How do i acquire better gear at 80?

[Magnedeus.4713]

I love this game, but the main thing that always had me stumped was getting better gear once you hit lvl 80. I have a Mirage covered in dungeon gear that i bought with dungeon tokens, but i learned that Mirages should have viper gear mainly for the condition damage and expertise. The only issue is that i have no clue on how to get viper gear at all. I feel like a total noob running around in dungeon gear when there is much better gear that benefits my profession. If anyone here can give some advice I'd appreciate it.

[Khisanth.2948]

Viper's can be crafted or bought from certain NPCs for armor.Trinkets you should just get the ascended ones from LS3/4/IBS vendors.Weapons are crafted and some can be bought on the TP as well.

[escapay.6301]

If you run in Verdant Brink and get airship parts, you can buy boxes of armor that you can select stats for. Only one that is tricky to get is the chest piece. Need night meta to be a certain point (T4 map I think). That's one of the ways I have gotten armor for my characters that need harder to get stats.

[Taril.8619]

For Exotic gear, you can craft it.

Or you can run through Verdant Brink and farm airship parts to trade for armour boxes. 500 parts + 1g = 1 box. With Glove boxes also having a chance to drop from the Airship Caches that you open to get airship parts.

The tricky part is the chest piece, which you can only obtain through the night meta event, either through drops from the bosses (They are available when the night timer reaches 20 minutes remaining) or you can get a choice box from getting the map meta up to maximum (Tier 4).

There is no easy way to obtain Exotic Weapons with choice stats (You can get Machined Weapons from Dragon's Stand/HoT metas but as it's a collection achievement it's only available once per weapon type) beyond crafting them.

For Ascended gear, you can craft it.

Or you can run Fractals/WvW and get Ascended gear boxes.

You can also complete Specialization collections to obtain an Ascended version of an Elite Specializations weapon with choice stats (Which can be used by any character as like all Ascended gear, it is account bound and doesn't bind to a character on use)

For accessories (Back, trinket, rings, amulet) you can get currencies in Living World Season 3 and Season 4 or Icebrood Saga maps to trade in for Ascended accessories with choice stats.

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

The wiki isn't really organized well as a guide for crafting or obtaining armor & weapons. You can craft what is called "Warbeast" exotic armor, but even though it uses the Harrier insignia to craft, it is actually stat-selectable.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Insignia_of_the_Harrier#Tailor

[Khisanth.2948]

@"TheAgedGnome.7520" said:The wiki isn't really organized well as a guide for crafting or obtaining armor & weapons. You can craft what is called "Warbeast" exotic armor, but even though it uses the Harrier insignia to craft, it is actually stat-selectable.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Insignia_of_the_Harrier#Tailor

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Special:RunQuery/Equipment_query is the page you want for searching

Crafted Warbeast used to be harrier only while the one obtained from the reward tracks had selectable stats. It was later changed so the crafted one also has selectable stat. That is the reason for the weirdness.

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@"TheAgedGnome.7520" said:The wiki isn't really organized well as a guide for crafting or obtaining armor & weapons. You can craft what is called "Warbeast" exotic armor, but even though it uses the Harrier insignia to craft, it is actually stat-selectable.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Insignia_of_the_Harrier#Tailor

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Special:RunQuery/Equipment_query

is the page you want for searching

That page helps a little, but it needs an "Acquisition" column or filter; otherwise, I would have to click each of the results to see which are craftable, which are drops, etc.

[kharmin.7683]

I think that the answer also depends on the content that you want to play. I play open world PvE almost exclusively, so exotic items are enough. They can be gotten from the TP pretty easily. Stats don't matter so much for OWPvE, either.

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@Khisanth.2948 said:Viper's can be crafted or bought from certain NPCs for armor.Trinkets you should just get the ascended ones from LS3/4/IBS vendors.Weapons are crafted and some can be bought on the TP as well.

@"Magnedeus.4713"There is armour and weapon which can be set with right click and then "custom" to pick which attribute it should have and Viper is among those options. You get those as reward and as loot in game outside of trading/purchasing. In general it is Exotic tier gear we are talking about. For Ascended is more rare to get as loot with exception for trinkets.

Ascended armour and weapon are account bound which means those can't be sold or moved to another account (no email or a friend who craft this for you as they can't send it to you). You need to at least level a crafter in each armour tier (light, medium and heavy) and same for each weapon type (weaponsmith - metall based weapon like dagger, sword and shield, artisan - magic based weapon like staff and sceptre, huntsman - wood type like short and long bow).

If you play sPvP or WvW it is important to pick the right reward track as you will get both token (to purchase map related asc. trinkets with token) and material for crafting. Some tracks do reward with ascended amour and weapon. Be aware that you can change attribute on ascended armour and weapon, but you need to first have the insignia or inscription. Trinkets can also change attribute, if you purchase a certain gizmo item from the same vendor you can buy those ascended trinkets.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stat_changing

Insignia and Inscription can be bought at TP for Gold (look up in link above for cost) as those exotic level. You use Mystery Forge to get pass the need to have a crafter in this case (if you don't craft insignia or inscription yourself).

