Best Path to Legendary Armor for a Solo Player. Raids, WvW, or Spvp?

[Joker.5016]

Hey all! long time casual player since Guild Wars 1.

So, i've been pretty much a solo player, with the occasional guild for social aspects here in there.

I've been wanting to get legendary armor for awhile but felt it was impossible since I havnt been lucky in having a group of people for static content like Raids and such. 

I've been reading a lot and starting to think maybe it is possible for me to get the legendary armor sets, but which set seems the most feasible way to attain for someone like me who hasnt found a guild or group to run with? 

is the Raid set the best way for me? or the WvW or Spvp set? (Now I dont have much experience in WvW or Spvp so thats a thing)

Thank you to anyone who takes the time out to reply and offer some advice!

[Sobx.1758]

You don't need a static group/guild to run raids. While it can help if you happen to have a matching schedule, you can do it fully through lfg. Look for training runs and when you get a grasp of what to do, join any low/no kp req groups. 
Mind that you don't need to limit yourself to any particular "set", you can get some pieces from any of the above if you don't care that much about the skins and they'll work together all the same.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Joker.5016]

11 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You don't need a static group/guild to run raids. While it can help if you happen to have a matching schedule, you can do it fully through lfg. Look for training runs and when you get a grasp of what to do, join any low/no kp req groups. 
Mind that you don't need to limit yourself to any particular "set", you can get some pieces from any of the above if you don't care that much about the skins and they'll work together all the same.

ok, cause i'm not gonna lie i've been crazy intimidated about trying to get into raids lol. I run Pdps Vindicator and even though its listed on Metabattle and Snowcrows as a raid ready build, not knowing the fights has been a wall lol

[Sobx.1758]

Yeah, you can silently count that any training run will explain mechanics or, if you want to kind of feel prepared for what will be happening in groups you're joining, you can check some guides. Mukluk's "get to the point" series seems to be fairly short and... to the point so you can always quickly rewatch a relevant boss video as a mechanics reminder while people are gathering up. https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-raid-guides 
tbh if you want to start raiding, I'd advise not paying attention to w5/6/7 for now since you only need w1-4 for armor (clearing more wings =  faster LI acquisition = ability to craft the armor faster, but it also gives you way more information to learn at the same time which may be discouraging). Take it slow and you're k 😄 

Another set of guides: https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/guides/raids/
And a thread where someone shared POVs of each role for each encounter if you feel you need that: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10vbxbf/my_guild_prepared_a_massive_list_of_raid_strike/

Edited April 13, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Joker.5016]

thats crazy useful advice, tysm!

[Gibson.4036]

Looks like you might be leaning toward raids, but the other two modes are totally doable without preset groups, too.

For PvP, you'll have to endure getting to rank 20 in unranked play before you're allowed ranked, where you start getting what you need to make legendaries. It doesn't take an extreme amount of matches, but it is an initial hurdle. The nice thing about PvP is that you can do it in bite-sized chunks. Got 20 minutes? You can queue and do one match in that time.

WvW can get a little tedious if you're truly solo, since you're running around flipping small objectives, (camps, guards, shrines) over and over to keep up participation. But most servers have a discord you can join to hear what's happening and join in.

[neighto.7386]

I am mainly a solo player as well.... I went the route of wvw as you don't need to find a group or deal with the drama that can come from raid groups..... the only real down fall is it takes a loooooong time to grind away the skirmish tickets if you don't have any due to the weekly cap.  Best option is to pick the game mode you enjoy playing the most, really doesn't seem like a lot of work if you are having fun playing the game while grinding away

[mythical.6315]

WvW will probably be the quickest in your situation.

[Buran.3796]

  Actually, PvP. You need 20 grandmaster marks to craft the 6 ascended armor pieces which will work as the precursors to the full legendary armor pieces, and you'll get 3 of those marks x ranked season (plus 1 for each mini-season), which is near a year and half BUT those marks can be purchased to speed up a lot the proccess. Most of the other tokens are easy to get and much more cheap than the ones in WvW. Also, you don't have to win matches to progress: any match moves you closer to the goal, and even even if your performance is bad, the matchmaking will move you eventually against adversries so bad that you will reach a 50% w/l ratio even if you don't even try. You can also accelerate the proccess mixing gear from WvW and PvP, but as I said WvW is more expensive.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Buran.3796

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I did them both at the same time.  WvW is the easiest, so long as you don't mind standing around for 15 hours while you wait to get the skirmish cap, doing something every 8 minutes or so to maintain participation.  Do this for 19 weeks, and you'll have a set of armor.  It may seem like forever, but trust me it used to take longer.

