How do you gear up leveling characters? (Not stats but equipment)

[Game of Bones.8975]

As a beginning player, I used to buy new armor, weapons and trinkets every 8-10 levels. I think my last purchase would be for the best set of rare gear I could afford and then I'd wait for the better rare and exotic leveling gear to drop.

 

Then I "graduated" to crafting, but still buy when I don't have the patience (common) or mats handy (which is rare).

 

Are there hard-core players who only use what drops leveling or from just playing the game? I've never tried that way and may have to use one of my throw-away characters to try next time.

[Danikat.8537]

I always just use drops and story/level rewards. I started off doing that because I wasn't sure what to buy, and I wanted to save up for other stuff, and then just kept doing it because it worked well enough that I didn't see any need to spend gold on equipment that would quickly get replaced. It may be a bit of an adjustment if you're using to always having the best available equipment at your level, with matching stats, but I don't think it makes things hard enough to count as a challenge.

 

In fact the one time I did buy equipment while levelling it was for a challenge. I was trying to get as far as possible through the game using only white equipment, and white drops are surprisingly rare (especially if you've used luck to raise your magic find) so I wasn't able to get enough as drops to keep using it and had to buy it from NPC armour and weapon vendors.

[Khisanth.2948]

Use masterwork for weapons and armors, upgrading at levels where the items are cheap(less than 10s or maybe slightly more for the coat/legging). Trinkets get upgrades much less frequently and just left empty in the earlier levels. IIRC on the my recent ranger there were no trinkets equipped until around the 60s.

 

Tried just using whatever the level up rewards gave towards the later levels of my warrior. It worked fine even in HoT but there wasn't much reason to stick to that. Even less so now that lv80 exotics are simpler to get with the change to stat selectable gear from a while ago. Especially for the trinkets. Without considering opportunity cost it is cheaper and easier to equip any new lv80 with ascended trinkets than exotic.

[Taril.8619]

I just use whatever drops plus level up rewards.

 

That's all I need when farming enemies 7-8 levels above me for power leveling.

 

Actually buying gear seems pointless until level 80 and even then, that's only if you're not aiming for HoT statlines (Since those items are still rather expensive because they're not common drops like core statline gear such as Berserker, Carrion, Cleric etc)

[Westenev.5289]

I once tried crafting my own armours while leveling, but it's resource intensive. Kind of like buying 500 dollar shoes for a 5 year old - the kid grows out of them too quick to be worth it.

 

Nowadays, I just use level up gear until level 80. It's probably the least hardcore level up option you can take, since the game already gives you serviceable gear.

[Loosmaster.8263]

I use the drop gear to that level 10 and if nothing is dropped to my level I buy the appropriate white gear from the vendors until something better comes along.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I've only ever used what drops for my characters. Some characters (5 years and older) still just use that gear.

Never had much of a problem.

[lokh.2695]

After a while, Lvlup-tomes start to gather. After that you can jump to lvl80 after creation. Depending on what you play and your luck, you should have some ascended stuff laying around or the currency to buy at least exotics.

[Ayrilana.1396]

I did new green weapons every 10 levels and new green armor every 20 levels. I never used drops because they often didn't have the stats that I wanted.

[Tommo Chocolate.5870]

I usually just use level up rewards and loot. I don't think it counts as hardcore - if you prioritise power, precision and ferocity when you choose which gear to equip, and build your character for direct damage, then leveling is pretty easy (for an experienced player, anyway).

 

I did once try to make the leveling process more challenging by not using armour or trinkets. But it didn't work - it doesn't make it harder, it just makes the fights last longer.

[Luthan.5236]

Personally I "only" have 9 characters - 1 of each main profession. And I wanted them to all level the normal way while also doing the core personal story. So I really only use drops and stuff from map completion (for everyone of my 9 chars I completed about 50-60 percent of the core world while fully completing the maps the personal story sends me to) and the story rewards. (Some bags usually with gear and crap.)

 

Only at level 80 I tried to make 1 permanent build for fun/PvE (my own style, not using "META") and bought/crafted exotics for this. I still mainly play only my 1 main char though ... and rarely changing builds and almost never changing gear. Left with mostly exotics + some ascended from achievements and stuff. Legendary is planned but only in the far future starting with weapons and trinkest. (I already get from PvP a lot of stuff for the trinkets.)

