How do I get master smithing marks?

[Kstyle.5829]

I just started doing PvE after years of PvP only so I have a bunch of ascended shards of glory.  I can buy ascended gear but I'm missing these grandmaster smithing marks.   You can only get about 3 per season doing ranked PvP.   However it looks like I can buy the recipe and craft them.   After I power leveld my leatherworking up, could I just buy the mats with gold and make tons of the grandmaster smithing marks?  Then I could buy a full set of ascended gear from PvP vendor?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

You craft them with ascended crafting. You don't play PvP/WvW for ascended gear, you play them to upgrade that ascended gear to legendary, so you still need to level your crafting dicipline.

 

You can buy all the mats with gold I believe, but its much more efficient to obey the timegate.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Kstyle.5829]

2 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

You craft them with ascended crafting. You don't play PvP/WvW for ascended gear, you play them to upgrade that ascended gear to legendary, so you still need to level your crafting dicipline.

 

You can buy all the mats with gold I believe, but its much more efficient to obey the timegate.

wtf really? so the chests in pvp area dont give ascended armor? man I'm not trying to craft stuff.  is there a way to just get it through wvw?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

35 minutes ago, Kstyle.5829 said:

wtf really? so the chests in pvp area dont give ascended armor? man I'm not trying to craft stuff.  is there a way to just get it through wvw?

They do give ascended armor, but its complicated. You still have to craft the marks to buy it (which is almost as complicated as just making the item directly), and afterwards you can only stat-select it once since its a legendary precursor and forging it will destroy it.

 

You can use GW2Efficiency to see if just crafting ascended directly is cheaper than making the marks and buying the PvP armor, but if you aren't going to go for the legendary there's largely no point in buying any of the gear from PvP/WvW since you can only select stats one time without destroying it.

 

Regular ascended armor can be stat-changed in the Mystic Forge as many times as you like.

 

That said the legendary armor isn't very expensive and its a huge QoL upgrade since it can be equipped by all characters on an account, infinitely stat-changed, infinitely transmuted without charges, and you can swap runes and infusions out and unlimited number of times without any tools. (Which isn't useful for PvP, but is very useful for WvW buildcrafting.)

 

I definitely recommend just going for it if you need a long-term goal.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Cuks.8241]

If you have a bunch of ascended shards and league tickets best course imo is to buy pvp ascended armour which you can quite easily upgrade to legendary with those pvp currencies. 

Yes you will need to craft marks. 

Check wiki for pvp legendary armour. Gw2 efficiency is also very helpfull for complex crafting. 

[Kstyle.5829]

18 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

If you have a bunch of ascended shards and league tickets best course imo is to buy pvp ascended armour which you can quite easily upgrade to legendary with those pvp currencies. 

Yes you will need to craft marks. 

Check wiki for pvp legendary armour. Gw2 efficiency is also very helpfull for complex crafting. 

How do I craft the marks? I looked at the wiki but I'm just confused.  It appears that the smithing marks should be the "hard to attain" item that slows you from getting ascended gear.  But on the wiki it looks like I can just make an infinite amount with the recipe by buying materials off auction house?  Why would they only give you 3 of them per pvp season if you can easily craft them?  In other words.. I feel like I must be missing something because it looks to easy based on what the wiki says.  

[Khisanth.2948]

4 hours ago, Kstyle.5829 said:

How do I craft the marks? I looked at the wiki but I'm just confused.  It appears that the smithing marks should be the "hard to attain" item that slows you from getting ascended gear.  But on the wiki it looks like I can just make an infinite amount with the recipe by buying materials off auction house?  Why would they only give you 3 of them per pvp season if you can easily craft them?  In other words.. I feel like I must be missing something because it looks to easy based on what the wiki says.  

You are missing the cost difference.

You can get them slowly but cheaply(free!) or you can get them quickly for a price(currently 15-20g for 3). This is the same for various other materials.

[Kstyle.5829]

1 hour ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

You are missing the cost difference.

You can get them slowly but cheaply(free!) or you can get them quickly for a price(currently 15-20g for 3). This is the same for various other materials.

So I can make an unlimited amount with no time gating for just 20 gold each piece?  Sounds too easy to me

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Kstyle.5829 said:

So I can make an unlimited amount with no time gating for just 20 gold each piece?  Sounds too easy to me

Directly crafting an ascended item is around the same price so there is nothing unusual about that.

[Ashantara.8731]

You acquire Grandmaster Mark Shards via WvW gameplay.

10 of those will allow you to buy Boxes of Grandmaster Marks from the Skirmish Supervisor vendor in WvW, and you can choose what type of Mark you want from that box (there are 6 available from all Crafting Disciplines, 3 for the 3 armor types and 3 for the 3 weapon disciplines).

You don't have to to craft them if you don't want to, but amassing the required amount will take very long without crafting.
 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Ashantara.8731