Returning player - lots of questions

[Jangaroo.8124]

Hey,So I came back to GW2 after like 4-5 years and started to really enjoy it now. Back then I only got to level 40 and got bored of it. So far I have really enjoyed these two expansions. As I never reached end game before I have tone of questions about gearing and stuff. Would really appreciate your advice.I decided to play Thief and now specialised in Deadeye which is a lot of fun. I don't have trouble killing anything as i'm already doing 20-30k crits. Oh and worth mentioning I did boost this character to 80. I am assuming Deadeye is good for endgame content? Could be wrong..

So first questions:What are the main ways to get gear?Are professions worth doing? Currently started working on Huntsman in hope to craft good rifle at some point but no idea if its any good. Second profession I chose is leather working but haven't started that yet.Does gear drop? Pretty much since I started on path of fire expansion I didn't get a single upgrade for gear. I assume the gear you get when boosting a character is pretty good?I saw some other posts which mentioned some vendors to buy gear from. However as this is boosted character is that worth it at all? If yes which ones should I visit?What dungeons should I start doing and what do they drop that I should look out for? I saw people say stuff about 'fractals' what are they whats the difference?

Many love <3

[Sabre.8251]

First off a boosted Character's gear is stable. Not perfect, not too bad, but stable.That being said i swap over to professions. Yes they can be worth it, since you can craft ascended gear, or craft the required token to buy ascended gear from Fractals/WvW.A good source to level professions is http://gw2crafts.net/. It offers you actualized ways to level your professions to 500. Gear drops are barely good in all fairness. Equipment for Karma can't be salvaged, so better think about it twice, before buying it and dropping in expensive runes/sigils. You won't get them back. Dungeons can be a cheap source for exotic gear. You can farm the tokens of the dungeons, that sell your desired gear. In that time all the loot you get you can sell/salvage. That way you can farm up the gold needed to buy runes/sigils whilst getting a basis of equipment for your character. But in the end you may want to get ascended or legendary equipment. It will cost alot and you will have to farm for quite a while.Sidenote for Dungeons: Check out the Tokenvendor in Lion's Arch to find out which dungeon/s you can do to buy exotic gear with your desired stats.Ascended Trinkets you mostly can get for map currencies. Bitterfrost Frontier for example, you can harvest Winterberries till you have nough to buy the ascended Trinkets. The good thing with these trinkets is, that they offer a wide variets of Statcombinations to choose from.

[Terrowyn.4728]

Hello and Welcome! I will do my best to answer each question, but keep in mind, I am only speaking from a PvE player's perspective. For PvP, all "gear" is provided for you and therefor, my experience gearing is irrelevant. For WvW, these gearing concepts can be applied since your gear in WvW does matter.

Also!!!! This information may seem overwhelming on text, but if you'd like to add me in game, I'd be happy to explain anything you need further or over discord or something! :)

Lets begin with this question: I am assuming Deadeye is good for endgame content?Short answer... it depends. For raids (the highest level of content PvE content), they are not used very often (if ever). In open world PvE, and fractals, anything goes. However, in WvW, you can try it out. I recommend going to snowcrows.com for top tier raid builds for various classes, and metabattle.com for any other builds you might need for PvP and WvW.

Next Question: What are the main ways to get gear?So the best way to get ascended armor and weapons is from crafting. The best way to get ascended trinkets is from Living World Season 3 maps, unless you want Path of Fire Stats, in which case you buy them from heart merchants in the Path of Fire maps. You can also get ascended trinkets with any stats from Fractals & Raids (PvE), PvP, or WvW. I recommend looking up Ascended Trinkets on the Guild Wars 2 wiki for more information. For the armor and weapons though, you will need max level crafting, but when you consider that ascended gear is statistically equivalent to Legendary gear as the best gear in the game, the large gold investment is worth it. Also keep in mind that Ascended/Legendary gear will always be the "best" gear in the game , but is not required unless you are climbing fractals or you can't find a lax raiding guild that will accept exotic gear. If you do not wish to partake in raids or climbing fractals however, exotic gear is perfectly fine because the stat boost from ascended is not super big. Exotic gear can be bought from the Black Lion Trading Post with gold or from Dungeon Merchants with dungeon tokens.

Next: Are professions worth doing?They are pretty much required for ascended gear, and required to make many non-tradeable consumeables that you will need for raids if your interested in doing them in the future.

Next: Does gear drop?Yes, but unless you are doing T4 fractals, it is incredibly rare to get ascended drops. Exotic drops are much more common though. In T4 fractals, the gear drops are still pretty uncommon. The game pushes you to craft ascended gear.

Next: I saw some other posts which mentioned some vendors to buy gear from.Personally, I would say that the exotic gear you got from your boost is probably fine. But if you want, check out "Dungeon Merchants" on the gw2 wiki. You could run dungeons for exotics or buy exotics from the Black Lion Trading Post.

And Finally: What dungeons should I start doing and what do they drop that I should look out for?Dungeons offer dungeon tokens that can be echanged for exotic gear. If you want a complete list of what can be sold, here's a link: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dungeon_Armor_and_Weapons They come in various stat combination but they are still limited, but I'd recommend the ones that have Power>Precision=Ferocity as their stats which can be gotten from Citadel of Flame or Crucible of Eternity tokens. However, this is all if you want to do dungeons in the first place, as they are not required to get exotic gear. But keep in mind, statistically speaking, the exotic gear you get from your level boost is not "better" than dungeon gear, it just might come in a more ideal stat combination for you.

Bonus Question: I saw people say stuff about 'fractals' what are they whats the difference?Fractals have a chance of dropping ascended items, and are basically the "gearing hub" for this game. They offer gold and many other rewards that help you gear in full acended, but they also require ascended to progress in them. The higher you progress in fractals, the more rewards you get. Also, keep in mind that there is an extremely lethal mechanic in fractals called "Agony" that can be nullified with "Agony Resistance". With proper agony resistance, agony won't hurt you very much. I can explain in detail how agony resistance works, or you can look up agony resistance in the wiki for more information.

Cheers!