Why are Astral Coin Ascended Armor/Weapon Chests Core stats only?

[kiroho.4738]

On 3/30/2024 at 12:38 PM, Lion.6590 said:

The reason why they made WV ascended gear like that is probably to give more value for items used in ascended equipment stats swapping and to allow people to convert them into research notes.

Crafting Research Notes costs about 1s per Note.

Ascended weapons and armor from WV cost 600/400 AA. Salvaging one gives about 300-500 Research Notes on average.

Buying unlimited gold for 400AA gives you ~11.5g.
For 11.5g you can craft ~1150 Research Notes. More than double the amount.

This does not include any costs for stat swapping the ascended gear.

Conclusion: It's better to buy gold from AA and craft Research Notes than buying and salvaging the ascended gear.

[Gehenna.3625]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The point was, i believe, that expanding stat selection options on most stat-select gear, as well as adding stat selection to some sets that didn't have it then (both of which happened some time after PoF) didn't seem to impact the TP at all. As such it's quite likely that expanding stat selection options in vault armor/weapons would have similar levels of non-consequence on game economy.

And my point was that results from the past are not a guarantee for the future, which could be a reason for Anet to not include these stat sets in the WV. Also the stat selectable gear that does exist might not be as widely known by much of the player base, which could also explain why it didn't affect the TP prices and getting those items, even when known does take some effort/time to get together (the TP is instantaneous acquisition). The WV, on the other hand, is known to every and all players because it's part of the UI and triggers on log in.

So all in all, I'm confident that it could've been a reason for Anet to not assign these stat sets to WV ascended gear, but as I said, I don't know if it was.

[Leablo.2651]

On 3/30/2024 at 1:43 PM, Player.2475 said:

I was thinking more in terms of the Wizard's Vault rewards. It can be generalized, since bags will give you a random assortment of materials, and most of the materials you get are materials you will never directly craft with. Even if you naively sold all materials you got without knowing you need them to craft something, you only lose 15% of its value due to tax.

As for the WV:

• 90 non-repeatable gold bags for 6 AA each -> 90g for 540 AA
• 60 non-repeatable mystic coins for 9 AA each -> 114g for 540 AA
• 30 non-repeatable heavy crafting bags for 8 AA each -> 22.5g for 240 AA
• 20 non-repetable mastery coffers for 15 AA each -> 20g for 300 AA

Depending on stats and weapon type or armor weight, 1 piece of ascended costs 20-40g. You can go for a cheaper stat combination and stat-swap it for like 1-3g.

In other words, you will most likely be able to fully fill ascended armor and weapon slots if you get other Vault rewards instead of wasting your time on the garbage 400 or 600 AA ascended chests. Even if you are going for the most expensive ascended set, you will get almost twice the value for the same amount of AA from the other rewards.

In conclusion: the 3 ascended armor chests and especially the 1 ascended weapon chest are overpriced.
 

The only way your logic works is if you earn so little AA in each quarter that you are actually having to choose between the ascended chests and the rewards you listed. Those rewards can be exhausted with just a week or two's worth of AA bonuses by a regular player. For the remainder of the quarter, most of us are dumping AA into unlimited bags of gold, at a rate of 35 AA = 1g, so that is the baseline for conversion that will apply to most interested parties. At the low end of 20g to craft an ascended piece, this makes a chest worth 700 AA minimum, but they still cost less than that.

(BTW, you seemed to have missed the memo that the mastery coffer potions were nerfed this quarter which made them worth less than the bags of gold.)

Another apparent inaccuracy in your post: Viper's insignia costs 4g to craft, plus 5 ectos for a swap so doing it costs about 5.5g. As an example, Yassith's Spire costs 38.5g to craft directly while the cheapest other spire costs 33.5g. Crafting the dummy spire and swapping to Yassith will cost a total of 39g so it's actually less cost efficient than just crafting directly. But if you spend 600 AA (=17g) on a weapon chest and swap, then it only costs you 22.5g total for this weapon.

[willow.8209]

On 3/30/2024 at 1:43 PM, Player.2475 said:

I was thinking more in terms of the Wizard's Vault rewards

I see where you said that and I missed the meaning. Thanks for further explaining. 🙂