Fast and Cheap Max Items?

hello, i'm returning to gw after many, many years and am slowly slogging my way through missions with my crap gear and under or unruned heros and such.

while that doesn't bother me particularly, i was wondering, when i get to the "end game," if there are ways to outfit myself and my team with the highest functioning gear reasonably fast (i.e., not waiting for it to drop from a mob) and cheap?

i don't have access to anything other than NF atm (in fact, i'm still on the newb island). i don't care about awesome skins or other prestige stuff, i just want to, for instance, have a 40/40 set for my ele, shields and stuff for koss, etc. without breaking my bank (in which my life savings would probably be akin to pennies to most of you vets).

thanks!

GW is totally different in this from other MMOs.
Perf armor and weapons are availabe very very early in the game.
Getting max level and perf gear is a a tutorial bit.
See Weapons and Armors on wiki.
Also have a look at NF Weaponsmiths.
Just follow the story line or get a ferry to Consulate Docks where you can craft max armor.

I think your fastest, cheapest route is going to be collector gear for the most part. If you don't care about the skins or anything else but stats, pretty much every trophy that drops starting in the level 20 areas has a collector with some max-stat item. Look up the collectors on the wiki (or use the Mapping Out program) and figure out which weapons you want, then start saving or farming the trophies they take.

Armor for yourself is the main exception to this. You will want to have max-stat armor crafted rather than using the collector version, because the collector max armor does not have insignia slots.

A few weapons may not be available from a collector with the stats you want, so the alternative in those rare cases will be to find a weaponsmith. You'll undoubtedly pick up enough cash while collecting trophies to pay for any weapons you need to have crafted.

Might also be useful to check collector weapons:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Collector_weapon

They usually require 5 of something, most of the time it isn't any trouble to farm, and you get a max weapon for it. The downsides are that they have an inherent inscription you can't change, and usually they have a meh skin.

http://www.guildwiki.org/Collector

Go here and look at what you can get as you go through Nightfall. You find a collector axe that will work on a hero, say, and then you find a blue drop that has an axe of fortitude where fortitude is plus 25. The max is plus 30 but nobody is going to notice the difference. This is the way to start out. Later on you will be saying, Arrrrrgh! Another green axe for storage, nobody to put it on. Just takes time.

You have an ele, lucky fellow. That ele can farm! You can find ele builds on pvxwiki for farming. http://www.gwpvx.com

OgVDMoysOg1hIvoseLoF4ikA Go to http://www.gwpvx.com/Main_Page and click on pvxdecode on the left column and paste in this code. This is for an ele feather farmer. Once you finish Nightfall, it will be easy to get to Factions and then over to Seitung Harbor and out into Jaya Bluffs. In Jaya Bluffs there are these Avicara, sort of overgrowed chickens, who have the delightsome habit of surrounding you point blank and beating you to death. Make sure the last 3 buffs are up before combat, trigger off the Glyph of Restoration and step through the fire damage skills. Usually all the chickens are a golden brown before you use #4. This is a very easy way to harvest feathers. Feathers sell for 10K a stack of 250 in major cities with trade postings. And sell pretty quick.

Jaya Bluffs is a beautiful area, wonderful introduction to farming that will leave a good taste in your mouth and the understanding in your mind that farming is not just work, actually it is a darn lot of fun!

Pretty soon you too will at least well off and if you like farming and just focus on it a bit you too will be one of the wealthy in the game.

It is tough starting out, though; no doubt of it. But we have all been there and done that.

You could get the Bonus Mission Pack, thats a good supply of infinite max golds for your heroes if you don't mind spending about £4-5 (I think). You'll still have to get the mods/inscriptions for each weapon though.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Galle...ion_Pack_items

I've done 4 hard mode vanquishes and ~6 hard mode missions, and 4/7 of my heroes don't have any runes and run their default gear. I also haven't received a single Glob of Ectoplasm yet, and I'm cheap so my ~3 rubies just sit in storage

Hero armor gets better as they level up, so really their skills matter a lot more than their gear does. For hero equipment, all the heroes that you find after Consulate Docks have good enough weapons and offhands that they can be left as-is unless you really want a specific build. You yourself however should get max armor from the places the others have suggested, or else you'll find the mobs targeting you all the time (I remember seeing "-432 Spirit Rift" from the hard mode Rit boss in Kourna when I tried to play without upgrading armor hehe).

As for weapons and runes for yourself, if you can figure out a Hard Mode build that works for you, the mobs should drop enough insignia and weapon upgrades that you can attach to your own weapons. Collectors have been my primary source of weapons, and the trophy items that they take drop often enough in either normal or hard mode that you should have enough after doing a couple side quests.

EDIT: I noticed you don't have access to hard mode yet - in Normal mode, seek out enough creatures at a level greater than 20 to get good drops - after the first few bits of Kourna in NF, that pretty much means every mob. Eye of the North normal mode for me has better drops than many hard mode regions early in a campaign, so if you have access to that, you can get many useful mods.

The only downside to this is that in nightfall, you can't get max armor through collectors.

Also, if you plan on getting collector armor, prepare to not be able to upgrade it with insignias!

One of the things people don't get to enjoy nowadays is playing the game thru with weapons/equipment they find. Armor has to be crafted, but my 1st time thru was all with weapons I found and far from perfect. This is a more viable option simply because so much stuff drops and you can mod them perfect after getting maxed equipment nightfall.

