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    Guild Wars 2 I swear I've double checked everything

    July 15, 2021

    Guild Wars 2 I swear I've double checked everything

    I swear I've double checked everything

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 09:08 PM PDT

    My second legendary underwater weapon! ~PRAISE JOKO~

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 06:19 AM PDT

    Even Legendary Upgrades have lore.

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 12:18 AM PDT

    It do be like that

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 07:19 AM PDT

    Ascended Mordrem Champion

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 09:58 AM PDT

    Our character made a lot of comments in open world during HoT and Season 3, but then stopped with PoF onwards

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 12:31 AM PDT

    When an event happened or when you arrived at a certain location, your character makes comments, like we have in raids too. This makes your character...well a character, outside the story, it's awesome imo, and makes the game stand out from other MMOS, but since PoF, we stopped, or almost stopped.

    ​

    I wish it would come back. It's an extra touch that makes the game special to me, I remember being very impressed by this the first time my character spoke in verdant brink

    submitted by /u/DemethValknut
    [link] [comments]

    the wings i've been waiting for...

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 05:22 AM PDT

    The purple griffon

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 11:05 PM PDT

    Female Norn Warrior since day 1, thanks to Jora.

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 06:03 AM PDT

    I wish we could see the lore for the weapons already crafted

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 04:23 PM PDT

    Complete guide to getting full ascended gear for new/returning players

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 07:52 AM PDT

    I was mulling over the methods of ascended gear and how I geared my first character, and I realised that all the information is usually either straight to the point, but lacking in detail, or detailed but spread out. I wanted to make a post where every single viable source of ascended gear for a player who doesn't know where to start is explained in detail, and using that information to deduce the easiest/cheapest/quickest/most reliable way to obtain somebody's first set of ascended gear. I have tried to highlight each section, so feel free to skip around to whatever is relevant to you. The goal here is to provide a linear explanation of every aspect of the ascended gearing process, covering absolutely everything, but rather than being something to read in one sitting, this can be referred to whenever necessary or at whichever section is relevant to where you are in the gearing process. This should allow you to fully understand each aspect of how to obtain ascended gear with no prior knowledge. As this post is extremely long, I will add a bracketed [OPTIONAL] beside each section which I believe can be skipped if you don't need exact details. I will also include a TL;DR at the bottom to summarise the post in it's most basic form within 2 paragraphs if you can't be bothered to read this whole thing.

    Within this guide, I'll be referencing the following community-built websites: (note that for the first two, they require your account's API key to be effective. This provides the site with various information of your account which you can filter specifically when generating the key.)

    Important Resources

    GW2crafts: This site provides guides to level every crafting profession in the game to the max level (other than cook 400-500). The 'guides' come in the form of a list, which provides you the items to craft/discover at every level, as well as a compounded shopping list. This is calculated actively, meaning it will always show you the cheapest way to level your profession from 0 to 500 at any point in time. Do note that because this is actively shifting, the path you see on one day may differ from the next. There are fast guides and regular guides. Fast guides are slightly more expensive, but have a much smaller buy-list. Regular guides require a larger variety of items, but are cheaper in total.

    GW2efficiency: This site provides various information on your account as well as statistics on various things within GW2 based on players who have registered an account. This can provide information such as your account value, playtime statistics, unlocked recipes on your account, etc. For ascended gearing specifically, we'll be using the crafting calculator, which can be found under Crafting>Calculator. This allows us to enter an item which we intend to craft, and it will show us the necessary components to craft the item, breaking down every component's crafting pieces as well as showing a price comparison of buying the item off the TP directly and crafting the item yourself, by buying its components from the TP, using owned materials, or a combination of both. This will be used heavily later on when it comes to crafting ascended weapons and armor.

    Metabattle, Discretize, Snowcrows, Luckynoobs and GW2mists: These 5 platforms share similar purposes. They provide the community with 'meta' builds. This is used so that you're able to see what items you need to obtain before you start. This is very important for the weapons you choose to gear your character with, as well as what stat combinations to use. Metabattle is used for open world builds, but they also show builds for all gamemodes (however, you'd be better off using the following sites for anything other than open world). Discretize provides builds focused on fractals. Snowcrows and luckynoobs provide builds focused on Raids. GW2mists provides builds focused on WvW. If this is a little confusing, not to worry. It's relatively simple once you understand what you intend to do with your ascended gear. Firstly, consider the flexibility of your gear. Are you planning to use it in a specific gamemode? If so, use the builds provided on the respective gamemodes. If you plan to use the gear set on multiple builds, such as running an equipment template of full berserker's gear with two separate build templates, you may want to cross-check the websites. If you're unfamiliar with builds, they are almost always named and arranged as such. [Role]/[Damage Type] [Elite specialisation]. The roles include roles like healer, quickness or alacrity (boons which are provided by specific classes, support builds). If there is no role, it will always be named power or condition. These are the two damage types in GW2. Finally, the elite specialisation is the umbrella term for all builds under it and is what we usually use to refer to builds. If you're still unsure, it's safe to gear towards a damage build. Every class has a viable DPS build. Power is often simpler to gear and understand, but certain specialisations like firebrand or scourge can be just as easy, but are inherently condition damage specialisations. We'll be using these websites do decide what stat combinations to build towards.

    https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Special:RunQuery/Equipment_query : This is a specific page on the wiki which allows you to use filters to identify items, generally used by stat combination and type. A common use of this is to check whether there exists trinkets with specific pre-defined stats. For example, we can use the filters to check for non-selectable Viper's trinkets. There are no such items, and thus we can conclude that there is a limited number of ways we can obtain trinkets with Viper's stats.

