Guild Wars 2

Crafting to 500 probably, crafting the Armors maybe besides even if there is eventually Legend armors the stats would be the same, the time spent creating a single weapon is bad enough Legend armors never unless Anet becomes more reasonable which is very doubtful. They tend to go overboard on just about everything, gems, keys, armors weapons, and transmute stone. I call it obsessive over priced greeeeeeedddd.

Zero. I have 8 lv 80 characters and I’m working on my 9th and I still don’t have a single piece of ascended on any of them and never will even if ascended are free handed to me, I’m completely against it.

I hate crafting. I won’t do it.

I currently have 6 level 80 toons. All 6 have ascended gear to various degree at this time as follows:

Guardian – 2 sets of ascended rings, 1 set is PvE DPS with AR infusions, 1 set is WvW defensive with WvW infusions. Neutral stat backpiece, earrings and amulet.
Almost full set of ascended weapons except sword and torch. 2 staffs, 1 for PvE with AR, 1 for WvW, even have ascended aquatic weapons for the aquatic fractals.

Mesmer – jewelry and backpiece same as the guard, currently have ascended staff, GS, sword, focus.

Necro – jewelry have same as the 2 above except my back piece is still exotic, but I have 2 of them with different stats. Have ascended staff and ascended axe.

Ele – jewelry all ascended except back piece, have ascended staff, ascended dagger.

Warrior – all ascended jewelry and ascended back piece. No ascended weapons yet.

Thief – ascended rings, earrings and amulet, no backpiece or weapons yet.

In tradition I create one of every profession and kit them out with “elite” gear. After more than a year of play I’ve neither leveled every profession nor put all of my chars in full exotics.

So the magic eight-ball says “outlook not so good”. I’m quite pleased with this result, and for the new armor being unappealing. I would be in serious trouble if I actually wanted a lot of skins (and if the ones I do want weren’t so astronomically expensive).

TainoFuerte.8136:

None. It’s nothing more than the laughable grinding nonsense of so many other MMO’s, the same ones I avoided and hoped to continue avoiding by coming to this one.

The more elements this game has in common with those “other” MMO’s the less reasons I have to stay. If I’m going to grind for gear, it might as well be in games tailor made for that type of content that do it much better.

I agree. That’s one of the things I don’t understand about ascended gear. Why do we have it?
In other games with vertical progression, you need better gear to be able to complete the next tier of content. The progression had a purpose. It wasn’t even that hard to decide what gear to get for your character, as most people were either DPS, tank or healer.

In GW2, there’s no purpose to ascended gear as I see it. We really don’t need any better gear than exotics, except maybe for fractals, but fractals are such a small part of this game. Why make ascended gear a part of regular PvE, dungeons and WvW?
Especially in WvW where every % counts. Despite what some might say, and how small of an increase each part gives, someone in full ascended will have a decent advantage over someone in all excotics. It goes against the whole concept of putting players at an equal playingfield. Spend hundreds of gold on crafting or be left behind!

One of the things I liked about GW1 was how many different builds you could make, how easy it was to change between them and how you could make a group with good synergy to beat difficult content. Different content might require a different group setup, but it was no problem for the group members to change their builds.
Exotics in GW2 aren’t too easy to get, imo. It makes it relatively easy to change individual builds and group compositions if needed, but we need several armour sets for that. Gearing a character up in several sets of exotics can cost quite a bit. With ascended gear and how costly and time consuming it is to get, it basically locks your character into one build.

I’m confused as to which direction Anet is taking with this. If Anet ever releases harder content, will they make it harder by requiring better group synergy from the players and their builds, or harder because we need ascended gear?
If the former, why did they implement ascended gear? It makes it much harder, if not impossible, to change your build for different content. Very few people will have several sets of ascended gear to choose between.
If the latter, ascended gear isn’t even that much better than exotics. Like several people have said before, it just locks us into one build, so what’s the point? Will they give us agony in regular content as well?

All I can think of is that it’s just to keep us occupied and play the game longer. Easier to make us grind time gated mats for months, rather than make some meaningful(permanent?) content, yea?

Got my weasponsmithing to 500 and made Zojja’s greatsword. Got artificer to 465 and huntsman to 425.

Realized I wasn’t having fun in GW2 anymore. Decided to play Skyrim and beta test in some up and coming MMOs.

So, for the time being, looks like the greatsword is the only piece of Ascended crafting I’ll be doing.

