Gift of Battle

Maybe someone can explain the thinking on this. Why is it that Legendary weapons require an item that can only be obtained in Player Vs Player game modes, Yet not one step requires a player step foot in PvE? This is a pretty big turnoff for anyone who doesn't enjoy that content, yet wants to make a legendary. In the past, it wasn't a big deal, you could get Gift of Battle for nothing. But now its locked behind following some group around doing nothing for hours on end to have a few minutes of fighting, OR PvP where you get to experience the highest form of toxicity that Guild Wars 2 has to offer. And either way, their both just so damn boring. At lest let us get them from Fractals.

@Kallist.5917 said:Maybe someone can explain the thinking on this. Why is it that Legendary weapons require an item that can only be obtained in Player Vs Player game modes, Yet not one step requires a player step foot in PvE?

Gift of Exploration and Gift of Maguuma/Desert Mastery would like a word...

This is a pretty big turnoff for anyone who doesn't enjoy that content, yet wants to make a legendary. In the past, it wasn't a big deal, you could get Gift of Battle for nothing.

That was the problem. Originally, you could only get Badges of Honor from WvW, you had to WvW for this component, until Anet reworked Achievement rewards and put them into these chests. Anet reworking Gift of Battle into the WvW reward track was returning it to it's original theme of being only obtainable via WvW.

But now its locked behind following some group around doing nothing for hours on end to have a few minutes of fighting, OR PvP where you get to experience the highest form of toxicity that Guild Wars 2 has to offer. And either way, their both just so kitten boring. At lest let us get them from Fractals.

If you want to make a Legendary, you'll do the steps required for it. If not, you can buy Gen1 from the Trading Post, eliminating the need to ever set foot into WvW. In fact, you can easily just do the PvE centric elements of the WvW daily for potions to complete the reward track. It's slower, but the goal is the same.

Crafting a Legendary Weapon is 95% PvE oriented. I'm sure you'll survive 6hrs in WvW for that 5%.

Not one step requires PvE? I think you're forgetting the Gift of Exploration which requires 100% core Tyria map completion. That's a lot of PvE, and unlike with the Gift of Battle there's no way around it.

As for why it's required I think it's simply because Anet wanted legendaries to be the ultimate goal in GW2 - the most prestigious, difficult to obtain items and thought that should mean playing every game mode. I suspect the only reason PvP was excluded was because originally there was no way to use a legendary in PvP so it wouldn't have made any sense.

If it's any help I wrote a guide to getting the Gift of Battle for people with no WvW experience, and there's many suggestions in the comments for ways to get it without ever actually engaging in WvW combat. (The easiest, but also slowest, is to buy Badges of Tribute in your guild hall when WvW Big Spender is a daily achievement.)

Funnily enough, I had the same mentality. But to add to it, I hated doing fractals as I enjoyed Open World stuff more. Thing is, I really wanted Astralaria. So I sucked it up, did the hideous fractals I needed to, and did my WvW reward track to gain the Gift of Battle. And like you OP, I hated any kind of PvP. But during my brief time in WvW, it opened my eyes to just how fun WvW is. Nowadays, im 95% WvWing when I log in. Go with an open mind, you never know!

There was a time, exploring WvW maps is part of the requirement for Gift of Explorer. Give and take, it is not part of the requirement for map completion now, and Gift of Battle was subbed in.Edit: The moment you realised the vista/poi needed is inside enemy's Garrison/Keep :anguished:

lolwat?!?!

Making a legendary is 99% PvE. The OP is clearly off his rocker.

It is intended to have a pretty high bar, however having just finished my first legendary (and starting on my second), the bulk of it is PvE... Nevermind the gift of exploration, a lot (if not all?) of the vanilla ones require dungeon tokens. Sure, you can technically "buy" those with RNG from vouchers found in black lion chests, but you'll have to keep rolling those dice until you get two vouchers for one legendary. Obsidian shards are one big PvE grind, although you can grind that in PvP too. (I am pretty sure the gift of battle reward track gives obsidian shards too, but I wasn't paying attention to them at that point since I already had all that I needed.)

The reward battle track seemed to be more PvE anyway, for me. I just ran around solo capping bases and sentries for the most part. I joined a zerg that would take out bigger targets from time to time to help out the participation rating, but I only did one actual PvP battle the entire reward track. I spent less than a week for sure grinding it out, so its a pretty low bar to achieve if you want to do strictly PvE in WvW to get your PvP reward. If you want to speed it up, look at your WvW dailies. They give you reward track progress potion things that you can use. Just make sure that, while you are running around killing those NPCs that you are working on some of those too.

@Eramonster.2718 said:Gift of Battle was subbed in.

Gift of Battle was always required. It wasn’t ‘subbed in’ when Gift of Exploration was changed to not require WvW completion.

