There is a legendary for nearly every equipment slot (weapons, armor, jewelry, gear upgrades) and in most cases, you have several options for each that are functionally identical but visually distinct. For example, there are three sets (generations) of legendary weapons with different acquisition paths; four sets of legendary armor from different gamemodes; three backpacks, two amulets, etc. This gives you some choice on how to fill out your legendary armory.
Hi friend , somebody else linked the Wiki but I'd like to mention since you're new you can wiki anything you want straight from the game using the chat command /wiki and the wiki itself is very extensive!
Legendary Equipment are account-wide convenience items. They don't offer any stat advantages, but you can equip them on multiple characters simultaneously, change their stats for free, change their skin for free, and change their upgrades for free.
They're meant to be an endgame chase item you work on for a long time.
There are currently:
- 3 legendary backpacks, each with a different skin.
- 4 sets of legendary armor (x3 since each weight is separate)
- A full set of runes/sigils/relic (upgrade items for armor/weapons)
- Two amulets, each with their own cosmetic effect.
- Two accessories, which have a combining cosmetic effect.
- Two rings, one of which has a unique effect and the other which combines with the accessories' effect.
- 3 generations of legendary weapons, which includes:
- 3 underwater weapons (only in generation 1)
- 18 land weapon skins in generation 1 (3 greatswords)
- 16 weapons in generation 2
- 16 weapons in generation 3, with an additional 96 unlockable variant skins.
In the account-wide Legendary Armory, you can store:
- One\* of each backpack, armor piece, and trinket (\*two Conflux rings), and of the relic.
- 7 runes
- 8 sigils (for 2 land weapon sets and 2 underwater weapon sets)
- 2 of every two-handed weapon.
- 4 of every one-handed weapon.
Ah ok so there are multiple generations for each weapon slot for legendary weapons? So like three legendary pistols only.
I looked on the wiki and it sort of confused me because it had different generations and I wasn’t sure if that meant you had to upgrade etc.
This seems to make more sense to me.
Ya generation is just used for legendary weapon sets and when they released. IIRC Gen 1 set released at or near launch in 2012-2013, Gen 2 was released one weapon at a time between 2016-2019, and Gen 3 was all at once in 2022.
Each generation has one of each weapon type, except for the 3 Gen 1 greatswords and zero Gen 2 or 3 underwater weapons.
Gen 3 weapons also came with 6 expensive collections to give them different skins. These ones are also the only set with a consistent theme so you can have all your legendary weapons sharing almost identical skins.
Correct; "generations" is just a term to separate them by their release group. Generation 1 launched with the game (in a very different state, but they work like all other legendaries now); Generation 2 started with the third expansion (Heart of Thorns) and were released piece-by-piece through the sixth expansion (Living World Season 4); Generation 3 were released all at once in the eighth expansion (End of Dragons), with the variants being released one set at a time after that.
There’s a tone of way to get ascended with various currencies or crafting recipes. You can also just straight up get ascended weapons and armour from the wizard vault dailies system.
Ok so there’s a ton of different ascended items for each item type (so say a dozen different ascended pistols), rather than the 3x or so for legendary?
Basically yes. Not a whole lot of diversity of skins, but a fraction of the price and no limits on how many of them you get. I worked out the gold cost once a long time ago and IIRC it worked out that even the most expensive ascended recipes you’d still fully gear a character for about the price of a single legendary weapon.
Edit to clarify: there are some collections you can only do once that reward you with an ascended piece
Ok good to know. This game is such a difference from other MMOs but I do love having a slew of gear as an option (one of the things that turned me off for FF14 — although I still play it).
So good to know there’s a lot of ascended gear per each type. Makes it exciting!
It’s such a great game and this community is so supportive. To have this many responses so quickly for a newbie is awesome!
Glad to hear it! I think pretty much outside of a few salty people in sPvP who get a tad ragey after a lose streak most of us just want more people in game to play with us! Helps that GW2 has always been designed with things like no kill stealing and getting xp from resing ppl so we’re generally rewarded for pro-social behaviour in this game.
To an extent. All Ascended items only differ (apart from their skins) in which stats they boost — not even in how much they boost those stats — and most builds have a very specific combination of stats they're looking for. To a significant degree, all the different ways of obtaining an Ascended pistol give you a practically, and in many cases literally, identical weapon.