None. The last week I’ve been working to get my first ascended weapon (was waiting until the prices on mats dropped to reasonable) and it has been one of the most miserable experiences I’ve had in game. I hate crafting, hate it more now that it’s mandatory to get ascended. Coupled with the fact that I like changing my characters armor often and I have 8 characters, there just doesn’t seem to be a point.

Which, I guess, means that if power creep starts to require ascended, I won’t be playing the game anymore.

I’ll get w/e drops while running fractals (assuming that unlike the choose-your-skin boxes they actually add these when they say they will). I don’t enjoy having to run around and gather for X thousand of many materials for a couple of items, let alone a full armor set.

Zoia.3678:

TainoFuerte.8136:

None. It’s nothing more than the laughable grinding nonsense of so many other MMO’s, the same ones I avoided and hoped to continue avoiding by coming to this one.

The more elements this game has in common with those “other” MMO’s the less reasons I have to stay. If I’m going to grind for gear, it might as well be in games tailor made for that type of content that do it much better.

I agree. That’s one of the things I don’t understand about ascended gear. Why do we have it?
In other games with vertical progression, you need better gear to be able to complete the next tier of content. The progression had a purpose. It wasn’t even that hard to decide what gear to get for your character, as most people were either DPS, tank or healer.

In GW2, there’s no purpose to ascended gear as I see it. We really don’t need any better gear than exotics, except maybe for fractals, but fractals are such a small part of this game. Why make ascended gear a part of regular PvE, dungeons and WvW?
Especially in WvW where every % counts. Despite what some might say, and how small of an increase each part gives, someone in full ascended will have a decent advantage over someone in all excotics. It goes against the whole concept of putting players at an equal playingfield. Spend hundreds of gold on crafting or be left behind!

One of the things I liked about GW1 was how many different builds you could make, how easy it was to change between them and how you could make a group with good synergy to beat difficult content. Different content might require a different group setup, but it was no problem for the group members to change their builds.
Exotics in GW2 aren’t too easy to get, imo. It makes it relatively easy to change individual builds and group compositions if needed, but we need several armour sets for that. Gearing a character up in several sets of exotics can cost quite a bit. With ascended gear and how costly and time consuming it is to get, it basically locks your character into one build.

I’m confused as to which direction Anet is taking with this. If Anet ever releases harder content, will they make it harder by requiring better group synergy from the players and their builds, or harder because we need ascended gear?
If the former, why did they implement ascended gear? It makes it much harder, if not impossible, to change your build for different content. Very few people will have several sets of ascended gear to choose between.
If the latter, ascended gear isn’t even that much better than exotics. Like several people have said before, it just locks us into one build, so what’s the point? Will they give us agony in regular content as well?

All I can think of is that it’s just to keep us occupied and play the game longer. Easier to make us grind time gated mats for months, rather than make some meaningful(permanent?) content, yea?

This is a brilliant post.

Zero.

The traits and skills are getting changed too drastically, killing specs and bringing about new overpowered cookie cutter builds. Also with the prospect of new skills being added just makes it less feasible to lock myself in to one gearset.

There is seriously no point to get ascended just to have your spec killed before you finish getting your gear.

It takes too long, is too expensive, does not solve the problem of filling the time gap between Exotic and Legendary since it uses the same mats as Legendaries you’re literally just elongating your grind by making ascended.

In short, it’s another thing that feels like it was only added to keep people grinding longer, not to actually benefit the player.

I might just make a Celestial armor set for my WvW warrior. I know celestial is not the best for warrior (actually kind of sucks) but at least if Anet decides to rebalance classes again it won’t invalidate all the time and money I spent making it.

Well, I only have one Ascended weapon so far. I don’t plan to make another. I also don’t plan to make a full set of armor for any of my 8 level 80s. It’s just way too expensive and time-consuming.

MrSilver.5269:

Zoia.3678:

TainoFuerte.8136:

None. It’s nothing more than the laughable grinding nonsense of so many other MMO’s, the same ones I avoided and hoped to continue avoiding by coming to this one.

The more elements this game has in common with those “other” MMO’s the less reasons I have to stay. If I’m going to grind for gear, it might as well be in games tailor made for that type of content that do it much better.

I agree. That’s one of the things I don’t understand about ascended gear. Why do we have it?
In other games with vertical progression, you need better gear to be able to complete the next tier of content. The progression had a purpose. It wasn’t even that hard to decide what gear to get for your character, as most people were either DPS, tank or healer.

