Guild Wars 2

Is there anyone that could help me with the math on this one. I normally just play pvp and WvW, and the sight of these new back pieces actually gave me enough intrigue to want to know how I could acquire them….then I saw it required 500 crafting, a boatload of farmed materials, and some other nonsense.

So does anyone know how much it would cost me (roughly) in order to:

- Get my armorsmithing from 400-500
- The materials needed for the item itself
- Rough amount of time it takes to farm LA for the new materials (I’m sure someone has)

I would just like to know if it is even worth the time to try and get currently, I don’t particularly find standing near a crafting table for an hour or 2 spending 500g to attempt to get an item that is nearly purely cosmetic very fun at all.

I got enough to make my ascended back blades from two afternoons doing the LA events (probably about 3-4 rounds each day)

It’s been forever since I got my crafter to 500 so I can’t help there.

To make the ascended version of the back blades you will need a total of 3 stacks + 175 more of the blade fragments and the starter recipe. The recipe is either cheap on the TP or you’ll get the pieces from the bags you get being in LA killing things or you’ll get the full recipe drop from the bags.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spinal_Blade_Pack_Blueprint

Start there and page through the recipes at the bottom.

First, get your Leatherworking to 500, not your Armorsmithing. Much, much cheaper and backpieces are not limited by armor type (i.e. the backpiece made by a tailor can be worn by ANY class).

Second, you will need a lot of the account bound ascended materials. Start hitting those Jumping Puzzles, World Bosses, and Dungeons. I know you can get some in WvW, but you’ll need to expand your playstyle to get the quantities you need.

As for the costs involved: http://www.gw2crafts.net/leatherworking.html

For armorsmithing 400-500, it will cost you 86G
http://www.gw2crafts.net/armorcraft_400.html

Although I suggest looking over at Leatherworking since Elonian Leather is cheaper. Depending on where your crafting is, it’s cheaper in the long-run.

The cost of materials for the item itself keeps changing. A day ago it was calculated at approximately:

98G for Tailor
155G for Armorsmith
50G for Leatherwork

As for the time it takes, you need 925 blades. I think I average about 200 blades each LA (depends on your class and farming smart). So you need at least 5 LA events to do (5 hours).

Getting leatherwork to 500 is the best way. It’s also not too expensive (although price has spiked since release for t3 and t4, t5 and t6 are still dirt cheap).

3-4 runs through LA (while getting all achieve) should be sufficient for 1 backpiece. You can buy the elonian leather if you don’t feel like making it over a 15 day period.

It’s not all that much crafting to be honest. Only thing you must craft yourself is the vision crystal. Everything else can be bought.

Gw2crafts.net (I think that is the name) gives a good cost estimate for leveling crafting. I’ve done LA needn’t 5 or so times and I have almost 2 stacks of blade fragments, so it shouldn’t take long to get enough.

Well at least it doesnt seem overly expensive to do Leatherworking.

And since I have 0 use for ascended crafting outside the back piece (the actual armor isn’t worth much in my eyes) I can probably go with leatherworking instead of armorsmithing (i just chose that since my heavy class is my main)

LA is just a farm fest, so getting the blades isn’t hard, I think I may even already have enough.

I was mainly worried about the 400-500 crafting cost, but if it is only 50g, that I can live with. But I just noticed that you need 15 Lump of Mithrillium, which means it will be a minimum of 5 days for me to craft this.

Also found this on Dulfy for the actual back piece cost:

Tier 1:
Spinal Blades Blueprint Scrap 1/4
Spinal Blades Blueprint Scrap 2/4
Spinal Blades Blueprint Scrap 3/4
Spinal Blades Blueprint Scrap 4/4
1 Spinal Blade Pack Blueprint
25 Blade Shards
10 Radiant Dust
50 Iron Ingot

Tier 2:
1 Spinal Blade Pack
50 Blade Shards
10 Luminous Dust
50 Steel Ingots

Tier 3:
1 Twin Spinal Blades
100 Blade Shards
10 Incandescent Dust
50 Mithril Ingots

Tier 4:
1 Quad Spinal Blades
250 Blade Shards
25 Crystalline Dust
25 Orichalcum Ingots

Ascended Tier:
1 Advanced Spinal Blades
250 Blade Shards
1 Vision Crystal
1 Gift of Blades

Gift of Blades:
250 Blade Shards
15 Deldrimor Steel Ingot/15 Bolt of Damask/15 Elonian Leather Square
10 Pile of Crystalline Dust
1 Watchwork Mechanism

Vision Crystal:
5 Dragonite Ingot
5 Empyreal Star
5 Bloodstone Brick
1 Augur’s Stone (20 skill points)

Watchwork Mechanism:
Refined from 500 Watchwork Sprockets
Require any of the crafting discipline at 400

Deldrimor Steel Ingot: (x15)
20 Iron Ingot (300)
10 Steel Ingot (150)
20 Darksteel Ingot (300)
1 Lump of Mithrillium (15)

Lump of Mithrillium:
50 Mithril Ingot (750)
1 Glob of Ectoplasm (15)
10 Thermocatalytic Reagent (150)