Following up this thread in a new post so people who haven’t read it yet can skip to the important part.
Firstly, some stuff about the crafting:
There are two types of Tier 7 material: those refined from lower tier materials plus ectoplasm and a new reagent, and those refined from brand new materials rewarded from specific content plus Obsidian Shards and the new reagent. You’ll also note the inclusion of a cooldown timer on the Ectoplasm Refinements. Each one can be refined only once per day, per account.
Any of you who just went swimming in T6 mats better be able to hold your breath.
As to Type II crafting, I’m not immediately clear what the limit is, if any, based on this post. However actually combining the pieces will not be it, if there is one.
Now, using your newly found refinements plus continuing to craft Exotics, you’ll shoot up to rating 500 and be able to truly start on your Ascended Weapon crafting journey. Your first stop should be to the nearest Master Craftsman in your discipline to pick up the recipe for an Ascended Inscription purchased with karma, and a recipe for an Ascended weapon purchased with Laurels.
Again it remains to be seen precisely how gated this is. Reasonably I’d expect recipes bought with laurels wouldn’t be that expensive when we’re looking at creating weapons which quite likely (if not certainly) cannot be traded. However, sinks are sinks, and I’m guessing ~1 month ea. so be sure to log in every single day!
Also you’ll need to spend some karma. Yes, I too am overcome with grief.
Presumably since these inscriptions determine the stats, the recipe defines ‘greatsword’ to you again, or perhaps different recipes for the same weapon-type will enable you to pick a preferred skin for any greatswords you produce.
Because we wanted all stat combos in the game to be represented in Ascended Weapons, we have added new Exotic Inscriptions to the salvage tables on all non-crafted Exotic weapons and to drops where applicable. We have also added Exotic weapon recipes to use these new Inscriptions so that they aren’t only used for Ascended weapons. That’s a whole lot more discoveries to find!
‘’Arc’ may finally leave my bank’ is all I really took from this. Wait… sentinel… no, Arc can stay there.
The final piece of your Ascended Weapon is the Vision Crystal. Historians of Tyria will recognize this piece as an important part of Ascension. It is crafted with Obsidian Refined materials and skill points. Each Obsidian Refined material is found in its raw form by playing many different types of content out in the world, such as: dungeons, champion kills, mega bosses, temple bosses, jumping puzzles, Guild missions, and WvW camps, towers, keeps, and castles!
If we’re very very lucky, the picture with a shiny light that looks suspiciously like a ‘skill challenge’ is merely coincidental and in no way represents a similarity to celestial crafting (unless you’re actually crafting celestial stats, in which case it would seem you’re just as screwed as before, because ‘The Ascended Inscriptions all take the exotic inscription of the stat combo you want plus Dark Matter and Crystalline Dust’).
But now for the thing from which the title derives:
First off, crafting is not the only way to get Ascended Weapons! Anywhere you can get an Ascended Material drop or an Ascended item drop there is also a rare chance that you will get an Ascended Weapon chest that allows you to choose which weapon type you want from within a stat combo.
Now assuming that:
-the weapon is not soulbound on acquire, or
-the box is not souldbound on acquire
This has the potential to be absolutely kittens!
Remember that: ‘Each Obsidian Refined material is found in its raw form by playing many different types of content out in the world, such as: dungeons, champion kills, mega bosses, temple bosses, jumping puzzles, Guild missions, and WvW camps, towers, keeps, and castles!’
and ‘Anywhere you can get an Ascended Material drop or an Ascended item drop there is also a rare chance that you will get an Ascended Weapon chest’.
and keep in mind that ‘The vast majority of luck will come from Fine and Masterwork salvaging…’
TL;DR – we can farm champions, salvage pretty much everything, only stop at vendors for salvage kits, increase MF up to 300% while killing faster than MF gear allowed, vendor (or tp?) blues/greens again and if you want to jump through a few more hoops you can craft stuff with the materials you get in the mean time.
Outcome: optimistic.