Guide:How to Gear a Character

Last updated July 2020, No Quarter update

Introduction

This guide is an overview of the best ways to acquire gear for level 80 PvE and WvW content.

It's assumed that you already have a fully leveled character and know what PvE or WvW build you're aiming for. If you don't know what build to aim for, here are some useful resources:

• Open World
• Fractal
• Raid
• WvW

Equipment can be acquired from many different sources in this game. Feel free to mix and match gearing methods in a way that works for you.

Exotic or Ascended?

In Guild Wars 2 there is no gear treadmill. The only two equipment tiers for endgame gear are Exotic and Ascended.

• Exotic gear is the second best tier. It's relatively cheap and easy to obtain, as a full set of Berserker's exotic gear only costs ~35 gold on the Trading Post (~10 gold if you don't count trinkets). It's also good enough for everything other than high-level fractals.

• Ascended gear is the best tier. It's significantly more expensive than exotic gear, as a full set is timegated and costs 200-400 gold to craft. However, it only offers a 12.5% damage increase over exotic gear. You don't need to get ascended gear unless you want to run high-level fractals (in which case you need the infusion slots). However, it's a good long-term goal, especially if you plan to play WvW or do raids.
  • Ascended gear can be upgraded with agony infusions, which provide the agony resistance needed to survive high-level fractals. Alternatively, they can be upgraded with stat infusions, which provide a marginal amount of stats. Agony stat infusions provide the best of both worlds but are extremely expensive and most players don't bother with them.

Ascended trinkets (backpieces, amulets, accessories, rings) are relatively easy to get, so you can consider skipping exotic and going straight to ascended for these. They also offer the greatest increase in stats by far, making them the most efficient place to start.

When upgrading from exotic gear, you should upgrade your weapon first, followed by your trinkets, as most of your stats are in these items.

Table of Stats and Prefixes

For the vast majority of equipment, stat combinations are only accessible if they are part of the core set, or you own the expansion they are associated with. Stat selectable equipment will allow you to choose from any of the combinations you have access to, with a few exceptions (such as specialization collections).

• Core/Release stats were included at release. These stats are generally the easiest to acquire.
• Core/Extended stats were added during Living World Seasons 1 and 2.
• Core/Hybrid stats are similar to Core/Extended stats but only available on certain ascended trinkets.
• Heart of Thorns stats were added during Heart of Thorns and Living World Season 3. Other than Marauder and Crusader, these stats require the Heart of Thorns expansion.
• Path of Fire stats were added during Path of Fire and Living World Season 4. These stats require the Path of Fire expansion.
  • Diviner's gear is a weird edge case. This stat combination was retroactively added in Path of Fire to both Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire gear, so it requires either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire.

