What's the point of Fractal Ascended Armour...

... when I still need 500 of the approriate crafting skill to get it?

Here I thought I had found a way to get ascended medium armour without dumping all my gold into buying expensive leather to level it and everything. Talk about disappointment.

I think they are cheaper. Sometimes. At least for certain stats like minstrel and trailblazer.

If it were that easy, everybody would switch to it and drop regular crafting I guess. On the other hand I agree with you, I don't see the point in using this way for getting ascended armor. I think at some point it was a bit cheaper than regular crafting, and now it's a bit more expensive (not sure). So other than saving a few gold, no idea why it even exists.

Ascended armor from fractals, wvw, and pvp do not require crafting as many different materials. They offer an alternative to regular crafting. However, the only ways to get ascended gear without a high crafting level is to get Ascended boxes or to run Raids.

Originally, there was no crafting component to vendor-bought Ascended armor. However, ANet (correctly) determined that this made crafting skills irrelevant. So now you still need 500 craft to get your ascended gear.

Well that's just stupid.

It SHOULD be a crafting-free alternative. I agree with the above poster(s) saying it is rather pointless as-is. Why didn't they just adjust the costs in terms of Fractal materials rather than slap 500 crafting as a requirement on it? Sigh.

... I'm never going to get this kitten Engineer alt of mine kitted out in Ascended...

Apples to Apples the cost of Grandmaster Mark gear (fractals, pvp, and wvw) is going to be cheaper than outright crafting. However, mileage varies based on what material you already have and what you would need to buy.

But yeah, that was an intentional choice by Anet to add the Marks component to keep crafting relevant for Ascended gear.

@CaelestiaEmpyrea.2617 said:Ascended armor from fractals, wvw, and pvp do not require crafting as many different materials. They offer an alternative to regular crafting. However, the only ways to get ascended gear without a high crafting level is to get Ascended boxes or to run Raids.

Originally, there was no crafting component to vendor-bought Ascended armor. However, ANet (correctly) determined that this made crafting skills irrelevant. So now you still need 500 craft to get your ascended gear.

You can get the PvP boxes without crafting because you can get the marks by playing ranked games. Not sure if a similar mechanic exists for wvw.

If the marks would be tradeable it would benefit crafting much more. Currently it is more like level crafting for you first ascended armour then never touch it again because you get other ascended armor from fractal drops. If the marks were tradeable people could at least be able to make some gold by crafting the marks for others.