Guild Wars 2

Wouldn’t it be better for crafters if you could actually sell ascended weapons and gear to those of us who abhor the very idea that we have to waste time grinding materials and crafting?

What would it do to crafters to remove a whole lot more “account bound” tags?

Bombsaway.7198:

Wouldn’t it be better for crafters if you could actually sell ascended weapons and gear to those of us who abhor the very idea that we have to waste time grinding materials and crafting?

What would it do to crafters to remove a whole lot more “account bound” tags?

That might be a welcome change for those who dont like to craft or grind but in the long run, i think it would do the general player base no good because it will be a major gold sink (due to high traffic on the tp, not only for the weapons itself but also for the mats involved)and also the base ingredients for weapons and armor would rise again just like before and after the last 2 crafting updates.

The demand for those ascended weapons and armor would be very high of course, if this would be introduced. To cover the high demand, not only for the players who actually buy it but also for the armor and weapons that will be listed at any given time on the tp, alot of t2-5 common mats (wood, ore, leather, cloth) will simply become very expensive, until the market finds its equilibrium again.

The strain on those t2-5 mats will hit immediately because alot of people still craft their timegated mats every day, without refining them, so the market will be flooded to an extend that those refined mats will be available under crafting value and people actually making a loss while spending their time gated mats. The same will happen to dragonite, bloodstone and empyreals or vision crystals all together and finally for the end product. And in the end, once the market found its equilibrium again, my guess would be that an ascended weapon would cost so much that you might as well buy a legendary.

tldr: what it boils down to, is that it just would have too big an impact on the overall economy to make this a welcome change for the majority of the player base.

I like account bound ascended stuff. It is the only (and yet disputable) thing that makes crafting worthwhile.
As for ascended stuff needs:
Stat wise, you really need only ascended trinkets, these make the difference.

Ascended items, however, give you agony resistance if infused. You need it if you are doing fotm. However you will start getting rings at f lvl 10+, and you will get some pretty soon. 2 rings mean 10AR which is enough till lvl 19.

If you do not craft but farm and selling most mats (some are handy for myst. forge though) you should be filthy rich. This mean you can build an ascended back item without much problems, and infuse it, and this gives you another granted 5 AR.
Now if you infuse the back slot and both rings, you can add another 15 AR if you do not want to wait, or 30 if you are very very patient or filthy rich, which you should be.
With 30 + 15 = 45AR from the three ascended trinkets you are good to go up to 39 level and this is where you have chance for ascended drops.

So you really do not need to craft if you want ascended stuff, and you even do not need to go fractals if you buy ascended trinkets for laurels and forge your backpiece in mf.

chance for ascended drops other than rings is… low. I think i could win the lottery 4 times, get struck by lightning 50 different occasions and see 5 acts of congress and 2 acts of god long before i am the recipient of an rng ascended weapon/armor drop…

The materials market is beyond screwed up because it’s also effecting those t1 mats as I am sure people have gotten off on a kick promoting jute into the higher tiers lol

Also i think they can keep the gear account bound (i dont like it, but i can deal with it) they just need to make the dragonite/bloodstone/empyreal into something tradeable because i would rather do things i like more for the ones that come from content i dont care for and supplement what i cant buy with a little of said content (meta bosses for me, if anyone is taking a tally), this for me would make the things less… depressing and game ruining at this point

Also: there is a fun way to skirt the ascended armor/AR issue if you get your 6 ascended trinkets: back and rings infused, accessories and amulet give you 15 AR plus 6 infusion slots to play with beyond that… but now, you can craft infusions
The +8 ar one is about where i stop because overhead costs beyond that point start getting insane (the number of +1’s needed goes up like binary 1, 2,4,8,16,32….etc.. @128 for +8, across 6 pieces (about 16-19 gold each if bought/crafted either way… but its doable) you can grab 60 AR and get into the 40’s on fractals (again, that IS a lot of money, but its still cheaper than ANY ascended armor with minimum of 1 damask per piece (14-15 gold).

I can tell you this…

If ascended gear was tradable, I’d have a character set up as just a crafter and nothing else. I enjoy crafting. When I played UO (before the AoS changes), that’s all I did. I’m still trying to find a decent MMORPG where crafting is a viable way to play.

I’m all for you crafting my ascended gear for me. Believe me. . . all for it.

Waynze, it would have an impact to TP. But ANet has so many tools allowing them to adjust for balance. They could change drop rates, have vendors willing to provide a floor price, etc. Much easier to fix than players feeling they are forced to play modes of no interest to stay competitive. That has much greater impact.