How many armor sets should I get?

[Deluvian.1068]

Just came back to the game after a multiyear hiatus, and man do remember why I liked it so much! I've been looking at the different builds on metabattle and it seems that berserker isn't the only viable stat like it was when I left. My question is, how many stat sets do people normally own and what's the best way to get them?

[Danikat.8537]

I only have 1 per character, but that's because I can't be bothered with having lots of different ones and swapping between them, even now we have templates. Also I have 11 characters, so I can get a lot of variety without different builds on each one.

How many you should get probably depends on what content you like to do and how worried you are about having the best possible stats for what you're doing. For example some people will have different sets for WvW, open-world PvE, raids and possibly other things. Others will find a build which is ok for everything, or use the best one for the area of the game they play most in everything else even if it's not ideal.

[Randulf.7614]

I have one armour set per character. That's unlikely to be normal for players who do more high end content than I though

Armour has so many sources now it's tought to say what is better. Crafting is probably the most reliable way, Verdant Brink for Balded armour has stat selectable armour. Fractals, wvw - the list is pretty long. My bank is filled with armour chests I've dumped in there, so if I make a new toon or change my build, i just grab what I need from there and craft anything I can't

[Khisanth.2948]

There isn't any number you should get. You get as many as you need.

I have 2 on most characters. Either one condi and one power or one damage and one support depending on the character. I don't actually need that many but having been playing for years I have more gear than I could use anyway.

[Hesione.9412]

I end up with trying to get 1 condi and 1 power set on each of my characters. I play WvW, and sometimes there is cross-over and the WvW gear is viable in PvE, and sometimes not.

If you're chasing legendary armour, which I am very slowly, the approach seems to be to make one of each weight you will use.

[Veprovina.4876]

I usually just have one for the current build i'm running.One of my characters has 2 armor sets, one fully ascended for WvW and another exotic for general PvE.The rest have just one set. No real need to get more unless you fancy switching constantly. And if you need ascended to switch constantly, it's going to cost you. At that point, just work towards a legendary instead.

[Tukaram.8256]

I think it depends on your playstyle. I am only interested in open world PvE. So all my avatars have 1 set of armor. I cannot be bothered by changing armor or stats. That takes all the fun out of playing. In other playstyles the numbers may be more important...

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Depends on what you're going to do. Personally, I have two to three on each profession. At the bare minimum, for PVE you'll want a Berserker set on every toon. From there, pick sets depending on what you're going to do. In no particular order:

(1) Condition set. Viper/Griever for general PVE and Raids, Traiblazer and Dire for WvW and champion solo-ing. Though condi builds are worse for general PVE, they do generally provide alternative tactics on each profession that can come in handy from time to time.(2) Buff/Heal set. Harrier for PVE healing, Diviner for pure boon duration in all modes, and Minstrels for WvW or Raid tanking. Having a good buff or heal set can carry a large group, so these are the sets I go to whenever I tag up. Know that not all professions have a good healing or buff build, so you'll have to pick and choose those depending on which profession you're playing.(3): WvW specific sets. These are things like Marauder, Marshall, Plaguedoctor, Soldier, and so on. WvW builds are more niche, and they'll require stat prefixes that don't have much of a place anywhere else.

[Deluvian.1068]

Thanks for all the advice! Is the difference between exotic and ascended negligible? I have a fully ascended marauder set, but really want some firebrand variations for healing/support and condition damage. Should I start working on ascended versions of each, or will exotic suffice? Also, if exotic is good, do they have all variations available?

[Cyninja.2954]

The amount of sets you need is directly related to the amount of builds you want to play which use differing sets/stats. This can increase even further with additional game modes like WvW, where builds are built often drastically different to their PvE counter parts.

Instead of asking how many sets other players use, just ask yourself:"what do I want to play?" and that should get you the answer.

The bare minimum for PvE would probably be a power and a condi set IF you are interested in anything raid or challenging related (though fractals work for the most part as only power). Then if you want to play a support occasionally, that would be another set all together with potentially on a different class.

In general, the more roles players fill in content and type of content players play, the more sets they will have. This is directly related to an accounts age and wealth since acquiring more sets costs gold and/or time.

Exotic versus ascended armor is negligible. Weapons and trinkets are advised to be ascended, but can start off as exotic. Only exception would be fractals where the required agony resistance should be met, which will likely require ascended armor for anyone not a fractal veteran.