Gearing for Raids and Fractals: Noob Help!

[Sephollos.4829]

I'm a returning player, and I would like to start gearing myself so that I can do raids and higher level fractals. I hear that farming level 40 Fractals can make you like 35-40 gold an hour, so I'd really like to gear myself so that I can do it, so that I'm not constantly poor. When I last played the game, the best armors in the game were basically the dungeon sets, so a lot has changed!

 

What advice would you have for someone who has no real gear/gold (even a set of exotics seems super-expensive for me to get now) to get raid/fractal ready? I assume I'll need at least half of my gear to be ascended for the agony resistance. Should I just farm a lot of gold for now to save up for crafting it? If so, what specifically can I farm, and what sorts of drops should I sell from said farming? I can barely make 1g an hour now if I really work at it, and I don't have that much time to play, so the task seems extremely daunting at this stage. I should mention that I'm a warrior, and apparently the warrior PvE builds need viper gear, which seems to be the hardest stat mod to obtain. I have an engineer also, but I've been having a lot more fun with my warrior since returning.

 

Thanks for the help! I'm really looking forward to getting involved in high-level PvE, but for now it feels like it's at least a year of farming off in the future to even get my foot in the door. I've read some of the gearing guides, but they're all super-overwhelming and seem to confirm that it will take thousands of hours of farming to get anywhere.

[steki.1478]

[This might help](

"https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6tatti/ascended_gearing_for_new_and_returning_players_to/")

 

[Wandering Mist.2973]

The first thing you'll need to do is get enough money to buy a full set of exotic gear on the TP. Don't bother with viper gear for now as it is hellishly expensive and not worth getting in exotic. Rampager gear is a good alternative for now. Once you have a full set of exotic gear you can start working through the fractals. Tier 1 fractals up to level 20 don't require agony resistance so you can farm those to get gold. I generally make around 6 gold per day just from the tier 1 dailies. As you do the dailies you get pristine fractal relics that you can use to buy ascended rings that you can infuse with agony resistance to do higher level fractals. The pristine fractal relics are also used to buy the recipe for the grandmaster armorsmith mark, which are used to exchange for ascended armour pieces. The only other way to get ascended armour reliably in pve is to do raids. When you beat a raid boss you get magnamite shards that can be exchanged for ascended gear. You can do raids in exotic gear but you would need to find a guild willing to take you knowing you had only exotic gear.

 

Hope this helps, and good luck.

[Cuon Alpinus.7645]

Level 40 farm doesn't work anymore since they changed it up recently.

[Gandrogh.1530]

You do not need full ascended set to start raiding/fractal.

I think that you should **start crafting ascended weapon set first** because it is an 5-10% increase dps output from exotics. Then go for ascended trinket which allow you to carry a lot of slots for agony infusions : [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attuned_equipment](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attuned_equipment "https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attuned_equipment") .

 

Full ascended armor is a 5% increase stats from exotics so it is not really significant. And no one will spot you if you have an exotic armor. I do raid with no ascended armor (but trinkets/weaps) and i got a really good dps. No one ask for showing my stuff : most people don't know their skill rotation or don't do it correctly. If you focus on it then you'll get a better dps with a lower stuff ;) .

 

You'll need a total of 144-150 agony resistance to do higher tier (T4) fractals. But no hurry. With ascended trinkets you have enough to do T3 fractal wich allow you to finish your ascended armor smouthly (+9 infusion on each slots on your stuff is enough for fotm 100).

[Sephollos.4829]

Thanks a bunch for all of the info - this is super-helpful!! It sounds like what I should really focus on is first getting a full exotic set of rampager gear, and then start doing raids/fractals to gain all of my ascended items. I assume that I should start out with the rampager ascended accessories, and then switch to viper once I start to collect a full set of ascended stuff, correct? I notice that the viper accessories are way more expensive than rampager at the fractal merchants.

 

Also, if the level 40 fractal farm doesn't work anymore, what are some of the best ways to make gold?

[Linken.6345]

If you can buy living world season 3 atleast a crack in the ice you can get back earing and 2 rings if you infuse one of them aswell for easy farmed map currency.

[Hex.2579]

you can't farm fractal 40 now cuz anet fixed the fractal to be long enough like the others. which kills the term "40 farm" itself.

best "basic" armor in game is still dungeon sets tbh. since they can be obtained for free by exchanging dungeon currencies. if not, you have to buy exotics on tp.