OP, just try it. You might actually like it.When i was making a legendary, i was like why do i have to endure this crap like WvW.Some said, don't worry...jus be prepared to die a lot when you are a beginner, you will get the hang of things after a few tries.So i tried, ran with commander forgot about staying with tag, move too far.... died.After so many tries, learnt my lesson. Now im like level 900 and doing only wvw for about a year, 3+years before was just PVE.You will learn alot from WvW and might eventually like it and stay like me.I mean...look at raids, you have a dps meter, everyones stacked doing their dance moves, try that in WvW, someone will kill you like 2 hits (depends on class).So yeah...don't worry of what others say, just do normal stuff like repair walls, run with commander...see how you like it.

@"ScarieXS.2490" said:It is intended to have a pretty high bar, however having just finished my first legendary (and starting on my second), the bulk of it is PvE... Nevermind the gift of exploration, a lot (if not all?) of the vanilla ones require dungeon tokens. Sure, you can technically "buy" those with RNG from vouchers found in black lion chests, but you'll have to keep rolling those dice until you get two vouchers for one legendary. Obsidian shards are one big PvE grind, although you can grind that in PvP too. (I am pretty sure the gift of battle reward track gives obsidian shards too, but I wasn't paying attention to them at that point since I already had all that I needed.)

The reward battle track seemed to be more PvE anyway, for me. I just ran around solo capping bases and sentries for the most part. I joined a zerg that would take out bigger targets from time to time to help out the participation rating, but I only did one actual PvP battle the entire reward track. I spent less than a week for sure grinding it out, so its a pretty low bar to achieve if you want to do strictly PvE in WvW to get your PvP reward. If you want to speed it up, look at your WvW dailies. They give you reward track progress potion things that you can use. Just make sure that, while you are running around killing those NPCs that you are working on some of those too.

You can get dungeon tokens from the dungeon reward tracks in PvP and WvW. Althoug you do need to do the story mode dungeon first to unlock it, or wait until it cycles through to the one you need. And Obsidian Shards can be bought with laurels, karma or Memories of Battle and Skirmish Tokens - all of which can be earned without doing PvE. You do have to go into a PvE map to buy obsidian shards with karma, but you don't have to actually pay PvE. So if you really wanted to you could get all those parts while playing WvW.

But there's no way around the Gift of Exploration. You can use gold > gems to buy waypoint unlocks (absurdly expensive but the option is there) and testimony of heroics to buy hero point unlocks but you've still got to get the POIs, vistas and hearts which is the majority of PvE map completion.

Whereas the Gift of Battle can, as you found, be obtained by doing almost entirely PvE activities in WvW maps. Or even without going to WvW if you're willing to just use the Big Spender daily, but that takes forever.

No matter what Anet does people are going to complain about it anyways. Gift of Battle makes sense because you do BATTLE in WVW. I personally don't like fractals so that would mean I would hate stepping foot into fractals but I'd do it just to get whatever I needed for a legendary I really want. To get a Legendary it's going to such getting it at times because it's a legendary. A legendary shouldn't be easy to obtain or else it should just be common and no legendary.

At least they took map completion out of WvW or else you'd be really pissed.

@Enox.5870 said:Gift of Battle makes sense because you do BATTLE in WVW.

That's not true, I got several Gifts of Battle and almost never engage in any combat other than in PvE. You are not forced to fight other players to get reward track progress.

The problem i have with gift of battle is that in order to finish in this milenium you have to spen there long time. I mean that you have to first get max participation and when you leave you lose it. On the other hand you can do 1 wp at a time in map completion without any dissadvantage

I wanted to craft legendary sword (bolt at the time) bu decided agaibst it because i didnt want to deal wit wvw and exploration. When shining blade came i craft it because maguma exploration is much faster and more fun then core maps for me. Have to say wvw was as boring for me as i thought it would be. Next legendary i get i will probably just buy from tp because i would much rather spend 1000 gold i get from doing content i enjoy playing then grinding parts i hate.

Remember, you dont need legendary. Just craft ascended if you dont want to grind some parts of the gane you dont enjoy.

I crafted My first Legendary and my last I guess and I had to play WvW for the Gift of battle , very bad experience for me will never go back there , especially if is your first time and no gliding , running ..and running ... than some super player kills you with one hit ! If came across a group of enemies they will leave everything and follow you to your death like you' kind of big boss or something ,before you judge me that's my opinion and I don't like PvP and WvW .

@FogAlien.9875 said:I crafted My first Legendary and my last I guess and I had to play WvW for the Gift of battle , very bad experience for me will never go back there , especially if is your first time and no gliding , running ..and running ... than some super player kills you with one hit ! If came across a group of enemies they will leave everything and follow you to your death like you' kind of big boss or something ,before you judge me that's my opinion and I don't like PvP and WvW .

It will happen from time to time. Do you remember there is a daily to finish 4 events on a specific map and how players chase around events get it done asap?

