Guild Wars 2

Are there any guides for the easiest/fastest way to get ascended gear? Last time I played it was mostly fractals and laurels, but laurel gain seems to have gone down with the new system.

There are indeed guides. Fastest would be crafting it for armor and weapons. There’s no RNG when you craft it.

I feel Google may be a better way to find your answer for that particular question.

That leads to wiki pages that lead to more wiki pages of items that I have to craft to craft the item I have to craft to craft the ascended item.

Murderin.8269:

That leads to wiki pages that lead to more wiki pages of items that I have to craft to craft the item I have to craft to craft the ascended item.

Yes, that is in fact how crafting works.

Andred.1087:

Murderin.8269:

That leads to wiki pages that lead to more wiki pages of items that I have to craft to craft the item I have to craft to craft the ascended item.

Yes, that is in fact how crafting works.

Its a confusing mess of a system.

Murderin.8269:

Its a confusing mess of a system.

Yup, the confusing way is the fastest.
The easiest is by laurels, which by the way got higher with the new system if you pick the laurel bag in the 28th day of login reward, but that is the slowest way.

Resuming: If you want it fast you need to work hard. If you want it easy you need to wait.

all they said above but:
- get the crafting to 500.
- buy the insignia recipe
- buy the weapon recipe
- craft the subproducts
the same crafting process with all others except it a way more expensive and time gated on some items.
have fun

Belzebu.3912:

Murderin.8269:

Its a confusing mess of a system.

Yup, the confusing way is the fastest.
The easiest is by laurels, which by the way got higher with the new system if you pick the laurel bag in the 28th day of login reward, but that is the slowest way.

Resuming: If you want it fast you need to work hard. If you want it easy you need to wait.

Can you get armor with laurels somewhere?

Oh armor no, just trinkets with laurels.
For armor you either wait for RNGesus hear your prayers or you craft it.

EDIT: You can get 1 guaranteed piece of asc armor of your choice by completing the luminescent set, but the work for that is WAY higher than craft a couple sets.

The most important thing when choosing Ascended gear, is determining what kind of stats you want for it, because once you choose them, you cannot change them. So choose which playstyle want first.

nexxe.7081:

The most important thing when choosing Ascended gear, is determining what kind of stats you want for it, because once you choose them, you cannot change them. So choose which playstyle want first.

And with the upcoming changes….. Your better off crafting mats and waiting for the new meta.

And crying about the price of silk.

The crafting system can indeed be a bit of a pain and a complicated mess until you learn how to work with it. Few steps you’ll have to take:

Getting your craft to 500
This can be done in the ways, follow a simple premade guide from gw2crafts or you can go for the more complicated way of gw2spidey to safe a bit of gold, in my opinion not worth the hassle if the crafting system already gives you a headache.

Use Crafting Boosters to save materials and you can chose to refine required materials for the ascended item from 450 onward (if you want to know which ones, follow the steps below before hitting 500)

Crafting your weapon/armor:
1. Buy your desired Recipe from a Master Vendor near the Crafting Station, 3g and 5 Laurels / each.

2. Select the prefix you’d like (go over them to see their stats, for example Zojja is +power +precision +ferocity, also known as Berserker) and consume the recipe.

3. Search for the prefix in your crafting station. Click the Magnifying glass next to the ingredients to get to base ingredients of each component and /wiki any component you don’t know how to acquire. (You can also purchase full refined components such as “Ancient Staff Head” from the trading post if desired.)

Tips:
For a full overview of the ingredients, search for the item in gw2spidey, for example Zojja’s Spire
Every item uses a similar material pattern
- 1 Inscription/insignia (Recipe is at the Master Vendor)
- 2 Components
- 1 Vision Crystal

The components and inscription/insignia use the Ascended Materials: Bolt of Damask, Deldrimor Steel Ingot, Elonian Leather and/or Spiritwood Planks which are all locked behind a once-a-day timegate on one of their components, but can be purchased from the Trading Post at the loss of a few silver or gold. The recipes for the materials unlock automatically if the respective craft is at 450. The inscription also requires Dark Matter which is obtained by salvaging exotics, I’d recommend buying some cheap exotics of the trading post or buy some exotics with dungeon tokens.

The Vision Crystal is completely account-bound (and it’s components) and is made of the following:
Obisidian Shards – Can be purchased from a vendor at the Temple of Balthazar (uncontested) for 2.1k Karma each. Alternatively Silverwaste Bandit Chests have a chance to drop them.
Bloodstone Dust – Drops from Champion Bags opened by a Level 80 Character.
Dragonite Ore – Drops from World bosses. Alternatively Silverwaste Bandit Chests have a chance to drop them.
Empyreal Crystals – Drops at the end of Dungeons. Alternatively Silverwaste Bandit Chests have a chance to drop them.
Silverwaste Chest Farm would be your best bet for all 4 of these items since a single chest drops a champion bag (bloodstone) and any of the needed materials.

Every Ascended Weapon costs about 50g in materials if you refine everything yourself. Armors vary between 40g-80g per piece, so be prepared to invest a lot of gold.

I added some printscreens I took for a friend when he wanted to craft his staff, he was completely new to the game and found them helpful, but they’re likely overkill for most players. ^^"

Murderin.8269:

Are there any guides for the easiest/fastest way to get ascended gear? Last time I played it was mostly fractals and laurels, but laurel gain seems to have gone down with the new system.

Dulfy has a page dedicated to a broken down list of materials for ascended armor. Probably has one for weapons as well.

1.Go SW do lot of events and farm crest´s.

2.After you farm lot of crest you buy lot of keys and find a chest farm in LFG you will get all the mats + gold needed to make ascended gear in no time.

I myself for the time being is mainly saving up my gold and materials pending more information regarding HoT and the new specialisation for each classes. Stats and Sigil/Rune bonuses will have more impact on your character in the future, I would prefer to wait until we know more about how best to gear up a character first. I do not want to invest on ascended items that later prove to be not suitable or subpar on the character I love to play.