Icon	Exotic prefix	Ascended prefix	Release	Stats	Jewel
	Apothecary's	Ebonmane's/Veldrunner's	Core/Extended	Healing Power++, Condition Damage+, Toughness+	Passiflora
	Assassin's	Soros's/Saphir's	Core/Release	Precision++, Power+, Ferocity+	Opal
	Berserker's	Zojja's	Core/Release	Power++, Precision+, Ferocity+	Ruby
	Berserker's and Valkyrie	-	Core/Hybrid	Power++, Ferocity++, Precision+, Vitality+	-
25px	Bringer's	Giftbringer's	Core/Extended	Expertise++, Precision+, Vitality+	-
	Captain's	-	Core/Release	Precision++, Power+, Toughness+	Emerald
	Carrion	Occam's	Core/Release	Condition Damage++, Power+, Vitality+	Chrysocola
	Cavalier's	Angchu	Core/Release	Toughness++, Power+, Ferocity+	-
	Celestial	Wupwup	Core/Extended	Power+, Precision+, Toughness+, Vitality+, Condition Damage+, Ferocity+, Healing Power+	Charged Quartz
	Cleric's	Theodosu's/Tateos's	Core/Release	Healing Power++, Power+, Toughness+	Sapphire
	Commander's	Tizlak's	Heart of Thorns	Power++, Precision++, Toughness+, Concentration+	Maguuma Burl
	Crusader's	Ossa's	Heart of Thorns	Power++, Toughness++, Ferocity+, Healing Power+	Agate
	Dire	Mathilde's/Morbach's	Core/Release	Condition Damage++, Toughness+, Vitality+	-
25px	Dire and Rabid	-	Core/Hybrid	Condition Damage++, Toughness++, Precision+, Vitality+	-
	Diviner's	Steelstar's	Heart of Thorns OR Path of Fire	Power++, Concentration++, Precision+, Ferocity+	-
	Giver's	Tixx's	Core/Extended	Toughness++, Healing Power+, Concentration+	Snowflake
	Grieving	The Twins'	Path of Fire	Power++, Condition Damage++, Precision+, Ferocity+	Mournstone
	Harrier's	Zehtuka's	Path of Fire	Power++, Healing Power+, Concentration+	Brandspark
	Knight's	Beigarth's	Core/Release	Toughness++, Power+, Precision+	-
	Magi's	Hronk's	Core/Release	Healing Power++, Precision+, Vitality+	-
	Marauder's	Svaard's	Heart of Thorns	Power++, Precision++, Vitality+, Ferocity+	Ebony
	Marshal's	Nadijeh's	Path of Fire	Power++, Healing Power++, Precision+, Condition Damage+	Sunset
	Minstrel's	Maklain's	Heart of Thorns	Toughness++, Healing Power++, Vitality+, Concentration+	Freshwater Pearl
	Nomad's	Ventari's	Core/Extended	Toughness++, Vitality+, Healing Power+	-
	Plaguedoctor's	Nerashi's	Path of Fire	Condition Damage++, Vitality++, Concentration+, Healing Power+	-
	Rabid	Grizzlemouth's/Ferratus's	Core/Release	Condition Damage++, Precision+, Toughness+	-
25px	Rabid and Apothecary's	-	Core/Hybrid	Condition Damage++, Toughness++, Precision+, Healing Power+	-
	Rampager's	Coalforge's/Forgemaster's	Core/Release	Precision++, Power+, Condition Damage+	Coral
	Sentinel's	Tonn's/Wei Qi's	Core/Extended	Vitality++, Power+, Toughness+	Azurite
	Seraph	Thackeray's	Heart of Thorns	Precision++, Condition Damage++, Concentration+, Healing Power+	-
25px	Settler's	Leftpaw's	Core/Extended	Toughness++, Condition Damage+, Healing Power+	-
	Shaman's	Zintl	Core/Release	Vitality++, Condition Damage+, Healing Power+	-
	Sinister	Verata's	Core/Extended	Condition Damage++, Power+, Precision+	Charged Ambrite
	Soldier's	Chorben's/Ahamid's	Core/Release	Power++, Toughness+, Vitality+	-
	Trailblazer's	Pahua's	Heart of Thorns	Condition Damage++, Toughness++, Vitality+, Expertise+	Maguuma Lily
	Valkyrie	Stonecleaver's/Gobrech's	Core/Release	Power++, Vitality+, Ferocity+	Beryl
	Vigilant	Laranthir's	Heart of Thorns	Power++, Toughness++, Concentration+, Expertise+	Flax Blossom
	Viper's	Yassith's	Heart of Thorns	Power++, Condition Damage++, Precision+, Expertise+	Black Diamond
	Wanderer's	Ruka's	Heart of Thorns	Power++, Vitality++, Toughness+, Concentration+	Moonstone
	Zealot's	Keeper's	Core/Extended	Power++, Precision+, Healing Power+	Watchwork

Exotic Equipment

Trading Post

For Core/Release stats, the simplest and fastest way to get exotic equipment is to buy it off the Trading Post.

Don't search directly for the prefix, as that will only show you crafted gear. Instead, use the filters to find the cheapest level 80 exotic gear with the stats you need.

This will set you back 10-35 gold. If you don't count trinkets it will cost less than 10 gold.

PvP/WvW

If you play PvP or WvW, reward tracks are the best way to obtain exotic armor and weapons with Core/Extended, Heart of Thorns, or Path of Fire stats.

