Ascended Armor: Does it worth it?

[papajohn4]

I have 3 characters level 80 and 2 more at 53 and 30+. My 3 level 80 characters are full of exotic Armor/Weapons. While playing I have gathered a lot of new materials of all tiers and I am almost cap on collectibles. Now I am on Dilemma...should I sell the items in Trading Post, make lot of gold and then buy gems(character slots, trasmutation crystals, e.t.c.) or start making the advanced Ascended Materials...In my guild they told me that Ascended armor is needed to run the fractals 10+. But if Ascended is the best armor in game, what you get from Fractals then?

I am also afraid that an expansion might release "soon" and there will be increased levels and new armor so all the "hard work" and resources spent will lose value. From the other hand, I really cannot decide what gear to make to my guardian...I have both Berserker and Knight gear in my bags now depending if I wanna play "Anchor" (tanky build) or if I wanna go full DPS..I am also considering make a cleric exotic gear for a pure support build I recently found...So, if I am gonna craft Ascended, I think that I will limit my class into a single "role" because it is "impossible" to craft 2-3 Ascended sets.(for me at least).

One more thing is that I am also Altoholic. I can't really say that I have main character cause I equally like all my characters (Guardian slightly more though ).

Any way, what is your opinion on this? What did you do? Can you give me a solid reason to craft Ascended armor?

[Valeron]

quick and simple answer, no it's not worth it

but it is nice to have if you want something to work towards

[papajohn4]

quick and simple answer, no it's not worth it

but it is nice to have if you want something to work towards

Thanks for answering but can you be more specific please? I mean what you get as reward by running Fractals? I guess this is the reason you want Ascended armor, but whats the next "goal"?

[zito]

Thanks for answering but can you be more specific please? I mean what you get as reward by running Fractals? I guess this is the reason you want Ascended armor, but whats the next "goal"?

The price of it isn't worth the small gain in stats, plus if you switch builds a lot (or anet kills something) you can't really replace the armor easily or cost effectively.

[papajohn4]

The price of it isn't worth the small gain in stats, plus if you switch builds a lot (or anet kills something) you can't really replace the armor easily or cost effectively.

I see...yes that is the major problem I have...I could never decide what gear to do (berserker, Knight, Cleric, e.t.c.). But am I able to join Fractals with Exotic gear?

[Karizee]

The only reason you need ascended gear for fractals is for Agony Resistance which kicks in after level 10 fractals. You get enough AR (accessory type items) to run fractals 10+ from laurels, guild commendations, Badges of Honor and the fractals themselves to run them. You don't need to craft ascended armor or weapons for this.

I think the only time you would really need it is if you were doing competitive GvG type stuff.

[Deleted]

I hope ArenaNet WON'T raise level cap and add (again) better stats on items. Asc. stuff should have never happened in the first place.

[papajohn4]

Thanks a lot I am gonna sell the mats now and buy some gems! One last question, What can I do with the Empyreal Fragments, Dragonite Ore and Piles of Bloodstone Dust? Can I use them on anything else except ascended? Can I make money from them somehow? I have more than the 250 max stack and they don't even sell on vendor...what would you advice me to do with them?

[Valeron]

Thanks a lot I am gonna sell the mats now and buy some gems! One last question, What can I do with the Empyreal Fragments, Dragonite Ore and Piles of Bloodstone Dust? Can I use them on anything else except ascended? Can I make money from them somehow? I have more than the 250 max stack and they don't even sell on vendor...what would you advice me to do with them?

you can use those mats to create some intermediary materials, needed for ascended weapons and armor, and then sell those on the trade post. Stuff like spiritwood planks and deldrimor steel ingots are not bound so you are able to trade them.

[Deleted]

I managed to craft a full set of ascended armour (got everything except the helm atm) and while people say it costs a ton of money, and a ton of time, the only real time it takes is that you are limited to crafting damask/deldrimor ingots. Apart from these, the rest of the mats are incredibly easy to farm. You have your insignia, which is basically the damasks + breaking a few exotics. The vision crystal, which you only really need to farm dragonite as you'll be most likely drowning in bloodstone/Empyreal fragments, this is just world bosses. The rest is mainly low level stuff and the only thing that I found expensive was the linen cloth, which came to about 20g per piece of armour.

It's down to a personal matter though, I personally like champ trains, and doing world bosses daily. So i was already swimming in mats (silk/mithril) anyway. Aslong as you are crafting your daily mat, the rest just comes anyway.

That said, if you don't play very much, the small stats increase is not going to make or break your gameplay. Even the sockets on them are somewhat useless as using the sockets on your rings/accessory's/amulet will get you by, even in extremely high level fractals, providing you don't stand in everything and know when to dodge.

