I've had really good luck with gear from raid kills. I got an ascended dagger this week, and a Ghostly Infusion the first time I killed Gors. So now my list of ascended weapons has grown to the point where I'm making weapons before I have alts that can use them.
On the armor front, it doesn't seem like I'm using my tempest as a dps very much, so I've started using my shards to buy Yassith's gear for my necro. Gearing a condi class is very difficult compared to gearing a power dps, so I've decided to do most of that via shards. After I finish off my mesmer, I'm going to take a break from levelling and trying to gear out alts to make sure that my characters are in order. I'll have the following classes:
I've been having fun helping guildies gear and advising them on what to level, but the bottom line is this: if you want to raid and you don't hate on a primal level the heavy armor classes, you should craft an ascended heavy armor set and a few weapons that you can share among them. Warriors, revenants, and guardians are in demand these days in raids, are good 'alt' classes in that you can do average raid dps/performance with them without too much trouble, and don't have any gearing quirks that prevent you from sharing armor. To the above list, I hope to add warrior and condi engineer eventually. The only reason I'm finishing out my mesmer and then taking a 'break' is because he's level 63, whereas my warrior is only 14. Even though levelling isn't difficult in Guild Wars--and I enjoy it--I'd like to feel a bit less pressure to have everything immediately, and I like to do at least some in-world levelling, which can be tiring. Also, I've spent about 90% of my raiding time being a guardian, 8% being a tempest healer, and 2% being a tempest dps or condi necro, so you could argue that I don't *need* other alts except from a raid convenience/composition standpoint.
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So, a few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the ascended weapons you can get via the specialization collection achievements. I graded them as worth it or not considering that you can only select from three sets of stats per weapon.
However, a guildie did some further research and found that you can change those stats via the Mystic Forge the way you can change a regular (unnamed) piece. Thus, there's nothing preventing you from getting the weapon you want (thanks, Jaberse!). However, as a reminder, the specialization weapons are: shield x2 (mesmer, revenant) staff x2 (thief, ranger) hammer (engineer) greatsword (necromancer) warhorn (elementalist) longbow (guardian) torch (warrior) These aren't the most universally-applicable weapons, and because of the overlap (assuming you only want one of each weapon), you can only get seven unique weapons. The specialization achievements require you to level the character class to 80, fully unlock the advanced specialization, and then complete a bunch of expansion achievements/buy parts with expansion-area currency. However, once you have leveled the mastery in question to get the expansion achievements, you can easily unlock them for each level 80 alt you have. My biggest problem right now is that I don't have all my alts at 80, and I don't have all the masteries unlocked that I need (currency will come just from getting the experience to unlock the masteries). Therefore, knowing that you can change stats has not really changed my priorities. I already have an ascended greatsword and staff. I'd like to get the longbow and warhorn. I've decided that because my engineer is low on the list of alts, I'm going to just craft my guardian a hammer anyway, so after Ydalir/the North Wind, my main focus will be on getting a shield for my mesmer. Anything in addition will be for cosmetics/achievement hunting/character enjoyment more than minmaxing purposes. This is a reference sheet for pve raiders with a stable of alts that are wondering whether it's worth going for any of the specialization ascended weapons that you unlock via achievements rather than crafting. Feel free to ignore if you: a) have a use for these, b) really like the skin/name, or c) only have 1-2 planned raiding alts [in which case, crafting specialized pve weapons is fine for you].
Since I main a guardian/dragonhunter and plan on getting my ele, mesmer, necro, ranger, and engineer into raiding shape, I have a need for a lot of ascended weapons and armor sets. Thus, going for specialization weapons lessens and diversifies the grind. However, the nine ascended weapons in the specialization collection are not all created equal. For one thing, although you can pick their stats, you do so from a list of three choices, and those choices differ per weapon. That means that some weapons are not worth going for. Also, some weapons just aren't as useful to have as others, so unless you are dedicated to a class, it's just not worth it. The chart below shows the name, class that you'll have to have at 80 and do HoT events, etc on for achievements, and my notes.
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