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Is Ascended gear even worth it?


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As a newb, I can't get my head around the value of Ascended vs. Exotic gear.

For example, here's two leggings with stats:

Ahmid's Tassets: Defense 254, Power 94, Toughness 67, Vitality 67

Soldiers Draconic: Defense 242, Power 90, Toughness 64, Vitality 64

The ascended piece takes a LOT of components and time to acquire.The exotic piece is currently available on TP for 1g 20s.The difference in stats seems quite underwhelming.Am I missing something here?

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Well, scale it up to 12 pieces of equipment + weapons and the stat difference becomes far more notable. Just go piece by piece, look at it as a journey. Maybe you get lucky and drop the parts you need. Otherwise you can simply stat change armor and weapons you drop.

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When an account is young, Ascended certainly isn't needed. But as gold starts piling up and there is less desirable stuff to spend it on, then it becomes a worthy goal.

Or if you are into Fractals, where it is required for high end due to AR. Or elite-level activities where only the best gear is "allowed."

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Price wise? No.

It depends on what type of content you want to play. Fractals and the required agony resistance make ascended gear a requirement further up (and reward players with better loot tables at the top end).

Raids, while beneficial to have as much bang for your buck, do not require ascended. It's even beneficial to rather get multiple exotic sets on multiple characters for different roles.

The general consensus is this:

  • get ascended trinkets if possible (since most of these are comparatively cheap to get), their stat bonus is by far the highest with up to 12.5% more stats than exotic
  • next get ascended weapons if possible, again a very high value of increased stats (I think it was around 10%) but more important the higher base damage is very beneficial
  • finally get ascended armor only if you intend to do high level fractals, or if you have nothing else to get
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Absolutely, as others have stated, for the higher stats (even though it’s not by a lot), being account bound (so you can swap between characters) and being able to change stats in the mystic forge. That said, if the exotic isn’t expensive or, better yet, you get in from drops, dungeon tokens, etc., it is perfectly fine to use if the stats are right and you don’t need the infusion slot. I would just recommend against expensive exotics such as minstrels and don’t cringe at paying more for your first set of ascended (if like me you don’t have time or desire to wait until you’ve ground out all the mats) if you want to progress in fractals — the rewards are good and you can get occasional ascended drops that will help you gear up other characters. :)

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For many players, ascended isn't worth the time, effort, or cost. It's a modest bonus in stats, with an infusion slot. The game's content is almost exclusively designed around exotic gear.

Here's when it's worth worrying about (and I'm guess that the OP hasn't gotten there yet):

  • Fractals: it's literally not possible to build up the agony resistance required without some ascended (and it's cheaper with more pieces).
  • Raids: it's not required. It will provide a helpful edge for those learning. The more important tool is: personal skill adapting to the mechanics; that's more important.
  • WvW: Again, skill matters more ... and again, extra stats provide an edge, especially when many (although not all) opponents are already in ascended with bonus stats from WvW infusions.
  • PvE Senioritis: play long enough, and you become a veteran and want things to do or some shinies that also have some utility, on which to spend your time or coin.

tl;dr

  • Go through the game happily without exotics
  • Until you feel the need. There's no rush.
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if you just play the game, eventually you will have plenty of ascended armor boxes drops that you dont even need to craft ascended gears anymore

i have only crafted a single set of ascended armor when i started fractals, now i have 6 sets in total, of them 5 were all from drops and converted to the stats i want in the mystic toilet

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@crepuscular.9047 said:if you just play the game, eventually you will have plenty of ascended armor boxes drops that you dont even need to craft ascended gears anymore

i have only crafted a single set of ascended armor when i started fractals, now i have 6 sets in total, of them 5 were all from drops and converted to the stats i want in the mystic toilet

plenty? i had 3 in 6 1/2 years and two of them on two days in fractals a week ago.Dont rely on drops in GW2. Farm Mats and craft the stuff.