These provide stat-selectable armor pieces:

• Crystal Desert Reward Track
• Glorious Reward Track (PvP only)
• Legacy Armor Reward Track
• Triumphant Armor Reward Track and Triumphant Hero's Armor (WvW only)

These provide stat-selectable weapons:

• Mistforged Hero's weapons (WvW only)
• Obsidian Weapon Box (doesn’t provide underwater weapons)

You can also get certain Core/Release stats very easily through the dungeon reward tracks, which provide 3 weapons and one piece of armor:

• Ascalonian Catacombs Dungeon Track (Soldier's, Magi's, or Rampager's)
• Caudecus's Manor Dungeon Track (Rabid, Rampager's, or Shaman's)
• Twilight Arbor Dungeon Track (Magi's, Rabid, or Rampager's)
• Sorrow's Embrace Dungeon Track (Carrion, Knight's, or Soldier's)
• Citadel of Flame Dungeon Track (Berserker's, Carrion, or Rampager's)
• Honor of the Waves Dungeon Track (Magi's, Rabid, or Soldier's)
• Crucible of Eternity Dungeon Track (Berserker's, Dire, or Rampager's)
• The Ruined City of Arah Dungeon Track (Berserker's, Knight's, or Rabid)

If you have any of the Living World Season 3-5 episodes, you can get stat-selectable gear from their corresponding reward tracks. See "Living World Achievements" below for the gear you can get (identical to the gear the reward track provides).

Story/Achievement Rewards

Some story steps and achievements provide exotic gear as a reward. This is the best method of getting exotic gear for new players, but is limited by the achievements available.

Story Rewards

Some story steps provide you with free exotic equipment:

Personal Story

• Victory or Death: Provides a Berserker's, Knight's, or Rabid head.

Heart of Thorns

• The Jungle Provides: Provides a Berserker's, Carrion, Cleric's, Dire, Rampager's, or Shaman's head.
• Bitter Harvest: Provides a piece of Trailblazer's, Viper's, or Wanderer's armor.
• Hearts and Minds: Provides a piece of Wanderer's armor.

Living World Season 3

• Confessor's End: Provides a stat-selectable Core/Release, Core/Extended, or Heart of Thorns head.

Path of Fire

• Blazing a Trail: Provides a Marshal's backpiece.

Elite Specialization Gear

You receive some gear for training an elite specialization. Note that the armor pieces are not salvageable, so you might not want to put expensive runes in them.

Heart of Thorns

• Berserker: Sentinel's, Sinister, or Vigilant torch and head
• Chronomancer: Berserker's, Minstrel's, or Soldier's shield and shoulders
• Daredevil: Celestial, Marauder's, or Minstrel's staff and head
• Dragonhunter: Berserker's, Commander's, or Rampager's longbow and hands
• Druid: Cleric's, Minstrel's, or Nomad's staff and shoulders
• Herald: Celestial, Crusader's, or Trailblazer's shield and shoulders
• Reaper: Berserker's, Knight's, or Trailblazer's greatsword and head
• Scrapper: Berserker's, Knight's, or Wanderer's hammer and head
• Tempest: Assassin's, Celestial, or Minstrel's warhorn and shoulders

Path of Fire

• Deadeye: Assassin's, Berserker's, or Valkyrie rifle and shoulders
• Firebrand: Marshal's, Trailblazer's, or Viper's axe and head
• Holosmith: Berserker's, Marauder's, or Marshal's sword and shoulders
• Mirage: Carrion, Dire, or Rabid axe and head
• Renegade: Celestial, Grieving, or Viper's shortbow and head
• Scourge: Apothecary's, Carrion, or Viper's torch and shoulders
• Soulbeast: Marauder's, Marshal's, or Viper's dagger and hands
• Spellbreaker: Assassin's, Knight's, or Valkyrie dagger and shoulders
• Weaver: Celestial, Grieving, or Viper's sword and hands

Mistward Collections

You receive a set of exotic Berserker's, Knight's, or Rabid heavy armor for unlocking all Revenant specializations and completing the Mistward collections.

Heart of Thorns Pact Backpieces

For playing through the Heart of Thorns story and completing the Agent's Pack, Crusader's Pack, or Scholar's Pack collection, you get a backpiece with certain Core/Release or Core/Extended stats.

Living World Achievements

Since Heart of Thorns, most Living World episodes have had at least one achievement that provides stat-selectable exotic armor:

Living World Season 3

• Out of the Shadows: head
• Rising Flames: shoulders + a head from Maintain Aurene's Shield
• A Crack in the Ice: hands
• The Head of the Snake: head
• Flashpoint: shoulders
• One Path Ends: feet

Living World Season 4

• Daybreak: head
• A Bug in the System: shoulders + 2 backpieces from Repairing/Rebooting IG-6417
• Long Live the Lich: chest
• All or Nothing: legs
• War Eternal: boots

Icebrood Saga

• Whisper in the Dark: head
• No Quarter: multiple head and backpieces

Crafting

Crafting is an expensive but reliable way to get exotic equipment. You'll need the appropriate level 400 crafting profession and the recipe for the items you want to craft. You'll also need the right materials, either acquired through farming or the Trading Post.