When you step feet into wvw, first thing you need to check is wvw daily, if there is a invasion defender, it is a daily that reward up on killing 3 players. If that is the case, players foe will try to chase every single living enemy players to get the daily done asap, then you should travel with a pack instead of solo. Don't blame them, its human nature especially there is a reward for doing so.

If it is not a daily, many zerg with a tag will not determined to chase solo roamer especially low rankie. I have multi account go wvw for daily, some are at newbie rank, i found so far only one particular server enjoys chasing solo flesh wvw players in zerg for fun, most server not so much.

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:The problem i have with gift of battle is that in order to finish in this milenium you have to spen there long time. I mean that you have to first get max participation and when you leave you lose it. On the other hand you can do 1 wp at a time in map completion without any dissadvantage

You can just do dailies and be done in maybe 2 weeks (or total 2 hours). You'll probably need that long anyway to craft other stuff and do collections for your legendary. I really dislike WvW, it's the most stupid game mode I've seen, and I cannot fathom how people can spend their precious time there running around 80% of the time without mounts, but I do the easy dailies regularly. It just takes a couple of minutes, you kill a vet creature, some guards, spend some badges to buy cultural armor pieces, take a ruin etc.

I have 2 gifts of battle on storage now and pick other reward tracks. Once I did Bloodstone Fen, gave me nice 50 rubies, now I do some dungeon track because I need the currency. You also get the dailies done without having to hunt a bounty or doing events in low level maps.

@Kallist.5917 said:

At lest let us get them from Fractals.

They are meant to expose you to a wide variety of activities in this game, not to give you a reason to farm your favorite mode over and over.The fact you don't understand this is surprising.

My progress is certainly slow, but I typically just head to the Edge of the Mists when there's some quick Daily categories for WvW (Land Claimer, Guard Killer, Big Spender). I might stick around and work my way to Tier 3 or higher and ride out some reward track ticks as well. The bonus vial you get from the Daily completion helps with the reward track progress significantly.

In the end, I rarely fight other players, since I'm not much for that either. If you get a good map with several other teammates, you can usually claim a lot of the EotM map without too much effort. I joined a fresh map once and solo-captured practically every flag and generator. I didn't see anyone else around at all, so it was just a veteran killing circuit. It was slow PvE.

And yet another post about the same thing, Gift of Battle is there to make players play a different style of activity in the game rather than sticking to the same thing, I think they should make an item needed for all legendaries only obtainable in PvP aswell, it’s only fair

@mindcircus.1506 said:

They are meant to expose you to a wide variety of activities in this game, not to give you a reason to farm your favorite mode over and over.The fact you don't understand this is surprising.

Plus most (all?) legendaries up to Chuka & Champawat do require you to do some fractals. As someone who doesn't do many fractals, they're actually the worst part for me, but one of the points of legendaries is to get people to try things outside their comfort bubble.

You can also mostly AFK rewards tracks in WvW. Doing it during peak times/when there's a queue is rude as heck, but it's not hard to get up to T6 participation then watch Netflix or something and go kill a yak or sentry when your participation starts to decay in 10-15 minutes. Rinse and repeat until you're done. Also embrace ticking down when you have time. A lot of WvW'ers will AFK in spawn or Obsidian Sanctum to eek out every last bit of reward track points and pips.

Also, if you do the easy WvW dailies every day, it's quite easy to amass a large enough amount of potions to complete a reward track. I actually recommend doing this regardless because you never know when it'll come in handy, and you can always use them on the halloween or wintersday reward track and sell over a stack of presents when they're at their most expensive for some nice pocket money.

@Zephire.8049 said:Also, if you do the easy WvW dailies every day, it's quite easy to amass a large enough amount of potions to complete a reward track. I actually recommend doing this regardless because you never know when it'll come in handy, and you can always use them on the halloween or wintersday reward track and sell over a stack of presents when they're at their most expensive for some nice pocket money.

Also important to add that the WvW dailies are often much faster and easier than the PvE ones. Big Spender, aside, it's usually much faster and easier to get Monument Master, Land Claimer, and Veteran Creature Slayer than it is to get Event Completer or Activity Participation.

With boosters and such, it takes 5hours ish to complete a WvW track. But if the player doesn't wants to WvW, they have limited choices.

@Zephire.8049 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

They are meant to expose you to a wide variety of activities in this game, not to give you a reason to farm your favorite mode over and over.The fact you don't understand this is surprising.

Explain please. If you are talking about cube of dark energy it doesnt mean you have to play fractals. You can just buy it from tp. Am i missing something?

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Zephire.8049 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

They are meant to expose you to a wide variety of activities in this game, not to give you a reason to farm your favorite mode over and over.The fact you don't understand this is surprising.

If you craft the gen2 Legendaries that have collections you definitely have to do some Fractals.I thinks there’s a few thrown in for core Precursor crafting too.