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@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:if you just play the game, eventually you will have plenty of ascended armor boxes drops that you dont even need to craft ascended gears anymore

i have only crafted a single set of ascended armor when i started fractals, now i have 6 sets in total, of them 5 were all from drops and converted to the stats i want in the mystic toilet

plenty? i had 3 in 6 1/2 years and two of them on two days in fractals a week ago.Dont rely on drops in GW2. Farm Mats and craft the stuff.

It really depends on the content, the person, and luck. My friend exclusively plays WvW & PvP, barely coming into PvE for stories. Sometimes. He has outfitted all his main characters with ascended from drops. People who play fractals regularly get plenty of ascended gear (although not necessarily the pieces they want). And raiders end up with plenty of currency with which to buy gear.

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@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:Someone did the math once. Ascended gear does about 11% more damage than exotic gear, while also having marginally higher defenses. It may not seem like a lot, but over long periods of time that adds up.

I did the maths yesterday for another thread! A player in ascended Berserker gear does about 13.8% more damage than a player in exotic Berserker gear. The bonus will be lower for less damage-focussed stat combinations.

(Actually the 13.8% figure simplifies things a bit, since it doesn't take into account on-critical-hit effects, runes, or might - but there's not a way of accounting for those things without specifying the exact build you're using and - in the case of might - whether you're getting that from external sources.)

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@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:if you just play the game, eventually you will have plenty of ascended armor boxes drops that you dont even need to craft ascended gears anymore

i have only crafted a single set of ascended armor when i started fractals, now i have 6 sets in total, of them 5 were all from drops and converted to the stats i want in the mystic toilet

plenty? i had 3 in 6 1/2 years and two of them on two days in fractals a week ago.Dont rely on drops in GW2. Farm Mats and craft the stuff.Are you doing Fractal/raid regularly? Cause I have been playing for over 1 year and I am 2 ascended pieces away to have 8 toons fully ascended gears. And I play Fractal very regular. I crafted my 1st set and the rests are from Fractal chests

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@VanWilder.6923 said:Are you doing Fractal/raid regularly? Cause I have been playing for over 1 year and I am 2 ascended pieces away to have 8 toons fully ascended gears. And I play Fractal very regular. I crafted my 1st set and the rests are from Fractal chests

Frcatals yes, raid no.maybe i have an account with no luck at all :-) in this 6 years i only got one pre cursor drop

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@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:

@VanWilder.6923 said:Are you doing Fractal/raid regularly? Cause I have been playing for over 1 year and I am 2 ascended pieces away to have 8 toons fully ascended gears. And I play Fractal very regular. I crafted my 1st set and the rests are from Fractal chests

Frcatals yes, raid no.maybe i have an account with no luck at all :-) in this 6 years i only got one pre cursor drop

Dang. You are lucky and bad luck at the same time. But anyway, have fun gaming!

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@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:

@"VanWilder.6923" said:Are you doing Fractal/raid regularly? Cause I have been playing for over 1 year and I am 2 ascended pieces away to have 8 toons fully ascended gears. And I play Fractal very regular. I crafted my 1st set and the rests are from Fractal chests

Frcatals yes, raid no.maybe i have an account with no luck at all :-) in this 6 years i only got one pre cursor drop

Tier 1 or 2 fractals then because it is near impossible to do fractals daily on T4 and not get at least 1-2 chests per month even if very unlucky. The average comes out to about 1 chest per week.

As mentioned though, it depends a lot on the content. Fractals and raids provide by far the most amount of direct ascended drops. I believe fractals was some where around 12-13% chance for an ascended chest (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml, https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/b14jvp/fractal_drop_rate_research/)

All other content drops off significantly.

So unless you've been occasionally doing fractals, not doing T4 (which would be not indicative of doing fractals), please specify exactly which content you are playing since your current remarks are very confusing to new players.

