Guild Wars 2

I wasn’t sure where to put this, but since one of the primary ways of getting Ascended armor is… crafting it and that is my main alternative if this turns out to be too tedious or RNG then… yeah.

With the new Rare Collections achievements one can get a box of ascended armor (whole set, right? not just a single piece?) if one collects all of the Ambrite weapons. Each Ambrite Weapon doesn’t look too hard to procure the materials for, a fossilized insect, the tier 6 crafting components to make the weapon, and a Nomad’s Ori Inscription. At first it seems the hard part is the fossilized insects since those only come from Sandstorm chests (need zephyr lockpicks to open, need geodes to get lockpicks) or from scoring 40k sPvP rank points toward the Maguuma Wastes region rewards (but then you get to pick the fossil, it’s not random).

I’ve heard that the rate on the fossils is pretty different from person to person, some getting 2 out of 5 chests, some getting none out of 200, but I haven’t been able to find drop rate research.

My other issue is that the recipe itself for each weapon costs 400 geodes, and for 16 weapons, that’s 6,400 geodes, or about 25.5 stacks of them. That’s a LOT of geodes, guys!

I didn’t think this would be easy, since the reward is quite good (if you get the whole set, anyway, and even then you have to go all 6 pieces as the same stats). Is there an easier way of doing this? I’m going to get on and play some sPvP for a bit just to see how long 1k rank points would take me and extrapolate from there.

Mostly, I wanted to ask if this achievement to get Ascended Armor is even more tedious than I think it is, or if there is a much easier way, OR if one should just put all their effort into making gold and just buying the dang ascended armor materials and crafting it.

Your thoughts?

If you do PvP, you can get a Fossil (and presumably enough Geodes to buy a recipe) every time you do the Maguuma Wastes reward track. I’ve yet to do the reward track as I’ve been focusing on the dungeon tracks to complete my Collections, so I don’t know if the track also gives enough Ambrite to craft a weapon.

If it’s like all of the other armor boxes, which I’m 99% sure it is, you’ll only get one armor piece.

Hmm, good point. I forgot about the Ambrite Sheets (pieces). A bit of research shows you get a lot of sand from doing the reward track. There’s a rare chance at getting raw ambrite from that which salvages into 1-3 pieces.

(back like, 20 minutes later)

I just did a spreadsheet of the rewards for the Maguuma track, assuming the data on the wiki is right, you should get 2650 silky sands, 210 geodes and 9 lockpicks. With 2650 silky sands and a 13.35% chance of 10 of those turning into a geode, 1.53% chance at a lockpick and 0.76% chance at a lump of raw ambrite, one “should” get an additional 35 geodes, 4 lockpicks and 2 lumps of raw ambrite. I think I did the math right. Perhaps the lockpicks, when used, can make up the difference for both ambrite and geodes?

For those curious about my spreadsheet, if any, here it is:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wJeP1CnPeqA9frflixi6sSjm7WwvVT6iEWWeN0AxTWo/edit?usp=sharing

Ayrilana.1396:

If it’s like all of the other armor boxes, which I’m 99% sure it is, you’ll only get one armor piece.

Bah… it almost seemed worth doing until now. I guess if you enjoy PvP this is a good reward to work on while doing what you’re going to do anyway.

According to the wiki, the reward is a ‘box of boxes’, so to speak; it gives you an armor box of your choice, which you can use to pick a piece of ascended armor.

In the end, you only get one piece of armor, though you can choose both the stats and the piece.

Captain.3940:

At first it seems the hard part is the fossilized insects since those only come from Sandstorm chests (need zephyr lockpicks to open, need geodes to get lockpicks) or from scoring 40k sPvP rank points toward the Maguuma Wastes region rewards (but then you get to pick the fossil, it’s not random).

the hard part with ambrite weapons is the recipe to craft the weapon. At T5, they cost 350 geodes each. 16 weapons = 5,600 geodes = 22.4 stacks. That takes a LOT of Dry Top event farming to collect. the insects are fairly easy in comparison. I don’t know the researched rates, but I got 4 insects from 20 keys, so I doubt the rate is super low. It takes far more geodes to buy the recipe than get an insect.

I think you might get 6 armors from completing this…
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_Armor_Chest
at least the wiki makes it sound like you do.

however:
http://dulfy.net/2014/09/08/gw2-items-collections-guide/#Ambrite_Weapon_Collection
dulfy says “Reward: 50 AP and Ascended Armor chest (double click to choose a piece of ascended armor)”

I feel like 6 armors would be too good of a reward?
for comparison, the Black Lion Collection rewards 7 tickets per collection, which could be either 1 or 7 additional exclusive skins.

If it lets you pick an “Ascended armor box”, then what it’s giving you is a choice of “Zojja’s Armor Box”, “Occam’s Armor Box” etc. Each of those boxes lets you pick one out of the 18 different armor pieces of its chosen stat. So yeah, you only get one armor piece.

Bear in mind that these Collection achievements are intended more as a “cherry on the cake” reward for people who enjoy collecting in the first place. It’s a kind of a “Hey, we recognise your effort and achievement!” bonus.

I was originally undecided on whether or not to bother crafting the Ambrite set (as while I’m a collector, I didn’t really like the Ambrite weapon aesthetics) but as someone who’s also going for full Ascended armor on my five characters, now I may as well complete the collection and then get a Damask chest piece as it segues in nicely with my other goal anyway.

I finished the collection couple days ago, you only get your choice of one piece.