Crafting can get complicated for Core/Extended, Heart of Thorns, and Path of Fire stats, as the appropriate recipes are often locked behind map-specific currencies, and the materials may be expensive or account bound. Use the wiki to find the appropriate crafting recipes and where they can be obtained from.

This will set you back 50-200 gold depending on the stat set; you might also have to spend more gold leveling your crafting or buying the recipes.

WvW Vendors

The Weapon Master and Armor Master at each WvW spawn point sell:

• weapons and armor with Berserker's, Carrion, Cleric's, Knight's, Rabid, and Soldier's stats;
• amulets, accessories, and rings with Soldier's stats.

Depending on the exact stats and how many Badges of Honor you have, this may or may not be a better deal than buying them off the Trading Post. A full set of weapons and armor will set you back 7-10 gold and 1200-1500 Badges of Honor.

Karma

Each of the six temples in Orr has a meta event chain that, when completed, allows you to buy exotic equipment for 42,000 karma apiece. Note that none of these are salvageable, so you might not want to put expensive runes in them.

• Cathedral of Glorious Victory (Straits of Devastation): Rampager's armor, Cavalier trinkets
• Cathedral of Eternal Radiance (Malchor's Leap): Rabid armor, Magi's trinkets
• Cathedral of Zephyrs (Malchor's Leap): Cleric's armor, Rabid trinkets
• Cathedral of Verdance (Cursed Shore): Magi's armor
• Cathedral of Silence (Cursed Shore): Berserker's armor, Soldier's trinkets
• The Narthex (Cursed Shore): Soldier's armor

Dungeon Tokens

If you have some experienced friends to run dungeons with, or you're willing to take your chances with LFG, you can get certain Core/Release stats by doing dungeons. Each explorable path has a daily reward of ~100 unique tokens which you can cash in for exotic armor and weapons at the Dungeon Armor and Weapons vendor.

• Ascalonian Catacombs: Soldier's, Magi's, or Rampager's
• Caudecus's Manor: Rabid, Rampager's, or Shaman's
• Twilight Arbor: Magi's, Rabid, or Rampager's
• Sorrow's Embrace: Carrion, Knight's, or Soldier's
• Citadel of Flame: Berserker's, Carrion, or Rampager's
• Honor of the Waves: Magi's, Rabid, or Soldier's
• Crucible of Eternity: Berserker's, Dire, or Rampager's
• The Ruined City of Arah: Berserker's, Knight's, or Rabid

Ascalonian Catacombs, Twilight Arbor (non-Aetherpath), and Crucible of Eternity are the easiest dungeons for inexperienced players to tackle. Arah is grueling and not recommended for the faint of heart. If you're new to dungeons, I recommend using a LFG description along the lines of "new player LF all paths, help appreciated".

Guild Backpacks

If you’re in an active guild that does guild missions, you can buy exotic backpieces with Berserker's, Magi's, or Soldier's stats from the Guild Commendation Trader for 5 gold and 5 guild commendations each.

You can also buy exotic weapons from this vendor, but this is not recommended as the Trading Post is cheaper.

Prototype Fractal Capacitor

You can buy an exotic Berserker's, Cavalier's, Knight's, or Rabid backpiece from BUY-4373 for 1,350 fractal relics. This backpiece can be upgraded fairly cheaply to an ascended version in the Mystic Forge, making it a good choice for fractal players. However, it does not have an upgrade slot and hence provides inferior stats compared to all other exotic backpieces.

Note that the upgraded ascended version will have the same stat combination as the exotic version.

Beetle Incubator

If you have Living World Season 4 Episode 3 ("Forearmed is Forewarned"), you can buy an exotic backpiece from Kadir in the Domain of Kourna for some karma and map currency. This stat-selectable backpiece provides all Core and Path of Fire stats.

Ascended Equipment

Differences from Exotic

Ascended equipment differs from exotic equipment in three crucial aspects:

1. Ascended equipment is Account Bound, not Soulbound.

This means you can freely move ascended weapons and trinkets between characters, and ascended armor between characters that wear the same weight of armor.

