Guild Wars 2

What are the benefits of making Ascended armor/weapons?

It probly comes off a as noob question but yes I consider myself one regardless of how long I’ve played

To get to the point, What are the benefits to making ascended armor/weapons? What can it do exactly?

I usually just use exotic armor/weapons but I’ve started wondering how much better Ascended actually is. I heard its real hard to craft, and time consuming, but is it worth it in the end?
Im just curious is all.

they have better stats, and have infusion slots

but the upgrade is miniscule, and everything in the game is tuned to be beaten in exotics

ascended is giving u maybe a 5% increase in dps

personally, I see no point in ascended, but it is there for the people who need the vertical gear grind

A minor stat increase, and they are account bound. So you can use them on your other characters.
That’s pretty much it.
They aren’t really worth it, unless you need the best of the best, or if you want to reach high lvl fractals (since you can gain more agony resistance with asc gear)

For most ppl, that’s not worth it at all. If you want to be as competitive as possible in dungeon speed run, or WvW, then ya it will help. But most ppl won’t notice the difference.

It is also necessary if you want to reach level 50 in fractal.

A full ascended set will increase your stats by 7.4% compare to an full exotic set. It will also increase you weapons strength by 5%.

For me it is simply something that I can achieve with moderate effort. It also means I have always something to do, a small goal to reach and because it keeps me poor, I have more to do trying to get some gold. (I am pitifully bad at farming.)

Ascended gear is most wortwhile if you regularly run high level fractals. Ascended gear has infusion slots which are needed to add Agony Resistance infusions (to reduce the amount of damaged received by the condition “Agony” which can be inflicted by specific attacks from foes in fractals).

The stat increase between exotic gear and ascended gear isn’t huge. By no means does it suddenly make you massively OP. It’s useful in some circumstances where it might make you succeed because you needed that fraction more survivability or damage, but once again, this is only really going to make a difference in high level fractals, some difficult dungeons and min/maxing.

I’ve seen people say that the stat increase is around 6% from exotic to ascended gear, but can also be equated to 10-15% under certain scenarios and certain builds. These figures could be completely off, so don’t quote me on them :P I’m just going from memory.

I would certainly recommend the ascended trinkets (bought with laurels and/or guild commendations) as these have a hefty difference stat-wise compared to exotic trinkets. They are also cheap comparing to ascended weapons and armour.

People also argue that crafting an ascended weapon is worthwhile because of the increased damage that the ascended weapons have compared to exotic. However, I would only suggest getting artificer/huntsman/weaponsmith to 500 if you’re going to craft multiple weapons for different characters as it costs somewhere around 100g in materials.. and that’s before you start making the weapon!

Ascended armour is kind of prestigious- it’s a gold sink and a way to show your wealth. But most people agree that the ascended armour is ugly (it’s also pretty difficult to dye). The weapons are generally a bit nicer looking though

the stat bonus for a full set of ascended armor is 5%, and 10% for weapons. The only thing that you should get, thats a must, are ascended trinkets and weapons. Other than that you can do high level fractals along with raised stats without having to sink hundreds of gold into an armor set that gives you a bonus of 5%. A full heavy armor set costs ~600g. Based on last weeks prices. Thats my opinion at least :p

Higher stats, more upgrade slots. Even if you don’t do fractals you can load the extra upgrade slots up with more power or more vitality. 5 per slot doesn’t seem like much but added up across all 14-16 slots it comes out to +70 to a stat. It’s very expensive to get this +70 but this is how Anet designed long term character progression for people who weren’t happy with the easy gearing.

Just wanted to say that you dont necessarily need ascended armor or weapons to do highlvl fractals except for lvl50. Below 50 you need max 55 AR which can be reached by infusing all Your jewelry with versatile infusions and getting your backpiece/rings (infused) with AR +10’s which are 68g on the TP when i last checked.

luzt.7692:

Just wanted to say that you dont necessarily need ascended armor or weapons to do high lvl fractals except for lvl50. Below 50 you need max 55 AR which can be reached by infusing all Your jewelry with versatile infusions and getting your backpiece/rings (infused) with AR +10’s which are 68g on the TP when i last checked.

Even if you did that with your trinkets, the max you would get would be 60ar. You need the weapons for 70 ar, which is the minimum for lvl 50 fractal. You could spend thousands of gold on +14ar infusions so you truly wouldnt need ascended weapons, but who actually does that XD. This is assuming youve made your backpiece and both of your rings infused.

It also gives you some achievement points and you unlock some new skins. Some of the ascended weapons look pretty cool—-different colors.

None if u don’t do fractals. I can’t even call it cosmetic cuz most of it is ugleh!

LadySwan.8751:

What are the benefits of making Ascended armor/weapons?

It probly comes off a as noob question but yes I consider myself one regardless of how long I’ve played

To get to the point, What are the benefits to making ascended armor/weapons? What can it do exactly?

I usually just use exotic armor/weapons but I’ve started wondering how much better Ascended actually is. I heard its real hard to craft, and time consuming, but is it worth it in the end?
Im just curious is all.

I was also curious about this. My overall first impression was that ascended gear was a necessity. It is nice to hear that I dont have to race to get ascended gear but it is still something that i am very interested in. legendaries, not so much.

Ascended weapons can give you a 5% damage increase over Exotic weapons, even more if power is a primary stat. Its more than worth the cost. 5% is 5%, and it matters in WvW.

Ascended Armor’s increase in defense is less than negligible though because you need both Toughness and Armor added together (this makes the defense increase only 2.5%, maybe less). That’s completely worthless to even bother.

Ascended accessories are pretty easy to come by, and are worth it, even if the benefit is rather small.

Asgaeroth.6427:

Higher stats, more upgrade slots. Even if you don’t do fractals you can load the extra upgrade slots up with more power or more vitality. 5 per slot doesn’t seem like much but added up across all 14-16 slots it comes out to +70 to a stat. It’s very expensive to get this +70 but this is how Anet designed long term character progression for people who weren’t happy with the easy gearing.

That’s called a plateau, not progression. Progression is where you can get meaningfully stronger over time and is usually equal to the investment in time you put into the progression. Plateaus exist for players who don’t know better, and have no idea they’re being duped.

I thought ascended items are just slightly powerful versions but less than a legendary in some respects. Because of the agony infusion slots they provide they also make for really useful gear in Fractals.

thanks for all the info guys! It was all real interesting, good to know that its not a complete must!

Malkavian.4516:

I thought ascended items are just slightly powerful versions but less than a legendary in some respects. Because of the agony infusion slots they provide they also make for really useful gear in Fractals.

Ascended weapons and Legendary weapons have the same stats, and the same number of Infusion slots, because Legendary weapons are meant to always remain on par with “top tier”, no matter what is added in the future.

Obviously, Ascended armor is primarily meant for high-level Fractal use… but it can also be useful for those who don’t run Fractals but enjoy WvW, as the infusions you can purchase in borderlands give an additional +5 to a stat and an additional 1% damage (and defense, I think?) against guards.

If you’re not into high-level Fractals, though, and don’t care for min-maxing WvW, getting Ascended armor may just not be an appealing goal for you, due to the high cost (time and resources) in crafting it. Exotic armor is a perfectly fine and nearly equivalent alternative.