 

my only suggestion is play and enjoy the game. you'll earn your gold income just from playing.

from level 1 to level 19, there's no AR needed. so you don't need ascended to start playing fractals up to level 19.

i used to run fractal trainings nightly but now i don't. since my i work pretty late. i can only play around midnight, which is 5 hours after reset. but i still run trainings on Sundays for my guild and also pick up randoms in lfg. so if you need help, you could mail/whisper me.

 

your first items you could put agony in are rings. fractals let you exchange rings, using its currency. by the time, your personal fractal level is up to 19, you should have plenty of fractal relics to buy rings for a few characters.

another easier way to have ascended rings is through farming berries in the LWS3, ep 3 map, Bitterfrost Frontier. a lot of us do that since it doesn't take a lot of time. i'm lazy so i do one round per day only. lol. some people re-roll all their characters, so they have plenty of the map currency to exchange. if time is not much on your end, just add it to your daily to-do list, and within a few days, you'll have your first ascended piece.

as for infusion, you get +1 drops a lot when you keep doing fractals. and you can exchange them for a much higher infusion when you have a few stacks. in the meantime, you could save up quite a small fortune.

[Fiorex.5698]

The viper's warrior build (aka. Banner Slave or BS) people use nowadays is very different to power warriors. So much different in fact that I stopped playing warrior when Power Phalanx Strength fell out of the meta. Power engineer is not bad. In fact power holosmiths, if you own the Path of Fire expansion, are in the current meta. I hear they are fun too. :smile:

 

Fractals are a good source to get gold. You can do T1 and T2 fractals without worrying much about builds (yes, power warrior is fine) and 1-20 scales doesn't require any Agony Resistance, so it's a good place to start. Doing all T1 dailies can net you a few gold per day. You should save Agony infusions to upgrade them to +7 or +9 so you can do higher tiers and get more gold. You can use Pristine Fractal relics to buy ascended rings with core games stats, meaning that it doesn't have HoT or PoF stats like Viper's or Grieving, but has Berserker's. Fractals can drop ascended gear, but I wouldn't count on getting the right stats as far as trinkets go.

 

Doing explorable dungeon paths awards you with tokens. You can use those tokens to buy exotic gear in Lions Arch near the fractal portal. Dungeons also award you with some gold, but it's nothing to write home about. I recommend doing Citadel of Flame (first path is the easiest), as you can buy Berserker's gear with its tokens. One path gives 100 tokens and the armor cost around 180-330 tokens per piece. If you are new to a dungeon path, you should tell it to your group in advance. :smile:

 

As people have mentioned before, if you own ANY Living Story 3 maps, especially Bitterfrost Frontier, you can get Core + HoT stats fast.

 

Meta events can get you a lot of resources which you can turn in to gold. Some profitable ones are:

- Auric Basin meta event. After recapturing the golden city, you can find a lot of chests in the caves under the city. You get keys for these chests by doing events around the map. Requires the HoT expansion.

- Silverwastes meta event. After defeating the three bosses at the end of the main event, there's usually a train lead by a commander that goes through the map revealing buried chests and killing champions for loot bags. You get keys for buried chests by buying them with map currency at the start of the map or by doing events.

- The Domain of Istan meta events. Capturing Mordant Crescent Great Hall and Palawadan. After each event there are lots of chests that don't require keys. Requires PoF and LS4 first chapter.

 

Raids

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This subject might not be a current concern for you but I'll put it here anyway...

 

For raiding I recommend my guild mates to pick a class they like (some are more useful than others) and then pick a meta build. For builds I recommend checking the websites of Quantify or Snowcrows. Having both a DPS and a support class helps you to get more groups if you raid with pugs, but you might want to prioritize DPS since it's more fun/viable/efficient in the open world.

 

Ascended gear is important, especially for DPS classes. I require my guild mates to have:

- full ascended trinkets

- at least exotic armor with the right runes

- at least exotic weapons with the right sigils (high priority upgrading to ascended)

- correct food/utility effects

 

Needless to say, everything should have the right stats. For some these might seem as high requirements, but they really are important. Nothing sucks more than knowing that you are a part of what's holding back the group from success. After you have your gear set you should learn your skill rotations or as I like to call them _rotatoes_. They can also found on guide websites. Good rotatoes are really what makes your build flourish and can double or triple your dps output. You should always check a guide before joining a training group so you have some idea what you are doing.