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Now that the dust has settled


Kirin.7306

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They were only upgraded to the higher ascended stat rates, aside from that legendaries remained the same as they always were.. only other exception was when the precursor crafting was added which give you an alternate way of obtaining them.

You have always had to grind for them one way or another, and outside of the skins and the ability to stat swap on the go there is nothing that special about legends.Plenty of players still don't feel like they are worth the effort, although the legendary armoury thing that is supposed to be coming will make them far more appealing to the average player since legends won't have to be swapped between characters anymore.

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@"Kirin.7306" said:Anet was it worth it money vs reputation wise to go back on your old philosophy of no grind to add Ascended/Legendary gear to GW2?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_equipment

Ascended gear was released as far back as November 12, 2012, merely 2 and 1/2 months after the games launch as a direct result of exotic gear being to easy, and mostly to fast, to acquire. That was by 2012 standards and not even todays where exotic gear is not even a fraction of the time or cost as back then. Same goes for ascended gear which too has significantly reduced in time and cost in acquisition.

Legendary gear has depreciated in effort just as much and even the higher cost of T2 and T2.5 legendary weapons and the latest trinkets does not make up for that. The first legendary weapons took months of very dedicated farming and at least 12 hours per day and more of dedication (and often help of guild members). With 12 hours of farming today, you can acquire enough gold/resources to afford a legendary item ever 2 weeks give or take.

Not sure which tree you are barking up because the "changes" you are talking about are 8 years past. If you hold a grudge over new gear 8 years later, you really need to move on.

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Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

As for legendary armour/trinkets/backpack... well, I'll admit the backpack is a little useful if you want obscure stats, but the rest of it is kinda pointless because frontloading damage stats is generally the way to go in gw2, and there are only a few relevant stat sets in gw2 (minstrels/trailblazer = wvw, berserkers/marauders = PvE power, sinister/viper = PvE condi, Harriers/Magi/Commanders = PvE support)

As for legendary weapons? Yeah, they're just a pain because I can never keep track of where the sigils go when I swap loadout/stats. Pretty sure I've sold my Exordium's sigil of force by mistake three times already. In all honesty, ascended gear is just flat out better for me.

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Ascended has existed for 7 years and has been made easier to get over time. It is still only required for fractals. The justified furor at the beginning is no longer valid

Legendary armour was implemented due to demands and requests from the raiding and competitve communities.

Legendary weapons are easier to get now than they were

I don’t really see how Anet can regret anything here because the grind has gone down over time and the early problems no longer exist

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As I remember it Anet never said there would be no grind at all, only that you wouldn't be required to grind to access different parts of the game. (I think the main point was that you could start PvP right away, without having to level up and get equipment from PvE.) That didn't change when ascended equipment was introduced and it's still true today.

Even Fractals can be started without ascended equipment and all the different Fractals can be accessed at lower levels so if you just want to play each one you only need a little bit of agony resistance. You could get a couple of ascended trinkets with laurels and by the time you've gone through Fractals 1-19 you'll have more than enough agony resistance infusions to combine and apply to those trinkets to get you through Fractals 20-25. The higher levels are exactly the same maps, just with different difficulties, so if you just want to see the content there's no need to complete them. (And if you do want to then you'll likely get the ascended equipment you need, along with more agony resistance, while you work your way up the scale.)

For everything outside Fractals exotic equipment is fine, and is widely available and cheap. Even raids don't require ascended equipment, although it is recommended, but again doing raids is a good way to get ascended equipment, so if you're raiding enough to need ascended you'll get it just by playing.

That 'no grind required to progress' philosophy is one of the things I like about GW2 (and GW1). I didn't think adding ascended was necessary in spite of endless complaints about a lack of progression after level 80 in those first two months. (I think the problem was actually more a lack of content - the only stuff in the base game specifically for level 80 was Cursed Shore and the Arah dungeon, and I think people coming from other MMOs hadn't yet adjusted to the idea that playing lower level content was still viable at level 80.) I still don't think ascended is necessary but I think they've done a good job keeping it as a largely closed system where the only part of the game which requires it is also a good source for it, and everyone else can safely ignore it if they want to.

It was months before I had any ascended equipment at all (I think I only got it when they added trinkets to the laurel vendor, and then only when I was done with other stuff I wanted to buy with laurels) and literally years (6 I think) before I had a character in full ascended, precisely because I never saw the need. I made some pieces because I liked the skins, I got others as lucky drops or collection rewards and finally decided to fill in the missing pieces because I was looking for a mid-length goal and something to do with materials I'd saved up. Most of my characters still use exotic armour and weapons, although I think all my level 80s have ascended trinkets now.

