Need some advice on gearing up at end game

[MadCat.6780]

On 4/13/2023 at 12:03 AM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

One thing to be aware of, you'll have players to tell you not to mix sets; this is bad advice.
...
The reason is simple: there's almost always something you want to min/max, and trying to do so is very inefficient if you don't draw from multiple stat combinations.

Yeah, I thought as much.  Still, I ended up going for Brutus / Sheena set for now with dual-swords (+ConDam should help with all the bleeds, and I have Riposte with Sword off-hand to help).

 

On 4/13/2023 at 12:03 AM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

If you check Metabattle or Snowcrows you'll see that nearly all builds use mixed sets, and very few classes can just use one stat combination and get away with it.

I only have 80% of the Berserker nodes unlocked, but I decided to try it while doing the last Core story chapter and...Berserking has been super fun.  I can see now why Metabattle and Snowcrows appear to favor elite builds so much. 😅

 

On 4/13/2023 at 12:03 AM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

The best source of gold in the game per time invested is Fractals. You start out at about 5g/day from the dailies at T1 with basic gear and very low AR, and then as you move up to T4 and max all your masteries (which doesn't take long), you make 20G+/day for about an hour of work.

😳 Def looking forward to doing Fractals now... 😋  Thanks for the advice!

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 hours ago, MadCat.6780 said:

Yeah, I thought as much.  Still, I ended up going for Brutus / Sheena set for now with dual-swords (+ConDam should help with all the bleeds, and I have Riposte with Sword off-hand to help).

 

I only have 80% of the Berserker nodes unlocked, but I decided to try it while doing the last Core story chapter and...Berserking has been super fun.  I can see now why Metabattle and Snowcrows appear to favor elite builds so much. 😅

 

😳 Def looking forward to doing Fractals now... 😋  Thanks for the advice!

If you're going for condition damage you can easily max your bleed duration using Krait runes + Earth/Agony sigil and maybe a bit of cheap food like the Super Veggie Pizza, along with the Arms traitline.

 

Make sure you don't go past 100% bleeding duration, as there's a hard cap. If you still struggle to hit it, throw in a few Celestial trinkets from the Laurel merchant for the expertise.

 

You should see around 10-12k bleed ticks against champions or the test golem.

Edited April 15, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Ashantara.8731]

On 4/14/2023 at 6:03 AM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

This is class specific, as some classes have 50-100% more survivability than others.

For some reason, I have survived all open world (including map completion) and story mission content on all nine professions without using +Vitality/+Toughness gear.

Yes, some professions have it harder, but with proper tactical movement they can all make it fine through the aforementioned content without losing out on damage due to "survival gear". Defensive options exist outside of said gear (skills, traits, movement).

[RavensSorrow.6128]

On 4/13/2023 at 7:18 PM, MadCat.6780 said:

On 4/12/2023 at 10:06 PM, RavensSorrow.6128 said:

Also start working towards a legendary. It takes time.

Would it be better to work towards armor or weapons?  It seems like there is only one Legendary PvE armor set per weight in the entire game...

Well I see you have Both Guardian and Warrior at 80 so legendary Heavy armor would be useable on both characters. You could also do Back, Trinkets or necklace as an item useable on all characters. The Necklace is easy but takes time doing all the "Season of the Dragon" and "Return to" achievements. The armor you can do a Raid or Pvp one depending on what you enjoy.

If you do want to do a weapon pick one that is useable by most of your characters. Maybe a sword since those professions all have some use for one. Really just start on whatever looks fun to you. I've gotten both the necklace and a weapon (chuka) complete and am picking at the achievements for a trinket and backpiece as well. Just slowing chipping away until I get close to one or the other. It keeps me having a goal each play session while letting me also get some variety on what part of the game I am playing.

[MadCat.6780]

On 4/12/2023 at 2:11 AM, SandraSolace.7682 said:

Yes, the free bag is per account. Still free space though 😉

Presumably, I can unsubscribe from the newsletter.  What happens if I do? 🤨

[Linken.6345]

4 hours ago, MadCat.6780 said:

Presumably, I can unsubscribe from the newsletter.  What happens if I do? 🤨

Nothing they cant take the bag back.

But you wont get a new one when subscribing again.

[Lowtwo.4921]

I now have 2 characters at lvl 80. The first one I got to 80 from 0 and the other I boosted with tomes of experience. Both are fully geared in exotic/ascended with hardly any money spend on the gear itself.

 

The first character I got lucky to be able to gear through the halloween event. That event gave a full exotic stat selectable armor set, but there are numerous ways to get gear like that. The cheapest would be the Verdant Brink meta train. If you do the full day and night event you probably already end up having nearly a full set due to drops from events/bosses and the airship parts you get. Not to mention you are also earning gold though these events and drops they provide. 

 

My first weapons I bought from dungeon currency. When I started playing regular dungeons all shared the same currency upon completion. Just find out what dungeon provides a weapon with the stats you are looking for and run all paths a few times a week to unlock them and farm the currency needed. Think this will give you a full set of weapons in 1, maybe 2 weeks of doing so.

 

Since you want to start fractals and strike missions that would probably be your second thing to focus on, atleast I did. With the gold I made from running a few meta trains and farming the gear I wanted I bought the IBS living world episode so I could do the IBS strike missions daily. If you make sure you run strikes daily, atleast the easy 3 but preverably IBS5 you will get your first ascended armor fast enough. You could combine that with the 2 easiest EoD strikes (Junkyard and Hideout) for more shards and faster gear progression.

 

If you start with T1 fractals at the same time you will start earning currency from those aswell. Open the boxes you get with the cheap keys you can buy from the fractal vendor every week (20s a key if im right, capped at 30). These contain valuable junk items wich also provide you with more gold. The chests you get from doing the daily fractals in turn can reward you with ascended rings and armor boxes. The higher your fractal tier the more chances you get for good gear. Also the fractal currency you can exchange for ascended rings aswell.

 

You will probably at some point hit a hard cap on agony resistance due to your fractal lvl going up faster then you farming ascended gear to get more agony resistance. You can use that time to either farm more of the same fractals purely for gold and the chance for gear for other characters or spend that time doing other content until you have enough strike currency to buy more ascended gear and upgrade your agony resistance.

 

Right now my first character is missing 3 pieces of armor for full ascended and I can probably buy that now or otherwise soon enough but I have been running alot of meta trains for gold instead of doing strike missions. My second character is full on ascended accesories and could probably already go up to fractal T2 if I wanted to.

 

Also a quick tip on fast and easy gold with low efford and time invested. Look up jade runestone farm on Youtube. You can get like 4-5 chests in maybe 20 minutes time worth a minimum of 4-5 gold total or more depending on the drops. You could also spend that gold towards buying some weapons instead of maybe running the regular dungeons.

Hope this helps!

PS: With regards to raiding. You can pretty much start that as soon as you start with strike missions. All you need is a set of full exotic gear matching your spec. Doing raids also lets you work towards getting more ascended gear. Basically only fractals have a gear check in the sence that you need agony resistance to progress and you can only get that by getting more ascended items.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Lowtwo.4921