Guild Wars 2

What’s the rationale for making azurite orbs impossible to acquire? They were available at some point before I started this game, but now azurite orbs and exquisite azurite jewels are only available on the trading post at outrageous prices.

Guess they are just at the very bottom on a very large to-do list. And I belive they won’t rise all too soon. I got a set of accessory with the Azurite Stats myself, but I guess I am one of very few players having them. And I doubt even less do or would want to use them.
Maybe they will come if there will ever be a shift in PvE Meta.

I can’t confirm, cause I’ve yet to get one, but I think they still have a chance to drop in the Molten Facility fractal. You can mine the mithril nodes there once a day, and they definitely drop azurite crystals, so I would assume they can drop orbs as well, just a really low chance.

What’s odd is that they never allowed you to upgrade crystals to orbs, which isn’t in line with any jeweling material. And the crystals themselves have basically zero use since you’re probably just better off going with ascended quality soldier trinkets over rare azurite ones.

Just like exotic sentinel insignias and inscriptions, Azurite Jewels will propably be made available for guild commendations, once their respective craft (jeweling) gets upped to 500 and ascended tier.

Azurite was briefly available in the Molten Facility during the Flame & Frost living story. After they added Molten Furnace fractal, Azurite is again available. Thus, it’s not impossible to get, just very limited.

Meanwhile, it’s debatable as to whether the Sentinel’s gear that uses it for crafting is useful or not. It’s basically just a swizzle on soldier’s gear, but it shifts the emphasis from +Power (nearly always useful) to +Vitality (useful, but not mandatory).

carlobarletta.5638:

What’s the rationale for making azurite orbs impossible to acquire? They were available at some point before I started this game, but now azurite orbs and exquisite azurite jewels are only available on the trading post at outrageous prices.

Azurite orbs are not available as of this time. It is a future release item for crafting.

Kalendraf.9521:

Azurite was briefly available in the Molten Facility during the Flame & Frost living story. After they added Molten Furnace fractal, Azurite is again available. Thus, it’s not impossible to get, just very limited.

Only Azurite Crystals are available through mining the nodes in the molten facility fractal, not orbs, which are required to craft exotic tier gear.
And Artificers cant transmogrify azurite crystals into orbs, either.

Wanze.8410:

Kalendraf.9521:

Azurite was briefly available in the Molten Facility during the Flame & Frost living story. After they added Molten Furnace fractal, Azurite is again available. Thus, it’s not impossible to get, just very limited.

Only Azurite Crystals are available through mining the nodes in the molten facility fractal, not orbs, which are required to craft exotic tier gear.
And Artificers cant transmogrify azurite crystals into orbs, either.

Thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that since the nodes existed, that both the crystals and orbs could be obtained.

I wonder if they changed it due to the behavior of the original nodes in the Molten Facility having what appeared to be a higher-than-normal chance to give orbs? The few times I ran that, I ended up with roughly 50/50 orbs/crystals during my mining attempts.

I’m also surprised that they didn’t add in a way to transmogrify them. That seems like a no-brainer.

The original instance of the Molten Facility had (6?) Mithril nodes, which drop crystals, in the rooms. These are the ones that are present in the Fractals version of Molten Facility.

The original instance also had an Orichalcum node, which dropped orbs, reached by by doing a little jumping in the room with the huge group of trash mobs (where people tend to stack on high levels). This node was not included in the Fractals version of the Molten Facility.

Sarisa.4731:

The original instance of the Molten Facility had (6?) Mithril nodes, which drop crystals, in the rooms. These are the ones that are present in the Fractals version of Molten Facility.

The original instance also had an Orichalcum node, which dropped orbs, reached by by doing a little jumping in the room with the huge group of trash mobs (where people tend to stack on high levels). This node was not included in the Fractals version of the Molten Facility.

That does make sense, I never considered that all the orbs I’d gotten had dropped from the Orichalcum node, for some reason I just assumed they could’ve been a rare chance from the Mithril nodes as well. Been a long time since the Molten Facility dungeon was around.

But there are instances where higher tier materials drop from lower tier nodes, like the rare chance to receive Blooming Passiflora from Passiflora nodes, or Charged Quartz Crystals from Quartz nodes. So I don’t see why this can’t be done in the Molten Facility fractal, if they really believe that people being able to mine one Orichalcum node a day in a random fractal would be economy breaking…

As others have mentioned, I’m quite confident that when Jeweler gets increased to r500, Azurite Orbs will be made available again, either through the Guild Commendation Trader (similar to Sentinel’s insignia/inscriptions), or by transmorgrifying Azurite Crystals.