So I'd say it was worth it. The people who wanted a long progression grind got it with Fractals and the ascended/agony system, and the rest of us could ignore it and focus on what we wanted to do without having to worry about it.

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@Danikat.8537 said:As I remember it Anet never said there would be no grind at all, only that you wouldn't be required to grind to access different parts of the game.

The exact words used:

In most games, you go out and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff.We just don't want players to grind in Guild Wars 2, no one enjoys that, no one find it fun, we want to change how people view combat

The entire segment on grind was about combat and how the game's combat is designed to be fun and engaging and not a boring grind like in other games.

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@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

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@hihey.1075 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

Don't forget you can stat swap ascended armour/weapons at the mystic forge. Don't forget to remove infusions with an infusion extractor for 24s from a fractal merchant. You can also stat swap stat swappable rings by infusing or attuning them at the mystic forge.

Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats).

Amulet (any stat): Complete HoT act 3 achivements. Requires migraine, so make sure you do it with good friends.

Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories.

Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols.

Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep.

Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger.

Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore.

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@Westenev.5289 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats).

Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories.

Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols.

Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep.

Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger.

Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore.

Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/

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@hihey.1075 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats).

Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories.

Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols.

Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep.

Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger.

Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore.

Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/

It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?).

If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3.

And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing.

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@Westenev.5289 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats).

Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories.

Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols.

Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep.

Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger.

Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore.

Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/

It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?).

If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3.

And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing.

But that's still more time than it would take to get a full set of exotics. That's where the question comes in.

Now there may be cases where some stats are quicker/cheaper to get as ascended vs exotic, but that's probably not the case for most stats.

And for new players, exotics will always be quicker and cheaper because new players would most likely have to get the appropriate craft level up to 500 before they could craft what they need, or reach the point in the story where they can do those achievements, or earn enough fractal ranks to get ascended gear drops, etc.

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@Seera.5916 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats).

Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories.

Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols.

Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep.

Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger.

Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore.

Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/

It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?).

If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3.

And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing.

But that's still more time than it would take to get a full set of exotics. That's where the question comes in.

Now there may be cases where some stats are quicker/cheaper to get as ascended vs exotic, but that's probably not the case for most stats.

And for new players, exotics will always be quicker and cheaper because new players would most likely have to get the appropriate craft level up to 500 before they could craft what they need, or reach the point in the story where they can do those achievements, or earn enough fractal ranks to get ascended gear drops, etc.

That's true for Armour, which is why I recommended 2 sources of ez exotics (preferably bladed, because the collection awards a piece of ascended if I recall correctly). Verdant Brink is also a popular meta, so getting event participation and crowbars shouldn't be a problem. Heck, I'm pretty sure you can buy exotic berserker armour off the TP for less than 10g. Statwise, armour is worth less than the weapon or trinkets, so ascended armour shouldn't be the priority if you're looking at running berserkers.

But for Trinkets, I believe lws3 and lws4 offer extremely easy ways to get stat selectable gear. Unless you're getting Berserker, this is easily the easiest way to get trinkets without laurels. Speaking of Berserker, 10 pristine fractal relics isn't a big ask for rings - so much so you can arrive at tier 1 fractals and do the dailies with level up rings. You'll have the rings in a week, one day if a friend carries you through t4's.

Getting 500 crafting is fairly cheap, laughably so. Gw2crafts has trivialised crafting. But for what we need, 450 is fine - I can't stress how good it would be to begin getting into good habits like stockpiling things like charged quartz or spools of elonian thread. Doing this is practically why I can make ascended armour on demand.

Praying on RNG gods to get ascended gear isn't a great plan, esp since you need ascended gear to get enough AR to run t3 or t4 fractals, and people could live their lives without ever seeing a tequatl hoarde. Raiding might be an option, but in that case there is no rush for ascended gear. Better to focus on what you can do rather than rely on luck.

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@Westenev.5289 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats).

Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories.

Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols.

Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep.

Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger.

Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore.

Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/

It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?).

If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3.

And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing.

But that's still more time than it would take to get a full set of exotics. That's where the question comes in.

Now there may be cases where some stats are quicker/cheaper to get as ascended vs exotic, but that's probably not the case for most stats.