    Why Ascended Gear? [OPTIONAL]

    Firstly, let's start with why people decide to go for ascended gear as it's an extremely common question. People often tout that unless you're going to do high level fractals, exotic gear is good enough. Now, that's very true. You can easily do most end-game content with just full exotics. This is very true. Ultimately, ascended gear is a luxury item compared to exotics, because the stats are "only" 5%-15% higher. This number will vary based on circumstances, such as whether crit-capping or condi duration-capping is considered in the build, specifics of a specialisation etc. To fully gear a character with ascended gear under optimal circumstances (with crafting 500 unlocked), it will cost around 250-300 gold. This is a lot if you consider that the stat increase isn't marginally higher relative to the price difference. Then, why do players craft ascended gear? This ultimately comes down to a few reasons mainly. Players like to max out their builds, builds are easier to copy and paste from websites when you use ascended gear, the gear difference becomes noticable in gamemodes such as WvW, are necessary in gamemodes like fractals, or people like just having optimal stats even if it's expensive. Ultimately, ascended gear is a choice, not a necessity. Though, most players engaging end-game content tend to end up gearing their characters in ascended.

    Components and Breakdown of Ascended Gear

    Ascended gear can be broken down into 4 sub-categories.

    1) Armor

    2) Weapons

    3) Backpiece

    4) Trinkets (Rings, Accessories and Amulets)

    Within this sub-category, backpieces are loosely tied together with trinkets. Weapons and armor are linked in the fact that they have very similar acquisition methods.

    The issue that comes with choosing ascended gear other than which specific weapons you'll be using is the attribute combination it uses. For example, berserker stats provide power, precision and ferocity. Ascended trinkets and backpieces cannot have their stats changed once selected with very few exceptions (Mist trinkets or bloodstone fen trinkets). Weapons and armor pieces however can have their stats changed in the mystic forge after being crafted/selected. However, this removes any infusions and upgrades unless removed first, and will cost about 5-10 gold in crafting materials.

    Attribute combinations (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations)

    Typically, the main stat prefixes which you will encounter with meta builds is Berserker's, Viper's and Harrier's. These pieces are typically used throughout the entire gear template, though there are some builds which will exchange pieces for others such as changing some Berserker's to Assassin's, or some Viper's for Sinister's. In the community, we usually refer to our gear by their stat prefixes rather than describing the stats it provides. Very important to note, the ascended stat prefixes are different for ascended gear than their exotic counterpart. For example, a berserker's ascended piece will have the prefix of Zojja's instead. Viper's will change to Yassith's, Harrier's will change to Zehtuka's etc. The full list can be found in the link above.

    Another important thing to note is that attribute combinations are categorised by when they were released. This will impact the availability of and ease of obtaining certain stat combinations, such as a vendor selling Magi's or Berserker's trinkets, but not Viper's or Harrier's. The three main categories are 'Core', 'Heart of Thorns' (HoT) and 'Path of Fire' (PoF). Core includes stats such as Berserker's, Magi's and Shaman's. Heart of Thorns includes stats such as Viper's and Marauder's. Path of Fire includes stats such as Harrier's and Marshal's. Various trinkets and weapon/armor recipes will have different methods of acquisition based on the attribute combination it possesses. Generally, core stats are easy to obtain, while PoF and HoT gear pieces require a bit more effort for their trinkets.

    Order of Approach

    In terms of stat increase, the order goes trinkets (including backpiece) > weapons > armor. This is typically the order that people will tell you to approach obtaining ascended gear. We will revisit this later in the relevant sections. In terms of ease of acquisition, trinkets and backpieces are the easiest, followed by weapons and armor being tied. A full set of ascended trinkets can take you under a week from scratch optimally, but it does require a degree of farming, whereas weapons and armor have a higher gold cost but can technically be obtained very quickly if you have the gold. Often times, you can collect all of these types of gear pieces simultaneously rather than consecutively.

    Trinkets (Relevant wiki link: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket)

    Backpieces here function separately from trinkets here in terms of acquisition, and as such will have a separate section.

    First and foremost, with trinkets in this game, there exists a mechanic known as 'unique' items. If a trinket is unique, which most pre-defined trinkets are, you will be unable to equip two copies of the same item on the same equipment template. For example, you cannot equip 2 Rings of Red Death. For Rings specifically, you can get around this by attuning (cheap) or infusing (expensive) the ring. If you have 2 copies of a ring, and one is attuned/infused while the other is not, you will be able to equip both. As a rule of thumb, if two trinkets have different names, you will be able to equip both simultaneously. This may be an issue in higher level fractals however, because it means than between 2 rings you will only have a maximum of 5 infusion slots, which could impact the amount of agony resistance you can equip.

