Builds and crafting: from the plan to the set you actually wear

Start from the content, not from the weapon

The same weapon can be right in one context and wrong in another. Before picking anything, answer three questions: what are you doing —solo roaming, small group, ZvZ, gathering, dungeons—, what is the group missing, and how much are you willing to lose in one death. A build that ignores the third question is a build you will not use after the first bad night.

• Solo and lethal zones: mobility and escape first, damage second.
• Small group: whatever the group does not have —purge, catch, sustain— before personal damage.
• ZvZ: what your role is asked to do in the comp, and the item power ceiling your guild requires.
• Gathering and transport: carry capacity, mount and a plan for the way back.

Write it down before you buy it

Save the build in the planner with every slot decided, including food and potions. The point of writing it down is that the price appears before the shopping, not after: a full set with an expensive weapon and cheap boots is a different budget from the same set with the tiers swapped, and the planner is where you see that difference without spending silver.

Crafting: the maths nobody does

Crafting profit is materials plus fees plus taxes, and the fees are the part people forget. Refining and crafting return part of the materials depending on the station, the speciality of the city and your own bonuses, so the real cost of an item is lower than the sum of the materials you bought. That is exactly why a build calculator that uses market prices gets it wrong if it does not ask where you craft.

• Check the price of the finished item and the price of its materials on the same day, not a week apart.
• Count the station fee and the market tax on the sale; with thin margins they decide the result.
• Craft in the city that gives the bonus you need, or the return rate eats the profit.
• Sell where the item is expensive, not where you crafted it —but count the transport risk.

Collections: keeping a plan alive

A build you cannot find again is a build you will rebuild from memory. Collections group builds by purpose —one for the guild's ZvZ comp, one for solo roaming, one for the crafting alt— and they can be shared, which is how a group agrees on what everyone is bringing before the timer starts.

After the fight: split the loot properly

The last five minutes of a roam are the ones that create drama. Loot split takes the value of everything collected and divides it by the number of players, so nobody has to argue about who keeps the expensive drop. Do it before the party disbands: once people leave the zone, the maths gets harder and the goodwill shorter.