2. You can't equip multiple copies of Unique ascended trinkets.

For example, you can't equip two , even though you have two ring slots. The same applies to accessories. You can work around this in two ways:

• Get two differently-named rings or accessories that have the same stats.
• Use one ring that is infused or attuned (see "Infusing and Attuning Equipment" below) and one ring that isn't. This is useful if you aren't planning to slot infusions into your rings.

3. Ascended armor and weapons can be reforged in the Mystic Forge to change their stats.

To do this, combine the ascended piece with 5 Globs of Ectoplasm, an Anthology of Heroes (bought from Miyani), and an exotic inscription/insignia with the desired stats. This lets you stat swap any ascended weapon or armor piece, including named weapons and armor pieces you get from achievements.

• Note that this is effectively destroying and recreating the ascended piece, so you'll lose any upgrades that were inside it. If you want to keep runes, sigils, or infusions, you'll have to extract them with an Upgrade Extractor or Infusion Extraction Device.
• This process will also cease to count as the original item for some purposes such as forging legendary armor.

Living World

The single best way to get ascended trinkets is through the Living World maps. All Season 3 maps and some Season 4 maps have a unique farmable currency that can be used to buy stat-selectable ascended trinkets. If you play PvP or WvW, you can also get the map currencies from the appropriate reward tracks.

Note that all of these are Unique, so you can only get one ring and accessory from a single map.

Living World Season 3

• Bloodstone Fen (Blood Rubies) - backpiece, amulet, ring
  • Note: You can change the stats on Blood Ruby trinkets by spending unbound magic.
• Ember Bay (Petrified Wood) - backpiece, accessory
• Bitterfrost Frontier (Fresh Winterberries) - backpiece, accessory, ring, aquabreather
• Lake Doric (Jade Shards) - backpiece, amulet
• Draconis Mons (Fire Orchid Blossoms) - amulet, ring
• Siren's Landing (Orrian Pearls) - backpiece, amulet

Living World Season 4

• Sandswept Isles (Difluorite Crystals) - accessory, ring
• Domain of Kourna (Laurels) - amulet, accessory, ring (Plaguedoctor's stats only)
• Thunderhead Peaks (Laurels) - amulet, accessory, ring (Diviner's stats only)
• Dragonfall (Mistborn Motes) - amulet, accessory, ring

Icebrood Saga

• Bjora Marches (Eternal Ice) - amulet, accessory (require achievements to unlock purchase option)

Laurels

Another way to get ascended trinkets with Core/Release stats is to buy them from the Laurel Merchant. This vendor sells trinkets with Apothecary, Berserker's, Cavalier's, Celestial, Cleric's, Knight's, Rabid, Rampager's, and Soldier's stats. You can also buy Core/Hybrid stats, and duplicates of any Core/Extended trinket you received from Living World Season 2 story achievements.

• Amulets only cost 30 laurels, making this the cheapest way to get an ascended amulet.
• Rings cost 35 laurels, which is pretty cheap. However, getting them with laurels is not recommended as Pristine Fractal Relics are even cheaper.
• Accessories cost 40 laurels and 50 Globs of Ectoplasm, which is only worth it if you have lots of laurels and ectoplasm to spare.

You can also buy from the WvW Laurel Merchant, which costs more Badges of Honor but fewer laurels.

Fractal Rings

If you don't mind doing fractals, you can use Pristine Fractal Relics to buy ascended rings from BUY-2046 PFR. These are the same rings sold by the Laurel Merchant, except they only cost 10 Pristine Fractal Relics each. That's a mere 3 days of T1 fractal dailies, or 1 day of T3/T4 fractal dailies if you already have a geared character.

Prototype Fractal Capacitor

As previously mentioned, BUY-4373 sells a Berserker's, Cavalier's, Knight's, or Rabid backpiece for 1,350 fractal relics, which can be upgraded to an ascended version in the Mystic Forge. If you do fractals regularly, this is one of the cheapest ascended backpacks available.

Note that the upgraded ascended version will have the same stat combination as the exotic version.

Guild Commendations

If you're in an active guild that does guild missions, the Guild Commendation Trader sells the same ascended accessories as the Laurel Merchant, but for 5 gold and 12 guild commendations each. This is more cost-effective than buying them with laurels, as guild commendations aren't really used for anything else.

