Legendaries are the pinnacle of Guild Wars 2. Everyone can get them, but not all of them are created equal. Some of them are epic looking, some epic sounding. Some are a grueling grind, others, not so much. Legendary gear doesn’t give you a statistical advantage over ascended gear, and it never, ever will. Don’t worry, you don’t have to get back on a gear treadmill at all when it comes to Legendaries. You never actually need one for any sort of progression, time, or anything of the like.
So, why get them in the first place?
First off, Legendary gear allows you to select your stat combinations at any time outside of combat. Need a bit more boon duration? Let’s move some stats to Diviner for now, then back to, say, Berserker afterwards. Secondly, any changes you make to the gear, from Agony infusions to runes and sigils, to even wardrobe changes, will be absolutely free to put in and take out. No more upgrade or infusion extractors or Transmution Charges for that piece!
Lastly, and probably the coolest thing about them, is that legendary gear goes into your legendary armory, which is shared between all of your characters on your account! If that character can equip it normally, you can pull right from your legendary armory and give it to them, without any cost. It is the ultimate quality of life, and very much worth getting the ones you’re interested in.
With all that said, which ones are the best? Here’s my short list of legendaries worth prioritizing:
Prismatic Champion’s Regalia
By far the “easiest” legendary in the game. This Amulet is obtained via the Seasons of the Dragons achievement, which requires you to essentially complete all of the Living Stories, and related map achievements, from Season 2, all the way to Icebrood Saga. This is a long, time-consuming task, but it’s the only legendary that requires zero materials. It’s all just this achievement track. The best part about this track is how you can simultaneously greatly accelerate your Skyscale or Aurora Legendary Accessory due to each one giving you an entire stack of its respective material. Extremely worth your time and effort for one of the better slots.
Ad infinitum
Ad Infinitum is a legendary backpack, obtained from a relatively short achievement track involving a lot of odd jobs in Fractals of the Mists. This isn’t free like the Prismatic Champion’s Regalia, but it definitely requires a lot less effort than many others. If you’re already doing Tier 4 Fractals, then this shouldn’t be too big of an issue, and you can obtain it in a few days of casual play. The big plus for this one is that the backpack slot is one of the hardest slots to fill with niche stats in Guild Wars 2, and when you begin to flesh out your roster with characters, having a backpack at the ready will ease that strain quite significantly. Definitely worth getting as early as possible.
Legendary Armor
There are currently three ways to obtain legendary armor: PvP, World vs. World, and (gasp!) raiding.
Now, before you close the tab in a fit of rage, I promise you, getting legendary armor, albeit pretty time-consuming (5 weeks of raiding at the absolute fastest for your first set, if you do everything each week), is way easier than you think. The easier raid wings are quite approachable, and there are a ton of raid training communities at your disposal, with hundreds of thousands of players ready to help, including, but not limited to: Skein Gang and Hardstuck.
Just doing the easier wings will get you fully decked out in legendary armor in about 10 weeks, one session per week. Legendary armor is separated by armor type, so if you get a set of medium armor, all classes on your account that can wear medium armor can wear that set of legendary armor. Never having to do dungeons again for the dungeon-specific runes because you can slot them in and out of your legendary armor for free is the reason alone to get legendary armor, but you’ll always be able to freely expand your build library when you obtain it. Both the PvP and WvW armor take longer than the raid armor, but if you aren’t interested in raids, you have those as a route.
The first Aurene Legendary Weapon
I specifically highlight the first Aurene Legendary weapon because, if you’re doing Seasons of the Dragons like mentioned before, the Tier 2 reward gives you a free precursor box. This, combined with End of Dragons map completion being much easier than the core game or the previous two expansions, and you’re able to make this first legendary for a much cheaper cost than many other legendaries. Ultimately, you should choose the one you want, as there isn’t too much of a rhyme or reason to which weapon you should choose, but it’s awesome to have the first one be much more of a breeze.
Aurora
As mentioned before, if you don’t need Skyscale, or if you’re more interested in filling out your legendaries, Aurora is the one to go for. You can work on this legendary simultaneously with your Seasons of the Dragons achievement, making the process much less painless. Any legendary that is made easier by doing something else alongside it is a legendary worth working on, and even though it isn’t in the most premium of slots compared , it’s worth getting for the former reason alone.
The more legendaries you obtain, the easier it is to just play a bunch of characters. It’s one of the best ways to show off your vanity, and there is no better feeling than completing one.
Well, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th are pretty nice too!
