Guild Wars 2

It seems extraordinarily unreasonable to create at ascended weapon/armor just to have to salvage it to get a Ball of Dark Energy. Of course, trinkets work too… but I’m not made of laurels. With the amount of laurels you get a month, you are looking at ~1 trinket per month to salvage for a small chance at getting the Ball of Dark Energy. Armour/Weapons is a much higher chance (according to this research so far). But I have 9 characters… only 1 of which has full ascended… Any ascended boxes I get, I’m opening and changing the stats to what I want. I can’t afford to just salvage them, especially for how many you need for the legendary backpiece.

Seriously, there needs to be a better way of getting them. Make them less expensive, make them tradable on the Trading Post, make them drop from rings. I don’t care… anything is better than this.

No one’s forcing you to get the backpiece, it’s more of a want issue on your part. You can complain all you want like other people, but at the end of the day, if you want some thing “ooh-aaaaahh” in the game, you better be prepared to make some sacrifices. BTW, the fractal backpiece is a precursor to the legendary if you didn’t know already. And we all know how much precursors cost in comparison.

If you do/done enough fractals, you will be able to do the fractal backpiece for almost no cost, if you don’t you will expend lots of gold on it, looks like intended for the >FRACTAL LEGENDAY BACKPIECE<

I was really incensed by this when I just found out, posted some furious posts about balls of dark energy not being salvageable from rings. Now that I cooled down a bit, I think:
- the thing they are shooting for here is personal achievement, so balls of dark energy are gettable only from account bound stuff, and that’s great.
- legendary armour should be very hard to make. Now I agree that salvaging ascended armor is very painful however as long as getting ball out of weapon/armor is 100% chance, I think I’m actually okay. At least I know what I"m going for here and that it won’t be a waste.

The only thing remaining is => you need a way for a person to get that ascended item which involves as little RNG as possible. Currently that isn’t there because they murdered ascended drop rate in Fractals. I’m hoping it gets fixed in December. The only way is to grind gold and make it (which lets face it isn’t fun for some people).

Then there’ll be raids, which I don’t think I"ll be able to clear any time soon (though I’ll try!), but ascended drop rate there should be good.

I salvaged ascended heavy chest piece so far, got 1 ball and actually got deldrimore steel chestplate which I sold for 55 gold, so that wasn’t bad at all. My second ball I got from buying 4 amulets for guild commendations/gold and salvaging them. My friend doing this same time got 0 balls. So that kinda sucks.

I think it’s actually in an okay place or will be soon with fractal rewards patch, and I surprise myself saying that. But the main reason is => if I know what I’m going for, and I know what I need, I know what I need to do to get there:
- do teq daily
- do fractal dailies as much as I can and stack those chests without opening them until December patch and ascended drop rate is confirmed to be good
- do ascended daily crafting, earn some gold for when I need that last ball.
- try to do raids.

It will take ages yes, and tons of effort, but I guess that’s what legendary armor is about? It’s that final thing that’ll make your game really easy-breezy, as you won’t ever have to worry about stat sets/armor for 3 classes ever again (heavy/medium/light?) or 9? (i’m not clear on that, is legendary armor heavy/medium/light differentiated).

And it’s not too RNG to get to that goal, and that works for me.

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

No one’s forcing you to get the backpiece, it’s more of a want issue on your part. You can complain all you want like other people, but at the end of the day, if you want some thing “ooh-aaaaahh” in the game, you better be prepared to make some sacrifices.

The entire game is a “want issue” as you put it. No one is forcing me to get the backpiece or play the game. Yes, of course I only “want” the backpiece.

I absolutely think that this backpiece should be hard to get, definitely. My only point is for people who have lots of characters, like I do, ascended gear isn’t something I can afford to just destroy. Or even for casual players: it can take a couple weeks to make an ascended item, which uses up all their resources. And then they are asked to just destroy it?

I’m only asking ArenaNet to make this backpiece hard to get in other ways. More challenging content, for example, not grind-y gameplay.

When I finished my first tier collection, I was excited to craft the first piece only to discover it required another Ball of Dark Energy. After 120 Laurels and 50 Ecto later with nothing but plus 1 Agony infusions to show, I threw up my hands and shouted (ask my g/f)* ‘kitten this S**T!’* and put the items in my bank to collect dust. I spent almost 4 months of laurels and 30 or more rare salvages for no Ball of Dark Energy.

The Infused Ascended Fractal Capacitor was based on a lot of work and time in fractals…ecto and mist essence was a by product of all the time needed in fractals to collect the Pristine Relics. The Legendary should have a similar concept but at a higher magnitude. Not with this bull RNG that Anet uses.

I’m happy to scavenger hunt and complete hard challenges, but RNG should be buried back in a Dredge cave where it belongs.

Well, it’s not that bad at all. I just make asc breather to salvage them – just 5 bolt of damask for insigna and parts.

I admit it is costly, but not impossible. It’s after all a legendary which need some dedication to get it.

You don’t miss anything if you dont have it. Stats will be the same as ascended, it’s just for bling-bling.

TrueCruel.3842:

Well, it’s not that bad at all. I just make asc breather to salvage them – just 5 bolt of damask for insigna and parts.