Mist Trinkets

You can buy stat-selectable ascended trinkets from vendors in fractals, PvP, or WvW. This is a relatively expensive way to obtain ascended trinkets, but the trinkets you obtain can have any stats, and you can reselect stats using a Mist Capacitor. The trinkets are also not Unique, so you can equip multiple Mist Bands or Mist Talismans.

• BUY-2046 PFR: Pristine Fractal Relics and Integrated Fractal Matrices
• Ascended Armor League Vendor: Ascended Shards of Glory and Shards of Glory
• Skirmish Supervisor: WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets and Memories of Battle

Achievements

Some story steps and achievements provide ascended gear as a reward. This is the best method of getting ascended gear for new players, but is limited by the achievements available.

Dungeon Collections

Unlocking all the skins for each of the dungeons will unlock an ascended accessory with Assassin's (Caudecus's Manor or The Ruined City of Arah), Carrion (Citadel of Flame or Sorrow's Embrace), Magi's (Honor of the Waves or Twilight Arbor), or Sentinel's (Ascalonian Catacombs or Crucible of Eternity) attribute combinations. These attribute combinations can be difficult to obtain if you only have access to core stats, but completing the collections from scratch involves running a lot of each dungeon, or its correspondind PvP/WvW reward track.

Style Guide

A stat-selectable accessory can be obtained by completing the Style Guide collection, though several items are very expensive to obtain.

Knight of the Thorn

If you complete the Heart of Thorns story and the Knight of the Thorn questline, you can get a stat-selectable ascended weapon with Core/Release, Core/Extended, or Heart of Thorns stats.

You can have the weapon be a dagger, greatsword, scepter, shield, or sword. While this weapon can't be stat swapped in the Mystic Forge, you can use unbound magic to reselect its stats or the type of weapon it is.

The first ascended weapon is free (only requiring some easy collection achievements). To make more, you'll need to complete the Heart of Thorns story on additional characters, and spend about 30 gold crafting the components for each new weapon.

Raise the Banners

You get a stat-selectable ascended backpiece for completing each Raise the Banners collection in Path of Fire. The stats available include all of the stats sold by the Laurel Merchant, as well as Path of Fire stats.

There are 3 collections you can finish, each one providing an ascended backpiece. You get a 4th backpiece for free after completing all the previous collections.

Specialization Collections

You get an ascended weapon for completing each Specialization Collection. The resulting ascended weapons have a limited selection of stats but can be stat swapped in the Mystic Forge.

Heart of Thorns

• Berserker: Sentinel's, Sinister, or Vigilant torch
• Chronomancer: Berserker's, Minstrel's, or Soldier's shield
• Daredevil: Celestial, Marauder's, or Minstrel's staff
• Dragonhunter: Berserker's, Commander's, or Rampager's longbow
• Druid: Cleric's, Minstrel's, or Nomad's staff
• Herald: Celestial, Crusader's, or Trailblazer's shield
• Reaper: Berserker's, Knight's, or Trailblazer's greatsword
• Scrapper: Berserker's, Knight's, or Wanderer's hammer
• Tempest: Assassin's, Celestial, or Minstrel's warhorn

Path of Fire

• Deadeye: Assassin's, Berserker's, or Valkyrie rifle
• Firebrand: Marshal's, Trailblazer's, or Viper's axe
• Holosmith: Berserker's, Knight's, or Wanderer's sword
• Mirage: Carrion, Dire, or Rabid axe
• Renegade: Celestial, Crusader's, or Trailblazer's shortbow
• Scourge: Apothecary's, Carrion, or Viper's torch
• Soulbeast: Marauder's, Marshal's, or Viper's dagger
• Spellbreaker: Assassin's, Knight's, or Valkyrie dagger
• Weaver: Celestial, Grieving, or Viper's sword

Each of these collections includes an expensive Mystic or Mordant weapon that will set you back about 30 gold. However, collecting a Mystic shield or staff, or a Mordant axe, dagger, or sword, will fulfill the requirement for two collections at once.

