Leveling Equipment - need some advise

Hi there!

Let me begin by saying this: I'm an altoholic. In the long run I'll probably end up with 2 toons of each class, probably more of those I really enjoy, maybe only 1 of a class I don't enjoy that much. The latter however is very unlikely. I've been playing actively for about 6 months now, I used my two 80 boosts to get a headstart with crafting professions, the odd perk here and there, masteries and mounts.

I'm now at a point where I'm leveling my first alt the way I like to do it: form zero to hero, no xp-boosts and using crafted gear as much as possible. I'm not much of an endgamer, I love story, development of my characters and exploration. I was about to craft his level 50 gear when I stumbled upon Ineffeble Insignias and ended up on the wiki page outlining leveling equipment. I began reading and my first thought was: Wow, this is great! I can craft a whole batch of gear that I can switch between alts! But then I continued reading and the confusion started to set in.

1) selectable stats. I'm not unfamiliar with this kind of gear, but in my naivety I have to admit that in this case I first assumed they would stay selectable. I mean, what's the point in crafting account bound leveling gear if the selected stats are only (optimally) usable for certain builds? My solution here would be to craft only leveling armor and craft soulbound weapons and trinkets as I'm leveling the toons. But which stats would you suggest are closest to all-purpose? I'm eying Knights and then supplementing the armor via said weapons and trinkets to add, for instance, condition damage or ferocity.

2) storage. I'm currently planning to craft leveling armor for the levels 26, 37, 44, 51, 60 and 68 and skipping the levels 18 and 65. Skipping any others would create a gap in gearing that is a little too big for my taste. At 6 sets per armor type, 3 armor types and 6 pieces of armor each this means I'll need 108 bank or inventory slots to store all the gear. My options here are buying bank tabs or buying an additional character slot for storage only. The latter would be the far cheaper but albeit less comfortable option. Going with the latter I'm considering to buy the account jump start bundle and an additional character slot, as I'll need an additional bag slot anyway to give me 110 inventory slots with 5 18-slots bags; also, having additional bank tabs can never hurt (so much stuff to store in this game, it's insane...). If there is a third option I'm currently not considering I'd be very happy to hear it.

3) runes. Are there any all-purpose runes you can suggest or would you recommend overwriting runes depending on the class/build I'm playing?

Any form of advise in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards and a Very Merry Christmas!!

Shep

Consider the difference between what’s nice to have and what you would actually need.

When leveling up my alts years ago, I typically only equipped new armor every 20 levels and weapons every 10 levels.

Gear is also fairly cheap to buy that you’re not really gaining anything with it tying up bank slots that you would be using for something else.

I forgot to add that the impact of gear is very forgiving when leveling. I think I just focused on pure DPS stats on all of my characters and never had survivability issues. I don’t think I bothered to use runes or sigils either.

I just go with masterwork stuff and salvage the old stuff as I go. Since I only use berserker for leveling the dropped versions tend to be cheap and comes with the runes and sigils already. Exotics for leveling isn't necessary at all.

I know it's not necessary, in fact, it's all very likely complete overkill. I just like wearing crafted gear, I like the feeling of doing everything "with my own bare hands" so to speak. I would actually go for masterwork, but this account bound leveling gear is only available in exotic. If gearing every 20 levels is sufficient, I could consider skipping the levels 37, 51 and 68. That would at least significantly reduce the space I'll need to store the gear; in which case I would only need 54 slots. Going for one additional character slot would then be the wisest option, methinks.

It's a huge expense, in terms of materials costs, time spent identifying which ones to craft (and which stats to choose), and managing the inventory. It also assumes that every alt is the same profession. The gear used by a thief has little overlap with that used by a mesmer. It's also not all that helpful if you are only going to swap 3-4 times over the course of working towards 80.

If you want to "live off the land," I think it's a more interesting & more immersive to craft gear as you need it. That would ultimately leave you with more time spent playing, less time spent preparing to play or organizing gear. If you don't care about living off the land, then the TP is your best friend and you can skip leveling.