    Trinkets come in two forms. Pre-defined stats and selectable stats. Pre-defined means that the trinkets are either obtained or sold with stats already selected on the item. This means you are unable to change its stats at all, but rather are stuck with whatever prefix you get. Selectable means that the trinket has stats which can be selected after obtaining it and does not have any stat tied to it until you select it, after which it is permanent. Nearly every non-raid trinket you encounter with selectable stats will allow you to select any stat combination available based on your expansions.

    For ascended trinkets, there are a variety of methods, most of which have no gold cost attached, but rather other forms of currency. We can sort trinkets based on their stat combinations based on core, HoT and PoF.

    The following sections specifically detail the methods to obtaining different stat combination trinkets based on core/HoT/PoF and being pre-defined or selectable. The conclusion and fastest way to obtain trinkets will be in Optimal Way To Obtain Trinkets.

    Pre-Defined Core Trinkets [OPTIONAL]

    Note that while there are stat combinations which are labelled as core, the following methods do not apply, as they do not have pre-defined trinkets at all. These exceptions are Zealot's, Valkyrie's, Giver's, Settler's, Shaman's, Dire, Bringer's. These will need to be obtained via stat-selectable trinkets.

    For pre-defined core stats, the primary methods include fractal vendors (core rings), guild commendation trader (core accessories), laurel merchants (core trinkets). This however excludes Assassin, Carrion, Magi and Sentinel stats, which are considered core stats, but do not have easily obtainable pre-defined trinkets for purchase. For these exceptions, only accessories are obtainable via dungeon wardrobe achievements, whereafter they can be bought from laurel merchants. To obtain these stat combinations, you will need to obtain trinkets with selectable stats instead. I will cover this in further detail below.

    Rings can be obtained cheaply from the fractal vendor inside the fractals of the mist lobby, BUY-2046 PFR for 10 pristine fractal relics each. Pristine fractal relics are time-gated currency obtained from playing fractals. These are obtained via doing daily fractals (e.g. daily tier 1 snowblind) or daily recommended fractals (e.g. daily recommended fractal - scale 12). With just tier 1 fractals, you can obtain up to 4 pristine fractals per day. With fractals, ascended rings/accessories also drop somewhat frequently, with the drop rate increasing as the fractal scale increases. This however is unreliable, because the rings that drop are pre-defined core stats, so you'd need to get really lucky to get them from a drop.

    Accessories are most easily obtained from the guild commendation trader for 12 guild commendations and 5 gold. Guild commendations are obtained by doing guild missions, and can only be rewarded once a week per mission. You can get up to 12-15 guild commendations weekly if you complete all missions. My recommendation is to find a guild who does their missions weekly and join them for the commendations.

    The other method to obtain pre-defined core trinkets is the laurel merchant. Amulets are most easily obtained this way. For 30 laurels, or 20 laurels and 250 Badges of Honor (which are easy to obtain via WvW), you receive a pre-defined core amulet. The laurel vendors also provide rings and accessories, but these are much easier obtained by the two methods above. These trinkets are also obtainable via the raid vendor, however they tend to have hefty gold prices attached and require time-gated Magnetite Shards, so these aren't recommended for a variety of reasons.

    Certain stat combinations such as Sinister's and Nomad's can also be obtained via story achievements in the achievements panel. Once these items are obtained, they will be sold by vendors. For Sinister's, they are sold for bandit crests in the silverwastes rather than laurels. The other notable exception is Diviner's, which has pre-defined stat trinkets, but are only obtainable via a laurel vendor in Thunderhead Peaks (LWS4 episode 5 map).

    Pre-Defined HoT and PoF Trinkets [OPTIONAL]

    For HoT trinkets, they are not sold at any vendor currently. Rather, a limited amount of Marauder trinkets can be obtained via the story achievements in Heart of Thorns Act 1-3 categories within the Story Journal tab in the achievement panel. For any other stats such as Viper's, there are currently no pre-defined trinkets, and as such you will need to use stat-selectable trinkets to obtain them.

    For PoF trinkets, various Renowned Heart vendors in the 5 core Crystal Desert maps sell all 3 trinket types with Marshal, Harrier and Grieving stats for Elegy Mosaics/Trade Contracts, Pulsing Brandsparks and Laurels. In my opinion, if you have the currency, these are relatively cheap in terms of gold cost and can be considered. Plaguedoctor's trinkets require the LWS4 episode 3 map Domain of Kourna to be bought from a laurel vendor.

    Stat-Selectable Trinkets [OPTIONAL]

    This is where people mainly get ascended trinkets from, especially those which do not have easily obtainable core stats. These are obtained a variety of ways. The primary method of obtaining stat-selectable trinkets which are the best way to get stats such as Viper's is through farming the living world season 3 maps. These maps are currently being re-released for free, and now is the best time to be farming the currency if you need it. Every LWS3 map will have a vendor which sells any combination of an accessory, backpiece, amulet and ring. No vendor will have all 4 on a single map, so you will require a minimum of 2 separate vendors/living world currencies to get a full set of ascended trinkets. These vendors will sell you stat-selectable ascended trinkets for unbound magic and the map's respective currency, e.g. fresh winterberries. The most common map to do this is Bitterfrost frontier, due to the speed of the gathering route as well as the drop rate. Here is a farming route from youtube. Alternatively, you can use TaCo if you have it. The living world season 4 maps dragonfall and sandswept isles have similar vendors and mechanics. However, volatile magic is generally more valuable than unbound magic, and the farming routes tend to be faster in lws3 maps because they're smaller, so they're still more common. Note that the bloodstone fen trinkets can have their stats changed as well, which is unique to only that map. Also important to note is that the maps' nodes are based on character, meaning you can farm the same map on as many characters as you have.