The PVE version is faster.  I don't know if there are any groups that regularly run Harvest Temple or Kaineng Overlook CM, so excluding those it will take 6 weeks of completing every raid boss to get your first set of armor, and 12 weeks for any remaining sets.  Granted, this doesn't include the time it takes to learn the raids, or that you won't be able to complete every single raid boss each week due to random stuff, but the sheer time saved from doing the raid route is always worthy of consideration.

I... have no idea what the PVP scale of time is.  

[Buran.3796]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I... have no idea what the PVP scale of time is.  

   On average with a 50/50 w/l ratio it takes less than 90 matches to reach the last (bizantium) chest of rewards in a ranked season in Conquest, which at ~15 minutes x match (including queues) resuts in ~23 hours of gameplay to get the 3 grandmaster marks from one ranked season in Conquest. So is less than 160 hours. As I said, season rewards are time caped, but you can purchase grandmaster marks (with tokens from other game modes, including WvW with the Grandmaster Mark Shards; outside participating in large WvW events the best way to get them is reaching the last gold chest in WvW to get at least 3 shads x week).

   Let's say that one completes the gold chest of WvW rewards every week for 8 months (which can be done just flipping camps alone) with no participation in any other skirmish: after that time you will stack 108+ shards enough to buy half of the pieces of the armor from PvP (doing sieges will largely speed up the time), and in the same time PvP will grant the other half of Marks to get all the precursors (just playing an average of 8 hors a month!).

   The main advantage of the PvP/WvW path is that you don't need to have success to earn the rewards; in PvE each time you wipe in a raid you will get 0 components foir your legendary armor whereas in PvP even if you lose every match you still progress and become 4 pips closer to the last 3 chest of the season, so progression is INEVITABLE. 

   Yes, PvE is faster (and more expensive) as long as your team never wipes (or you are carried), but PvP/WvW offers the advantage of needing 0 teamplay and not relying in success to get the goals (of course teamplay and success will speed up the proccess, but again, is NOT mandatory). You can lose every PvP match (which is impossible) and every WvW fight and still you'll get rewards and progression, whereas in PvE you need success to grand the required reards.

   I say this as player which obtained 3 sets of legendary PvP armors + The Ascension + Trascendence just playing PvP.  

[mythical.6315]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grandmaster_Mark_Shard

Since there's a fixation on the marks for some strange reason

Edited April 15, 2023 by mythical.6315

[Khisanth.2948]

16 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I did them both at the same time.  WvW is the easiest, so long as you don't mind standing around for 15 hours while you wait to get the skirmish cap, doing something every 8 minutes or so to maintain participation.  Do this for 19 weeks, and you'll have a set of armor.  It may seem like forever, but trust me it used to take longer.

The PVE version is faster.  I don't know if there are any groups that regularly run Harvest Temple or Kaineng Overlook CM, so excluding those it will take 6 weeks of completing every raid boss to get your first set of armor, and 12 weeks for any remaining sets.  Granted, this doesn't include the time it takes to learn the raids, or that you won't be able to complete every single raid boss each week due to random stuff, but the sheer time saved from doing the raid route is always worthy of consideration.

I... have no idea what the PVP scale of time is.  

Was that before or after the recently added additional sources for skirmish tickets?

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

7 hours ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

Was that before or after the recently added additional sources for skirmish tickets?

I did it just before EoD dropped.  It used to take 22 weeks with a hard cap.  I know there was a defense exploit for awhile to farm the claim tickets, but that was patched out.  So, I'm not sure what at what rate the new tickets would be added.  But, since it requires assaulting towers/keeps/stonemist, it would mean actively playing the game for endless hours.  

[Ronin.4501]

On 4/14/2023 at 2:51 PM, neighto.7386 said:

 Best option is to pick the game mode you enjoy playing the most, really doesn't seem like a lot of work if you are having fun playing the game while grinding away

THIS. I played WvW because I enjoyed the game mode, and now I've got all 3 sets of legendary armor just from doing something I actively enjoyed. I never really thought about the grind. Meanwhile I'm working on my legendary amulet which requires a LOT of PvE and the grind is beating me down. (17/24 achievements completed but now it's time for Bjora Marches. UGH UGH UGH!!!!)

If you play the game mode you most enjoy and don't think too much about what you're working towards in the meantime it won't burn you out nearly as quick.

[mythical.6315]

16 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

But, since it requires assaulting towers/keeps/stonemist, it would mean actively playing the game for endless hours.

Oh no.  You have to actively play the game to earn an end game reward.  The horror! 

And in your case, 15 hours a week.  Such endless hours!

