Achievements for meaningful (aka reasonable) ascended rewards?

[Derdzvero.7051]

Apart from specialization collections and probably 1 more, all I've come across of are just plain BS in terms of cost/reward ratio - biggest example being "May Her Name Bring a New Dawn"..Are there any meaningful achievements, in your opinion and experience of course, that give ascended rewards for competition?

[LaFurion.3167]

I always thought the specialization asc weapons were wayyyyyyyyyyyy too out of order.

People with the masteries to complete said achievements would have asc weapons and probably gear and trinkets long before they are able to get the collection done.

I am a case in point. I wanted to do it super badly when I was like 1-60~ mastery level. Now I'm 256 mastery and STILL havnt done it. I just crafted my gear and weapons, even bolt incinerator and astralaria. I was gifted twilight.

For specialization weapons, especially hot ones they shouldn't have been as heavily gated as they are behind such huge experience and mastery level walls. I think pof is fine.

Ascended weapons from gear and achievements would definitely pikenewer players interests... for me, it's too late.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@LaFurion.3167 said:People with the masteries to complete said achievements would have asc weapons and probably gear and trinkets long before they are able to get the collection done.

This is correct. I remember back in Feb 2018 when I started GW2, looking at the achievement tab and wanting some of those rewards. Fast forward to today, I have a handful of characters in full ascended, several dozen unopened ascended chests in the bank, and still some of those collections remain incomplete. I guess the only conclusion would be, back then, ascendeds were much harder to obtain.

@ OP - might be helpful if you were more specific about what type of rewards. Any ascended will do?

If so, the Raise the Banner series of achievements reward you with an ascended stat selectable back piece, mainly for just completing the PoF story line with a half dozen collection pieces afterwards.

The Dragonsblood weapon set is fairly simple to obtain, provided you don't mind spending lots of time in Thunderhead. After crafting, you can stat swap the weapon to whatever you want.

Those are the only two that jump to mind. Most other collections that reward ascended items are usually accessories with pre-set stats, and it's usually much easier to just farm LS S3/S4 map currency and buy stat selectables from the vendors.

[Cameron.6450]

@LaFurion.3167 said:I always thought the specialization asc weapons were wayyyyyyyyyyyy too out of order.

I disagree. While the HoT weapons are a bit tougher now due to the increase in mystic coin price, the mastery requirements aren't really that daunting if you are actively playing through those maps. For instance, when I made an alt account, to gear my first character for fractals, I went through and completed a few of the specialisation weapon collections because they are easier and cheaper than crafting, as well as having (mostly) interesting skins for a fresh account.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@"LaFurion.3167" said:I always thought the specialization asc weapons were wayyyyyyyyyyyy too out of order.

People with the masteries to complete said achievements would have asc weapons and probably gear and trinkets long before they are able to get the collection done.

This is working as intended. There were three purposes behind the implementation of Ascended gear in GW2. The first was to give players who aren't happy unless they have some sort of progression goal "something to do." Collections also serve this goal because they are "something to do" that is a bit time-consuming. The second purpose was to give the economy a shot in the arm via Ascended crafting. If, as you say, players can get Ascended gear (via crafting for weapons/armor) before they get the collections done, then this means there was greater demand for the mats needed to make that gear. This created a more robust economy. The third reason, of course, was to buy ANet more time to work out horizontal progression systems as a stand-in for gear stat progression.

Now, since ANet is a business, they didn't say any of that in quite that way. No, they said Ascended was to "bridge the gap" between Exotic and Legendary. However, if you look at the effects produced by the introduction of Ascended gear, it's plain that all three "purposes" I've referred to were served. Ascended also created a gap in total stat availability that did not previously exist. The only gap it "bridged" was the gap in the amount of materials (and thus effort via farming gold or the mats) needed to craft Exotic versus Ascended. It did so, of course, by requiring players to get more mats to make non-Legendary "highest stats available" gear.

[Derdzvero.7051]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:@ OP - might be helpful if you were more specific about what type of rewards. Any ascended will do?

Sorry, you are correct of course.I'm excluding trinkets since those are easily obtainable for merchants around the LWS3/4 maps. Back items there are 2 collections I know of - Raising Banners & the one for repairing/rebooting/re-educating that robot in Sandswept Isles ;) But those can also be simply bought from merchants everywhere..

