Equipment while levelling

Hi, new player here.

Loving the game (level 40 within a week), however I have a question regarding the equipment:

I generally redo my entire armour and weapons every 5 levels. Is that OK or am I wasting my time and coins?

Also, is there no way to type in a destination on the map and it shows you where it is? Any tips for navigating the world?

Thanks for the help

Gear should come naturally to you as you complete the personal story and level up.

You should really hold off on buying anything until level 80 because that's what really matters.

And no, not to my knowledge is there a search function on the map. There should be though.

If it’s working out for you at every five levels then sure. You could probably get away with every ten levels when you’re more comfortable with the game and know what you’re doing. I just use the gear given as level rewards and the occasional drop while I’m levelling my guys but I’m not new.

As for travelling, you can just follow the roads and look for locked waypoint symbols that will appear in your mini map. That’ll open your maps right up.

Have fun!

I usually go for 10. 20 if I am lazy but sometimes that makes it feel like you are fighting HP sponges.

I also go for masterwork from drops instead of crafted items. Usually that means you end up with something like a lv39 item instead of 40.

Rule of thumb: whenever you feel underpowered during leveling it's time to upgrade your gear. This can vary wildly depending on how quickly you pick things up as well as what class you play. I found that in the early days I'd mostly replace my gear every 10 levels at the lastest, but these days, after playing for several years and leveling about two dozend characters, I sometimes find myself replacing level 10-20 stuff on a fresh level 80 that's been living off drops and story/level rewards all the way to the top.

Depends on whether I'm steamrolling through the enemies or I feel like hitting a wall with a wet noodle, really.In my experience, it also differs depending on class, as with my warrior or guardian, I never felt like I have to buy anything, while with necro, I regularly felt underpowered.Also, the game fails to provide you with enough trinkets, I noticed over my various playthroughs. You get enough armor and weapons, granted, but those trinkets are rather scarce, while making quite some difference. For reference, I have a lv 63 thief who mostly still rolls his lv 5 trinkets from Caldeon Forest. At least the amulet got upgraded during Claw Island...

Anyhow, if you feel underpowered, buy some new gear.Also, lv78 exotic gear is way cheaper than lv80 exotics and doesn't make that much of a difference.

Welcome to GW2 :)

Changing gear every 5 levels seems a bit excessive. I think I updated my gear every 15 LvLs or so and I guess it's even possible to do it everey 20 lvls. You can go for rare gear(yellow stuff) but I'd say greens wil do just fine.There's not axactly a command that let's you navigate the map. There is however the command "/wiki" followed by whatever it is you are having questions to. The command will open a search request in the official wiki and will redirect you to the results. /wiki works for places, items, npcs, skills, traits, events, achievements and is super helpful.

As mentioned, upgrade gear when ever you feel weak. Don't forget to eventually upgrade trinkets too.

Every 5 levels depends a bit on the rarity of gear you purchase:

• blue will generally need to be replaced ever 5 levels
• green will usually work well enough for 10 levels
• rare gear comes in quite late and will not have to be replaced for 15-20 levels while leveling

This does get affected by class chosen/played. A necromancer who is inherently more tanky will have an easier time surviving than say a thief while leveling.

I've never bought a full set of gear for a character while levelling. I just use drops and story/level rewards and it's always been ok for me. Whenever I sort my inventory out I start by checking to see if any equipment I've got is better than what I'm using (either because it's a higher level or armour/damage rating or because the stats are more appropriate) and I've occasionally bought a piece because one slot slipped way behind. While I was levelling crafting I'd sometimes give pieces I'd made to characters who could use them, and now I sometimes buy stuff from karma vendors to unlock the skin and then use it. But I never felt like it was time to get a full new set.

Definitely save your money for gearing at level 80. Greens are fine for leveling. You don't need new stuff every 5 levels.

Use the drops you get in game -- but check the trading post, sometimes they're worth more to sell or the salvaged mats are worth more, in which case, you can sell them and buy cheaper gear (if you need it). Add cheap runes occasionally to make the single piece of armor last longer before you need to replace it

@"arcade.5209" said:I generally redo my entire armour and weapons every 5 levels. Is that OK or am I wasting my time and coins?

It's a waste. Every ten levels is good enough as you will reach max level (80) in no time. Also, don't buy "the best possible equipment" under level 80, it's not worth it as you won't have it for long.

Also, is there no way to type in a destination on the map and it shows you where it is? Any tips for navigating the world?

Yes, there is. Look the location up on GW2 Wiki, then use its code in map chat.

If you find something green is usually good for another 10 levels past its value.I think try to keep your weapon upgraded, as for the rest it doesn't really matter much

It's fine imo if you like doing it.

You should enjoy upgrading to new equips while it last, because you wont be doing much if it at 80.

If you use only blue gear and don't add any upgrades or transmutations you can sell it after you no longer need it.

Alt+Click on the map will place a star for you on a point to see the direction you need to go on minimap.In average its 10 levels to change the gear, 5 for weapons but don't bother too much, Till you get to 70s when you need to enter Orr maps.
Some Hearth NPC will have trinkents for karma, go for them as well.