[TamX.1870]

I generally have used drops if I can, but time to time I go to Trading Post to get cheap upgrades for pieces that are too low level to my taste (that is, pieces that I have not have luck to get as loot) - many times I have replaced entire set, because it has been rare to have on-level pieces and blue/green are generally cheap. Even that I have crafting alts, I have not crafted pieces to leveling alts, because usually it is just too expensive compared to the life time of the pieces. But on the other hand, while leveling, I have mostly ran for hero points, and then used tomes of knowledge to get few more levels to advance to new maps, and that's why I have not had that many pieces from drops. I have usually used tomes to get from 70-75 to the cap and then made or bought the first lvl 80 set (usually rares, sometimes I have been confident enough to craft exotics as first lvl 80 set), just because it feels wasteful to buy/make a 70 or 75 set so close to cap.

[Astralporing.1957]

Generally i only use drops and story/level-up rewards, somethimes complementing them with gear from karma vendors. That's enough for leveling purposes.

[HAsAsIN.6724]

level up gears and loot drop gears.

 

and the right maps that give you lots of exp with the boosters.

[Dayra.7405]

For a long time I didn't, as I've enough birthday-scrolls and tomes to be 80 immediately. And one of the reasons using them is this equipment upgrade demand.

Before, what comes in by drops and rewards, and usually at 35 culture I armor and 40 culture weapon. I also looked into TP from time to time, if there is a cheap useful weapon, complete armor set for usage within the next 5 lvl.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

drops/rewards. When char reaches 80 I have bank tabs with useful gear, gear chests etc pp.

[Gorani.7205]

I can only speak for the past, not the present, as I do not level any characters anymore.

1. Main Ele was the first to be played, so she just used whatever dropped. I also levelled crafting while levelling up, althougt I think I always were quite a few levels behind. I remember getting the Masterwork Winged set at some point (which is lvl 65). From then on, I added what dropped and was better, until I could buy a few temple armour pieces in Orr.

2. My secondary characters got the "good drops" that left in storage on top of what they got themselves

3. Trinkets were not dropping, so I think I got most of them from Karma merchants

4. When HoT came out, I created the the missing professions + Revenant and levelled them with Bday scrolls + Tomes. They (and later the PoF professions) were equipped with stuff from the Dungeon vendor

5. Hero Points for skills &traits mostly came from WvW Proofs

6. Living Story gave you tons of ascended trinkets (or the possibility to buy them) and backpacks.

[Ithlia.1830]

I find that I get enough armor drops to keep my gals outfitted. I put an outfit on them to hide the ugly mismatching. However getting the right weapon type to drop is a little tougher. So I buy better weapons every 10 - 15 levels.

[Danikat.8537]

Oh yeah, I should mention I only use drops until they get to level 80, then I actually make the effort to get them exotic/ascended equipment with appropriate stats and upgrades, because it's actually worth doing at that point, when it won't become invalid as I play more. For my first character that meant getting down to Orr to get exotic armour from the temples, these days I usually have enough spare pieces in the bank to put a set together. Weirdly the hardest part is often choosing which skins to use. :D

[Fueki.4753]

Play the story for rewards and get the level up rewards.

That, together with some drops, is all you need until you hit HoT and beyond.

[thehipone.6812]

I do level 40 key runs so I made some sets of ineffable gear to really streamline that- I’ll use it to level alts as needed. Probably Not worth it just to level one character, but an option if you think you could use it for multiple alts or key farmers like I do. Usually by lvl 40-50 I’m kinda done with the “fun of leveling” and burn tomes or craft to 80.

 

If I didn’t have the ineffable stuff and planned to go all the way to 80, I’d look at picking up a bloodbound weapon or two. At 10 tokens they aren’t ridiculous anymore and I’d use excess reclaimed plates, auric ingots or chak eggs to buy the tokens. If you knew that you were going to lvl more characters you could likely get some good mileage out of a great sword or other common weapon across multiple classes.

 

For trinkets I craft the blue power gem stuff and sell afterwards if not needed anymore.

[Ashantara.8731]

I used to buy greens from the TP every 15 levels or so until the character reached level 80.

[Antycypator.9874]

Weapons: Bloodbound (bought for provisioner tokens).

Eq: the cheapest from TP (green/rare), every 10 levels.

[Mutisija.5017]

i just use whatever i get from story and loot, and sometimes gear from heart vendors whenever i remember to check their stuff. i dont bother thinking it any further until i have reached level cap. on lower levels i do just fine with subpar gear, and the frequency i would need for replacing it is just too much for my stale brain to keep up with.

[Vrath.1754]

Depends on the lvl rewards and drops but I tend to buy gear as well. Typically buy blue trinkets so I can sell them again after I replace them.