Astral Amor Same Price or Maybe even more Expensive than Actual Legendary Armor [Merged]

[Master Lee.2016]

All of us are probably hyped for the new PVE legendary armor coming out next update around 2024, however Arenanet has said that we can work towards it now by completing the rift hunter armor and astral armor collections, which are said to be needed in order to craft the new legendary armor. The astral armor however is more expensive than some legendary armor. In order to complete the achievement, you must collect all eighteen pieces of the astral armor set, this however will require an insane number of materials and currency. This is more materials and currency than it takes to acquire the other legendary armor. And this Astral Armor is only exotic, not even an ascended precursor. Just to complete the collection it will cost you:

4,500 essences of despair
1,800 essences of greed
900 essences of triumph
18 Mystic Clovers
300 vials of powerful blood
750 vials of potent blood
150 vials of thick blood
150 vials of blood
300 ancient bones
750 large bones
150 heavy bones
150 bones
300 vicious claws
750 large claws
150 sharp claws
150 claws
300 piles of crystalline dust
750 piles of incandescent dust
150 piles of luminous dust
150 piles of radiant dust
300 vicious fangs
750 large fangs
150 sharp fangs
150 fangs
300 armored scales
750 large scales
150 smooth scales
150 scales
300 elaborate totems
750 intricate totems
150 engraved totems
150 totems
300 powerful venom sacks 
750 potent venom sacks
150 full venom sacks
150 venom sacks
9,000 research notes
18 pouches of stardust (18 days of doing the Amnytas meta event daily)
18 cases of captured lighting (4,500 static charges)
1,080 globs of ectoplasm

And this is just to complete this collection stated to be needed to acquire the new legendary armor upon release. All of these materials and the amount of gameplay you must have to get all the currencies and is even more that it takes for most of the other legendary armors. And this Astral Armor is still not the legendary armor nor an ascended precursor. It will cost even more items and currencies to make the actual legendary armor upon its release. This new set of legendary armor was supposed to give PvE players a chance to acquire legendary armor through their form of gameplay. ArenaNet did accomplish this, however they made PvE players have to play many more hours of gameplay to acquire this armor than WvW, PvP, or raid armor require. At the moment this PvE legendary armor is nowhere near worth the value of time and money you have to spend to acquire it. The PvE legendary armor should not be more than twice the work it takes to acquire other legendary armors. A simple fix would be to not have the astral armor collection completed in order to craft the new legendary armor or to make the astral armor the ascended precursor to the new PvE legendary obsidian armor, so players could just craft only one set of armor if they choose to and not have to make every single weight which triples the price and work.

[Gibson.4036]

Do we know for certain that you will have to complete both collections to craft just one piece of legendary armor?

They said we'd need the Astral and Rift Hunter armors, but do we know for certain that doesn't mean Astral Medium Chest and Rift Hunter Medium to work on Obsidian Medium Chest?

Nevermind! Found the original blogpost and reread.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[ugrakarma.9416]

remember that ppl that asked for non-raid leg. armour was ok to it be more expensive, otherwise it will be trivialized.

people that wanted Pve Leg. Armour complained about to have to do raids, not the cost.

Edited August 25, 2023 by ugrakarma.9416

[Gibson.4036]

4 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

remember that ppl that asked for non-raid leg. armour was ok to it be more expensive, otherwise it will be trivialized.

people that wanted Pve Leg. Armour complained about to have to do raids, not the cost.

My memory is that mostly people said it could be as time consuming as other forms of legendary armor, like WvW's grind.

[Ashen.2907]

Looks about in line with what I expected.

[Kinurak.5307]

The Astral ward armor unlocks for all three weights when you unlock it

 

[solzuul.6294]

33 minutes ago, Kinurak.5307 said:

The Astral ward armor unlocks for all three weights when you unlock it

 

Thank you have been waiting for confirmation before crafting. 

Pricing seems steeeeeep, seems they really want us to grind these unfinished rifts. 

Edited August 25, 2023 by solzuul.6294

[idpersona.3810]

So do we just need to craft 1 set of Astral Ward armor then? And if so, what's the total cost on that.

[Kinurak.5307]

a full set (6 pieces) cotsts 1500 Essences of Despair, 600 essences of greed, 300 essences of triumph, 300 ecto, 1500 pinches of stardust, 1500 static charges, 100 t6 fangs, dust, scales, venom, bones, claws , 250 t5 fangs, dust, scales, venom, bones, claws,50t4 fangs, dust, scales, venom, bones, claws and 50 t3 fangs and 3k research notes, you also need 6 mystic clovers for the set

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

My memory is that mostly people said it could be as time consuming as other forms of legendary armor, like WvW's grind.

