Guild Wars 2

I’m very curious how the Passion Flower market has sustained itself, after the implementation of Ascended Accessories with the same stats.

The Passion Flower has no other real use aside from crafting the Exotic Version of this. When the Ascended Version can be obtained by doing FotM runs. (Rings.)

You can get the Earrings through the Guild Commendation vendor, and the Necklace from the Dailys (I am assuming since I have not checked just yet.)

10g (+ FotM/Daily) vs. 200-240g+

Ascended vs. Exotic

Am I missing some hidden use for Passion Flowers that makes them so valuable?

They are also used to make omni infusions.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items#Fine_Infusion_recipes

That makes a bit more sense for the Passion Flower cost itself.

But people paying 24-50g for Accessories that are worse than the Ascended variety, even if certain parts are slightly harder to get than the next. Does not make as much sense.

Did people over-invest originally, do they not realize the Ascended version comes with a little work but much less of a gold cost — or both?

Well regardless of their usefulness they are still extremely rare. If you use rarity as the sole determining factor for price their current price is actually pretty reasonable compared to Vial of Powerful Blood.

Well you may want to consider that players out there:
A: Don’t like FoTM
or
B: Are not part of a large guild
or
C: Hate the Gear progression.
or
D: All of the above

Khisanth.2948:

They are also used to make omni infusions.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items#Fine_Infusion_recipes

Passiflora jewellery uses passion flowers not passion fruit. The latter is remarkably rare and you need a large volume to make them, hence the obscene pricing of it’s jewellery.

Personally I have no ascended gear as I spent a long period away from the game after laurels were introduced (So I have yet to obtain a full months worth of them to buy any), and I didn’t do much fractals in the early days so I got left behind on the fractal curve.

Now when I approach fractal groups they’re like “Ew, fractal rank 3, newbie… no offence but there’s this OTHER mesmer we could take instead, he’s rank 27 and can rub his face on a keyboard”, even though I’ve played the class since BWE3 – I’m not even a part of a guild right now after our guild leader flipped out and booted me for disagreeing with him while he was stoned (No gear that way) – so I have been pondering obtaining some passiflora jewellery for my ranger

Ryuujin.8236:

Khisanth.2948:

They are also used to make omni infusions.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items#Fine_Infusion_recipes

Passiflora jewellery uses passion flowers not passion fruit. The latter is remarkably rare and you need a large volume to make them, hence the obscene pricing of it’s jewellery.

Personally I have no ascended gear as I spent a long period away from the game after laurels were introduced (So I have yet to obtain a full months worth of them to buy any), and I didn’t do much fractals in the early days so I got left behind on the fractal curve.

Now when I approach fractal groups they’re like “Ew, fractal rank 3, newbie… no offence but there’s this OTHER mesmer we could take instead, he’s rank 27 and can rub his face on a keyboard”, even though I’ve played the class since BWE3 – I’m not even a part of a guild right now after our guild leader flipped out and booted me for disagreeing with him while he was stoned (No gear that way) – so I have been pondering obtaining some passiflora jewellery for my ranger

You mean to say that the flowers are rare, correct? Because each omni infusion requires more flowers than each piece of jewelry does. Granted, you should only need 2 omni infusions (200 flowers) versus 5 pieces of exotic jewelry (375 flowers), but it’s still absurd that each omni infusion costs over 50 gold at current prices.