Equipping yourself, like a grown-up

[zanchito]

Hi! I'm finding it REALLY difficult to keep myself up to date in my equipment. My items are almost always 10-20 levels behind my own level, and it kinda sucks a lot. Crafting is useless for making your own stuff, as materials are so difficult to come by (my leatherworking and jewelry just got past 50, I'm level 42, and I've been going out of my way to replay low level areas to get materials to be able to get them up to that level, otherwise I'd be stuck at around 38 crafting for each). I update myself at karma vendors whenever I can, but that's never enough. Am I alone in this or is there some ancient shaolin knowledge I'm missing?

[El Cubo]

You can buy leather from Trading Post. Rawhide leather sections were, like, 10 coppers apiece when I was levelling leatherworker so investing 10 silver wasn't that bad. Then you should look into discovery. You can see recipes in http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leatherworker. Finding out the different insignia combinations for each piece of armor yields plenty of crafting experience. That's limited by how many of the more rare materials like scales and such you have, though. Buying them is more expensive.

Yeah, I've got a leatherworker at level 53 with leatheworking at ~138 so I can craft some level 35 stuff. Seems like crafting is just a gimmick. You can find as good equipment as loot, and it's hard to keep the crafting skills up with the level development.

[squirrelfanatic]

Crafting really seems to be only there for getting XP and the tier 6 stuff. For a brief moment, it was possible to make a few extra silver with selling crafted rare weapons on the Trading Post, but now the market is flooded with them. My character level also always outleveled my crafting skills, so there was no point in crafting stuff for myself. However, my second, third, etc. characters might profit from pre-crafted weapons and jewelery.

[ambing1]

now the market is flooded with them.

i agree. it's now more difficult to find someone willing to give you some few silver for rare weapons. crafting can still be interesting though if you're after the fun than actually worrying about the numbers.

[zanchito]

Yep, that's what I was thinking, crafting seems to be oriented for higher level characters to make stuff for lower level ones. Still, my problem is about how to get properly equipped, crafting is just a possibility.

[squirrelfanatic]

My experience with my Warrior was that I could always go with what enemies dropped, what I got from completions, and sometimes what Dungeon-runs provided (I have only done most dungeons once, mind). I think I never bought equipment from the Trading Post, but that could be another option. If it is melee weapons (or shields) you need, I might be able to help you out.

[zanchito]

Thanks, Squirrel. I actually completed AC for the first time yesterday and got crap drops. I just think I'm doing something wrong, maybe going back to lower level zones (where only lower level items will drop) has increased the differential between character level and item level.

[unruly]

I've been in mostly the same boat as you, Zanchito. I hit level 55 with some of my gear still being level 30 because I never found anything that was worth upgrading towards. I ended up knuckling down and spending about 70s on the TP to get new gear, but even then most of my gear isn't for the stats I wanted. It's helping, though, because now I'm doing damage that's closer to what I should have been doing and I've got armor to match my level.

Also, part of that 70s was spent on major runes of the traveler, which I bought to up my magic find to 25%. I bought 4 of the things, and they were at least 10s each, so in truth for the actual gear itself I spent maybe 30s. But I plan on using those runes of the traveler for quite a while, salvaging them from gear as it gets outdated. Or at least trying to salvage them with the master salvage kit, because screw spending real money on a BL salvage kit.

[MOKKA]

I tend to use Karma Vendors to keep my stuff up to date, but only if I think the Update is significant enough. Completing Zones which are at about your own level also gives you a bunch of good stuff. I just got a whole set of new armour yesterday for completing sparfly swamp.

Also, as long as you're not dying repeatedly from outleveld gear, I wouldn't bother that much to get new stuff. You're still leveling anyway, so the stuff you put so much effort in getting will probably get replaced a few days after that.

[malexmave]

Just yesterday, I upgraded my Rangers equipment. He's level 48 and getting yellow (rare) Stuff for him costs only something between 2 and 8 silver a piece in the TP. So, you can always replace at least the lowest level stuff from the TP. As an added bonus, the prices are so low that you loose almost no money if you vendor the Equipment after you found something better.

Might be worth a look. Only problem is that the TP can't filter by armor types, you you have to be very specific in what you want to not get flooded (For example: "Armor - Head - Level 45-48 - Available - Rarity Rare" yielded 8 Results for me, with two of them actually being the medium armor I was looking for.)