    Another way to get stat-selectable items are the mist trinkets from Fractals, PvP or WvW. This will require an amount of the respective currency from the gamemode rather than gold, but cost quite an amount of time-gated currency and thus are not recommended unless you have a lot of excess currency. These however, are unique in that you are able to buy a Mist Capacitor from the vendor to reset their stats.

    Raids also occasionally drop trinkets which are stat-selectable, but only within their sub-category. These are Malicious, Assaulter's, Defender's and Healer's. However, these are not reliable nor are they relevant to this guide, so I won't explain them in much detail.

    The final way to get stat-selectable trinkets are using Eternal Ice Shards and Karma. You are able to buy amulets and accessories for 375 eternal ice shards and 56000 karma from vendors in Bjora Marches. However, these vendors require achievements to be unlocked. These achievements are generally very simple and straightforward. Eternal Ice Shards are extremely easy to farm, mainly by doing strike missions daily. If you do all 6 strikes excluding forging steel, you'll receive up to 400 eternal ice shards with the proper masteries unlocked per day. However, without the masteries this goes down by a significant amount, so it may not be a very good option for players gearing up their first set of ascended.

    Optimal Way To Obtain Trinkets

    For core stat combinations such as Berserker's, the best way to get all trinkets necessary is to buy rings from the fractal vendor, buy the accessories from the guild commendation trader, and buy the amulet from the laurel vendor. For expansion stat combinations which are difficult to obtain directly, such as Viper's or Harrier's, the best way is to farm LWS3 currencies for stat-selectable trinkets as well as back pieces, particularly Bitterfrost Frontier. If you do strikes, you can get eternal ice shards to trade at Bjora Marches vendors for a unique accessory or amulet.

    Backpieces (Relevant wiki link: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_back_item)

    Backpieces share some overlap with trinkets, in that they are available at some LWS3 maps as well. Pre-defined stats for backpieces are not sold, but rather crafted. This means that any backpiece you obtain outside of crafting, you have to manually select the stats for. No backpiece can have their stats changed in the mystic forge, similar to trinkets, other than the blood ruby backpack from bloodstone fen.

    The most reliable way to get multiple ascended backpieces are definitely the LWS3 maps, similar to the stat-selectable ascended trinkets. However, there are 2 other ways to obtain them.

    First, you have achievements. Depending on the achievement, this can range to relatively easy and cheap to extremely tedious. There are 4 from HoT, 2 from LWS3, 4 from PoF and 1 from LWS4. The ones which are reasonable to obtain are the Luminate's backplate ) (HoT) and one of the 3 ascended backpieces within the Raise the Banners collection (PoF) For the latter, a single character who finished the entirety of the PoF story will have half of the collection completed. The other half can be done by doing events around the crystal desert, making the backpiece in essence free. For the Luminate's backplate, most of it is done by just playing on Auric Basin. The difficult part is the Auric backplate which requires the Auric Weapons collection. However, with the advent of Dragon Response Missions and the Exalted rewards, you can purchase the auric weapon skins for 50 tyrian defense seals each, which is much cheaper than the original intended method of crafting each weapon.

    As an extension of this, Mawdrey is a special ascended back item. The collection is extremely expensive in total as well as expensive, but it provides you with Mawdrey II as well upon completion, which consumes bloodstone dust in exchange for a little bit of loot. Most people attempt the collection for fun rather than wanting the backpiece specifically.

    Secondly, you have crafting. These are very limited in terms of the potential stat combinations available, and generally, crafting ascended backpieces is not worth the gold cost. Compared to the other methods above, this is a very expensive method and is rarely ever done. Notably, the Tempered Spinal Blades backpiece is crafted, but stat-selectable.

    Overall, you'll have the best time getting a backpiece via LWS3 maps, though you may end up with certain collections that reward backpieces that are half-complete by virtue of just playing the game and are relatively cheap to complete, but are unrepeatable.

    Armor and Weapons (Relevant wiki links: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor , https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_weapon)

    Both of these have very similar acquisition methods which parallel each other almost identically, so combining them into one section makes the most sense. These have very simple methods of acquisition. These can either be crafted, purchased or have very small chances of dropping randomly from nearly anything you do in the game, from meta events, to looting chests, to raid bosses, or from very difficult and specific achievements. Ascended weapons can be obtained from specialisation collections, as well as Knight of the Thorn which actually are the cheapest way to get them, but are unrepeatable. I will cover this at the end.

    Random drops and achievements are difficult to replicate, so we will focus on crafting and vendors as the primary methods of obtaining ascended weapons and armor, as they are by far more reliable and consistent. Crafting tends to be cheaper in the long run and is generally less time-gated because you can choose to buy materials off the TP.

