New to ascended gear need help

[SneakyBatman.7918]

Hey guys I've had the game for about a month now, already bought both expansions and used one of my level 80 boost on a mesmer. Its the only class so far im interested in playing. I'm halfway through completing my mirage mastery. Just waiting until i can find another AB HP train. The build im shooting for is a condi mirage with all viper gear or atleast viper stats. Ive done some research on my own but honestly its a little overwhelming. I've heard i should craft them, I've heard i should just ignore it as ascended gear is not necessary, some have even mentioned that should try to get cheap ascended gear and stat swap. I've been told to do high level fractals/raids but i thought you need ascended gear to get to highlevel fractals or be successful in raids so that wont help as im still using the gear i got from the level 80 boost. I guess what im asking is, where is a good place to start for a new-ish player? should i focus on leveling crafting and craft the gear or should i work on getting cheap gear and stat swap? So far im just stockpiling gold and materials, i dont have a ton (40g and idk what supplies i have vs what i need). Any help or advice would be appreciated.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

Ascended gear can be broken down into 3 categories: Weapons, Armor and Trinkets.

 

Crafting is still the most reliable way to get ascended armor. There are some places where you can get armor boxes as drops, but the drop rate is unreliable. If you are lucky enough to get an armor box, choose the chest piece as that's the most expensive one to craft. Craft the rest.

 

For weapons I recommend looking at your elite specialization collections. Completing a collection is usually cheaper than leveling yet another crafting discipline and crafting the weapon. After finishing the HoT story you can also complete the Caladbolg quest for an ascended weapon.

 

Compared to the other 2 categories, ascended trinkets are rather cheap. For Trinkets look here: http://guildwars2.rocks/saving-money/cheap-ascended-trinkets/

[Khailyn.6248]

ok.. well. to start off, to get ascended gear you will need to at least craft the crafters marks. this applies to pve, fractals, wvw and pvp. So you will need Tailoring 500. Work on that first. While you are at 400 or higher, once a day craft spool of elonian thread and silken thread. These are daily cooldowns in order to craft Elonian Leather and Bolts of Damask. Do not refine them into these 2 though. The crafters tokens take the cooldown material and different materials if you choose to get ascended armor via a different game mode.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grandmaster_Mark

 

If you are still in your starter 'boosted' gear you are likely in soldier gear. Since you cannot get Viper gear until you can craft it at 400 tailoring, I would suggest either Carrion or Rampager depending on how comfortable you are with mesmers defense via skills. You can buy the 'named' armor versions of these cheaper on the trading post than crafting it. Either Ogden's armor or Norgu's. They wont be BiS but its a step in the right direction and should give a closer feel to the playstyle you want, being condition.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor

 

Just to clear up some questions. IF you craft your gear from scratch, it takes roughly 3 weeks to make a set of ascended armor just due to daily cooldowns. If you buy the finished materials (elonian leather, damask) from the trading post it can go faster. Crafting in conjunction with wvw or fractals can be cheaper but I believe more time consuming.

 

The whole 'make a cheap set and stat change' is largely a moot point now. It was the idea that you craft the ascended armor into say.. nomad's stats or rabid stats, and then tossed the armor into the mystic forge with a viper's intricate gossamer insignia and 2 other materials to change the stats on it. Used to be a very common practice. Prices of things have gone down a lot since HoT however.

 

Yes, you are correct that high level fractals takes ascended armor. The higher you go, the more required it becomes to get the needed agony resistance (whose agony slots are only on ascended items). The idea is you start off at low level fractals, and through loot drop chests, crafters tokens + pristine fractal relics that you would buy ascended pieces one at a time and build your agony resistance as you made you way up the levels. Agony and therefore needed agony resistance increases from level to level up to scale100. You DO NOT NEED ascended armor for raids, but it is often encouraged to make things easier due to the higher gear stats.

 

Long and short of it, level up tailoring , if you can get to 400 you can craft exotic viper (all recipes are sold in Tarir in Auric Basin), do you cooldowns every day. GL

[Turkeyspit.3965]

Great post. I'm pretty much in the same boat as the OP, about 2 months in, have 2 LV 80 characters.

 

Just to be clear then, Crafting is the best method of obtaining Ascended?

 

I (seem to) remember reading (in chat or forums) that you could purchase that gear either via tokens / currency dropped from dungeons or guild activities?? It just seemed there we lots of paths to getting the gear. None of my crafting careers is above 200 so I'm trying to prioritize which I level.

 

Thanks!

[Yamazuki.6073]

To add onto the stat swap, it wasn't just due to the gold cost, it also means you don't have to deal with gathering the Heart of Thorns specific currencies/drops to make the Fulgurites. They use around the same materials, just the Viper insignia requires you to get Bottle of Airship Oil, Pile of Auric Dust, Ley Line Spark, and more Obsidian Shard; those without enough of them to make their set sometimes just go with stat changing to avoid this step, as even if you crafted a Berserker set (which costs around the same as a Viper set) the extra couple gold to skip it is a lower cost than the time it would take.