I do agree that the wait for when that will happen is aggravating though.

Sarisa.4731:

The original instance of the Molten Facility had (6?) Mithril nodes, which drop crystals, in the rooms. These are the ones that are present in the Fractals version of Molten Facility.

The original instance also had an Orichalcum node, which dropped orbs, reached by by doing a little jumping in the room with the huge group of trash mobs (where people tend to stack on high levels). This node was not included in the Fractals version of the Molten Facility.

I forgot those were from the ori node. Actually, I thought there were 2 ori nodes in the complex, but one was rather well-hidden. I only ran that thing a couple times during the living story, but I managed to get 7 orbs. I thought a few of them actually came from the mithril nodes.

For a crafting material that is no longer obtainable, the pricing trends on gw2tp don’t look how I would expect them to. As people buy them up and craft with them and remove them from the market, the supply/demand pricing should show a continuous uptrend. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. So either the majority of buyers are just speculators who aren’t consuming them in crafting, or there is a significant buffer of orbs available in people’s banks that keep getting added into the market to offset any crafting consumption.

They are only 7.5g each. Hardly expensive for the meta stats in WvW.
Cheaper than the inscriptions available for guild commendations. I wouldnt expect them to get any cheaper even if they get rereleased there.

Also orbs can be used in the place of runes. The PVE meta runes cost over 10g. So again 7.5g is nowhere near outrageous.

Malediktus.9250:

They are only 7.5g each. Hardly expensive for the meta stats in WvW.
Cheaper than the inscriptions available for guild commendations. I wouldnt expect them to get any cheaper even if they get rereleased there.

Also orbs can be used in the place of runes. The PVE meta runes cost over 10g. So again 7.5g is nowhere near outrageous.

You’re sort of right, 7.5 gold is not so outrageous. The azurite orichalum jewelry is expensive at about (50g/piece). And compared to all of the other orbs, jewels and jewelry, they are many multiples more expensive.

The rationale for the price as I now understand it has nothing to do with the stats they offer but just the quirk of how ANet has made them available.

Malediktus.9250:

They are only 7.5g each. Hardly expensive for the meta stats in WvW.
Cheaper than the inscriptions available for guild commendations. I wouldnt expect them to get any cheaper even if they get rereleased there.

Also orbs can be used in the place of runes. The PVE meta runes cost over 10g. So again 7.5g is nowhere near outrageous.

They are cheaper than the inscriptions/insignias because you need 5 orbs per piece of gear instead of 1.

Question: I read the Molten Facility was back, but I had to ask. The first time through there was something like 4 Mithril nodes and one Orichalcum node in the first segment with the drill.

. . . am I correct in assuming the Ori node is no longer there in the Fractal but the Mithril ones are? Or did people just not look for it?

Yep, that’s right. As someone who still does Fractals somewhat regularly, I can confirm that the Mithril nodes are still there (and can indeed drop Azurite Crystals), but the Ori node is missing, and thus fresh Azurite Orbs can’t be obtained.

Zaxares.5419:

Yep, that’s right. As someone who still does Fractals somewhat regularly, I can confirm that the Mithril nodes are still there (and can indeed drop Azurite Crystals), but the Ori node is missing, and thus fresh Azurite Orbs can’t be obtained.

. . . I have one other potential avenue to suggest – Mystic Forge.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zaxares.5419:

Yep, that’s right. As someone who still does Fractals somewhat regularly, I can confirm that the Mithril nodes are still there (and can indeed drop Azurite Crystals), but the Ori node is missing, and thus fresh Azurite Orbs can’t be obtained.

. . . I have one other potential avenue to suggest – Mystic Forge.

gem stones get upgraded (transmogryfied) by artificers, not the forge.

Mmm, you can try, but pretty sure it doesn’t work. SOMEBODY must have tried that by now, and we would have seen an increase in the supply of Azurite Orbs as a result. It hasn’t moved in months, which suggests there really isn’t a way to obtain them.

I’m not talking about transmogrification . . . I’m talking about randomly getting it with other upgrades by throwing upgrades in. Like how I’ll get other Orbs when throwing in green runes/sigils/crests.

As often as I throw Medallions in there, I’m sure I’d have seen an Azurite Orb if one was to be had. I’ve gotten pretty much every other kind of orb.

My own experiments with medallions in the forge are similar. I’ve seen many upgrades result in every other kind of orb and crest, but never an azurite orb.