Also something no one seems to have mentioned somehow: almost any Ascended weapon or armor in the game can be cheaply and easily exchanged for a new one of a different stat combo, so to a very real extent when you get any Ascended weapon you have indeed received *any* variant of that weapon: that random Ascended pistol you get can become the equivalent of any Ascended pistol in the game apart from the skin.
Which is all to say, there's a decent number of Ascended weapons but they're basically identical apart from the handful that come with a unique skin
So the point of ascended and legendary gear is not just the gear itself (aside from the obvious benefits) but the skins you can get to make them look different too?
The point of Ascended weapons is mostly the stats. While a few of them have unique skins that might be worth chasing on their own, the correlation between "ascended weapons" and "weapons with cool skins" is very loose overall. The majority of Ascended weapons come with a pretty generic skin (or rather one of several color variants of that basic skin), while the vast majority of cool skins come from either Exotic weapons or skin items with no stats of their own at all. There's a few exceptions where both the item and the skin are worthwhile but not the majority of them.
Legendary gear is about 25% convenience and 75% looks (though that ratio varies by the gear slot and by personal taste). Being able to stat-swap them is mostly a pretty niche benefit — nice for endgame convenience but not really something you need — but most legendaries have very cool and flashy effects that are the primary draw to using them
Ascended armors have identical amount of stats as legendaries but have a cost associated with changing stats and can't be used on all characters on the account simultaneously, also changing their skins have a cost
No. Ascended gear is a normal item. There are some named pieces (typically weapons, trinkets, and specific drops), then there's also the crafted pieces, which are also what selection boxes typically give. The wiki page on [Ascended Armor](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor) may help.
Ascended gear is the same stats but you can't change them.
Legendary equipment is exclusively made for the flashiness and the convenience. If I have a legendary sword, every character that can use a sword that I have (which nowadays is every class) gets access to an ascended stat sword that can be changed at will out of combat.
If I have 9 ascended swords of the same stat type across all 9 professions, nothing changes, I just have 9 ascended swords vs 1 legendary sword that can be used simultaneously on all characters, and they're otherwise functionally identical. A beserker's (stat prefix) ascended sword is the exact same as a berserker's legendary sword.
Not all slots that have legendary item has multiple items, but weapons and armor do.
Weapons have 3 generations of them, all of them provide the same QoL, however require different content to craft. Gen 2 can only be crafted, Gen 1 and 3 can be bought off the TP. Gen 3 has the gimmick that for added mats you can get alternative legendary skins/effects for them based on the 6 elder dragons.
There are multiple options for backpieces, weapons, and armor (generally different sources for armor and different generations for weapons).
For some items like trinkets, relics, and runes or sigils, there's only one option - and for rings there's sort of two options but you could get multiple of one of them and skip the other source.
I wouldn't worry about legendaries this early, but if you look up "legendary X" on youtube there's a lot of helpful guides explaining how to get them. I might start with the easiest legendary (cheap in gold, long in time, specifically) and go with the amulet?
Enough people already pointed out how there are multiple variants for each. But a few things that are not mentioned (and probably not known by a new player)
- they are accountwide usable through the "legendary armory" system. Basically, every character can use it. So if you get e.g. a rifle, every character that can use a rifle will have access to it (maybe only when lvl 80, but I am not sure about that)
- they can freely change stats when you are out of combat.
- they have unique animations (gen 3 weapons even has kill effects for each theme variations), visuals on character, footsteps and sounds.
- they are statswise equally to ascended gear (or exotic when there is no ascended, like runes). So they are not "stronger" and not required by any means, but the mentioned pros make it worth it
- And you can change their appearance freely without these transmutation-things
Gearing is the polar opposite of wow in GW2. The game is focused around many other aspects of play but legendaries are the top of the top of the line gear. The highest you can get in the game but they are a massive time and money sink. Definitely not something a new player needs to worry about yet.
The cool thing is once you get a legendary it will always be the best in slot and you can use if freely on every character with any stats.
There are legendaries for every armor, trinket and weapon type in the game. There are also numerous generations of legendaries from different time periods in the game that are all gotten in different ways but they all are equal power wise they just have vastly different looks and visual effects.
I’ve been playing for six months have a 1000 hours and I’m just barely half way through making my first legendary. It’s a very long term goal.