In short, I don't recommend this at all, even for the purpose you've described, even with the amount of storage space you're willing to devote.

If you're still set on doing it because it seems like it might be fun, then I'd do a practice run by investing in gear of the same level ahead of time, via the TP, e.g. for 26, 41, & 60. Organize the space in the bank, swap as you level. In the end, the gear will be soulbound so you'll salvage it. It will still give you a taste of what you're in for, without tying your hands. Also, as a practice run, it will give you a chance to 'feel' the difference with the 'breakpoints' you've selected (e.g. 26, 41, 60) or whether you need to add/remove a step. tl;dr try before you buy

I just did the math of how much it will cost me to craft all 6 sets of all 3 armor types and the dust and ectos alone surpass a total cost of way over 150 gold, that's beyond worth it, even if I skip a few more levels. I recon I am indeed better off crafting as I go along. That gives me more flexibility in terms of class/build specific gear and I can stick to masterwork, which will also greatly reduce the cost.

Thanks for all the advise and helping me not make a huge mistake :)

During leveling, you don't need to put too much thought into stats and runes. Just pick armor that has a boost to Power and you're probably fine. As for runes, pick just about anything and try to make it match as much as possible to get the set bonuses.

It's only when you hit level 80 that you want to shoot for specific stat builds.

But... if you really like optimizing at lower levels and crafting your own stuff - because it's fun... then more power to you.

@Shep.4026 said:I just did the math of how much it will cost me to craft all 6 sets of all 3 armor types and the dust and ectos alone surpass a total cost of way over 150 gold, that's beyond worth it, even if I skip a few more levels. I recon I am indeed better off crafting as I go along. That gives me more flexibility in terms of class/build specific gear and I can stick to masterwork, which will also greatly reduce the cost.

Thanks for all the advise and helping me not make a huge mistake :)

Yay for doing the math :)

The only time I think leveling gear is worth it is for people who do key runs every week. Financially, it's still not going to pay for itself in coin-value. But, done right, it does save time & effort. Given that people do the runs for the thrill of opening the BL chest (and not for the actual results, which are typically meh), this makes it a good deal.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:If you want to "live off the land," I think it's a more interesting & more immersive to craft gear as you need it. That would ultimately leave you with more time spent playing, less time spent preparing to play or organizing gear. If you don't care about living off the land, then the TP is your best friend and you can skip leveling.

I've level a character like that too. Just used the gear from the level up rewards. Worked better than I expected.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Shep.4026 said:I just did the math of how much it will cost me to craft all 6 sets of all 3 armor types and the dust and ectos alone surpass a total cost of way over 150 gold, that's beyond worth it, even if I skip a few more levels. I recon I am indeed better off crafting as I go along. That gives me more flexibility in terms of class/build specific gear and I can stick to masterwork, which will also greatly reduce the cost.

Thanks for all the advise and helping me not make a huge mistake :)

Hmm IIRC it costed me around 24g. Without counting anything else just the 3+ weapon skins unlocked is worth more than that.

Ineffeble for future alts? I would go for Traveler runes safe bet to fit any lowbie you make :)

Bear in mind you also get equipment as level and story rewards, much of which has selectable stats (or you get to choose between 3 pieces with different stats).

Sooner or later you'll need to throw it away (its all soulbound and most of it cannot be salvaged or sold to merchants) but it's free and level appropriate (if you do the story as you unlock it) so that reduces the amount of equipment you need to get from elsewhere.

I usually level with just that and drops, but you can also craft or buy pieces if you need to.

When I leveled my tons I usually bought the tier 1 (lvl 35) yellow cultural armor/weapons in my race-hometown https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cultural_armorTier 2 I only bought If I did not had the skin so far. You get a lot of fittting armor out of lvl-up rewards, and drops of your lvl and sometimes you can buy (see tip for weapns here as well)

However for weapons I usually bought yellow from the TP: NEVER buy the crafted ones (Lvl 35/50/65/80) in TP (nor craft them), they are 10 times as expensive as the dropped ones, searcch with +/- 5 of your level and you see the price difference. I usually scrapped them after usage :)