    Weapon and Armor Vendors [Optional]

    Firstly, vendors can sell ascended armor and weapons in exchange for various currencies. This will either be magnetite shards (raid currency)/crystal shards (strike mission currency) with gold. From strike missions and crystals, they will be sold as chests of Assaulter, Malicious, Healer and Defender gear for Armor, and as weapon chests for ONLY core stat weapons. Assaulter, Malicious Healer and Defender are overarching categories for the various prefixes. You can use the wiki to find out which corresponds to which because there are too many to list here, but the names are relatively self-explanatory but do note that they overlap. For magnetite shards, these are relatively expensive too, and usually aren't recommended unless you have a lot of shards to spare. These are sold as chests which you can open to pick an armor piece of whichever weight class or a weapon. The respective armor piece or weapon will be stat-selectable.

    The other form of vendors which sell ascended armor and weapons do so in exchange for Fractal, PvP or WvW currency (time-gated), a bit of gold and grandmaster marks. Grandmaster marks are craftable currency used only to trade to vendors for ascended armor or weapons. These can either be obtained by playing PvP or WvW for example through Grandmaster Mark Shards, 10 of which make 1 grandmaster mark. These however require level 500 crafting in the correct discipline to craft. The recipies can be bought from the vendors for the gamemode currency. As a note, the total crafting cost is actually almost always more expensive than crafting the ascended gear piece directly, so this method is not recommended, though it is available to those with excess currency or grandmaster marks from other methods. This is typically used when you do not have a crafting discipline for a weapon leveled to 500, but need the weapon. You can then craft the grandmaster marks to purchase a longbow using a weaponsmith.

    Crafting

    When it comes to ascended weapons and armor, crafting is 100% the most consistent, reliable and cheapest way to obtain ascended gear, especially once you have the crafting disciplines leveled up.

    There are 6 crafting professions when it comes to armor and weapons. For armor, there is Armorsmith (Heavy armor - Warrior, Guardian, Revenant), Leatherworker (Medium armor - Engineer, Ranger, Thief) and Tailor (Light armor - Mesmer, Elementalist, Necromancer). For weapons, there is Weaponsmith (Swords, Daggers, Axes, Greatswords, Maces, Hammers, Shields, Spears), Huntsman (Longbows, Shortbows, Pistols, Rifles, Torches, Warhorns, Harpoon guns) and Artificer (Foci, Staves, Scepters, Tridents) There is absolutely 0 overlap between the craftable weapons and armor in each profession. Each of them are able to craft ascended crafting materials as well as inscriptions/insignias, but no two of them can create the same piece of ascended equipment. Each character can only level up a maximum of 2 of these professions without purchasing an increase. You can swap between crafting professions, but it costs 50 silver every time you change. Instead, to level more professions, players usually level them on different characters and swap when they need to craft something. Exactly which profession you should gear depends on your intended build as well as the weight of the armor of the character. Typically, it is safe to go for 1 armor profession and 1 weapon profession e.g. Weaponsmith and Armorsmith on a warrior.

    Crafting Guides [OPTIONAL]

    GW2crafts is the go-to when you intend to level your profession to level 500 from scratch. It will provide an automatically-updating list of the cheapest method to level the profession from 0-400, then 400-500 separately. Choose either the fast or regular guide depending on preference, follow the shopping list and then proceed on with following the instructions for each level interval. It's extremely intuitive and straightforward. Crafting XP comes mainly from discovery and repeating crafting the same item. Activate any crafting boosters or change your guild boost to crafting for this period. Your aim is to get to 500 for the lowest price that's reasonable for your time spent. You can skip certain steps and save a tiny bit of gold if you know what you're doing because the calculator doesn't account for crafting boosts, but the safe method is to follow it exactly. The total gold it takes to level a profession from 0 to 500 varies depending on various variables, but it's usually somewhere between 30-80g depending on which profession you're levelling.

    Recipes [OPTIONAL]

    One thing that's often overlooked by people when they're looking to craft ascended gear is the recipes. Different stat combinations have different sources for the recipes. Some methods are cheaper than others. Some stat combinations need to be bought off the TP or drop from meta events, while core stat recipes are almost exclusively sold from the master craftsman at the crafting station. Many people forget this step and are confused why the recipe isn't showing up in the crafting tab. Core stats are sold for 5 laurels and 3 gold, while various HoT and PoF recipes can go from between 10s and 3g on the TP. There are methods to reduce the total price of certain ascended gear pieces by crafting a gear piece with stats you bought a recipe for which has a low crafting cost, and then using the mystic forge to swap the stats, however, this is more advance and shouldn't be of worry to you when you're starting out. Just buy the recipe for the gear set you need first.

    Crafting Armor/Weapons

    Here is where GW2efficiency comes in. This is the best tool to use for whenever you're crafting something for the first time and/or looking for the cheapest way to get the item. Once you have the recipe, you can find the item in the crafting tab of the crafting station and you can see which items you need in specific to craft them. This is typically helpful for players who understand the crafting system, but it's much easier to follow the crafting paths on GW2tp when you're starting out to not confuse yourself. Note, sometimes it's cheaper to buy specific items or crafting components from the TP. Use GW2efficiency here to check the optimal crafting path, as it shows you the overall crafting path, and indicates at which steps buying an item off the TP is cheaper than actually crafting it yourself.