PS. For Mesmer (Mirage) you will need Light Armour armour. I have tried to use Viper on my Mirage, but after nerfs it can be smart to use some piece of TrailBlazer (for Vitality to increase your HP). It also possible to go for Power as damage source instead of condition damage (meaning that you use Power and attribute that increase condition duration like Marauder instead of TB (see link to build editor down here).

Base HP on Mesmer/Mirage are rather low without any Vitality and you will not have time to cleanse or evade all damage before you will be dead. The power you willl get from Viper is a base damage (instant for most weapon and also important for base damage on sigils) and have nothing to increase Precision and Ferocity, if you don't add some to have at least 25% Precision (with Fury boon you get +20% Precision which give a total of 45% as long you have Fury active). The more precision you have, the higher chance it is to procs 'on crit' sigils instead of 'on swap' (9 sec CD). On crit have also different cd depending on type, but in most cases it is better for a longer fight if you can't or don't swap that often. Don't spend Gold on expensive Sigil like Malice (10% added duration for condition damage), if you don't use trait and rune that will give you a total sum that increase you general condition duration (don't forget chill, blind etc also increase in duration not only damage type of conditions).

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Use this BE to see how you best balance attributes, runes and sigils. Don't get all too focus on high number in duration from tooltips. A bleed or torment that take 30 second to get to full effect is not that good even in PvE. Burn damage is the one with highest damage pr second (this also depends on how Vigor add +150 condition damage). Vigor can't increase the way as Might or Vulnerability does, so it is a flat damage from Vigor.

[Infusion.7149]

For ascended, don't forget strikes are an easy way to get them (via Smoxxi) if you don't have craft levels. It takes 150 of the prophet shards for gloves/boots/shoulder armor , 175 for helm , 250 for one handed weapons or offhands, 275 for leggings, 400 for chestpiece (typically not worth it if you have craft levels), 500 for two handed weapons (usually not worth it).Of course you have to balance this with the ROI on Stabilized Prophet Crystals, normally for 20 Prophet shards it's about 2 gold profit.(i.e. you'd effectively spend 15g in shards + 5g = 20g total for a glove/boot/shoulder , 25g total for helm, 37.5g for leggings , 40g for a one handed weapon or offhand, 55g for chestpiece , 65g for 2 handed weapons)

I'd only recommend fractals to people with ascended gear already (at a minimum, weapon + trinkets to reach 106 AR) because people in T1 and T2 really take their time. If you're new to fractals I'd recommend going on discretize.eu and familiarizing yourself with a fractal before doing it, so at least you vaguely know what is going on. Without infused rings , a two infusion slot backpiece (you can bypass the legendary/Gift of Ascension fractal requirement with Bough of Melandru) , and ascended armor you are going to be topping out around 63-70AR (i.e. seven +9 infusions or +10 infusions , forget about +11 since they cost ~ 24g each to make) which means most of the higher tiered T3/T4 fractals are simply off-limits.

Going through strikes and getting 4 pieces of armor (gloves/boots/shoulders/helm) would put you ahead , allowing you to get another 36-40AR easily (i.e. reaching 106AR).

You can forget about going to WvW to get ascended though. You'd end up crafting grandmaster marks unless you plan on playing 3-4 weeks per grandmaster mark (10 shards = 1 mark and 3 shards per week maximum), which means for 30 shards you're looking at 10 weeks per piece of armor or weapon at a minimum.

[Cuks.8241]

First and foremost understand your character, what content you want to play and what build you want to play. You read somewhere that you need viper gear for your mirage. That info might be totaly fine if you understand the context or it might be a complete fail if you want to play content where there are short fights and condition dmg doesnt even come to play.Even in these threads there are some advice that are just completely wrong if you want to play dps in competitive PVE like fractals or raids (like using trailblazer) or are just fine if you are just messing around in open world.

Build that is best for raids is not best for fractals and not best for open world and vice versa. Pvp and Wvw are again totally different story with different stat preferences. Basically if people don't state what content they are referring to and what role, their advice probably don't mean much.

Viper gear is not so easy to make for a new player so make sure you even want to play with it.

Vanilla stats are easy to get. The easiest way is just straight of buying the exotics from the TP. Vanilla stats include berserker and assassin stats which are best in slot for power dmg builds. Power dmg builds are easy to gear up and are just as effective if not more in most content. I would definitely recommend going for a power set first even if meta sites don't recommend it unless you really know what you want and are going straight for some competitive PVE.

Stat sets that came with expansions are often harder to make and equipment can't be sold on tp. You need to find recipes: they might come as drops or from different vendors. Some recipes can be sold on TP, some not.

If you have no idea how to make viper you are probably new. If you are new you are probably not gonna go raiding tomorrow. So I would recommend go with some easier to acquire exotic gear from TP and first learn the game. I have a feeling you found some raiding build somewhere and now you want to make it without knowing the whole story. The end result would most likely be that you spend a whole lot of time getting viper and than realize it sucks because you are not playing in the content it was suppose to be played (very specialized 10 man squad raiding content).

[Ashantara.8731]

This is the best summary, with subsequent links on how and where (i.e., in which campaign) to acquire each attribute combination:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations

By now, however, it is less of a hassle to go straight for ascended gear rather than to try and get all the recipes for the exotic versions. (Although there are a few exotic sets that can be obtained with selectable stats, like the Runic Armot sets at the Eye of the North for instance.)