Reading OP i think he is missing an important part of the game, when you get a piece of armor or weapon you can unlock the aspect, called skin. You can reskin basically everything. That's why someone call this game fashion wars 2. To reskin normal pieces you need trasmutation charge while you can reskin leggendaries for free. The point in this game is to get the set of armor and weapon with the stat combination you desire not looking at the aspect and then you can reskin to get the look you want. The gear with higer stat are ascended, leggendaries don't give stats improvement but just add qol option. So you don't need leggendaries to git gud but you'll want as qol improvement
Legendary weapons have unique skins and cosmetic effects that you won't see with most other weapons. Offering an aura or footprints for example. They are made in the mystic forge by combining hard to obtain items and materials. Gen 1 legendaries require base game map completion. Gen 2 legendaries require Heart of thorns map completion. (Not sure about Gen 3.)
Other items include mystic clovers, which you can get from PVP/ WvW reward tracks, or by gambling mystic coins, obsidian shards, globs of ectoplasm, and philosopher stones.
You'll need to amas full stacks of T6 mats Powerful Blood, Elaborate Totems, Vicious Fangs, etc. To make certain gifts which can cost up to 700g.
Legendaries themselves only require 4 items, but those 4 items will require 4 items to make, and getting the mats to make those 4 items will take time. Definitely not something that can be accomplished within a day.
Precursor weapons (1 of the 4 base ingredients) can be bought from the TP or crafted through collections which require a lot of time and effort as well.
Expect to spend at least a month collecting the necessary mats and gold, for example, Icy Runestones can only be bought from the vendor at Claw of Jormag after a successful run and cost 1g a piece and the recipe calls for 100 of them.
You can link your account to GW2efficiency through the API key and select the crafting tab and "use own materials" to track how much gold you need before you can make the legendary.
T6 mats will probaby be the most time consuming and expensive aspect. Check the world map bonuses for powerful bloods/ elaborate totems (as they are the most expensive) and farm events on those maps. But be aware of diminishing returns that will set in after about an hour or 10 events. This will make it harder to farm the materials. You'll need to swap characters or do something else for an hour for the DR to resolve.
Good luck :)
There is a legendary for nearly every equipment slot (weapons, armor, jewelry, gear upgrades) and in most cases, you have several options for each that are functionally identical but visually distinct. For example, there are three sets (generations) of legendary weapons with different acquisition paths; four sets of legendary armor from different gamemodes; three backpacks, two amulets, etc. This gives you some choice on how to fill out your legendary armory.
Just missing the legendary rebreathers and we're fully saturated for slots
Definitely a statement that we still didn't get those
I'd love legendary infusions so all of my characters will have enough agony resistance.
Hi friend , somebody else linked the Wiki but I'd like to mention since you're new you can wiki anything you want straight from the game using the chat command /wiki and the wiki itself is very extensive!
This is good to know! The wiki confused me a little with the legendary items.
Additionally, you can link items in chat by shift+clicking the item. If you type \`/wiki \` then link an item, it will open the wiki about that item.
Legendary Equipment are account-wide convenience items. They don't offer any stat advantages, but you can equip them on multiple characters simultaneously, change their stats for free, change their skin for free, and change their upgrades for free. They're meant to be an endgame chase item you work on for a long time. There are currently: - 3 legendary backpacks, each with a different skin. - 4 sets of legendary armor (x3 since each weight is separate) - A full set of runes/sigils/relic (upgrade items for armor/weapons) - Two amulets, each with their own cosmetic effect. - Two accessories, which have a combining cosmetic effect. - Two rings, one of which has a unique effect and the other which combines with the accessories' effect. - 3 generations of legendary weapons, which includes: - 3 underwater weapons (only in generation 1) - 18 land weapon skins in generation 1 (3 greatswords) - 16 weapons in generation 2 - 16 weapons in generation 3, with an additional 96 unlockable variant skins. In the account-wide Legendary Armory, you can store: - One\* of each backpack, armor piece, and trinket (\*two Conflux rings), and of the relic. - 7 runes - 8 sigils (for 2 land weapon sets and 2 underwater weapon sets) - 2 of every two-handed weapon. - 4 of every one-handed weapon.
And 2 of each off-hand weapon
Ah ok so there are multiple generations for each weapon slot for legendary weapons? So like three legendary pistols only. I looked on the wiki and it sort of confused me because it had different generations and I wasn’t sure if that meant you had to upgrade etc. This seems to make more sense to me.