In GW2, there’s no purpose to ascended gear as I see it. We really don’t need any better gear than exotics, except maybe for fractals, but fractals are such a small part of this game. Why make ascended gear a part of regular PvE, dungeons and WvW?
Especially in WvW where every % counts. Despite what some might say, and how small of an increase each part gives, someone in full ascended will have a decent advantage over someone in all excotics. It goes against the whole concept of putting players at an equal playingfield. Spend hundreds of gold on crafting or be left behind!

One of the things I liked about GW1 was how many different builds you could make, how easy it was to change between them and how you could make a group with good synergy to beat difficult content. Different content might require a different group setup, but it was no problem for the group members to change their builds.
Exotics in GW2 aren’t too easy to get, imo. It makes it relatively easy to change individual builds and group compositions if needed, but we need several armour sets for that. Gearing a character up in several sets of exotics can cost quite a bit. With ascended gear and how costly and time consuming it is to get, it basically locks your character into one build.

I’m confused as to which direction Anet is taking with this. If Anet ever releases harder content, will they make it harder by requiring better group synergy from the players and their builds, or harder because we need ascended gear?
If the former, why did they implement ascended gear? It makes it much harder, if not impossible, to change your build for different content. Very few people will have several sets of ascended gear to choose between.
If the latter, ascended gear isn’t even that much better than exotics. Like several people have said before, it just locks us into one build, so what’s the point? Will they give us agony in regular content as well?

All I can think of is that it’s just to keep us occupied and play the game longer. Easier to make us grind time gated mats for months, rather than make some meaningful(permanent?) content, yea?

This is a brilliant post.

Certainly is. Much better than my usual old fool rambling. Thanks for the post.

None. Bring forced to get armor one massively grindy, incredibly expensive way isn’t at all appealing, so I won’t do it. So much for WvW, I guess.

If they make it more reasonable to get, with more ways to obtain it, maybe I’ll get some. Otherwise, no.

Probably none.
Making one asc. weapon made me go almost broke and i still haven’t finished it.
Besides, the set is too kitten ugly to even bother.

Probably just 1 on my guardian main. The main problem is the bother with crafting across multiple professions— with incoming armor making the issue worse. I currently only have weaponsmith to 500 and could craft a 2nd ascended weapon, but in practice the 2nd most used weapon is scepter and that requires artifactor. So Armor is gonna be way down the line. I play mostly wvw and don’t really care for grinding any more.

2 at most.

My Thief because I like him.

My Guardian because it’s the only class that matters.

Possibly my Warrior main but most likely none it all. It costs too much and is too tedious already just for a weapon and it’s a very small stat increase.

Would like to Ascended items available via dungeon tokens and pristine fractal relics

Like many others have said, exactly zero. The only reason I’ve been considering an ascended staff is because I like the cosmetics but I’ll probably wait a long time on that..

Zero. I’m not into crafting. I wonder who was the light tube who decided that the crafting minigame should be the endgame of Guild Wars 2.

If this thread is representative of a larger pattern there is a shocking amount of people that have little to no intention of going the ascended route.

There needs to be a better way to get ascended armor/weapons then through RNG and Crafting. I would like to see them purchasable through a combination of gold, karma, laurels, badges and commendations.

Devs, if you are listening, please give us some indication when/if this will be available.

Zero – i play for fun so i dont bother with craft.
Ill rather buy it when i get enought money from loot in WvW=never

How about this…

1,000,000 Karma buys you a box of ascended armor.
1,000 badges → Box of armor
50 laurels → box of armor
50 guild commendations → box of armor

5 gold 25 laurels 25 badges → 2h weapon
3 gold 15 laurels 15 badges → 1h weapon
5 gold 25 guild commendations → 2h weapon
3 gold 15 guild commendations → 1h weapon

It’s looking more and more like I’m not going to get any ascended armor.

None. Today is my last day playing GW2. I’m sure they are happy so many people want to grind for stuff though. Seems opposite of what this game was supposed to be, and yet people here on the forums love it. I guess all the people like me left a long time ago.

One, my main.

I also play three alts. If I ever feel that they can’t compete in exotics, I’m outta here altogether.

Correction to my earlier posts. I may not gear any with ascended. This grind to ascended weapon is unnecessary and painful. Not fun, arenanet.

Spockime.1364:

None. Today is my last day playing GW2. I’m sure they are happy so many people want to grind for stuff though. Seems opposite of what this game was supposed to be, and yet people here on the forums love it. I guess all the people like me left a long time ago.