Story Mastery Achievements

Some story achievements provide an ascended trinket when complete:

Living World Season 2

• Gates of Maguuma Mastery: Nomad's ring
• Entanglement Mastery: Nomad's accessory
• The Dragon's Reach, Part 1 Mastery: Nomad's ring
• The Dragon's Reach, Part 2 Mastery: Nomad's accessory; Nomad's amulet purchasable with laurels/magnetite shards
• Echoes of the Past Mastery: Sinister accessory
• Tangled Paths Mastery: Sinister ring
• Seeds of Truth Mastery: Sinister amulet; Sinister ring purchasable with bandit crests
• Point of No Return Mastery: Sinister accessory; Sinister amulet purchasable with laurels/magnetite shards/bandit crests

Heart of Thorns

• Heart of Thorns: Act IV Mastery: Commander's, Minstrel's, Trailblazer's, Vigilant, Viper's, or Wanderer's amulet
  • Note that this requires the difficult achievement Migraine. Not recommended unless you're already an experienced PvE player or you can get some experienced friends to carry you.

Path of Fire

• Path of Fire: Act 1 Mastery: Marshal's amulet
• Path of Fire: Act 2 Mastery: Harrier's amulet
• Path of Fire: Act 3 Mastery: Grieving amulet

Crafting

Crafting is an expensive but reliable way to get ascended armor and weapons. You'll need the appropriate level 500 crafting profession and the recipe for the items you want to craft. You'll also need the right materials, either acquired through farming or the Trading Post. Note that ascended trinkets cannot be crafted.

One important difference between exotic and ascended crafting is that ascended crafting requires several time-gated materials:

• Lump of Mithrillum, Glob of Elder Spirit Residue, Spool of Thick Elonian Cord, and Spool of Silk Weaving Thread can only be crafted once a day. However, you can bypass the time gate by buying the finished ingots, planks, squares, or bolts off the Trading Post (although this will usually cost you more money than making the ingredients yourself).
• Vision Crystals and Lesser Vision Crystals must be crafted with ascended materials or obtained through daily login rewards. You can farm Living World Season 3/4 maps if you need ascended materials.
• To get Obsidian Shards to refine ascended materials, you can farm the Silverwastes, Heart of Thorns maps, Unbound Magic, or Volatile Magic. You can also buy them with karma from the Cathedral of Glorious Victory meta event chain.

Crafting can get complicated for Core/Extended, Heart of Thorns, and Path of Fire stats, as the appropriate recipes are often locked behind map-specific currencies, and the materials may be expensive or account bound. Use the wiki to find the appropriate crafting recipes and where they can be obtained from.

Crafting a full set of ascended armor and weapons will set you back 200-400 gold depending on the stat set; you might also have to spend more gold leveling your crafting or buying the recipes.

Grandmaster Marks

As an alternative to crafting ascended armor and weapons directly, you can craft Grandmaster Marks and use them to buy ascended gear. This is primarily useful for obtaining Core/Extended, Heart of Thorns, or Path of Fire stats without jumping through hoops to get the relevant crafting materials and crafting recipes.

One vendor in each game mode sells the recipes for Grandmaster Marks, and also accepts them as a currency:

• Fractals: BLING-9009
• PvP: Ascended Armor League Vendor or Ascended Weapon League Vendor
• WvW: Skirmish Supervisor

This costs around the same as crafting the items normally, but is much more convenient than farming rare/account bound materials. If you play WvW or ranked PvP you can also get the occasional Box of Grandmaster Marks from reward chests.

Raids

If you do PvE raids, you can buy ascended equipment from the Basic Magnetite Exchange Operative for magnetite shards. This is by far the cheapest way to get ascended armor and weapons, but you have to invest time into learning to raid (or at least have friends that are willing to carry you through raids).

Vial of Salt

Although this stat-selectable item is PvP-related, no PvP is required as the items involved in forging it can simple be bought off the trading post.

Rurik's Engagement Ring

If you have Living World Season 3 Episode 2, Rurik's Engagement Ring is a stat-selectable ascended ring awarded from a questline in Ember Bay. The items for the questline can be bought off the Trading Post for about 50 gold, so it's an option if you have lots of gold to spare.

Path of Fire Vendors

As a last resort, you can use Trade Contracts and Pulsing Brandsparks to buy Path of Fire trinkets from various open world vendors. This is one of the worst and most expensive options available, but as there aren't that many ways to get Path of Fire trinkets as of this writing, it's included for the sake of completeness.