Nah, it was same or even more, as long as they can do it in ow, because it's not about time or effort, it's about content involved.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Gibson.4036]

I'm not far into the story yet, but I know I got the Rift Hunter boots as an award or drop last night. Is that set all from story?

Edited August 25, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Gop.8713]

If you don't want to do it don't do it, other paths are available. Kind of a silly complaint . . .

[Kinurak.5307]

1 minute ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I'm not far into the story yet, but I know I got the Rift Hunter boots as an award or drop last night. Is that set all from story?

Rift hunter is all from story yes.

[Gibson.4036]

Just now, Kinurak.5307 said:

Rift hunter is all from story yes.

Thanks!

[Kinurak.5307]

Just now, Gibson.4036 said:

Thanks!

No problem :3

[idpersona.3810]

18 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Nah, it was same or even more, as long as they can do it in ow, because it's not about time or effort, it's about content involved.

I remember a few of these conversations over the last year (with you in particular 🙂). Generally speaking, (purely time-wise) I think the conclusion was that OW should take longer than raiding and probably be comparable to WvW./PvP. So maybe a piece every 4-6 weeks. I acknowledge though that there were many threads with lot and lots of differing opinions. 

I'm looking forward to the option to make armor this way (OW), but given the sheer number of essences needed, I'm guessing the WvW option is still going to be somewhat popular, unless the number of essences needed is lowered or future rifts drop more. I'm thinking very few players are going to want to do Rift hunting full time for the next 6 months. But to each their own, the option is now in game for all PvE only players.

Edited August 25, 2023 by idpersona.3810

[Luthan.5236]

I think it depends. Does the new legendary armor give an exclusive skin? Afaik the PvP/WvW ones were cheaper than the raid armor but did not give an exclusive skin. This one does not require you to do the more "competitive" (though PvP it is really easy even if you are low skill tiered lol) game modes. But might offer unique skins. At least the previous steps give skins I guess. Can also be interesting to combine with/while doing other content in that new maps. I might at least check out some earlier steps. Not sure if I go the full way - since I have all PvP mats (tickets, ascended shards of glory) to do all 3 sets (weight classes) and might just buy the remaining stuff (or grind it) of the normal money sinker PvE mats to finish some pieces. If there was a unique skin (new skin when upgrading to the legendary not just the astral armor skin) I might do that though. And getting in PvP just the ascended skin.

[idpersona.3810]

4 minutes ago, Luthan.5236 said:

I think it depends. Does the new legendary armor give an exclusive skin? Afaik the PvP/WvW ones were cheaper than the raid armor but did not give an exclusive skin. This one does not require you to do the more "competitive" (though PvP it is really easy even if you are low skill tiered lol) game modes. But might offer unique skins. At least the previous steps give skins I guess. Can also be interesting to combine with/while doing other content in that new maps. I might at least check out some earlier steps. Not sure if I go the full way - since I have all PvP mats (tickets, ascended shards of glory) to do all 3 sets (weight classes) and might just buy the remaining stuff (or grind it) of the normal money sinker PvE mats to finish some pieces. If there was a unique skin (new skin when upgrading to the legendary not just the astral armor skin) I might do that though. And getting in PvP just the ascended skin.

From the announcements (and we don't know how well they'll follow those at this point) it should be a unique skin that also changes (particle effects?) in combat.

[Gehenna.3625]

1 hour ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

remember that ppl that asked for non-raid leg. armour was ok to it be more expensive, otherwise it will be trivialized.

Not sure if this cost is what they meant but regardless this is what the precursors cost and then it's a matter of take it or leave it imo.

1 hour ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

people that wanted Pve Leg. Armour complained about to have to do raids, not the cost.

Raids or competitive modes indeed. However, we still don't actually know whether or not this is actually fully OW leggy armour. Anet's comments about it can indeed be interpreted in different ways. So this remains to be seen or rather clarified by Anet.

It would really suck for an OW PvE'er to do all this work and then to find out that to upgrade it to legendary armour, they still have to do some stuff in strikes or raids...just not that much.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Gehenna.3625

[ArchonWing.9480]

1 hour ago, Master Lee.2016 said:

At the moment this PvE legendary armor is nowhere near worth the value of time and money you have to spend to acquire it.

If you are making legendaries for "value", then you are doing it wrong. Legendaries are essentially a way to flaunt wealth, and are actively gold and time sinks.

Also note that since the expansion came out, prices are always going to be inflated to take advantage of FOMO; there's a very large premium to be first.