So, TP might not be best for always keeping up to date, since it will burn through your silver reserves at some point, but it's a godsent if you haven't found new gloves for 20 levels.

[noaru]

Just use the trading post. I got myself a full set of lvl 45 green armor for almost nothing from the TP. The Armorsmithing/Leatherworking/Tailor disciplines can craft green armor every 15 levels, so find a set that's close to where you are and check which is the cheapest affix (stats wise). The advantage to that is that you 1. have up-to-date gear every 15 levels 2. the look of your armor is consistent (aka same visual set).

All that's left is to recycle runes from old gear or drops and you're set.

[zanchito]

Thanks, I've been trying to keep my gold spending to a minimum because I really want to get 3 additional character slots, but 1-2 silvers for a good bow every 5-10 levels is manageable.

[Malfious]

All my gear only came from drops, I spent some time in some meta events, must have done the Metrica Province fire elemental about 5 times.. the chest drops items for you lvl, as do most chests I find

[President Weasel]

As a ranger I am tearing through enemies using a mismatched collection of drops, story quest rewards, and the occasional buy from a heart vendor if they're offering something massively better than I have. It's not rare for me to find an armour piece is 15 levels low; it doesn't appear to make that much of a difference. Half of them don't even have the upgrade slots filled in.

[sendmark]

If you are crafting your own stuff then definitely look into buying insignias and component parts from the tp rather than doing every step yourself. Saves you time gathering them and you can save money as the fine materials are so overpriced in comparison to the end product. There also seems to be significant overproduction from people not being sure how much to craft before hitting the next tier.

[Wolfenswan]

Short version: don't bother, drops tend to be decent enough. As long as you're not obsessed with optimizing builds and pushing numbers you can go a long way with the stuff mobs drop or the occasional lucky gamble at the mystic forge. I've hit lvl 80 a while ago and hardly bought any equipment; Everything I had was from drops and some (quickly outdated) crafted stuff.

Also I'd suggest saving Karma; they end-game Karma stuff is insanely pricey.

A bit of Magic Find goes a long way, too. Clearing low level areas still nets you drops on your level and with about 50%MF (18% from cherry tarts, rest gear) I got about 10 greens, 3 rares and 30 or so blues, excluding insignias etc from completing Sparkly. What I cant/dont want to use I throw into the forge or (in case of lvl 70 rares) salvage it for ectoplasm.

[zanchito]

Good advice all around, I'll look for MF runes and chests and hope I have better luck than what I usually have.

[Wolfenswan]

Major runes of traveling go for about 14s on the TP and three of them net +20% MF. Otherwise +%MF is dictated by the level of the equipment/upgrade, not the quality. I've yet to see anything better than +3%MF on lvl70+ equipment.

Cherry tarts have gone up a bit but should still be fairly cheap.

[malexmave]

Well, if you are like me and go into areas that are 7 levels over your current character level, a halfway up-to-date armor can save your butt ;-). But if you are actually sane and stay in the areas you are supposed to be in, you can manage very well with drops, thats true. I just got absolutely murdered in AC Exploration with my blue-green-yellow-10-levels-under-character-armor on my lvl 48 Ranger, so if you are looking at dungeons, you either need some decent armor or some levels over the recommended level (or both, or you just need to be better at dodging the pull from that nasty second boss than I am)

[DiamondDog]

Wolfenswan has it right. I stopped buying equipment or wasting karma at hearts, unless it's a big upgrade. It's not the same for everyone obviously, but I'd find myself gaining levels so fast that I'd buy karma items thinking they looked great, and then a few levels later find a random drop that was just as good. I had a friend craft me a really nice sword and dagger with the stats I wanted. It ended up being great for about 5 levels until I started seeing random drops with better stats. You can't move in this game without getting XP, so you're never stuck at one level for very long. I think I ended up using those 'special' weapons for about 2 days all in all.

As for crafting, it does usually seem to be one step behind you in terms of useful gear. I put a concerted effort into getting my huntsman level up yesterday and got it to the stage I could make bows better than what was dropping for me. But that meant farming for some materials and buying some from the TP. Might be worth looking at guide that would help you level your crafting up to a useful stage.

I suppose it depends on how you think you're faring against mobs but I wouldn't worry about it that much, all in all. Like Wolfenswan said, it might be an idea to get some magic find to help with good drops. I just have a stack of food that gives me an extra 23% I think. Then just save up your karma for the times when a heart vendor has something really good and keep the rest for level 80 when you can buy the top tier stuff.