 

For the materials you need you can use GW2effiency to look it up, as well as other things there.

Vipers-> https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator/a~0!b~1!c~0!d~1-75770;1-73225;1-71436;1-73852;1-75378;1-74264

Rabid-> https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator/a~0!b~1!c~0!d~1-47973;1-47975;1-47971;1-47972;1-47974;1-47970

Stat changing-> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stat_changing

 

I suggest selling the materials not needed for your set and buy the materials that require the once a day crafting materials to speed up the process.

[Eramonster.2718]

**Asc Weapons** - Profession class collections.

 

**Asc Armors** - Craftables, WvW (if your personal rank is enough), Fractals daily T3 & T4 and semi craftables (fractal pages + grandmaster tokens), Raids tokens (Form/join the easy ones like escort, mursaat etc) by PuG or Training guilds.

 

**Asc Rings, Accessories & Backpack** - Guild commendations, Laurel or WvW Laurel vendors, Story or Living Stories achievements/ collections.

 

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

Hi there. Its not worth to w8 for drops for first set. I guess since you are newer you dont have season 3 unlocked. This will make gearing much harder.

 

Here is the cheapest way i think.

Weapons and easy to get trinkets should be done first.

Get veilrender collection for axe.

Boost berserker/necro to 80 and complete colection for ascended totch.

From sesson 4 episode 2 map you can buy 2 ascended trinkets for volitile magic (i guess ring and accesory)

(You can buy 2 rings there and infuse only one so you can wear both)

I would suggest to buy chapter 3 of season 3. There you can get accesory, ring and backpack.

Last is amulet. You can get it from hot story achievment, from another season 3 map like lake doric or from fractals/wvw. The fractal one cost 100 pristine relics and since in tier 1 you can get only 4 per day (1 for every daily) it can take some time.

For armor you want to start wit carrion/rabit exotic, then level tailoring to 500 and start doing daily gated parts. Finish when you have enough gold.

 

For other ascended offhand (pistol) there is no other way to get it then to craft it. But i guess you can do it last.

 

Once you get first ascended its much easier since you can get drops from high fractals and also you get much more pristine relics so you can buy trinkets there if you dont want to farm lsx maps.

 

Gl on your journey

 

[CptAurellian.9537]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> Great post. I'm pretty much in the same boat as the OP, about 2 months in, have 2 LV 80 characters.

>

> Just to be clear then, Crafting is the best method of obtaining Ascended?

>

> I (seem to) remember reading (in chat or forums) that you could purchase that gear either via tokens / currency dropped from dungeons or guild activities?? It just seemed there we lots of paths to getting the gear. None of my crafting careers is above 200 so I'm trying to prioritize which I level.

>

> Thanks!

 

Crafting is the most reliable method for weapons and armor, let's say it that way. You get the respective discipline to 500, either craft the time-gated materials on cooldown or buy the refined ones from TP, buy the recipes for the item you want and then craft it. Purchase for fractal (and I think PvP/WvW) currencies also requires 500 crafting, you then just craft slightly different stuff. You may also be able to get a few relevant items from collection achievements. And keep in mind that trinkets cannot be crafted, their ascended versions usually have to be bought.

 

Once you have a set of ascended gear for one character, you have more roads towards further sets. High level fractal daily rewards regularly drop ascended chests and raid bosses drop items and magnetite shards, for which you can buy ascended gear. But for both activities, you should already have one more or less complete ascended set.

[Khailyn.6248]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> Great post. I'm pretty much in the same boat as the OP, about 2 months in, have 2 LV 80 characters.

>

> Just to be clear then, Crafting is the best method of obtaining Ascended?

>

> I (seem to) remember reading (in chat or forums) that you could purchase that gear either via tokens / currency dropped from dungeons or guild activities?? It just seemed there we lots of paths to getting the gear. None of my crafting careers is above 200 so I'm trying to prioritize which I level.

>

> Thanks!

 

I dont wanna go out there and say there is a 'best' method. All of the methods require 500 crafting and a certain number of cooldown materials. The similarities pretty much end there. If you enjoy crafting then you can certainly finish making materials. It may cost more materials in the long run and more cooldowns by a small margin but its an option (my preferred one anyway). If you go through fractals, youll have less crafting cooldowns and it will be ultimately cheaper than the previous method but youll be time gated by the daily fractal research pages. If you wish to get ascended armor from WvW you can, and its also cheaper material wise but a huge time sink to get the needed rank to buy it (on top of needing to unlock the exotic version of the armor via reward track first). I personally would rather pay the extra gold in materials and get it as easily as possible crafting it. Working on my 4th armor set currently just casually doing cooldowns at reset.