Edited April 16, 2023 by mythical.6315

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

7 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

Oh no.  You have to actively play the game to earn an end game reward.  The horror! 

And in your case, 15 hours a week.  Such endless hours!

When I did it, it was longer.  It was closer to 18-20 hours for me.  This was on top of learning and doing raids all at the same time.  It was brutal.  I don't think anybody who's employed would be capable of handling all of that.  

[mythical.6315]

41 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

When I did it, it was longer.  It was closer to 18-20 hours for me.  This was on top of learning and doing raids all at the same time.  It was brutal.  I don't think anybody who's employed would be capable of handling all of that.  

Someone employed works 40 hours a week usually.  Let's say that they sleep 8 hours a day so that's 56 hours of sleep.  This is a total of 96 hours during the week that some is unavailable to play.  There's 168 hours in a week so that leaves 72 hours available to do whatever.  Surely 18-20 is less than 72, right?  Plenty of people have full-time jobs, kids, etc and still are able to do raids.  They are able to do the same in other games that are far more demanding of their time.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

2 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

Someone employed works 40 hours a week usually.  Let's say that they sleep 8 hours a day so that's 56 hours of sleep.  This is a total of 96 hours during the week that some is unavailable to play.  There's 168 hours in a week so that leaves 72 hours available to do whatever.  Surely 18-20 is less than 72, right?  Plenty of people have full-time jobs, kids, etc and still are able to do raids.  They are able to do the same in other games that are far more demanding of their time.

There's far more demands in life than work and sleep.

[mythical.6315]

2 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

There's far more demands in life than work and sleep.

Hence the "Plenty of people have full-time jobs, kids, etc and still are able to do raids." in the last part of my post....

[TheQuickFox.3826]

WvW is by far the easiest and most relaxed way to earn legendary armor. Just mindlessly follow a group and capture/defend locations and keep the pips flowing. It will take many weeks but the fact that it is much less intense than sPvP and raids may be worth it.

 

WvW was my first set of legendary armor for this reason. And the Sublime Mistforged Triumphant Hero's armor is in my opinion one of the nicest armor skins in the game.

Having said that, Raids are fun. But where WvW can be played solo-ish (Yes, you're in a group but you can leave at any time) Raids are hard 10 person group content. Raids can also be scary because of requirements and expectations, but this can be overcome. (See link in my signature how I did that)

 

sPvP is a bit toxic. You need to have a mindset to not care about individual matches as you will get terrible matches and angry team members that can't stand losing. You will need to play ranked to earn pips for your legendary armor. Ranked just means that your matches count for your personal skill rating. Nothing to worry about. This is just the computer that tries to make equal matches. Unranked should only be used for testing and learning new maps as unranked rewards are terrible. So if you want the PvP route depends a bit on your mindset. Even at bronze rank you will work towards your legendary armor and the game will strive towards a 50% win/loss ratio. So every loss is a ticket to future wins and vice versa. Got an unfriendly team? Block anyone who is using offensive language and move on to the next match.

[AlCapwnd.7834]

On 4/13/2023 at 6:02 PM, Joker.5016 said:

Hey all! long time casual player since Guild Wars 1.

So, i've been pretty much a solo player, with the occasional guild for social aspects here in there.

I've been wanting to get legendary armor for awhile but felt it was impossible since I havnt been lucky in having a group of people for static content like Raids and such. 

I've been reading a lot and starting to think maybe it is possible for me to get the legendary armor sets, but which set seems the most feasible way to attain for someone like me who hasnt found a guild or group to run with? 

is the Raid set the best way for me? or the WvW or Spvp set? (Now I dont have much experience in WvW or Spvp so thats a thing)

Thank you to anyone who takes the time out to reply and offer some advice!

I have 2 WvW sets and 1 PVE set. The WvW set takes longer. But the WvW set never really bothered me cause i was having a blast in WvW and found a fun guild to run with daily. As for raids. I was intimidated by them at first. But after learning them they become super easy and fun as well. Set your goal and go get it!

[Cuks.8241]

The best path is the one you enjoy. Pve is the least grindy and raid wings 1-4 are very easy nowadays. It's really just the first step to clear them a few times to get a hang of it and after that its really fast. Pvp and Wvw are just grinds. Wvw is super long grind and wouldn't recommend doing it unless you enjoy wvw or have no life. Pvp is faster and theres always action. Also with pvp you can pick up a basicly free legendary backpack on the way.

[Gibson.4036]

15 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Pvp is faster

True

15 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

…and theres always action.

Except when five out of six games have afkers.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

WvW will take the longest but will be the easiest. All you need to do is keep your participation up, do your dailies, and do your weeklies.