Runes & Sigils

Trading Post

The vast majority of upgrade components can be bought off the Trading Post. Some crafted runes and sigils like Sigil of Superior Sigil of Concentration can be expensive, but unfortunately there’s no better way to obtain them (other than obtaining the materials and crafting them yourself).

Runes and sigils introduced in Path of Fire, such as Rune of Superior Rune of the Renegade, can also be obtained for Proofs of Heroics from the Heroics Notary. If you play WvW, check the Heroics Notary before buying expensive upgrade components.

Crafting

Some runes and sigils are account bound and only available through crafting, such as Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing. Neither the recipe nor the materials are particularly expensive, but you'll need to have the appropriate crafting profession leveled to craft it.

Dungeon-Exclusive Runes and Sigils

Some runes and sigils are exclusive to specific dungeons, including the following meta runes:

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Monk: Ascalonian Catacombs
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Nightmare: Twilight Arbor

The best way to get these is to farm the appropriate dungeon for a few days, then buy them with dungeon tokens from the Dungeon Armor and Weapons vendor. The only alternative is to obtain the tokens from the appropriate PvP/WvW reward track; this will take much longer and is only really worth it if you hate dungeons.

HoT-Exclusive Runes and Sigils

The remaining runes and sigils are account bound upgrades introduced in Heart of Thorns, and must either be bought with map-specific currency in PvE or with Proofs of Heroics from the Heroics Notary. In practice this boils down to one of these runes:

• Rune of Superior Rune of Durability: Auric Basin
• Rune of Superior Rune of Leadership: Dragon’s Stand

Decide whether you enjoy farming PvE or WvW more, then farm the appropriate currency and buy them from the vendor.

Infusions

Infusing and Attuning Equipment

To put infusions in your gear, you first need ascended equipment with infusion slots. Most ascended equipment comes with one or two preset infusion slots. You can increase the number of infusion slots in certain trinkets by infusing or attuning them:

• Rings and backpieces can be infused to add one infusion slot, for a total of two infusion slots.
• Rings can also be attuned to add a second infusion slot, for a total of three infusion slots.

The following Mystic Forge recipe is used to infuse rings:

• The ring in question
• 5 Vials of Condensed Mist Essence
• 3 Globs of Coagulated Mist Essence
• 1 Shard of Crystallized Mist Essence

The following Mystic Forge recipe is used to attune rings:

• The ring in question
• 1 Agonized Essence
• 1 +1 Agony Infusion
• 1 Philosopher's Stone

Backpieces have inconsistent Mystic Forge recipes and are also fairly expensive to infuse (about 30 gold + a Gift of Ascension). Check the wiki to see which recipe is required to infuse your ascended backpiece.

Note that these Mystic Forge recipes effectively destroy and recreate your ascended trinkets, so you'll lose any upgrades that were inside them. Be sure to remove any expensive infusions using an Infusion Extraction Device before reforging them.

Agony Infusions

Agony infusions are relatively straightforward to acquire. They drop from fractals, and can be combined by an Artificer or INFUZ-5959 into higher tiers of agony infusions. Agony infusions can also be bought and sold on the Trading Post.

New fractal players should aim for +9 Agony Infusions, as equipping 15 +9 infusions, 1 +8 infusion, and 1 +7 infusion is enough to reach 150 agony resistance. This means you don't need to spend gold infusing your backpiece.

Stat Infusions

+4 Stat Infusions

You can buy Mighty, Precise, Malign, Resilient, Vital, or Healing infusions from the Laurel Merchant for 5 laurels each. These are the cheapest stat infusions available, but only provide +4 to a stat rather than +5.

WvW Stat Infusions

WvW Laurel Merchants and Skirmish Supervisors sell stat infusions for WvW currency. These infusions provide +5 to a stat and make you more effective against Guards, Lords, and Supervisors. If you play WvW, these are the cheapest +5 stat infusions available.

Agony Stat Infusions

INFUZ-5959 sells +5, +7, or +9 Agony Infusions that also provide +5 to a stat. These cost agony infusions and integrated fractal matrices. The +5 Agony Infusions can also be bought for magnetite shards and gold from the Basic Magnetite Shard Exchange Operative.

PvE players who only plan to play raids can buy the relatively cheap +5 agony stat infusions. The +7 or +9 infusions are much more expensive and should only be considered by extremely dedicated fractal players.

Adapted from User:Tanetris/So You Want To Gear a Character