    The general formula is 4 items, depending on what you craft. 1 Vision Crystal/Lesser Vision Crystal, Ascended Insignia (Armor) / Ascended Inscription (Weapon) and 2 item-specific crafting components. The 2 components vary based on the item you're crafting. If you're making a berserker's longbow, you'll need a Zojja's Berkserer's Inscription, Spiritwood Longbow Stave and Elonian String. If you're making a light viper's helm, you'll need a Yassith's Viper's Insignia, Damask Helm Padding and Damask Helm Strap. The vision crystal is always unbuyable, it must be crafted with bloodstone dust, empyreal fragments, dragonite ore and an augur's stone, which are all account-bound.

    General materials include crystalline ore and ectoplasm, which are always used in ascended crafting. The other important crafting component is ascended crafting materials. This consists of Spiritwood Planks, Bolts of Damask, Elonian Leather Squares and Deldrimor Steel Ingots. All 4 of these items can be bought on the TP, but often, they are cheaper to craft, which is what many players choose to do. To make these, you'll need 3 refined basic crafting materials i.e. wood, cloth, leather and ore, and one other item. The other item is based on which ascended crafting material, but respectively to the list above, they are Glob of Spirit Residue, Spool of Silk Weaving Thread, Spool of Thick Elonian Cord and Lump of Mithrillium. The very important thing to note, is that these root crafting materials can only be crafted once per day each. Players will typically craft one of each as a part of their daily login routine.

    Personally, I myself don't craft the silk weaving thread or glob of spirit residue unless I have a lot of excess of the material to craft it, because most of the time, spiritwood planks and bolts of damask are cheaper to buy on the TP than they are to craft, though this is up to the market. If you want to be self-sufficient, crafting works.

    Each gear component requires a different amount of these various ascended crafting materials. For a full set of fully-crafted heavy armor, you'll need 25 bolts of damask, 18 elonian leather squares and 16 deldrimor steel ingots for example. Weapons don't require the silk, and armor never requires the wood.

    Once you have all the components for your weapon/armor, you can put it together and receive your ascended gear piece! The total cost for a single piece of ascended armor/weapon is typically around 40g or so depending on market conditions, but the direct cost is much lower if you use your own materials.

    Going forward, the next step up is to level up other crafting disciplines. People usually say that ascended gets easier to obtain after the first set. This is a large part of the reason why. Once you get levelling your crafting profession and buying recipes out of the way, the process becomes much easier and more linear, without the barrier for entry. In addition, doing the daily crafting of ascended crafting materials also reduces the actual cost of the gear.

    Ascended Aquabreathers [OPTIONAL]

    Aquabreathers, which can also be crafted in the same way as armor, also has one additional method of acquisition to note. You can actually buy these from Bitterfrost Frontier with Fresh Winterberries similar to the trinkets you can get there.

    Knight of the Thorn and Specialisation Collections [OPTIONAL]

    As I briefly mentioned above, there is one last way to obtain ascended weapons that is non-replicable, but insanely cheap. If you own PoF/HoT, by levelling your elite specialisation, you gain access to the class's specialisation collection. Upon completion of this collection, you will receive an ascended weapon corresponding to the weapon which is unlocked by using the elite specialisation e.g. the scourge elite specialisation unlocks an ascended torch. All of these have unique skins. There are only a limited 3 stat combinations per weapon, however you can easily change the stats in the mystic forge, so this isn't a huge issue. The PoF specialisation weapon is always super cheap relative to crafting. All of them cost a maximum of 6.5g. These are easily completed. None of the collection requirements are particularly difficult and can be done in just a few hours. The gold cost comes from using a mystic coin in the wishing well and crafting a specific corresponding mordant weapon. As for the HoT specialisation, it tends to be more expensive, more expensive than crafting a normal ascended weapon in fact. This comes almost entirely from the mystic weapon you need to unlock, which costs about 60 gold or so due to the 30 mystic coins it takes to craft. Overall, the PoF weapon is one you should absolutely grab, with the only caveat being that it's only obtainable once. The HoT weapon can be nice if you want the skin, but for your first ascended weapon set, it's much better to just craft one normally.

    Knight of the Thorn is a HoT achievement that is started by completing the story. Per character that has finished HoT, it allows you to obtain an ascended greatsword/sword/shield/scepter/dagger for under 20 gold. You need to complete a pseudo collection travelling around and completing certain tasks. The first one is even cheaper, since one of the components required to receive the weapon is given to you (spiritwood scion, crafting price 13g). You are able to change the form of the weapon by trading 1000 unbound magic to an npc in your home instance, but it is impossible to obtain any more of the weapons unless you repeat the collection steps on a new character.

    Total Calculations

    We can actually calculate the total amount that it takes to approach your first full ascended gear set. For LWS3 currency, the equivalency is that 2 winterberries is equal to 1 of any other map's currency. Therefore, you'd need the equivalent of 1650 winterberries and 20,000 unbound magic. That seems like a lot, but with the current events going on and the rising activity of old maps, plus getting the equivalent of 500 winterberries per weekly event, this is the best time to be gearing up a character! In terms of gold cost, the armor pieces and weapons will cost around 250g based on gw2efficiency stats, plus about 120g on levelling the crafting professions as a one time investment. In total, the cost to gear a character in full ascended from scratch is 1650 winterberries, 20,000 unbound magic and 370g.