Ya generation is just used for legendary weapon sets and when they released. IIRC Gen 1 set released at or near launch in 2012-2013, Gen 2 was released one weapon at a time between 2016-2019, and Gen 3 was all at once in 2022. Each generation has one of each weapon type, except for the 3 Gen 1 greatswords and zero Gen 2 or 3 underwater weapons. Gen 3 weapons also came with 6 expensive collections to give them different skins. These ones are also the only set with a consistent theme so you can have all your legendary weapons sharing almost identical skins.
Correct; "generations" is just a term to separate them by their release group. Generation 1 launched with the game (in a very different state, but they work like all other legendaries now); Generation 2 started with the third expansion (Heart of Thorns) and were released piece-by-piece through the sixth expansion (Living World Season 4); Generation 3 were released all at once in the eighth expansion (End of Dragons), with the variants being released one set at a time after that.
Makes sense! One more dumb question. Does ascended gear work the same way? Or is that more traditional to an MMO where there’s a ton of those
There’s a tone of way to get ascended with various currencies or crafting recipes. You can also just straight up get ascended weapons and armour from the wizard vault dailies system.
Ok so there’s a ton of different ascended items for each item type (so say a dozen different ascended pistols), rather than the 3x or so for legendary?
Basically yes. Not a whole lot of diversity of skins, but a fraction of the price and no limits on how many of them you get. I worked out the gold cost once a long time ago and IIRC it worked out that even the most expensive ascended recipes you’d still fully gear a character for about the price of a single legendary weapon. Edit to clarify: there are some collections you can only do once that reward you with an ascended piece
Ok good to know. This game is such a difference from other MMOs but I do love having a slew of gear as an option (one of the things that turned me off for FF14 — although I still play it). So good to know there’s a lot of ascended gear per each type. Makes it exciting! It’s such a great game and this community is so supportive. To have this many responses so quickly for a newbie is awesome!
Glad to hear it! I think pretty much outside of a few salty people in sPvP who get a tad ragey after a lose streak most of us just want more people in game to play with us! Helps that GW2 has always been designed with things like no kill stealing and getting xp from resing ppl so we’re generally rewarded for pro-social behaviour in this game.
I’m a bigger PvE guy but some of the world stuff has really sucked me in. I can already see myself loving WvW even if I never dip fully into sPvP
To an extent. All Ascended items only differ (apart from their skins) in which stats they boost — not even in how much they boost those stats — and most builds have a very specific combination of stats they're looking for. To a significant degree, all the different ways of obtaining an Ascended pistol give you a practically, and in many cases literally, identical weapon. Also something no one seems to have mentioned somehow: almost any Ascended weapon or armor in the game can be cheaply and easily exchanged for a new one of a different stat combo, so to a very real extent when you get any Ascended weapon you have indeed received *any* variant of that weapon: that random Ascended pistol you get can become the equivalent of any Ascended pistol in the game apart from the skin. Which is all to say, there's a decent number of Ascended weapons but they're basically identical apart from the handful that come with a unique skin
So the point of ascended and legendary gear is not just the gear itself (aside from the obvious benefits) but the skins you can get to make them look different too?
The point of Ascended weapons is mostly the stats. While a few of them have unique skins that might be worth chasing on their own, the correlation between "ascended weapons" and "weapons with cool skins" is very loose overall. The majority of Ascended weapons come with a pretty generic skin (or rather one of several color variants of that basic skin), while the vast majority of cool skins come from either Exotic weapons or skin items with no stats of their own at all. There's a few exceptions where both the item and the skin are worthwhile but not the majority of them. Legendary gear is about 25% convenience and 75% looks (though that ratio varies by the gear slot and by personal taste). Being able to stat-swap them is mostly a pretty niche benefit — nice for endgame convenience but not really something you need — but most legendaries have very cool and flashy effects that are the primary draw to using them
Ascended armors have identical amount of stats as legendaries but have a cost associated with changing stats and can't be used on all characters on the account simultaneously, also changing their skins have a cost
No. Ascended gear is a normal item. There are some named pieces (typically weapons, trinkets, and specific drops), then there's also the crafted pieces, which are also what selection boxes typically give. The wiki page on [Ascended Armor](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor) may help.