No, we are still here. Im still here for another few months, maybe 3 or so..to see where this all goes. To see if the CDI discussions are visceral and have any real impact on the game in three months(because if you cannot change your direction in 3 months, thats bad…especially when its simple things like “reduce the amount of achievements to grind for the LS metas”(come on…).

So, another few months for me(I am having fun right now, aside from ascended grind). In three months or so, I’ll re-kitten and see how close Wildstar is to release.

cesmode.4257:

Spockime.1364:

None. Today is my last day playing GW2. I’m sure they are happy so many people want to grind for stuff though. Seems opposite of what this game was supposed to be, and yet people here on the forums love it. I guess all the people like me left a long time ago.

No, we are still here. Im still here for another few months, maybe 3 or so..to see where this all goes. To see if the CDI discussions are visceral and have any real impact on the game in three months(because if you cannot change your direction in 3 months, thats bad…especially when its simple things like “reduce the amount of achievements to grind for the LS metas”(come on…).

So, another few months for me(I am having fun right now, aside from ascended grind). In three months or so, I’ll re-kitten and see how close Wildstar is to release.

I suppose its a good idea to see how it works out. I just don’t have much confidence in it. I know the bottom line is making money, but it seems that priority is so far ahead of everything else to this company, that they are ruining the game for many people. I’m going to play some of these games I missed while playing this one until I decide if I even want to play MMOs anymore. Glad to see some like-minded folks are still around.

Getting the ascended from laruels and that is it… and doing that pretty much between dungeon, farming, and world boss runs. I’m not down for any more time gating BS.

If the gear drops, then I’ll wear it. Not crafting a thing- too expensive.

One, maybe, for WvW. I still haven’t got either weaponsmithing or huntsman to 500 because I can’t always work up the willpower to run through Orr to harvest stuff. Plus I like the Sylvari cultural armor for my Sylvari, and I don’t really like mixing the ‘grown’ armor with regular old ‘worn’ armor, so ascended will require me to use a bunch of transmute stones again. :/ My zerk/PvE gear will stay exotic as is, can’t see that the stat boost would be all that important for anything I do in PvE, and I don’t use my alts enough at the moment to make it worth the investment.

Laurelinde.4395:

One, maybe, for WvW. I still haven’t got either weaponsmithing or huntsman to 500 because I can’t always work up the willpower to run through Orr to harvest stuff.

So true.

They need to put tier 6 mat nodes is every zone, including WvW.

Swagger.1459:

Zero. I’m not going to sacrifice or waste my game time, effort, gold or cash crafting. Until I can earn them as rewards through regular gameplay of my choosing without an unreasonable grind and purchase them off the bltc, this system for gear progression does not interest me.

Best answer ever

completely agree

I’ll probably end up gearing out my warrior first since I love playing her in WvW, and use her more than all my other characters.
I’ll probably end up gearing up my guardian as well since they’re both the same armor type so I won’t have to level another profession plus I’ll probably end up using my guardian more for PvE since it would be a pain to make my warrior another set of armor for it.
I am hoping there’s so other way to come across ascended armor though since I’m not a big fan of all the money and time it’s going to cost me to level up these professions to 500.

I have two characters having some ascended trinkets and my ranger has a legendary bow. I have no plans to get any Ascended weapons or armour. I generally don’t grind for gear unless I like how it looks, and let’s just say Ascended armour is really, really far away from being considered looking good by me.

When Anet removes the insane stupid grind for T6 mats, I’ll start the process of outfitting my 4 main characters in Ascended gear.

However, Anet will never do that, so the answer to the OP’s question is: none.

Since i hate crafting probably none.

None. For many reasons. I refuse to grind them out. I don’t like the way it looks. I spent a lot of time and coin making my characters look as they do, not interested in paying yet again to move those looks to gear that we didn’t even need.
I don’t want to be build-locked. Which is what it does – why embrace or experiment with diversity when you can only have a BiS set for 1 build. On top of this, they change skills and trait way too much to bother investing in Ascended. It’s not always bad they tweak with builds so much, but its really pointless to make a BiS set of gear that could become useless the next time they class balance.
I’ll continue to make Ascended weapons as I have mats for them through normal gameplay, as I have been. But full armor sets? No thanks. The negatives far outweigh the positives, making them not at all worth it at all especially coupled with the cost of leveling those crafting professions, IMO.
I don’t want to be forced to pick a “main” to gear in BiS gear, which is basically what this does. Makes you stop saving mats for Ascended weapons for alts, and pouring everything into making 6 pieces of gear for one character. It kills the original feeling of freedom and flexibility I had with many active characters before.
If there was actually a point to it….I might consider it. If fractals even needed it, I might make a ‘fractals-only’ set for the 2 characters I run in fractals, but even now all the AR you need currently is in game now, so why bother?
If there was another option, like farming via fractal relics, or pristine relics, or something like karma, I might be more inclined. Having them as RNG drops does not count as another viable method. Good luck getting one weapon chest to drop matching your build, let alone 6 Armor ones.