    Conclusion

    I know this has been a super long post, I wanted to make it as detailed as possible so there would be no major questions, or needing to wiki things unlinked here, so many seemingly insignificant details were included. However, I thank you if you've made it this far. I hope this has at least helped some players who were previously overwhelmed by information hidden behind information or having to look all over the place for the most efficient way to approach this. Please let me know if I missed anything or made any mistakes!

    Summary/Fast Guide

    For trinkets and backpieces: Farm LWS3 maps for currency and trade at the vendors for stat-selectable ascended trinkets/backpiece. If the stat you're aiming for it a 'core' stat, e.g. Berserker's, you can buy rings with fractal relics, accessories with guild commendations and an amulet for laurels. Accessories and amulets can also be obtained with eternal ice shards at Bjora Marches.

    For armor/weapons, use GW2crafts to level up your crafting profession to 500 cheaply. Purchase the recipe for the gear you want to make. Use GW2efficiency to calculate the best method to craft the ascended gear piece that you want. Craft daily time-gated ascended materials every day once you have level 500 in a profession.

    submitted by /u/OfflaneTrash
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    People complaining that the Legendary Armory was time wasted developing ONLY for the elite players are missing the bigger picture

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 10:08 AM PDT

    I've been seeing this argument tossed around both here and in other social media, etc, and it bugs me like the Scarab Plague.

    There are two points I'd like to use to contend this:

    First, the grander point of the Legendary Armory - the heart of it - is right in line with the old Manifesto that veteran players here remember so fondly. The LA introduces a new quality of life (hot swapping issues aside, which, I agree, should be addressed) to Legendary Equipment, which further establishes their value without resorting to creating new tiers of equipment power. This is straight up horizontal progression and it's exactly what many players want to see. The goal to me is clear: Improve the value of Legendary Equipment for players without breaking the promise of no new equipment tiers. While it does benefit those who play more and have more (or any) legendary equipment, the intention is to entice you just a bit more to perhaps take the plunge and craft one (or, yes, buy one on the TP) if you don't.

    Whether or not the addition of the LA is enough to entice any given player is certainly going to vary person to person, but if it doesn't mean much to you, rest assured there are players who are now crafting various Legendaries that didn't entice them enough before. Having the most prestigious equipment not feel enticing enough was a very real problem, and the LA is a step to address that.

    Getting players to want Legendaries more has a massive impact on the game as a whole - from material prices as people begin to sink more into Legendaries, especially Gen 2 (look at the volatility of mithril ore from yesterday!), to activity in LW Season 3 and 4 maps, Dry Top, Fractals, WvW, PvP, and Raids. And obviously it helps ArenaNet create more interest in buying gems for Templates and Gen 1 Credit Card legendaries, which is, y'know, a good thing for the game overall. And as the players who have obtained Legendaries build out more equipment templates, we've already seen a jump in prices for rune and sigil crafting materials like Pristine Toxic Spore Samples. Ensuring that your most prestigious equipment gets created keeps the economy more healthy!

    ---

    The second point I want to address is about who this is for and how it impacts the overall health of the game from a player engagement standpoint - while it's easy to look at all of this and say "well, that's all good, but I'll never play enough to craft a Legendary", and that may well be true, but I ask you to consider this: the Legendary Armory has set the stage for the upcoming Legendary Amulet, Prismatic Champion's Regalia.

    I actually think this whole bit of setup is pretty damn clever on ArenaNet's part. With the Armory in place, in a few month's we'll have the setup in the game for players to complete this Legendary Amulet, which appears like it may be the single cheapest Legendary in the game. And I actually hope that it is - players who engage with the entire Living World story will be rewarded with a Legendary Amulet, get to see the Legendary splash screen, and now get to utilize the Legendary Armory. This has so many benefits:

    • It engages players with the story who might not have taken the time to do so before. ANet is never going to drop the focus on story, so one of the best things they can do is really incentivize players to try it out and try to get them invested in what happens in it.
    • It gives players a Legendary and helps warrant the development time on the Armory. It lets players see what the QoL upgrades are like to further interest them in getting other Legendaries, which then feeds into point 1 above.
    • It gives players who are more casual, newer, etc, a new incentive to make new characters, new classes, and perhaps encourages purchasing more Character Slots, Equipment Templates, etc.

    And they even set up the achievement with the right breadcrumbs - unlike most Legendaries, as you work on this one you'll be periodically rewarded with some high end goodies - the Ascended Weapon chest, the Gen 3 Precursor, and the 32-slot bag, not to mention all the rewards from the individual episode achievements (BL skins, points, currencies!).

    Honestly, this looks to me like one of the most clever engagement systems they've come up with, and don't get me wrong, there have been some duds in the past. But the Legendary Armory is a core part of making this Amulet the reward it's supposed to be, and it opens the LA up to mattering for any players who are interested in doing little more than playing through the story so far. While there are still a couple of issues to address with the LA to make it the true QoL upgrade across the board that everyone wants, the framework is there and I think if you back out and look at everything being set up and how it interconnects, it seems like a really positive change for the game as a whole, not just for the elite players.

    submitted by /u/Day2Dan
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    Not so hot take: Twisted Marionette & Dragonstorm (any any future 50 man instance) should be a Guild Mission

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 12:45 AM PDT

    Basically title.

