Getting full Ascended w/out crafting, inconsistent, or am I doing something wrong?

[captrowdy.9561]

I’ve been playing WvW and open world with exotic armor and ascended weapons trinkits for a year. Not a huge deal. I wouldn’t stress to much. Legandary on the other hand would be sweet because of stat changes 

[Ashen.2907]

On 5/25/2022 at 3:06 PM, SamuelW.2685 said:

Hi everyone,

I've made it a goal of mine to get full ascended, specifically Cavaliers cause I'm using Lord Hizen's Bladesworn build that utilizes the same stats, and I'm using the same build cause I'm having a absolute blast in the open world, I haven't done a single piece of instanced group content yet and I've been doing very well for myself.

But now that I'm actually working toward getting ascended, I'm having trouble even getting some of the gear, the jewellery is fine, I'm doing just living world, but when consulting guides or videos, the info, at least to how I interpret it, sums up to "get lucky with world bosses or fractals or craft lol."

So I need to ask, is that true? I really don't wanna craft, I'll probably need to level one or two up for 32 slot bags, but that's fine, I can live with limited bag space, but do I really, really need to craft if I wanna get consistent ascended? Is farming world bosses and fractals really that suboptimal when it comes to gearing? 

And I know what some of you are thinking, "stop being a child, level up a crafter" , but HERE"S THE THING,  I downloaded GW2 cause I wanted to enjoy things like the day to day gameplay, things like the open world, getting achievements, doing at some point instanced content, I didn't come here to craft. I'm saying I wanna earn my gear through playing the game, not grinding what might as well be a crappy minigame. 

And for the record, it's not cause I dislike crafting in games, I just bitterly hate in here, I have over 1k hours in ARK: Survival Evolved, and crafting was one of my fav activities in that game, but that cause it's part of the CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP of that game (and also isn't a total slog unlike here), you CANNOT progress without crafting there, here, it's been optional for my first 150 hours, but now it's starting to feel like I'm being backed into a corner.

 

I got all of my cbaracters outfitted in ascended without crafting. Took years. WvW is guaranteed via skirmish tickets. Many weapons via collections. Other weapons via strike mission rewards. 

[SlayerXX.7138]

On 5/26/2022 at 12:06 AM, SamuelW.2685 said:

I've made it a goal of mine to get full ascended, specifically Cavaliers cause I'm using Lord Hizen's Bladesworn build that utilizes the same stats, and I'm using the same build cause I'm having a absolute blast in the open world, I haven't done a single piece of instanced group content yet and I've been doing very well for myself.

So you do realize you don't need it which is good. If you don't want to wait till enough armor boxes drop you have to bite the bullet somewhere. If you like world bosses or guild missions do that for more chances for boxes.
Personally i would say bite the bullet in crafting. It is 40 Gold and under an hour. You are done.
https://gw2crafts.net/armorcraft_400.html
https://gw2crafts.net/armorcraft_fast.html

 

If you refuse to do that on principle:

Do strikes. The 3 easy ones, so you can buy whatever you are missing from box drops. They are instanced content with a low barrier to entry. If you plan to get that route maybe invest in a berserker set(dirt cheap).

 

If you also refuse to do Group content because you don't like it:
Do the Strike mission forging steal. It is basically a instanced meta train with 10 people. You can even gather in there^^.

 

What you need to know: Ascended gear is endgame gear as such it is MAGNITUDES more grindy to get then exotics. Just boots will take you dozen of PvP matches/hours of WvW/Strike runs. Only way to fast track it is gold+crafting.
 

[Emberfoot.6847]

Thec only things I can really say that haven't been covered are A) you can strictly "just" purchase legendary weapons from the trading post rather than craft them, but expect to pay through the nose, and B) it is technically possible to get ascended chests from anything at all that drops empyreal, dragonite or bloodstone bits. I have personally had 2 ascended chests from PvE jumping puzzles, but bear in mind that is from YEARS of opening the chests on around 70 characters a day. I have literally had more precursors this way than ascended. 

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Emberfoot.6847 said:

Thec only things I can really say that haven't been covered are A) you can strictly "just" purchase legendary weapons from the trading post rather than craft them, but expect to pay through the nose, and B) it is technically possible to get ascended chests from anything at all that drops empyreal, dragonite or bloodstone bits. I have personally had 2 ascended chests from PvE jumping puzzles, but bear in mind that is from YEARS of opening the chests on around 70 characters a day. I have literally had more precursors this way than ascended. 