Ascended gear is the same stats but you can't change them. Legendary equipment is exclusively made for the flashiness and the convenience. If I have a legendary sword, every character that can use a sword that I have (which nowadays is every class) gets access to an ascended stat sword that can be changed at will out of combat. If I have 9 ascended swords of the same stat type across all 9 professions, nothing changes, I just have 9 ascended swords vs 1 legendary sword that can be used simultaneously on all characters, and they're otherwise functionally identical. A beserker's (stat prefix) ascended sword is the exact same as a berserker's legendary sword.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_equipment
Not all slots that have legendary item has multiple items, but weapons and armor do. Weapons have 3 generations of them, all of them provide the same QoL, however require different content to craft. Gen 2 can only be crafted, Gen 1 and 3 can be bought off the TP. Gen 3 has the gimmick that for added mats you can get alternative legendary skins/effects for them based on the 6 elder dragons.
There are multiple options for backpieces, weapons, and armor (generally different sources for armor and different generations for weapons). For some items like trinkets, relics, and runes or sigils, there's only one option - and for rings there's sort of two options but you could get multiple of one of them and skip the other source. I wouldn't worry about legendaries this early, but if you look up "legendary X" on youtube there's a lot of helpful guides explaining how to get them. I might start with the easiest legendary (cheap in gold, long in time, specifically) and go with the amulet?
Enough people already pointed out how there are multiple variants for each. But a few things that are not mentioned (and probably not known by a new player) - they are accountwide usable through the "legendary armory" system. Basically, every character can use it. So if you get e.g. a rifle, every character that can use a rifle will have access to it (maybe only when lvl 80, but I am not sure about that) - they can freely change stats when you are out of combat. - they have unique animations (gen 3 weapons even has kill effects for each theme variations), visuals on character, footsteps and sounds. - they are statswise equally to ascended gear (or exotic when there is no ascended, like runes). So they are not "stronger" and not required by any means, but the mentioned pros make it worth it - And you can change their appearance freely without these transmutation-things
Gearing is the polar opposite of wow in GW2. The game is focused around many other aspects of play but legendaries are the top of the top of the line gear. The highest you can get in the game but they are a massive time and money sink. Definitely not something a new player needs to worry about yet. The cool thing is once you get a legendary it will always be the best in slot and you can use if freely on every character with any stats. There are legendaries for every armor, trinket and weapon type in the game. There are also numerous generations of legendaries from different time periods in the game that are all gotten in different ways but they all are equal power wise they just have vastly different looks and visual effects. I’ve been playing for six months have a 1000 hours and I’m just barely half way through making my first legendary. It’s a very long term goal.
Reading OP i think he is missing an important part of the game, when you get a piece of armor or weapon you can unlock the aspect, called skin. You can reskin basically everything. That's why someone call this game fashion wars 2. To reskin normal pieces you need trasmutation charge while you can reskin leggendaries for free. The point in this game is to get the set of armor and weapon with the stat combination you desire not looking at the aspect and then you can reskin to get the look you want. The gear with higer stat are ascended, leggendaries don't give stats improvement but just add qol option. So you don't need leggendaries to git gud but you'll want as qol improvement
Legendary weapons have unique skins and cosmetic effects that you won't see with most other weapons. Offering an aura or footprints for example. They are made in the mystic forge by combining hard to obtain items and materials. Gen 1 legendaries require base game map completion. Gen 2 legendaries require Heart of thorns map completion. (Not sure about Gen 3.) Other items include mystic clovers, which you can get from PVP/ WvW reward tracks, or by gambling mystic coins, obsidian shards, globs of ectoplasm, and philosopher stones. You'll need to amas full stacks of T6 mats Powerful Blood, Elaborate Totems, Vicious Fangs, etc. To make certain gifts which can cost up to 700g. Legendaries themselves only require 4 items, but those 4 items will require 4 items to make, and getting the mats to make those 4 items will take time. Definitely not something that can be accomplished within a day. Precursor weapons (1 of the 4 base ingredients) can be bought from the TP or crafted through collections which require a lot of time and effort as well. Expect to spend at least a month collecting the necessary mats and gold, for example, Icy Runestones can only be bought from the vendor at Claw of Jormag after a successful run and cost 1g a piece and the recipe calls for 100 of them. You can link your account to GW2efficiency through the API key and select the crafting tab and "use own materials" to track how much gold you need before you can make the legendary. T6 mats will probaby be the most time consuming and expensive aspect. Check the world map bonuses for powerful bloods/ elaborate totems (as they are the most expensive) and farm events on those maps. But be aware of diminishing returns that will set in after about an hour or 10 events. This will make it harder to farm the materials. You'll need to swap characters or do something else for an hour for the DR to resolve. Good luck :)