And for new players, exotics will always be quicker and cheaper because new players would most likely have to get the appropriate craft level up to 500 before they could craft what they need, or reach the point in the story where they can do those achievements, or earn enough fractal ranks to get ascended gear drops, etc.

That's true for Armour, which is why I recommended 2 sources of ez exotics (preferably bladed, because the collection awards a piece of ascended if I recall correctly). Verdant Brink is also a popular meta, so getting event participation and crowbars shouldn't be a problem. Heck, I'm pretty sure you can buy exotic berserker armour off the TP for less than 10g. Statwise, armour is worth less than the weapon or trinkets, so ascended armour shouldn't be the priority if you're looking at running berserkers.

But for Trinkets, I believe lws3 and lws4 offer extremely easy ways to get stat selectable gear. Unless you're getting Berserker, this is easily the easiest way to get trinkets without laurels. Speaking of Berserker, 10 pristine fractal relics isn't a big ask for rings - so much so you can arrive at tier 1 fractals and do the dailies with level up rings. You'll have the rings in a week, one day if a friend carries you through t4's.

Getting 500 crafting is fairly cheap, laughably so. Gw2crafts has trivialised crafting. But for what we need, 450 is fine - I can't stress how good it would be to begin getting into good habits like stockpiling things like charged quartz or spools of elonian thread. Doing this is practically why I can make ascended armour on demand.

Praying on RNG gods to get ascended gear isn't a great plan, esp since you need ascended gear to get enough AR to run t3 or t4 fractals, and people could live their lives without ever seeing a tequatl hoarde. Raiding might be an option, but in that case there is no rush for ascended gear. Better to focus on what you can do rather than rely on luck.

You can also now get asended armor from strike mission tokens.

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@"Westenev.5289" said:It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?).

That's the issue: "one or two months of playing" is simply excessive for what GW2 was intended to be. I would somehow accept it for legendary equipment which allows to change stats on the spot, but what if I wanted to change gear? Do I need to spend another "one or two months" for min-maxing? That's simply too much - and way beyond what I'd define as "more easily obtainable than exotics".

@"Westenev.5289" said:If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3.

I am a returning player and do not even know what a winterberry is, let alone how to access "LWS3 EP3" :3

@"Westenev.5289" said:And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing.

This statement is correct and that's why - in the end - I still go around with my "unoptimized" gear and kick asses all around; but still, the few times I die I cannot avoid thinking "heh, if only I had that item...", which is silly, but it's exactly how "top tier players" like to play :)

I'll be frank: I took a look at the wiki for all the ways you mentioned for achieving Ascended Gear, and my mind literally exploded. Whenever I opened one item, I had to look up something like 10 other pages just to see the "ingredients" required for that item alone. For an exotic, I just go on the trading post, spend my 1-10gold on it, and that's it.

(DISCLAIMER: I am a WvW player, and I despise PvE)

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@Kirin.7306 said:Anet was it worth it money vs reputation wise to go back on your old philosophy of no grind to add Ascended/Legendary gear to GW2?

If after 8.5 years you don't know how to aquire ascended gear with minimal effort then you propably don't need it.

Was it worth adding them? From an ingame economy perspective: Oh yes. Imagine how even more worthless materials would be without them.

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@Westenev.5289 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately.

Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic.

I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance.

Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats).

Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories.

Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols.

Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep.

Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger.

Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore.

Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/

It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?).

If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3.

And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing.

But that's still more time than it would take to get a full set of exotics. That's where the question comes in.

Now there may be cases where some stats are quicker/cheaper to get as ascended vs exotic, but that's probably not the case for most stats.

And for new players, exotics will always be quicker and cheaper because new players would most likely have to get the appropriate craft level up to 500 before they could craft what they need, or reach the point in the story where they can do those achievements, or earn enough fractal ranks to get ascended gear drops, etc.

That's true for Armour, which is why I recommended 2 sources of ez exotics (preferably bladed, because the collection awards a piece of ascended if I recall correctly). Verdant Brink is also a popular meta, so getting event participation and crowbars shouldn't be a problem. Heck, I'm pretty sure you can buy exotic berserker armour off the TP for less than 10g. Statwise, armour is worth less than the weapon or trinkets, so ascended armour shouldn't be the priority if you're looking at running berserkers.