Basically all collections for Ascended weapons/armour I saw (incl Dragonsblood if I read it correctly) are simply pointless - you spend more gold AND resources AND time, than simply crafting it from scratch. I don't care about skins btw, might be that's why I find those pointless. Hence the question if I oversaw some hidden-gem-collection.. Calabolg is an example, sadly doesn't cover all weapon types..

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Derdzvero.7051 said:Basically all collections for Ascended weapons/armour I saw (incl Dragonsblood if I read it correctly) are simply pointless - you spend more gold AND resources AND time, than simply crafting it from scratch. I don't care about skins btw, might be that's why I find those pointless. Hence the question if I oversaw some hidden-gem-collection..

Well with the exception of the Dragonsblood, and to a lesser extent, Stellar weapons, the only other ascended items that are tied to achievements and involve crafting would be the Class Specialization achievements for HoT. With the cost of Mystic Coins now, yes they are more expensive to craft than if you just got the recipe and started from scratch.

For instance, a Zojja's Greatbow costs 49g to craft according to GW2efficiency, while Ydalir, the Dragonhunter collection, costs 52g just for the Mystic Longbow and the Machine Longbow.

PoF weapon collections are much cheaper - Expurgation (Firebrand collection) costs about 7g.

But outside of those, the rest just reward ascended items once the collection is completed. If the intent is to get an ascended item, then there are far cheaper ways to do so. Rather it's a reward for something you were willing to do anyways. For instance, collecting all the skins for Leystone Armor rewards you with an ascended armor box. The time it would take to farm enough map currency to purchase them all is way longer than it would take to farm the mats to craft an ascended armor piece. But I had the Heart of Maguuma reward track on repeat in WvW until had unlocked all those skins, and the chest was just a freebie at that point.

So yeah, if you want to obtain ascended stuff, achievements / collections isn't the most efficient method, unless you dislike farming materials and would rather play the game and let the rewards come when they do.

[Omega.6801]

Ascended gear is very available where the game kinda wants it from you, i.e. Fractals, Raids, WvW. Crafting can be tedious, but since you can stat swap and most likely don't need/want more than maybe two sets of gear per character, the tediousness decreases over time. Gettin Asc from achievements would be nice, but I always saw most of them, especially the ones related to new masteries as, more for the skins than the stats. That they're ascended is more of a bonus to me.

[Etria.3642]

@Derdzvero.7051 said:

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:@ OP - might be helpful if you were more specific about what type of rewards. Any ascended will do?

Sorry, you are correct of course.I'm excluding trinkets since those are easily obtainable for merchants around the LWS3/4 maps. Back items there are 2 collections I know of - Raising Banners & the one for repairing/rebooting/re-educating that robot in Sandswept Isles ;) But those can also be simply bought from merchants everywhere..

Basically all collections for Ascended weapons/armour I saw (incl Dragonsblood if I read it correctly) are simply pointless - you spend more gold AND resources AND time, than simply crafting it from scratch. I don't care about skins btw, might be that's why I find those pointless. Hence the question if I oversaw some hidden-gem-collection.. Calabolg is an example, sadly doesn't cover all weapon types..

Don't forget the Henge from Draconis Mons! But yeah. I mean, I think if you complete the whole Carapace set you get an ascended armor box? Same with Requiem.EDIT: completing the first collection for the raid armor also gets you a complete armor set, ascended. The second set too, but those become the precursors. Also you do get an infused backpiece along the way for Ad Infinitum. That is not consumed. And uh, Mawdrey.

[HazyDaisy.4107]

I personally don't need the ascended weapons or armor anymore, I mainly do the achievements for the points, but what really annoys me about some of those achievements is the overlooked assumptions that many new people might read into without reading. POF has a few of these, complete this 18 piece exo armor set / 16 piece exo weapon set collection and get a shiny ascended.....insignia / inscription. That's kind of wrong man :)

[Khisanth.2948]

@HazyDaisy.4107 said:I personally don't need the ascended weapons or armor anymore, I mainly do the achievements for the points, but what really annoys me about some of those achievements is the overlooked assumptions that many new people might read into without reading. POF has a few of these, complete this 18 piece exo armor set / 16 piece exo weapon set collection and get a shiny ascended.....insignia / inscription. That's kind of wrong man :)

Those are annoying. Now I have an inscription sitting around in my bank wasting space. >_<

[phs.6089]

I think the reasonable would be 'Leystone armor' collection. It might take a while. Im not an AP hunter and hardly do thsoe collections but I finished it at easy. Tho it was days when people would run DS alot.And ofc it's weapons from Knight of the Thorn.