I admit it is costly, but not impossible. It’s after all a legendary which need some dedication to get it.

Yeah, just 5 bolts of damask… at 12 gold each multiplied by ‘N’ balls of dark energy… Who has that much gold lying around? I haven’t made that much in the entire 2 years I’ve been playing!

Hekela.1846:

TrueCruel.3842:

Well, it’s not that bad at all. I just make asc breather to salvage them – just 5 bolt of damask for insigna and parts.

I admit it is costly, but not impossible. It’s after all a legendary which need some dedication to get it.

Yeah, just 5 bolts of damask… at 12 gold each multiplied by ‘N’ balls of dark energy… Who has that much gold lying around? I haven’t made that much in the entire 2 years I’ve been playing!

Here’s a great idea, don’t buy/craft something that you can’t afford.

Hekela.1846:

Yeah, just 5 bolts of damask… at 12 gold each multiplied by ‘N’ balls of dark energy… Who has that much gold lying around? I haven’t made that much in the entire 2 years I’ve been playing!

Make them by yourself? Many guides out there where you can get the materials for it. Good source is Silverwaste (event or cf). After one event run you get 200-250 bandit crests which are then 25 bags of stolen goods (and 25 silver) plus the bags of gear/heirloom pouches you get.

Materials everywhere!

Izaya.2906:

Hekela.1846:

TrueCruel.3842:

Well, it’s not that bad at all. I just make asc breather to salvage them – just 5 bolt of damask for insigna and parts.

I admit it is costly, but not impossible. It’s after all a legendary which need some dedication to get it.

Yeah, just 5 bolts of damask… at 12 gold each multiplied by ‘N’ balls of dark energy… Who has that much gold lying around? I haven’t made that much in the entire 2 years I’ve been playing!

Here’s a great idea, don’t buy/craft something that you can’t afford.

That’s an elitist standpoint… that only the rich can have valuable stuff.

TrueCruel.3842:

Make them by yourself? Many guides out there where you can get the materials for it. Good source is Silverwaste (event or cf). After one event run you get 200-250 bandit crests which are then 25 bags of stolen goods (and 25 silver) plus the bags of gear/heirloom pouches you get.

Materials everywhere!

And I wasn’t saying I was going to buy them outright, haha. I was just pointing out how expensive they were… 12 gold worth of materials.

Hekela.1846:

That’s an elitist standpoint… that only the rich can have valuable stuff.

No, that’s common sense.

It’s not that expensive though. Especially compared to other legendary items.
You only need to salvage like 2 ascended pieces for all 3 collections unless I’m missing something.

Kantalope.5037:

Hekela.1846:

That’s an elitist standpoint… that only the rich can have valuable stuff.

No, that’s common sense.

It’s sad to say that common sense isn’t common at all

robertul.3679:

It’s not that expensive though. Especially compared to other legendary items.
You only need to salvage like 2 ascended pieces for all 3 collections unless I’m missing something.

You need total 14 ball of dark energy and about 600 matrix. For collection, need 1,2,3 (total 6 balls) for each tier and 1,2,5 (total 8 balls) for crafting each backpiece.

robertul.3679:

It’s not that expensive though. Especially compared to other legendary items.
You only need to salvage like 2 ascended pieces for all 3 collections unless I’m missing something.

2 Balls of energy for the first tier, probably 2 balls for the second, and according to some post, 4 balls for the third.
And not counting the 75 stabilizing Matrixes times 5 to make the cubes of stabilized dark energy..

robertul.3679:

It’s not that expensive though. Especially compared to other legendary items.
You only need to salvage like 2 ascended pieces for all 3 collections unless I’m missing something.

So, after taking a full look at everything the backpack requires so far (according to the wiki), you may be right. The Balls of Dark Energy may not be nearly as bad as I first thought. Although someone feel free to correct me if I’m missing anything.

First tier:
Need 2 Balls of Dark Energy
Then after salvaging the first tier item (Finite Result), we get 5 balls back

Second tier:
Need 4 Balls of Dark Energy
But we can apply the 5 balls from the last stage, leaving us with 1 ball
Plus after salvaging the second tier item (Upper Bound), we get 9 balls
For a total of 10 balls left

Third tier:
Need 8 Balls of Dark Energy
But we can apply the 10 balls from the last stages, leaving us with 2 balls left
The wiki doesn’t yet know how many balls we get after salvaging Unbound, but still

The only Balls of Dark Energy we need are just the first 2, as an initial investment. All the rest seem to be taken care of my salvaging the resulting backpieces.

Have I missed anything?

If not…. well, that seems mighty reasonable, even for someone with 9 characters to gear up.

I dont have a complaint about the Balls, they’re not that hard to get.

The Stabilizing Matrices though.. Im not going to have anywhere near enough for Unbound, even after completing the collection. Ive already salvaged most of my rings for the first two backpieces.

TheHeretic.3529:

I dont have a complaint about the Balls, they’re not that hard to get.

The Stabilizing Matrices though.. Im not going to have anywhere near enough for Unbound, even after completing the collection. Ive already salvaged most of my rings for the first two backpieces.

Then do fractal section dailys everyday and get new matrixes + hopefully rings for even more of them mate
The item aint to be made easily anyhow.