Luckily you are in kam and everything is relatively cheap is all you want is maxed weapons. Skin is what cost. Perfect swords, axes, bows, shields, etc can be had for 3k if you look around for a while.

Green staffs are great and can be found for 3-8k usually.

For 20/20wands/offhands buy the collectors blues . People sell 15-25k for blue collectors 40/40 sets. Or play the game try to find 20% inscriptions for both. Hell 19% will cover you.

Unless you are going to be super serious about the endgame, just using weapons that you find will be enough. Team builds matter much more than weapons and runes, so I'd focus on getting the current meta skills and heroes (ritualist, mesmer, necro).

That being said, collectors and weaponsmiths give good gear for cheap. 40/40 sets and +20% enchant staffs are very useful. Martial weapons stats don't matter as much, just make sure they're max damage, +15^50, and customized. You might want a longbow/flatbow for pulling.

For heroes, put a major rune on their headpiece at least. For casters, green staffs from DoA are effective (buy from people in Kamadan or DoA for 1-2k per). For melee heroes, just use what you pick up.

appreciate all the great info, thanks everyone!

i'll definitely be putting these ideas into play. one thing i did notice when i was looking through the collector lists though was that a lot (most, even) of collectors don't seem to give the weapon mods that i'm looking for in one item (such as 20/20 wands and such) while a few do. is it possible to salvage mods and inscriptions from collector items such that i can make a new, "frankenstein" weapon out of cobbled parts? for instance, while i like a staff that has, say, 20% enchanting on it, i really don't need the 15 over 50 on a staff.

thanks again!

Hello and welcome back to the game

Unfortunately, most the mods on collector weapons are inherent and cannot be removed. There are a couple, such as charr-slaying collector weapons from Prophecies collectors, that can be salvaged, but won't be of much use against anything but Charr.

In some cases, it may be better to get a collector weapon with *most* of the mods you want for your heroes until you can get them a more desirable weapon later. Also, many collector weapons will take additional prefix and suffix mods on top of the inherent ones. You won't be able to remove them after you put them on, but as previous posters have said, mods that are 1-5 points off perfect are still perfectly usable for hero weapons.

For instance, that staff with the enchanting mod you like but the 15^50 you don't? If you can ignore the mod you don't like, get the staff anyway and add a staff head and staff wrapping to improve the original. Voila, you have your "frankenstein" weapon...sort of :P

And weaponsmiths are definitely your friend as well! For a nominal price and some basic materials, they can craft an excellent weapon for yourself or your heroes. My necro is currently running around with a crafted Curses staff and it's just as good as any "perfect" gold drop staff.

It might be a good idea for you to check the Giveaways section. The stuff that you'd find there is obviously not going to be popular skins with optimal mods, but it's certainly better than the default hero weapons.

Try this one first. Luny is a friend of mine, and I think would be more than happy to hook you up with whatever might catch your eye.

/signed because that's true! ... (and very nice stealth edit before I could remind you of rule 30! )


jimbo is right about the mods, at least in the case of stuff I give away. You may need to review wiki's articles on weapon mods and get a feel for what you want to watch out for and salvage to use on any free stuff you get.


EDIT .. just read full thread here more closely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Goat Riot ...i don't have access to anything other than NF atm (in fact, i'm still on the newb island). ... ... i just want to, for instance, have a 40/40 set for my ele, ...

If someone hasn't already PMed you offering this already ... Were I in your situation, if I were willing and able to study the aforementioned wiki pages about collectors and weaponsmiths, I would

• Read the stickies in the Ventari's sections and follow their instructions and advice (seriously dude, don't let "guidelines" fool you - those are RULES and if you do not heed them you will find out the hard way that they're not kidding around about following those rules.)
• Once comfortable with the rules, start a thread in Buy section asking for either the 20/20 collector offhand and Factions' weaponsmith wand of your attribute of choice or the 20/20 offhand and wand from the "Droknar's" line of green items, rewards from EotN end-game trophies. If you are not willing and able to be able to pay more than, say, 15k ea. (just a guess at a number that I suspect would be above the max reasonable fair market value) I would be pretty clear about that up front. For the weaponsmith 20/20 options, note that it costs a 5k crafting fee plus materials per item. You might offer to pay 5k plus the materials you save up in storage from salvaging your own loot if someone with access to the Factions towns will kindly go craft you one.

If you get a good bead on exactly what collector or crafter item you're after and the only thing stopping you is lack of access to the particular NPC, I'd not think it would be that hard to find someone willing to "fetch" the specific item(s) you were looking for.

Quote:

... without breaking my bank (in which my life savings would probably be akin to pennies to most of you vets).

If you haven't already, read through the Q/A sticky How To Make Money! because this ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snograt As a general rule of thumb, don't buy anything you don't need. Just playing through the campaigns makes enough money to ...play through the campaigns!

... is right on!



Really, don't sweat it! Play and have fun! The earlier responders' assertions that you do not need max-stat/mod gear to play through PvE campaigns (even in HM) is true; it's using the available skills and your knowledge of when, where and how to use them that "wins" this game ... not the 40/40 sets.

Welcome back & Happy hunting!

u can get droknar keys for like 7k each or so

That's probably right, yeah. But if he doesn't have EotN and/or wants this stuff before he finishes EotN he'll have to get the specific 20/20 green item rewards he wants from someone who has them already or is willing to run the final mission to exchange the keys. That might make it harder for him to buy at all or buy for the price of just the keys.