I have gotten a bunch from the home instance bandit chest. Out of all the stuff with a random chance of dropping an ascended those seem to have the highest drop rate. I am not even opening those everyday, just when it spawns on the path I am using to gather other stuff.

Meanwhile I have only ever gotten 1 from airship cargo.  In the same time period I have gotten multiple lightward battlestaff and hammers though. Back when I was doing that just one staff would have paid for a full set of armor with gold left over so it wasn't all that bad 🙂

[Emberfoot.6847]

56 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

I have gotten a bunch from the home instance bandit chest. Out of all the stuff with a random chance of dropping an ascended those seem to have the highest drop rate. I am not even opening those everyday, just when it spawns on the path I am using to gather other stuff.

Meanwhile I have only ever gotten 1 from airship cargo.  In the same time period I have gotten multiple lightward battlestaff and hammers though. Back when I was doing that just one staff would have paid for a full set of armor with gold left over so it wasn't all that bad 🙂

I have done the bandit chest every day for years too, and never had one. I trust it is possible,  but I wouldn't like to get people's hopes too high. 

[Ashgar.3024]

On 5/25/2022 at 6:06 PM, SamuelW.2685 said:

Hi everyone,

I've made it a goal of mine to get full ascended, specifically Cavaliers cause I'm using Lord Hizen's Bladesworn build that utilizes the same stats, and I'm using the same build cause I'm having a absolute blast in the open world, I haven't done a single piece of instanced group content yet and I've been doing very well for myself.

But now that I'm actually working toward getting ascended, I'm having trouble even getting some of the gear, the jewellery is fine, I'm doing just living world, but when consulting guides or videos, the info, at least to how I interpret it, sums up to "get lucky with world bosses or fractals or craft lol."

So I need to ask, is that true? I really don't wanna craft, I'll probably need to level one or two up for 32 slot bags, but that's fine, I can live with limited bag space, but do I really, really need to craft if I wanna get consistent ascended? Is farming world bosses and fractals really that suboptimal when it comes to gearing? 

And I know what some of you are thinking, "stop being a child, level up a crafter" , but HERE"S THE THING,  I downloaded GW2 cause I wanted to enjoy things like the day to day gameplay, things like the open world, getting achievements, doing at some point instanced content, I didn't come here to craft. I'm saying I wanna earn my gear through playing the game, not grinding what might as well be a crappy minigame. 

And for the record, it's not cause I dislike crafting in games, I just bitterly hate in here, I have over 1k hours in ARK: Survival Evolved, and crafting was one of my fav activities in that game, but that cause it's part of the CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP of that game (and also isn't a total slog unlike here), you CANNOT progress without crafting there, here, it's been optional for my first 150 hours, but now it's starting to feel like I'm being backed into a corner.

 

Ranked PvP is probably your best bet for "consistency" if you really refuse to craft anything. Completing boxes from earning pips also give you Grandmaster Marks, which is something you normally have to craft.

 

Its definitively not the quickest way to gear up but if you hate both RNG and crafting its def the best one imo. You can also use the pieces you get that way as precursors for the Legendary PvP armor. That's what i personally did anyway so i know it works.

 

You can achieve something similar by raiding but... tbh you won't get very far in these using a Cavalier build sadly as it operates under a meta heavily curated by the community itself. Nothing prevents you from putting together a secondary armor set using Berserker's/Viper's stats though just for the purpose of raiding. Even just Exotics would work, you can buy a full set of Berserker's exotics for like 10gold or less on the Trading Post.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[SlayerXX.7138]

27 minutes ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

Ranked PvP is probably your best bet for "consistency" if you really refuse to craft anything. Completing boxes from earning pips also give you Grandmaster Marks, which is something you normally have to craft.

Also takes 14 months for a full set without crafting(3 marks per Season/20 Marks for a Set). Marks need 500 crafting at that point he can just craft the Ascended^^.

[Ashgar.3024]

2 minutes ago, Albi.7250 said:

Also takes 14 months for a full set without crafting(3 marks per Season/20 Marks for a Set). Marks need 500 crafting at that point he can just craft the Ascended^^.

 

Oh yeah i never meant its fast lol. But its reliable. Worst case can always use that way to patch up holes in his gear anyway.

 

Either way the fastest would def be crafting though but yeah.