But for Trinkets, I believe lws3 and lws4 offer extremely easy ways to get stat selectable gear. Unless you're getting Berserker, this is easily the easiest way to get trinkets without laurels. Speaking of Berserker, 10 pristine fractal relics isn't a big ask for rings - so much so you can arrive at tier 1 fractals and do the dailies with level up rings. You'll have the rings in a week, one day if a friend carries you through t4's.

Getting 500 crafting is fairly cheap, laughably so. Gw2crafts has trivialised crafting. But for what we need, 450 is fine - I can't stress how good it would be to begin getting into good habits like stockpiling things like charged quartz or spools of elonian thread. Doing this is practically why I can make ascended armour on demand.

Praying on RNG gods to get ascended gear isn't a great plan, esp since you need ascended gear to get enough AR to run t3 or t4 fractals, and people could live their lives without ever seeing a tequatl hoarde. Raiding might be an option, but in that case there is no rush for ascended gear. Better to focus on what you can do rather than rely on luck.

But LWS3 and LWS4 are a far aways off for a new player. So is level 450 crafting. They won't have been able to stockpile the daily limited items like existing players have enough in advance to make ascended crafting cheaper or quicker.

Exotics are going to be the quickest and easiest way for new players to gear up on average for most content. Then they can work towards earning ascended gear of the stats they want - if they so choose.

Once you're established, you get whatever level gear in the way that's most fun for you. Which is a wide variety for both exotic and ascended.

But you can't just claim ascended is always cheaper and easier than exotic. For new players, exotic will always win short of anything that needs laurels to buy if they haven't been buying a lot with laurels while leveling up.

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@Seera.5916 said:But LWS3 and LWS4 are a far aways off for a new player. So is level 450 crafting. They won't have been able to stockpile the daily limited items like existing players have enough in advance to make ascended crafting cheaper or quicker.

Exotics are going to be the quickest and easiest way for new players to gear up on average for most content. Then they can work towards earning ascended gear of the stats they want - if they so choose.

Once you're established, you get whatever level gear in the way that's most fun for you. Which is a wide variety for both exotic and ascended.

But you can't just claim ascended is always cheaper and easier than exotic. For new players, exotic will always win short of anything that needs laurels to buy if they haven't been buying a lot with laurels while leveling up.

Did you know the cost of 400 armoursmithing is 25 gold from scratch? +6g for 500?Did you know the cost of 400 leatherworking is 23 gold from scratch? +14g for 500?Did you know the cost of 400 tailoring is 23 gold from scratch? +6g for 500?

Not an unreasonable cost for a returning player. I seriously suggest checking out gw2crafts.

I suggested Living World ascended trinkets specifically because it doesn't require laurals and bitterfrost frontier is quickly farmable if that's what you want to do (while the other lws3 maps are much more long term and casual friendly). This is also where you'll see the most difference in stats, and also the most difficulty in finding the correct stats for your build.

@"hihey.1075" said:That's the issue: "one or two months of playing" is simply excessive for what GW2 was intended to be. I would somehow accept it for legendary equipment which allows to change stats on the spot, but what if I wanted to change gear? Do I need to spend another "one or two months" for min-maxing? That's simply too much - and way beyond what I'd define as "more easily obtainable than exotics".

I am a returning player and do not even know what a winterberry is, let alone how to access "LWS3 EP3" :3

This statement is correct and that's why - in the end - I still go around with my "unoptimized" gear and kick kitten all around; but still, the few times I die I cannot avoid thinking "heh, if only I had that item...", which is silly, but it's exactly how "top tier players" like to play :)

I'll be frank: I took a look at the wiki for all the ways you mentioned for achieving Ascended Gear, and my mind literally exploded. Whenever I opened one item, I had to look up something like 10 other pages just to see the "ingredients" required for that item alone. For an exotic, I just go on the trading post, spend my 1-10gold on it, and that's it.

(DISCLAIMER: I am a WvW player, and I despise PvE)

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Ascended gear isn't much better than Exotic - if you died in exotic, chances are you would have died in Ascended. We're talking an improvement of like +5%, not enough to stop a zerg from steamrolling over you I'm sure.

Everyone has their own tips and tricks. There's no right or wrong way, and there are plenty of ways to earn Ascended gear. It's kind of like a rolling ball, if you get into the right rhythm or habits the gear just comes naturally over time. I suggest finding a friend or maybe asking your wvw colleagues for advice - maybe they could explain how they got their ascended gear, or explain their lack thereoff.

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