    There have been some criticism of the marionette here in reddit that its not really rewarding and too easy to fail because of 1-2 bad apples / unlucky dc. Therefore the encounter will not be played by anyone after the bonus week + after everyone who asap wanted the achievements.

    However I think with the added incentive for it to lead to guild upgrades, at least larger guilds would be incentivized to organize an occasional run, which would help keep it a bit in the public knowledge that it exists and while challenging its also fun.

    What do you think?

    submitted by /u/hendricha
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    After 3 months of collections and gathering gold/materials, I finally have my first set of legendary bubbles!

    Posted: 15 Jul 2021 07:39 AM PDT

    I'm really enjoying my dark sorceress vibe

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 11:02 PM PDT

    Let's talk about Twisted Marionette rewards

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 06:46 PM PDT

    Let's talk about Twisted Marionette rewards
    1. Dragonstorm has Frostsaw of Chilling, Gift of Aurene and the Pristine Dragon Eye Box (for infusion).
    2. Pinata has Festive Confetti Infusion.
    3. Vinewrath has Preserved Queen Bee.
    4. Death Branded Shatterer has Crystal Infusion.
    5. Chak Gerent has Chak Egg Sac.
    6. Auric Basin meta has Vial of Liquid Auirillium.

    What do all of these events have in common there is a 0.0002 % chance (Anet improved drop rates by 100%) of an infusion drop. Which is why people keep doing these very easy Meta events years after they were released, and not hard events like Serpent's Ire, Triple Trouble Worm, and probably soon to be Twisted Marionette that has a high chance for failure and sub par rewards for your efforts.

    It is sad because this event is quite fun and probably challenging for the average GW2 player, but probably most people will stop doing them after this week, or after they finish their achievements. Anet if you want people to keep doing your content understand that you need to bait people with rewards, whether it is challenging content that is great for farming gold like CMT4 Fractals and Raids or easy open world events that give a very very small chance for a good drop that sells for thousands of gold.

    So i did the Public TM and successfully finished it the drops were Hoard of the Marionette Warden 1,2,3,4,5 and 3 Bonus Boxes of Goods....

    which ammounted to

    Thoughts?

    submitted by /u/Kamote1769
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    Despite no legendary weapon lore I kinda love the new jingle ��

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 06:19 PM PDT

    Crafted My First Legendary... Figured Some Might Want to See the Text :)

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 10:12 PM PDT

    New Armory Tech for Gathering Tools

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 03:32 PM PDT

    Gem store gathering tools and glyphs should function like legendaries in the new legendary armory. Many players use the shared inventory or bank to share a set of tools and glyphs with all of our alts. This should not negatively impact the gem store since new tools will still be purchased for the purpose of collecting skins and obtaining more glyphs. If anything, this may entice people to buy these tools if they have not already purchased them. Let's get more mileage out of this new armory tech!

    Edit: Additionally, reskinning gem store gathering tools should not cost transmutation charges.

    submitted by /u/The_Shiniest_Skritt
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    FYI: Public Marionette is much easier than private.

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 10:00 AM PDT

    Public has 80 players cap and allow multiple tags in the map.
    Try to get in public asap when it's up.

    submitted by /u/greenhand0317
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    Broke out of Bloodstone Fen and it looks like a cooler version of itself

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 03:48 PM PDT

    The trees in Bitterfrost Frontier are very tall.

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 06:19 PM PDT

    PSA: Anybody crafting Ascended right now, check the prices on GW2TP first, some of the TP prices have absolutely plummeted

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 10:54 AM PDT

    Completely flew right by me until now, but some of the Ascended crafting materials have had their prices drop TREMENDOUSLY in the past 24 hours. For example, the prices of Zojja's Berserker's Insignia dropped from 36g/29g to 12g/10g. A huge 66% drop. For reference, the crafting price as it stands is 20g on the buy price of it's materials. DO NOT waste your ascended crafting materials right now, unless it's for uncraftable unbuyable pieces such as Viper's. The prices on individual items like the Damask Shoe Upper/Sole's have for example have also dropped an insane amount. For the latter, the buy price is 10 silver. It requires 2 Elonian Leather Squares to craft, which if done daily, has a value of 7 gold.

    At the time of writing this, a lot of ascended armor costs less than 15 gold per piece, specifically you can craft a set of heavy berserker's armor for 80 gold!

    It's also probably the best time you're going to get in a while to craft ascended gear. I'm not a TP wizard, so the prices could either bounce back up, or could go down further, but for anybody just wanting to gear their characters quickly and cheaply, this is the best time to go for it.

    Edit: Yep this one's on me, probably should have waited till my buy orders went through before posting this LMAO

    Edit 2: Quick market update about 6 hours later, prices of armor components seem to be having a period of stability mostly within the range of 30%-60% of the crafting price though above 1-2g above their lowest price in the previous few hours. The price of insignias have stabilised above crafting price now :(. Inscriptions however seem to still be much cheaper than the original, though their prices seem to be continuing to trend upward steadily.

    submitted by /u/OfflaneTrash
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    Aurora flavour text for anyone interested :)

    Posted: 14 Jul 2021 03:22 PM PDT
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