Usability of weapons and armor

I'm a returning player, have a basic question about gear. If I get PvE ascended gear, is that usable in both PvP and WvW? PvP gear usable in PvE / WvW? I'm confused as to why there exists WvW / PvP / PvE legendary gear types, if it's all the same thing and can be used anywhere.

Beware, in structured PvP your main gear (armour, weapons, and most trinkets) is strictly for appearances. Only your amulet matters.

Otherwise there's no difference in the gear between modes, except that the dynamics of each mode (dungeons, story dungeons, fractals, raids, WvW, random adventuring, world-boss tours, PoF bounty tours, etc.) will dictate (or at least suggest) variations in stat balances.

The WvW/PvP/PvE legendary thing is strictly a question of what you have to do to get them. Note that legendaries aren't STRONGER (or weaker) than Ascendeds, but they offer stat-switch advantages. And frilly appearance differences that may make the difference between life and death in Fashion Wars 2.

Anet introduced legendary gear for PvP and WvW so that players who prefer those game modes can earn legendary armor/back items playing the content they enjoy (ie. not PvE raids). If you craft a set of ascended or legendary armor, it will be usable in both WvW and PvE (same applies to ascended and legendary weapons, trinkets, and back items). You'll still be wearing it in PvP, as well, but (as Steve said above) your stats for PvP come from your PvP amulet and not from your armor/weapons.

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:Beware, in structured PvP your main gear (armour, weapons, and most trinkets) is strictly for appearances. Only your amulet matters.

Otherwise there's no difference in the gear between modes, except that the dynamics of each mode (dungeons, story dungeons, fractals, raids, WvW, random adventuring, world-boss tours, PoF bounty tours, etc.) will dictate (or at least suggest) variations in stat balances.

The WvW/PvP/PvE legendary thing is strictly a question of what you have to do to get them. Note that legendaries aren't STRONGER (or weaker) than Ascendeds, but they offer stat-switch advantages. And frilly appearance differences that may make the difference between life and death in Fashion Wars 2.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean by the dynamics of each mode dictating variations in stat balances. If I have legendary gear of any origin(WvW, PvE, PvP, or otherwise), would I have the same potential for for augmentations, stat-switching, yadda yadda, in any mode (dungeons, WvW, PvP-funky-thing-here...)?

I'm not at all concerned about committing fashion suicide, a goal of mine may even be a mad-max-ish appearance.

This game is way more complicated than I remember.

@"Bannan.4290" said:I'm not sure I follow what you mean by the dynamics of each mode dictating variations in stat balances. If I have legendary gear of any origin(WvW, PvE, PvP, or otherwise), would I have the same potential for for augmentations, stat-switching, yadda yadda, in any mode (dungeons, WvW, PvP-funky-thing-here...)?

As far as I know, that's right. The point is more that once you've acquired the legendary gear, no matter where you got it, the stats are the same in PvE and WvW (remember the point about PvP stats coming from your amulet and ONLY from your amulet), but it may be that the stat mix you pick for PvE will not be the same as what you'd pick for WvW, and which you pick for PvE may depend on which sort of PvE (open, story dungeon, exploration dungeon, lowbie fractal, highbie fractal, raid, etc.)

And on the subject of mad-max style fashion, here is biker nornette Juiz La Cachée...

To get the first question out of the way.......

PvP does NOT use gear. Amulets replace gear sets as a source of stats, so whatever you're wearing at the time is just cosmetic. WvW DOES use your Gear set for stats, and is the exact SAME set you use in PvE. This is a fundamental mechanical fact of the game modes.

The legendary armor offered in each game mode is just multiple ways to obtain a Legendary armor set. The PVE set comes with a unique skin, while the PvP and WvW sets are just Ascended armor set (and skins) upgraded to give Legendary functionality (stat swap). PvE set requires you do achievements and Crafting, and has a final upgrade via the Mystic Forge. The PvP and WvW sets require tokens from their respective game modes, and different recipes for Mystic Forge upgrade to Legendary status.

All equipment with the same rarity and level requirement is identical, no matter where it came from. So yes PvP, WvW and PvE legendaries are all identical - the only reason there are 3 sets is because some people don't like PvP or WvW or PvE so this gives everyone an opportunity to get it doing content they enjoy.

And as people said your equipment doesn't matter in PvP - when you're in the PvP lobby you get an additional menu at the top of the screen which you can use to set your build and pick the stats you want to use. Everyone is automatically level 80 in PvP and all your stats are scaled as if you're wearing full exotics, even if you're actually level 1 and wearing starter gear.

@Bannan.4290 said:

@"Steve The Cynic.3217" said:Beware, in structured PvP your main gear (armour, weapons, and most trinkets) is strictly for appearances. Only your amulet matters.

Otherwise there's no difference in the gear between modes, except that the dynamics of each mode (dungeons, story dungeons, fractals, raids, WvW, random adventuring, world-boss tours, PoF bounty tours, etc.) will dictate (or at least suggest) variations in stat balances.

The WvW/PvP/PvE legendary thing is strictly a question of what you have to do to get them. Note that legendaries aren't

STRONGER

(or weaker) than Ascendeds, but they offer stat-switch advantages. And frilly appearance differences that may make the difference between life and death in Fashion Wars 2.

"The dynamics of each mode will dictate variations in stat balances" just means that while you can use the same set of equipment for everything you might find it easier to have different ones for PvE and WvW so you can use different stats. For example you might want a pure damage set like Beserker's in PvE and something with more defense like Knights in WvW (some people even use different sets for open-world, raids, fractals etc.). But if you have legendary armour you don't need to worry about that because you can change the stats any time you're out of combat.