Gartner (talk) 20:46, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Exotic Amulet Suggestion

May I suggest the craftable Stat-selectable Crafted Amulet Lady Elyssa.2469 09:55, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Easy Ascended Weapon Through Achievment

I recently found out about the Seasons of the Dragons achievement. You only need to complete 4 of the Return to "XX" achievements. I've found them particularly easy to accomplish. For example the | Return to a Crack in the Ice requires you to start and finish the story step, do a bunch of gathering that you would probably do any way, complete an easy diving spot and then do 15 events in the zone. Plus it rewards a ton of winterberries for the ascended trinkets. The other season 3 return achievements I've done so far are also pretty easy.

Thanks for your guide! It's helped me a ton on my GW2 journey! Caderyn (talk) 20:35, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion - Splitting up the page

Have you considered splitting up the page so that you have a seperate page for Strike Damage and another for Condition Damage? You could then create user template pages for any shared / duplicated content. It might help keep things a bit more manageable as things continue to expand. Lady Elyssa.2469 09:07, 2 July 2024 (UTC)