Buying armor/equipment from karma vendors while leveling, how to find them easy?

[Lucy.3728]

Hello

I created a new char(r) and am looking for karma vendors/heart traders that have low level armor. I don't want to do all hearts, just the minimum needed for equipment as I level.

Actually I was looking for a list that I can check for specific things like armor, weapons, trinkets of different levels.

I checked wiki, there are sometimes awesome summary lists one can sort and filter but I don't seem to find anything useful for my wish.

Any help?

[DeanBB.4268]

There is a list of renown heart/karma vendors, but you'd have to click through it to find what you're looking for. Not too useful.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Renown_heart_NPCs

Leveling gear is very cheap on the TP though. Plus you'll get level-appropriate gear at level-ups. I only ever check my gear every 10 levels or so to see if something needs to be replaced, and pretty much keep whatever in the trinkets slots until level 80.

[Buran.3796]

  For leveling purposes I would only use the Black Lion TP, purchasing weapons and armor pieces + trinkets around level 30-35, 45-50 and at 61-67. In total you could expect to spent 4-6 gold coins in the whole leveling  up to80 and with that + what you get from rewards and loot it would be more than enough. Karma gear usually can't be salvaged and you will ditch it very soon unless is your first 80 exotic gear. My advice would be getting either condition damage + vit or power + vit until you get access to tripe stats ~60, to use then carrion (condi + power + vit). Take in consideration that at low levels precission, thoughness, healing power and condition duration (expertise) or boon duration (concentration) are useless stats.

[Lucy.3728]

Thanks for the replies. I ordered rare lvl 35 armor in the tp and will play with whatever drops so long. But that more due to the lack of an easy karma vendor overview. I'm lazy and spoiled by nice and easy overviews on wiki.

Apparently I get bags as loot dropped that open as random equipment of the level of the current part of the map I am. So I just collect those and open them in an area close to my real level.

I'm playing warrior, there isn't much condi worth playing. I play whatever weapon drops with better stats than the one I've equipped. Atm (lvl 30) its sword/warhorn and hammer. I like hammer (for the knockdown) and warhorn (for the speed).
Will see to get power (+vita).

[Atraleos.5849]

If you have cheap access to Obsidian Shards (Don't buy from the wizard's vault!) You can trade 1 shard / day for Provisioner Tokens from the Ash Legion Provisioner in Black Citadel. You can then trade 10 Provisioner Tokens for a Bloodbound weapon. These weapons are specifically designed for leveling: They can be passed around your characters and automatically scale with the wielding character's level. You can also trade Mystic Forge Stones for Provisioner Tokens in Lion's Arch. More info can be found in the following 2 links:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodbound_weapons

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Faction_Provisioner

 

[Lucy.3728]

On 9/6/2023 at 4:14 AM, Atraleos.5849 said:

You can then trade 10 Provisioner Tokens for a Bloodbound weapon

I tried that about a year ago when I levelled a thief and find those weapons lacking.

The thought behind that is nice because it's comfy, but I don't like that they are always weaker than buyable/tradeable alternatives and can't be upgraded.

My warrior is 80 now and tomorrow I'll slay Zhaitan and be done with the personal story (for the third time).

[Atraleos.5849]

On 9/7/2023 at 1:52 PM, Lucy.3728 said:

I tried that about a year ago when I levelled a thief and find those weapons lacking.

They are classed as rare (yellow rarity) weapons and cap at level 78. Around level 60 you get access to exotic (orange rarity), which is stronger than rare weapons. As leveling weapons, the very point of bloodbound weapons is you grow out of them. However, they save buying a lot of weapons at the lower levels and their value increases the more characters you have use them. They really shine for key farmers where you frequently restart the character at low level.

[Lucy.3728]

7 hours ago, Atraleos.5849 said:

However, they save buying a lot of weapons at the lower levels and their value increases the more characters you have use them. They really shine for key farmers where you frequently restart the character at low level.

Interesting. An item which most popular use is for farmers.

I discarded the weapon after I was disappointed with the system.

I level very rarely. Usually I get new characters right to level 80 with exp scroll and books.

This was my second char in 3 years that I played like intended incl. personal story.

[willow.8209]

the karma you can use later to get level 80 temple armor if it has stats you need or you like the skin (if you have a little gold, it's generally suggested to buy named exotics for starter armor) and crafting recipes/ingredients, as well as (with core mastery) spend at the PSNA. I typically don't spend karma on renowned heart gear for leveling, I only buy the heart gear to fill in my cosmetic wardrobe at times I have plenty of karma (I don't want a guaranteed unlock to unlock an item I could have gotten for 115 karma, or bought cheaply on the TP).

while leveling, I do like you said and typically just use the strongest weapon/armor that dropped. And like another person said, I check it about every 10 levels or whenever I start a new level of story chapter. I look at the vendor gear (white) and if anything equipped is worse than that, I buy the vendor gear. Or sometimes I buy something on the TP that has a good rarity so will last a long time. 

I sometimes craft my leveling character trinkets and leave them on even when they are way under level, until something better drops. Or I might spend karma on a few trinkets, but still leave them on a long time.

however if you've checked what karma is good for and feel you have enough for leveling gear, go for it. depends what you play with your leveled toons, you might have lots.

I don't have any better sources than wiki for this tho.

On 9/8/2023 at 3:20 PM, Atraleos.5849 said:

They really shine for key farmers where you frequently restart the character at low level.

I hadn't figured out what the bloodbound weapons were good for, and your explainer helped me too. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by willow.8209

[mercury ranique.2170]

I never spend anything on armor till my toons are level 80. during levelling the level up rewards are more then sufficient

[Luthan.5236]

To be honest: I think it would be more work to research that stuff than to just  upgrade the armor evere few levels (which basically is enough). While leveling you also get gear from killing mobs (drops) and level up rewards or map completion maybe. And the trading post has cheap gear for the low level ranges. Unless you are a completely new players with almost zero money ... i'd recommend to just spend a few silver every now and then if you feel like killing stuff too slow.

I leveled all my 9 chars (one for each profession) manually and mainly used the dropped stuff ... and every now and then (maybe only every 10-20 levels not as often as every 5 levels) it seemed like I was killing mobs too slow and then I bought a bit of greens or yellows from the trading post and found my self replacing gear that was 20 levels lower than my current level. Going for exotics makes onyl sense when at level 80. Where you get a set of exos later replacing them slowly by ascended and maybe legendaries.