Most likely none…. I have 16 level 80s, that’s 26 builds. Can’t make that much armor….. Now do I play all of those? Not as much anymore, but I still run about 7-8 builds…. 7-8 sets of ascended armor and weapons? Yeah right…. that will never happen.

One character, 2 or 3 sets of armor. My alts can have exo’s the stat bonus is still pretty negligible.

Maybe one, for my main (a necro), MAYBE. However I still have to decide between condi or zerker… and it’s too expensive, time-gating and grindy as hell.

Also, I hope Anet takes some notes about this, because holy crap, i knew ascended gear was unpopular, but i didn’t thought it was THIS unpopular.

EDIT: and the light armor is the ugliest sh…

None. I love crafting, but I hate insanely huge grinds and gear threadmills. Luckily I’m a solo player and there is no inspect system so I am free to ignore that tier without getting yelled and mocked all the time. :P

2 characters, 2 builds each. That will keep me busy until 2015.

Zero. Couldn’t care less about that ascended. And rares are good enough for me anyway.

One, with one gear set… and if I want to play any other builds in high-level fractals, it’ll never happen. Unless ascended armor has no infusion slots.

I’m only making the set because I prepared all the materials it should need in advance. After the inevitable price spike tomorrow, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to afford another set for months.

MrRuin.9740:

None. For many reasons. I refuse to grind them out. I don’t like the way it looks. I spent a lot of time and coin making my characters look as they do, not interested in paying yet again to move those looks to gear that we didn’t even need.
I don’t want to be build-locked. Which is what it does – why embrace or experiment with diversity when you can only have a BiS set for 1 build. On top of this, they change skills and trait way too much to bother investing in Ascended. It’s not always bad they tweak with builds so much, but its really pointless to make a BiS set of gear that could become useless the next time they class balance.
I’ll continue to make Ascended weapons as I have mats for them through normal gameplay, as I have been. But full armor sets? No thanks. The negatives far outweigh the positives, making them not at all worth it at all especially coupled with the cost of leveling those crafting professions, IMO.
I don’t want to be forced to pick a “main” to gear in BiS gear, which is basically what this does. Makes you stop saving mats for Ascended weapons for alts, and pouring everything into making 6 pieces of gear for one character. It kills the original feeling of freedom and flexibility I had with many active characters before.
If there was actually a point to it….I might consider it. If fractals even needed it, I might make a ‘fractals-only’ set for the 2 characters I run in fractals, but even now all the AR you need currently is in game now, so why bother?
If there was another option, like farming via fractal relics, or pristine relics, or something like karma, I might be more inclined. Having them as RNG drops does not count as another viable method. Good luck getting one weapon chest to drop matching your build, let alone 6 Armor ones.

This is a great post, with a great observation. Ascended armor/weapons locks you, and limits your ability to swap builds, and characters, which goes against EVERYTHING that Guild Wars was originally about.

Please Devs, if you are listening, make ascended armor obtainable through other means other than crafting and RNG.

At the very least tell us what the future plans are for obtaining it.

Many of us that have been playing since beta through launch that absolutely LOVE this game are worried that the core principles that the franchise have been built on have been irreparably compromised.

I have five level 80 characters, working on sixth, use several builds on each (especially my necro, where the specs range from carrion condi, go through PVT juggermancer, and end all the way at well glass cannon). I also hate crafting.

So yeah – exactly zero.

I don’t have much interest in ascended, and I have only recently began upgrading from masterworks/rares (buying exotic armor and weapons).

I generally like crafting but not in this game. :/

Only exeption might be jewellery once that gets updated. It is the only 400 craft I have in both of my accounts. And even then, ascended might be out of my reach material-wise. There’s lot of stuff in the game I don’t simply care to do and the materials just might be behind such things.
I am waiting for the update at any case before making any exotic jewellery. :/

I’m not sure how I feel about ascended overall.