[Dante.1508]

15 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I disagree completely.  If I have ascended accessories and exotic armor and weapons (as I do on most of my characters) I see almost no difference in any area of the game.  Not dungeons. Not lower level fractals. Not even strikes.

Depends on the stats, but it does make a difference.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 5/28/2022 at 4:05 AM, Dante.1508 said:

Depends on the stats, but it does make a difference.

Not only on stats, but also on build you use. For example, crit chance will have less effect on builds where it serves only its primary purpose, and more effect on builds wit a lot of on-crit effects. And ascended weapon will be a far more significant increase for a power dps build than for a condi dps or support one.

[Labjax.2465]

I agree with those who recommend strikes, since you can get currency to buy the pieces directly. Or just ignore it and work on other things in the game because as fun as it might seem to match up fully to a suggested build, if all you're doing is open world, odds are you will pretty much never notice the difference between it and exotic. That kind of stat upgrade is something you're probably only going to notice if you're staring at a DPS parser all day doing content with tight DPS checks.

[HowlKamui.5120]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor

Refer to the vendor section of the the above page to see non RNG methods of obtaining ascended armor.

 

I’d also like to take this opportunity to invite you to give crafting another chance once you have your first working build. I read that you dislike crafting because it’s not part of the core gameplay loop but it CAN be if you want to, and you’d only have to spend less than 5 minutes of your session in the crafting UI. At this point I want to mention that I enjoy playing the economies of MMOs, and I know not everyone does. 

My current gameplay loop in general is::

1. Do the content I want that day and eventually earn loot bags / unidentified gear.
2. Open said bags, identify and salvage the gear, to earn mats.
3. Craft profitable items/upgrade lower tier mats to profitable ones, and then sell them in the trading post.
4. Profit!
5… Spend all that gold in the gem store for fashion and be poor again, but at least you look good.

You can stop at 4 if you want though haha. There are fast crafting guides online that you can follow to max out crafting, and they take like 15 minutes. I agree that this part is boring, but once you get over this hurdle, crafting is a fun part of the gameplay loop. 
 

For me this is GW2’s true end game. Doing any content you want to earn gold, which you then use to exchange for gem store items.

Also, legendary crafting is fun, if a bit grindy. I’m getting mine through WvW/PvP though since I also enjoy player vs player. As for the weapons, you can buy the first ones using gold so the gameplay loop still works for this!

Edited June 15, 2022 by HowlKamui.5120

[SlateSloan.3654]

start with daily strikes missions. These are small bossfights which only take couple of minutes. From the currency you can get ascended armor.

while you do that also do the daily low level fractals for fractals currency and chance to drop more ascended.

Once you reach your first ascended gear you can start to put agony resistance into it which makes you able to play higher level fractals. Everytime you have enough agony resistance to play one of the daily fractals in above levels do them.

as you approach on strikes and fractals you will reach a point where you finished your first ascended set. Max out agony resistance for t4 fractals and then keep doing daily strikes and t4 fractals and add raids to your portfolio. Save the gold you get from daily strikes, fractals, raids and open world farm and aim for legendary gear.

legendary gear lets you swap stats any time and once you have all weapons, armor, trinkets, runes and sigils you reach build freedom and you will never have something to do with the topic „need certain armor stats“.

no matter what anet changes on the game or what build you want to try you can just click it together.

from this moment on you never have to buy runes, sigils or use resources to change ascended gear stats. You can just sell everything you loot on the tp then and never need to save expensive runes or so „for later“.

you will be able to build up gold and can then buy yourself skins you want or use the gold to unlock items from the gemstore for free.

Try to find connections to play with. It will be more fun to play with people you know and who are equipped to do the job as well.

if you dont want to join a small guild yet join one of the community guilds.

central hub is a discord with lots of community links: https://discord.gg/fnUha3QwmQ

Thats what i would do if I would start today as a new player from scratch.

 

 

[Mungrul.9358]

It'd be nice if they re-vamped Dungeons so that you could get Ascended gear through them too.

[DreadstoneofXev.6810]

As somebody who just passed the two (2) month mark, I'll add this.

 

Crafting from 300 to 400 was quicker for me than 1 - 300. By the time you're level 80, running around in exotic, you've probably got one "banker" toon whose job is to handle overflow. 

 

Mats? For mid to high mid mats, run Octo. Over, and over, and over. You'll garner exp and more mats than you can shake a stick at.