When I was still new to the game, I would go by milestones:

1. Gear at level 20 when shoulders (and, thus, all 6 pieces) are available
2. Gear at level 39/40 when major sigils/runes are unlocked
3. Gear at level 60 when superior sigils/runes are unlocked (and then BLK-salvage them back, if expensive)

If you're playing thief (obviously a different opinion; use signet of malice + invigorating precision for easy mode), you could get away with gearing at level 20 and then only upgrading your weapons (so that fights don't take forever) until you hit 80.

Another thing worth noting is that you don't need exotic or rare gear while leveling, since the stat gain is minimal verses the overall cost. You also get a significant amount leveling gear from personal story, to give you a boost as you work your way up to max level. When comparing pieces of gear, the numbers matter more then rarity or the level, as some items you're given are purposely over-budget. And if a Green offers more stats then an exotic, its a no brainer which one you should use.

But there is something else that needs to be understood. Gear stats only make up a 3rd of you're overall damage potential, while well over half comes from your traits/build. While under 60, you don't have ready access to a complete build, so you do lean on gear stats more early on. But once you start getting to level 60+ areas, theres a noticeable spike in mob difficulty. This is supposed to account for getting access to Grand master traits, which significantly increases your class's damage potential and build coherence.

That said, its perfectly viable to run Green gear while leveling, as long as the stat bonuses contribute toward your current build. For a direct damage based build, you want at least 75% of your gear to be some combination of Power/Prec/Ferocity, as those 3 stats directly improve direct damage skills and effects. Condition builds are not recommended due to multiple nuances in buildcraft, and the slow damage ramp up of condi in Core Specs; too high maintenance and limited burst potential. By level 60 you should also be looking into trait synergy to get ahead of the power curve until you hit 80. Having a bad build in Core won't stop you from succeeding, but the low efficiency and poor competence acclimates you to a number of bad habits that do hurt you big time when you dive into Expansion content.

Once you're level 80, and actually have access to all your traits, THEN its worth investing a significant amount of coin or karma into Exotic gear. On average an Exotic gear set will cost you roughly 40-60 gold, but you can offset a lot of that through various methods. Ascended gear is a whole order of magnitude more expensive (~400g for a gear set), and shouldn't be a concern until you've first established a good flow of resources. Ascended gear only has 5% difference in stats, so its not a requirement anywhere outside of Fractals (which you need for the infusion slots), or benchmark runs in Raids (where min/maxing is more common).

Before looking for lvl 80 gear, you need to first decide on what build you want to run.... this will basically decide what stats you need to get. Berserkers is considered the baseline standard, as every class has access to a decent power build, power builds are usually not complicated, and are the most common builds for openworld play. Level 80 and post-80 content have a much stronger emphasis on coherent builds, so you want to have an idea of what type of build you want to mess with before investing in expensive gear for it. White gear (super cheap armorsmith gear) and green karma trinkets (with approximate stats) are good enough if you want to play test a build on mechanics or usage. You can also go to the PvP lobby to test builds against practice golems, since PvP doesn't use gear, and gives you stats through alternate methods.

The forums is always ready to give build advise, and it helps immensely to be able to say what parts of the game you're targeting, and what production means you have at your disposal. Some game modes have overlap in build types, but generally each mode demands significantly different types of builds from each class. So don't be surprised if people recommend carrying 2 different gear sets to address this. It also helps to be aware of Meta builds vs Off-Meta builds. Meta builds are designed and tested for high efficiency, but purposefully ignores cost and player skill level. Its literally a theoretical benchmark that may or may not also assume a Team Composition. Despite the baggage that usually comes with copy/pasta and/or brain dead elitism, The meta builds are actually pivotal to community wide buildcraft, as they collectively identify useful/powerful trait and skill combinations within the current balance pass. Most of those builds tend to focus on optimal performance for a single game mode; but is not to be taken at face value due to the assumptions it makes. However, armed with that information, any competent player can then modify the build, or apply key concepts to other builds to suit their needs.

Off-meta builds are modified or otherwise functional builds that are "unpopular" due to being incompatible with meta comps for group content, or just "sub-optimal" in design. Their exclusion from group content is usually legitimate for mechanical reasons, as group synergy is critical to those game modes. However, the "sub-optimal" argument gets a lot more pretentious, and mostly stems from groups not wanting to stray from an easily understood team comp, regardless of how good a player is in practice. As a result, you'll usually only see off-meta builds in open world where people don't care.

But I'll warn that most people defer to metabattle and snowcrows for meta builds. The issue though is that these sites assume you understand build craft- so the people that just tell you to copy those builds aren't really helping you understand how those builds work. Same goes for people that say "you can run anything in open world". "Technically true, but of little value as usable advise". Still, it is important to know what meta builds are popular, as that information is useful building your characters.

Anytime I've leveled the normal way, I just used the gear I got from leveling, drops from mobs, and from personal story rewards. If you're on a newer account without much in the way of resources/currency, then buying/crafting all new gear every 5 levels is going to be a bit of a waste, in my opinion.