[idpersona.3810]

3 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

If you are making legendaries for "value", then you are doing it wrong. Legendaries are essentially a way to flaunt wealth, and are actively gold and time sinks.

Eh. I think that partially depends on just how many characters you have. I never looked at legendaries as a way to flaunt wealth. They're useful to not have to do grinds again for various gear. I like having a new character get to 80 and just being able to click through gearing them out in ascended-equivalents.
Now, granted runes are kind of screwed right now, but it was nice to have leg. runes and not have to do dungeon runs for some of the builds that used to call for those sets.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

10 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

If you are making legendaries for "value", then you are doing it wrong. Legendaries are essentially a way to flaunt wealth, and are actively gold and time sinks.

Also note that since the expansion came out, prices are always going to be inflated to take advantage of FOMO; there's a very large premium to be first.

i think this simply isn't true, because with many characters the cost of ascended(+150ar from infusions) quickly adds up to thousands of gold, especially when you need to reroll every single piece of armor and every weapon in the mystic forge to change their builds occasionally (balance updates, etc.). its cheaper in the long run to make legendary items if you play alot of alts, especially if you like to take them all into high-end content.

Edited August 25, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[ArchonWing.9480]

9 minutes ago, idpersona.3810 said:

Eh. I think that partially depends on just how many characters you have. I never looked at legendaries as a way to flaunt wealth. They're useful to not have to do grinds again for various gear. I like having a new character get to 80 and just being able to click through gearing them out in ascended-equivalents.
Now, granted runes are kind of screwed right now, but it was nice to have leg. runes and not have to do dungeon runs for some of the builds that used to call for those sets.

Yea I suppose if you had a lot of characters that'd make a bit more sense but that's still a large investment just to avoid a bit of hassle. Most ascended components aren't very hard to craft while that is not true of legendary armor. 

I personally have around 14 characters but even that isn't compelling to me.

  

2 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i think this simply isn't true, because with many characters the cost of ascended(+150ar from infusions) quickly adds up to thousands of gold, especially when you need to reroll every single piece of armor and every weapon in the mystic forge to change their builds occasionally (balance updates, etc.). its cheaper in the long run to make legendary items if you play alot of alts, especially if you like to take them all into high-end content.

Fractals provide ascended and infusions just by playing them. And it's not like stat changing is expensive either; I usually just had multiple sets in my bank if there were any balance changes. Maybe once a year would I have to change stats, if even.

Also note the weight class problem. It's not exactly one and done.

Edited August 25, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[idpersona.3810]

6 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Yea I suppose if you had a lot of characters that'd make a bit more sense but that's still a large investment just to avoid a bit of hassle. Most ascended components aren't very hard to craft while that is not true of legendary armor. 

I personally have around 14 characters but even that isn't compelling to me.

for me personally, once I had around 15 80s I went all in on collecting legendaries. Now, I'm up to 31 80s and it is so nice to just spend 5 minutes after hitting 80 and being pretty much done with equipment for that character. I've got 9 characters that use at least 1 Axe in their build. So having that available for them with whatever stats I want has been a huge benefit. Off the top of my head, I think it's about 30g and a bit of time crafting each weapon. So I still paid more up front, but the versatility more than makes up for it (imo).

Edited August 25, 2023 by idpersona.3810

[Luthan.5236]

I think it also depends on how often you like to stats-swap. Oddly the most useful stuff is available super easy: Trinkets and the back item. (Can be used on any char.) The hardest always have been the weapons - the ones with the most limited use. Armor could fit 3 of 9 chars (if you have one for each profession) - for convenient stats-swapping and changing upgrade components (sigils, infusions).

Weapons might technically fit more than 1 char but I guess most often you'd find yourself - at least for some weapons to using them only on one char. (With the other chars that could use them ... maybe having other preferred options. While for the armor there is only 1 armor class for that profession.)

Wonder if this is going to kill raids once and for all. Dungeons can at least be interesting  for weapon gifts (but there we have that chest for 1000 acclaim that also is supposed to give gifts). Raids mainly were the grind for the PvE legendaries.

They seem to want to keep it up with the strikes (new ones added) and fractals - the shorter content. (Which makes sense then the main playerbase is more casual and does not want to commit a few hours at once / one session to to lenghty raiding.)

For PvP I can already see a queue time increase (more often the 5 minutes queue than 2 minutes) cause most people now just purely selected the PvE thing for the dailies. Might also get less people to do it as an easy alternative (if raids were not wanted).

Edited August 25, 2023 by Luthan.5236