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@"Stalkingwolf.6035" said:so you say "New player dont craft ascended gear! Just play T4 fractals and you will get enough for all your toons". I hope you see the problem here.Misunderstanding there. In order to play Fractal tier 4, new players have to craft their first ascended set, then playing Fractal Tier 4 regularly will eventually award them with many ascended chests dropped.

Because Tier 4 fractal has much more better chance to drop ascended chests.

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It isn't required in most cases, but isn't it nice that the game gives you a high-end stat to work towards? With most of these games, there is a system of diminishing returns when going to higher levels of gear quality. The best gear only gives a slight upgrade over the next best thing, but at a high price. This allows for fairly casual gamers to still have good quality gear without much grinding while at the same time give dedicated players something to work towards and distinguish themselves with.

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@crepuscular.9047 said:if you just play the game, eventually you will have plenty of ascended armor boxes drops that you dont even need to craft ascended gears anymore

i have only crafted a single set of ascended armor when i started fractals, now i have 6 sets in total, of them 5 were all from drops and converted to the stats i want in the mystic toilet

That depends entirely on what content you are doing. Fractals and raids? Probably. Everything else? Not so much.

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To answer your question, if you are just into open world meta and WBs then no it is not necessary. However, once you get past T2 Fractals you will need to add Agony Resistance to your gear as mentioned above and trinkets will not have enough to give you the AR you will need to survive. Otherwise you can complete just about every other aspect of the game in Exotic gear and although most guides recommend Ascended for Raids, you can run raids in Exotic.

I just wanted to add that unless you try to get gear drops, which really are not all that common, I highly recommend you level up crafting to 500 for your character's armor class (Tailor for Light, Leatherworker for Medium and Armorsmith for Heavy) and for your character's weapon type. In WvW you can complete the Triumphant Armour reward track 6 times and earn a stat selectable set of Exotic Gear. Once you have that unlocked, you can craft "Marks" which are a form of currency and trade in the "Marks" plus WvW currency to a vendor for Ascended gear. The "Marks" are also a useable currency at the Fractal vendor. The PVP vendor also has a similar system that accepts the "Marks" as well.

Crafting also allows you to craft full sets of gear if you do not want to go the "Marks" route. I went the direct crafting route for my first set of gear and I have not regretted it. The key is that 3 of the components needed to craft gear (or Marks) are time gated so you can only craft 1 component per day which means you will need to craft these components daily for 30-36 days depending on the armor weight -- if you go full crafted for the gear. Don't let that scare you though! Crafting these daily whether or not you go the full crafted route will be beneficial later as you will have what you need if you decide to make a Gen 2 Legendary or some of the other collections in the future.

Here are the wiki URLs to clarify what I have mentioned above:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grandmaster_Markhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_crafting#Ascended_armor

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@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:if you just play the game, eventually you will have plenty of ascended armor boxes drops that you dont even need to craft ascended gears anymore

i have only crafted a single set of ascended armor when i started fractals, now i have 6 sets in total, of them 5 were all from drops and converted to the stats i want in the mystic toilet

plenty? i had 3 in 6 1/2 years and two of them on two days in fractals a week ago.Dont rely on drops in GW2. Farm Mats and craft the stuff.

hmmm... you must be very unlucky then... I've only been playing for almost 4 years...

stopped doing daily Frac about 2.5 years ago... still in T3most of the asc boxes from Teq, WvW and PvP these days; I'm currently R526 in WvW and L49 in PvP

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As individual pieces? No, they won't make a huge difference. As a set, they do make some difference IF you are good at playing the class wearing it. There are some advantages, It's account bound so can be shared among any characters using that armor type. I happen to like the classes that wear light armor so it will make sense for me to eventually craft a set for those. Secondly, the stats can be changed for whatever is optimal for the style of play you're using. Need Berserker? Great? Need Viper on a different character? No problem and it's best in class no matter what spec. Finally, you get infusions which make it even better. You can start a set of accesories buy purchasing those for Laurels. Power/Precision/Ferocity are such common stats for competitive builds that it makes sense to get a set of those.

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