[papajohn4]

Thanks all for the answers

@mooosie I am playing regularly and while it needs tons of materials I can't say is impossible to do it, as you said . I just think that if I sell all these mats and make gold I can buy character slots, transmutation crystals and generally everything in the shop. I am trying to find out how important is to have ascended armor and what you can do with it that you cannot do with exotic . That said, probably after a very long time playing, you will need to buy things from store or have more gold and you can eventually maximize your character, but I am not to that point yet. From your answers I found out that Ascended is a "luxury" now for me that I can postpone until later in the game..

[Shakadam]

Short version: Not really.

A light armor piece averages out to ~100g a piece, medium ~50g a piece, heavy somewhere in between. A full set is anywhere from ~300-600g. That's precursor money and I'll say you feel more of an accomplishment getting a legendary than a set of ascended armor. All the ascended armor is butt-ugly as well so you'll transmute it into something better looking anyways. The stat gain is extremely marginal, you won't be "less powerful" compared to someone in ascended (the stat difference from rare - exotic is much bigger). You can get enough AR to complete all current fractals just from accessories, rings, amulet, backpiece and weapons.

[Deleted]

you can use those mats to create some intermediary materials, needed for ascended weapons and armor, and then sell those on the trade post. Stuff like spiritwood planks and deldrimor steel ingots are not bound so you are able to trade them.

You can't sell the materials made from Dragonite Ore/Empyreal Fragments and Bloodstone dust, as you said it's only the Spiritwood Planks and Deldrimor Steel which require things like iron bars/steel bars etc. The fragments and what not are only used for the Vision Crystal which is account bound.

As for ascended armour, it really isn't worth it unless you do high end fractals and/or a min-maxer.

[Meledelion]

As for ascended armour, it really isn't worth it unless you do high end fractals and/or a min-maxer.

Even for FotM it's not needed unless you want to be able to facetank any and all agony you get. You can get enough AR from jewels as is since a-net refuses to open up lvl 50+.

[Maarius]

I wouldn't get rid of any materials, especially not the new ones like dragonite ore... we'll get new Legendaries soon, as well as precursor crafting. I'd bet some of the material is used for that.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't get rid of any materials, especially not the new ones like dragonite ore... we'll get new Legendaries soon, as well as precursor crafting. I'd bet some of the material is used for that.

I'm quite new to GW2, but reading past forum threads/reddit it seems people have been at this "new legendaries" for quite sometime now, also precursor crafting. While I would like to see some new ones, I really don't think they would require different mats to what we have now.

The legendary system is so embedded into the game that changing it would only be a bad thing for the game. They are still tweaking the current system, recently they just added a rank 30 requirement to wvw badge plus 500 badges (yes I know it is getting removed on tuesday) but it shows they are still trying to perfect the method. I'm about 50% into crafting a current legendary, and I myself am waiting till the 4th march patch to see if we get any new ones, which hopefully will just be the same weapons, but different looks, or a LOT of people will be extremely pissed if they turn out to be better.

[Meledelion]

No reason to be pissed, they announced legendaries what 8months ago? Same with precursor crafting...

[Maarius]

No reason to be pissed, they announced legendaries what 8months ago? Same with precursor crafting...

they stated that precursor crafting / new legendaries would probably come in the end of 2013 but are most likely to not make it in time. Now we have the living world finale in the beginning of 2014 (without feature updates) and an announced really big feature-only patch directly after. You don't have to be a fortune teller to add 1 + 1 here.

[Arlee]

an announced really big feature-only patch directly after.

Not quite directly after. They did say once this part of the living story wraps up they will take a bit of a break from the patch cycle similar to the one they did in December. I am guessing we'll get it sometime in April/beginning of May.

[Maarius]

Not quite directly after. They did say once this part of the living story wraps up they will take a bit of a break from the patch cycle similar to the one they did in December. I am guessing we'll get it sometime in April/beginning of May.

the break from the living story IS the feature patch - they do this instead of starting the next season. I could be wrong, but that's how I got it.

Due to the size and scope of the final four story releases in season one, the next round of major features will be bundled together into a large “feature only” release that will come after the first season of the Living World 2014 has finished. Once the story has completed, we’ll go into much greater detail on what’s to follow, but for now we want to focus on making sure our last four episodes shine.

- - - Updated - - -

Edit: Hmm, found another quote, which makes Arlee's comment much more likely:

"When [Living World Season One] ends [on 4th March], we're going to take a break for a little bit and then we're going to do one really big feature patch that is more akin to what people see from some of our [MMO] competitors," said Johanson, "where they bundle a lot of features together into a really big patch every now and then.

"We're going to provide that experience and have this huge feature build that has a whole lot of gameplay-changing elements, a lot of quality of life improvements, a lot of features bundled together into one big patch. And that'll come some time not too far after Season One completes."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...r-guild-wars-2

I guess I was wrong.